The teacher will supply you with a DVD copy of our short film.
My final postcard design:
My final film review page:
Film Review words:
Filmed at a low budget and for the first time, Kelly Brown, the director, had produced a modern day attention-grabbing short film called ‘Status’ , which also happens to be a gripping five minute short story of a film. Situated in Kings Langley, specifically located in and around Kings Langley School. Brown had introduced a life of a young sixth form student who goes through a series of events.
Brown was influenced by Jean Luc Goddard and the French New Wave, adding an effect of dropping the sound completely in the middle of a conversation between James and his girlfriend, James could be seen as distracted and therefore he goes into a world of his own. The audience should get a feel of emotion from James and therefore relate to him, Goddard is not well known in the 21st century so whether this is a successful attempt or not, well only the audience can answer that.
The audience may get a sense of shock when they come to terms that James is actually in fact gay, this may come across as unacceptable in the modern day society. Brown had developed James’ character as ‘one of the football lads’ who likes to have a kick about with his mates, not forgetting, having the most popular girlfriend in school and as being liked by everyone, he has a high status and therefore he should be proud of what he is, however the question is, why isn‘t he proud of himself? If he has got everything a young man would want? Why would he put his status at risk?
The use of camera had suggested that the film was shot on a low budget, having many hand held camera shots in the football scenes, it created a sense of tension between the players and James, happening all very fast, James is shown to be expressed as being confused and not having any concentration in the game.Fathema Khaled
SYNOPSIS James, a young man still at school is at a crossroad, unaware of his sexuality and with a girlfriend, he finds himself torn between what he knows and what he might know. James has a girlfriend, Roxanne, but he is one of the lads, he plays football and is accepted by his peer groups. James has to decide which path he wants to take and a series of scenarios traces his journey.
Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I have created this 4 by 4 grid to illustrate if our film has stuck to the conventions or if it has broken away from the conventions:
Picture 1 - This is a screenshot of the title of our film 'Status', I believe that this develops a form of conventions that is used in a typical short film, this is because the title is normally displayed in the beginning so that the audience get a clear knowledge of what the film is going to be about before it starts and therefore in this case, the audience will have an early sense and find out that the film is going to be about status, however after some research I found that most short film titles have a black background and therefore we have broken away from the conventions a little bit, here is a link of an example of a title with the background being black:
Picture 2 - This picture suggests the whole fact of how modern day societies work, especially in this day and age, all young people use a phone for instant messaging purposes. I believe that this forms a sense of convention because since our target audience is also young people, they can easily relate to text messages and have a feel of what is going on, and how does it feel to receive a tense text message.
Picture 3 - This picture also is conventional as we stuck to the whole idea of using school area location, it shows that Roxanne is sitting on the stairs, getting a little bit frustrated as she is waiting for her boyfriend, this is normal because most students do not like waiting and so they get a little bit fed up. Also sticking to conventions, we made sure that framing was right, sticking to the whole idea of the rule of thirds I believe that this shot worked really well.
Picture 4 - This photo brings out Roxanne's character, illustrating the fact that she is a nasty unlikable character, and therefore sticking to conventions as most girls who are in a relationship with the most popular football 'lad' in school tend to be full of themselves however it does also break away from conventions as most school/college relationships are portrayed as 'happy couples'.
Picture 5 - This photo develops James' character furthermore, and shows the nicer side to him, I believe that this again breaks away from conventions as an audience will feel that it is right for James to be with Ashley rather than his girlfriend Roxanne.
Picture 6 - This photo is a picture of James in goal with his arms out, showing enthusiasm and being a typical 'lad', I believe that this sticks to the conventions of real media products as it illustrates him just being a normal sixth form student who likes to have a 'kick about' with his friends.
Picture 7 - This is a picture of Ashley who gets brutally beaten up by the 'football lads'sticks to the conventions because it suggests that homosexuality in a school is seen to be wrong, immoral and therefore being unaccepted by the school students.
Picture 8 - This photo portrays a group of football 'lads' who seem very dominant and shouting abusive words towards Ashley and therefore making the audience feel sympathetic towards Ashley. This is again conventional because there is always some sort of bullying happening in a school.
Picture 9 - This photo is a picture of James and Roxanne, in the picture James roles his eyes as he is bored of Roxanne as she goes on and on about what her mum had bought her. At this scene, influenced by the French New Wave and Jean Luc Goddard, we decided to mute the sound completely so that the audeicne can get drawn to James facial expression and feel what he is feeling.
