EVALUATION

A2 Media

“HER DECISION”

Mine and my groups production is called “Her Decision” and is based in the

romantic comedy sub genre which uses and challenges the conventions of a

typical short film.

Films which are based within the romantic comedy genre have to both make

you laugh but also make you have a connection with a particular character

within the film or the actual storyline which helps in producing a professional

film which fits to the audience which i am targeting towards.

In our film we aimed to represent a range of skills from camera angles to the

typical mise-en-scene and we feel we did this very well, challenging

ourselves with particular aspects and building on our techniques throughout

both with the development of the film and the actual filming of the film.

In the following pages I will be evaluating my film and explaining in detail how

it relates to particular things & what I have gained from the production.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF

REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

We researched as a group into films which fit with our particular genre of film and this has allowed us to

use similar forms and conventions of a real media product as well as widening our knowledge on the genre

so we knew how we could produce our film to the best standard. Due to our genre been a romantic

comedy and us been a group of four girls we already had a good knowledge on the typical aspects of a

romantic comedy film and the type of audience which it attracts and what they would expect to see within

this film in terms of forms and conventions. One of the films which I had researched into and which I knew

a lot about was ‘He’s Just Not That Into You‟ which is also a rom-com. This film helped to develop my ideas

and helped me use similar conventions to what they use as the films hold similar aspects within the

characters and the storyline. I noticed that at the beginning of this film they used voice over‟s to create a

storyline from the start and showed a range of different stories of how romance can differ. This film also

uses non-diegetic sound throughout to create particular atmospheres for the audience to get drawn into

and this is similar to what we have done within our film by putting music at the beginning and at the end – a

song called Beautiful Girls which has lyrics which contain aspects of relationships and romance which

represents our main character who is out to find love.

In addition to this you see within the film how women link their upset to breakups to comfort foods which is

a typical thing known for all women to do... This links to my film as i represent how food and men can

relate in certain situations such as if a guy is stuck up he is more likely to be picky about his food. This has

encouraged us as a group to use close ups of food and then close ups of the males face to show how the

foods hold a connection with that particular character, such as when we are filming our main character Mia

on a date with Robbie, we use close ups of the chips before putting the camera onto his face to represent

the typical look we was intended for him to have which was greasy and unclean which helps to show how

the food they eat defines them as a person to an extent.

ANOTHER LINK TO OUR FILM AND HOW IT HOLDS RELATIONS TO

OTHER PARTICULAR FILMS... SUCH AS DEVIL WEARS PRADA.

Devil wears Prada has a few similarities to our film in the sense of how they use

non-diagetic sound in the beginning scene and how they base their film around

a female main character „Andy‟ and how she holds relation to food.

It is shown in the beginning scene of Devil wears Prada how she heads towards

the bakery and purchases a high calorie piece of food which she has no

problem with eating which represents her as careless to what she is eating and

only cares about if it is nice or not.

In contrast to this it shows another women who resembles a model business

women who sticks to low calorie foods which she knows will not gain her a lot of

weight. This represents her as picky and conscious about what she is putting

into her body showing she cares a lot about her appearance, this is a

comparison of the way two types of people can be so different.

I wanted to make the film different and to have this hidden meaning behind it so

that it wasn‟t just like any typical rom-com which was only about the girl getting

the guy, although it had this aspect within it I also wanted to represent how food

could be a big participant and engage my audience within this idea and think

about the perspectives. By wanting to emotionally involve our audience we

wanted to do something which would connect with them on a personal level or to

a