Picture 10 - In this picture there are a couple of boys who are playing football, as this is breaking away from conventions we decided to use hand held camera angles to show the fast paced action and to also get a feel of the sense of James' masculinity.
Picture 11 - This is a picture of James who is standing in the goal however this time not concentrating on the game and therefore looking down at the floor, this again breaks away from conventions because normally there would be dramatic sounds to feel part of a football became but wet thought that again, being influenced by Jean Luc Goddard and the French New Wave, we wanted to illustrate that he was disturbed.
Picture 12 - This picture is of James who receives a text from Ashley, as he places his hand on his head, this illustrates the fact that he is stressed and also thinking if he is making the right decision, I believe that this sticks to conventions as phone users do get a sense of tension if they receive a life changing text.
Picture 13 - This time James is the one who is texting back to Ashley, and so we thought that we could add each individual letter on the screen so that the audience feel a part of the whole texting them, this I believe breaks away from conventions because normally text messages appears on a phone and is then shot on a close up angle.
Picture 14 - This photo is a picture of James on a shot reverse shot angle, James is shown to be smiling in the picture as he feels that he has made the right decision to be with Ashley, this sticks to conventions as we used a shot reverse shot camera angle and to illustrate that there is a one on one conversation happening. #
Picture 15 - This shot is the ending of our film, a picture of two hands happily holding together, using the editing software, we decided to blur the hands out and by sticking to the conventions, as most short film use, we cut it to black and as a result the credits rolling over straight after.
Picture 16 - This is a picture of the credits which was deliberately in the colour blue to match the whole texting theme throughout the film. I believe that this sticks to the conventions as the credits starts rolling over with the list of cast and crew at the end.
Annotation of my postcard:
Annotation of my film review:
Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Here is a video of me pausing our short film and the parts that relate to my postcard and film review:
I was going to upload the YouTube video directly onto the Blogger however when I try to link it to here, Blogger doesn't seem to find it however I have added a link here that will lead you to the YouTube website outlining my thoughts about how effective the combination of my main product and ancillary texts is: Comments on Ancillary texts
I have used a pair of hands in the front of the postcard along with James and his girlfriend, this was to illustrate that this picture is not as what it may look like however as the audience will assume that the hands is a relationship between his girlfriend why would James’ expression be as though he is not interested in Roxanne, this also links to my film review as the whole plot of our story is that James has a secret inside him that needs to come out, hence the quote ‘you can’t hide forever’. I use a picture of James by himself in the film review with his facial expression of thinking deeply about his future, which path should he choose.
Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Feedback from a year 10 student:
Audio rough cut feedback from 2 sixth form students:
Feedback from a teacher:
I have learnt that the teacher had found the film quite intriguing, getting drawn in to the film and also learning that James is a caring character and Roxanne being the unlikable character, this was a good response as we wanted this sort of reaction to our characters. The teacher also had said that she liked the mood of the music which was our intentions however she did mention that she would of preferred having more music throughout the whole piece. Also when I questioned her about the sound dropping in and out, unfortunately she didn't like it although she understand what we meant by it and she also thought that it was quite distracting and instead suggested to fade the sound so that it doesn't look as dramatic.
The feedback that I got from the year male student was quite pleasing as our intention was to make the audience feel that Ashley is his girlfriend Roxanne, as we deliberately did not mention Roxanne's name in it at all. Also since our audience was aimed at young students, the student found that the sound dropping in and out was interesting and how he had got drawn into James' facial expression.
After gaining some constructive feedback the one thing I would change after what the teacher had said, is although we were influenced by the French New Wave and Jean Luc Goddard's sound dropping in and out I believe that when we muted the sound completely whilst Roxanne was talking, it didn't seem like it flow well together therefore if I ever had the chance to change it I would have inserted some music so that the audience can get an understanding of what is happening and not get distracted by it.
Question 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century that refers to on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community formation around the media content. Another important promise of new media is the "democratization" of the creation, publishing, distribution and consumption of media content. Another aspect of new media is the real-time generation of new, unregulated content.
Most technologies described as "new media" are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulated, networkable, dense, compressible, and interactive. Some examples may be the Internet, websites, computer multimedia, video games, CD-ROMS, and DVDs. New media does not include television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or paper-based publications – unless they contain technologies that enable digital interactivity.Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, is an example, combining Internet accessible digital text, images and video with web-links, creative participation of contributors, interactive feedback of users and formation of a participant community of editors and donors for the benefit of non-community readers. Facebook is an example of the social media model, in which most users are also participants.
My own understanding of New Media Technologies:
New Media Technologies is something that is involved with us in our everyday life, some examples are: Internet, social networking website, use of phone - calls and text messages, film, digital applications and all these which now part of this modern day society.
1) Blogger: This was a very important website as I used this to publish all my coursework, it was very useful as I could upload anything I wanted, including videos and pictures, it was very easy to use especially having previous experience on it from last years AS course. Blogger is very neat and tidy as everything can be published per post so that it doesn't get all confusing, also because it is based on the internet it can easily be opened anywhere where internet is available. If blogger wasn't available I would of just used a different type of blogging site, either www.wordpress.com or www.tumblr.com
2&3) Video Camera and Tape: This camera was vital throughout the process of our filming and also as it was a professional camera, it came with a plug in microphone and as a result it gave a clear concise sound. We also used a tripod with it so that we can get clear steady shots. If this wasn't available I would of used my own camera at home which also films in high definition.
4) Adobe Premier Pro: This software was very useful when it came to editing our film. This software enabled us to add texts, correcting sound levels, music and adding different types of transitions such as cross dissolve. Therefore as a result we produced a final cut of our film from it.
5) Still Camera: I used this camera to take pictures for my postcard and review page, this camera had a high quality and therefore made my film review magazine and postcard pictures very professional. We used this camera to take pictures when in the process of filming and during location recce. If this wasn't available I would of most likely although a not so very high quality I would of gone for using my mobile phone camera or my basic camera at home.
6) YouTube: This is an online website which enables you to upload any videos, this video was really useful as when I had to gain some feedback from my audience I had to make sure that I had a website to upload it on so then it can be viewed through my blogger as it also didn't allow me to upload the videos straight onto blogger. I also used many research from YouTube by looking at several short films. If this website wasn't available I would of gone with www.dailymotion.com where it allows you to view videos and also upload videos.
7) Adobe Photoshop: I used this software to produce my postcard and film review magazine. This software allowed me to edit my photos, place them where ever I thought that looked best. As I have never used this software before, I found it quite confusing and hard to use however when I got to understand where all the buttons were used for plus I looked on YouTube on how to use some of the stuff which I was unsure with I got used to it and then actually found it quite easy to use. If this software wasn't available I would of probably gone with microsoft paint, although very basic, I believe that this is the only alternative one I know of where I could edit texts and pictures.
8) Google: This website was really important as I had got several research and information from when finding information about specific media elements and also attaching certain images from Google which I have used for this blogger. If this website wasn't available I would of gone on the website bing - which is near enough the same as Google and is also quite useful.
9&10) The reason why I put a mobile phone and Facebook together is because throughout our filming process, we decided to take each others mobile phone numbers and also keeping in contact via Facebook was very helpful as we could easily get in contact with each other if there was any problems, or if we needed to meet up, where would we meet and what days where we going to film. Facebook and phone was very useful as I had to use it a lot to get in contact with my group. If this wasn't available I would of just found my group member by going to their allocated form room or just sending them a message using www.hotmail.co.uk
11) Scanner: I used this to scan in my review pages and draft drawings of my postcard. If this wasn't available I would of just taken a picture and then upload it on to the computer.
12) UnsignedBandWebs: This was to help us find music for the beginning and end of our film. If this website wasn't available I would of gone on another website using Google and typing in unsigned or uncopyrighted songs in the Google search bar or I would of found an unsigned song on YouTube and then convert it to an MP3 file.
13) Flip camera: This was used to film any feedback from our target audience, to show what we have gained from our piece of work and to get a realistic thoughts and feelings about our film. A flip camera is very handy as it is very easy to upload on to YouTube using the USB stick. If this wasn't available I would of just used my phone or a camera of mine at home which records in high definition quality.
The first thing we had done was to insert the tape into the camera we used and then capture all the shots that we wanted to use, to do this we used a table to outline which shots we would use per scene, here is the log in rush of what we had used:
To start editing the film we used the software Adobe Premier Pro, our first initial thoughts was to shoot the film in order, starting to end however when we watched back scene one we realized that the camera angling was wrong and although we tried to rectify it by zooming in the shot and sticking to the rule of thirds system we noticed that the quality of the video worsens and therefore as a group we decided not to use that scene and leave to film that on another day.
The next part of our editing was scene two, this was one of our longest scenes, and because we had a few shots of the whole incident of Roxanne pushing the young boy over and therefore resulting in the books falling over we had to make sure that there wasn’t any continuity problems and that it flow well together, although this took us quite a long time we gradually finished scene 2 and then moved onto the next scene, we also decided as a group that once we had captured all scenes, we thought that it would be best to edit in order so that the scenes doesn't get muddled up. After we had done the same process to all scenes we started to add extra essential elements such as, sound, music, credits and text messages appearing on the screen.
When we watched back the scenes we say that scene 10 didn't have the right camera angle and therefore it looked like that it had been staged, so again we decided to re-film this to get the best possible outcome. When we came round to filming scene 10, to do this right we made sure that we done a shot reverse shot of Ashley and James talking to each other, as a result this was a successful outcome and came out as what we wanted when it came to editing.
When we edited the football scenes, we captured a variety of shots to make it the best possible football game, as it was a fast paced game we decided that hand held camera shots would be best and so that it has a good clear view of the football being passed over by players. At the end of the football scene, we added a cross dissolve instead of a hard cut this gave a clear view and it also has a better flow throughout the film.
Once we had re-filmed scene 1, which was the toilet scene we made sure that we stuck to the rule of thirds and therefore placed James on the left along with the text on the right. In this scene we had to add the text 'Keep it to yourself', before adding this text we looked at each of our phones and saw how text was displayed, we saw a blackberry phone and appeard to have an icon of a basic blue person from the recipient. Therefore we decided to add an white background and a little blue icon at the top left.
Once we had finished editing all the scenes visually, we decided to add the sound levels so that throughout the film the sound flows steadily and making sure that at one scene there is a really loud noise and the other it was quite, it was important to match the sound well and thoroughly. After that we added the music in the beginning and the end, we got the music from the website: http://www.unsignedbands.web/ we chose to different sounds, the beginning being quite intriguing with the cast and crew listing matching to the beat of the music and the end being quite smooth and calming along with the credits rolling over.
After we added the text on the first scene we then want onto scene 9, this was where James recieves another text and this time James is also about to text. This time, because he is replying back, we decided to put the background text in blue and we also added each individual letter one at time to illustrate that he is typing the letters in. Also, because we done the colour blue throughout the whole text messages, we thought it would look good to match the credits with the same colour, along with the black background it made it look really clear and precise as to why we chose that colour. Also when doing the credits we had to make sure we had all the character names plus who had what job role in the filming process.
One of the last parts we edited was the close-up of James and Ashley holding hands, as a group our intial idea was to pan the camera up to the sky and then let the credits role, we did try this approach and unfortunatley the panning was very unsteady and it was obvious how poor it looked thereofore we changed this idea to blurring the close-up of the hands, followed by fading out and rolling on the credits.
On our first day, as a group we decided that it would be best to film during PSHE were everyone in the whole school does this subject and therefore can get away of getting out of this subject, so we thought that if our form tutors gave us permission it would be best to film at that specific time. As time was running low we had to speed up as the school bell was about to ring at 10:00am however it took longer than expected so as the bell rang we had to delay for a bit and wait for all students to change and settle on to their next classrooms. After we had finished filming scene 2, we realised that in one shot the door was closed and in another the door was open which created a big continuity error therefore we thought it would be best to re-shoot and film after school instead.
On the second day throughout our process of the filming we arrived at the location of were scene 2 was due to take place. As we were about to get everything ready we realised that one of the group members, Sade, wasn’t here as she was in a different school and there was no way of her getting here unless someone had gone to pick her up, therefore we discussed that it would be best if another member of our group called, Casey, would drive and pick Sade up whilst myself and Kelly set up the camera equipment and start with the filming process.
On our third day we thought it would be best to film scene 9 which was the car scene, we encountered a few problems such as getting the car framing right as Casey had to get into the precise shot so that the car doesn’t either get completely out of the shot or hasn’t even arrived at the shot of which the camera was framed originally at. Another problem that we encountered was when teachers were leaving for home, and so the part we were filming was the road which teachers needed to use to get home and therefore we had to wait for every time teachers who had to use the road.
We also thought that on the third day it would be best to film scene 6 as we had both actors available to film during that day. However once we were filming, we had many disruptions due to the fact that there were people in the background who were deliberately making silly noises and also having other people keeping walking in and out of shots therefore we thought it would best to pack up and film another day and re-film this one another day but we could also use some shots if they came out good.
After we had finished filming that scene and once we had captured it on the computer we realised that it was recorded in an incorrect format, it was meant to be shot on a 16:9 wide – screen this was due to the fact that because the camera had ran out of battery, and after inserting new batteries into the camera, the camera then re-formats itself and therefore we didn’t realised that we had to change the format again manually. So we decided that we have to film this scene again but we thought we might as well leave it near the end as we only need one of the characters for this process and so it shouldn’t be any problem when filming later on.
These photos were throughout the process of filming scene 6:
On our fourth day of filming we decided to re-shoot scene 6 afterschool, this time we gladly didn’t have much problems however since we were going to use some of the shots which we filmed the other day, we had a major weather difference, this time it was much sunnier therefore we decided to use the reflector to block out the sun and as the time of the day (according to the script) should be around in the evening, around 6:00pm.
On our fifth day of filming we decided to film the football scenes 4 and 7 during period 5, this was because we knew that most boys wouldn’t want to stay after school and do this therefore we thought it would be best to do during the school hours, as a group we discussed that instead of it being a ‘real’ football match, we decided to make it in to a training match instead. The reason for changing this to a training match was because firstly we only had one colour football outfit, secondly the boys didn’t have any football boots and therefore only played with their socks on and thirdly we didn’t actually have enough boys to play the football match. After we had already spoken to the P.E. teachers about borrowing football shirts for the day we were going to film we had to actually find some boys, most boys said no due to the fact that they had exam practice and coursework to do. After searching for a good ten minutes we finally found some boys in the common room who were willing to do it.
On the sixth day of filming we decided to do scene 5 and 10, this was quite a difficult one as it involved quite a lot of characters and speech, and again some of the characters that we needed had coursework to do so we had to speed up a bit and finish it as soon as possible. In this scene we had to make sure that the characters who were going to beat up Ashley were wearing the same football outfits as they were in the previous football scenes. Ashley gets a hard hit on his face by a football so we also had to make sure if he was alright and if it hurt or not. However Ashley said that it was ok to get a hard shot on to his face as it gives more of a realistic expression. This scene went according to plan and we luckily didn’t have to re-shoot this again. Before the football scene we decided to do the last scene with Ashley and James, this wasn’t much of an issue as there were only a couple of lines being exchanged between the two of the characters and it only took around ten minutes to film however we did have one interruption which was when one student had to use the pathway that we were blocking therefore we had to stop filming for a couple of minutes. After we had captured scene 10 we realised that there were sound issues and the framing wasn’t right therefore we decided to re-shoot this film at the very last.
On the seventh day of filming we decided to re-film scenes 1 and 9, the reason why we had to re-shoot this part of our film was due to sound issues, the framing wasn’t right, the format was yet again not on a 16:9 wide-screen and therefore we had no other choice but to film again, when we filmed scene 1 again we discussed that it would be best to do it in the girls toilet this time, this time we had much more space and no silly water urinal background noises playing up. This scene went according to plan and as a result it was a good outcome.
After having only scenes 3 and 10 to do we made a group discussion about scene 3 because since it again involved a lot of characters plus we needed to get this done as soon as possible we decided that there was actually no point in having this scene as we saw that scene 2 and 4 flow well together. The reason why we wanted to scrap this idea is because throughout this short film we have already established each character such as James being a good football player, Ashley being beaten up - not being liked by anyone and finally Roxanne being the ‘annoying girlfriend’ who we want the audience to take a dislike on her. One of the other main reasons of not filming this part Is due to the weather conditions, the last scenes we actually filmed were scenes 5 and 10 and since then it had been raining continuously and therefore we had to cancel filming every time.
On our last day of filming we only had scene 10 to do which consisted of two characters, we also had to delay this scene quite a bit due to weather conditions, we had to delay this for at least week and half this was because we had to film this scene in the field and because of the wet weather, the grass was very slippery and muddy and therefore we did not want to put the camera equipment at risk and in case if it causes any damage. We finally fixed another day to film this, it was still raining in the morning but we decided if the raining stopped then we would carry on filming it during lunch time between 1:20pm-2:15pm. Although the grass was still wet and muddy we decided as a group that we need to get this done and so we did, we did not encounter any problems and as a result it came out as a successful outcome.
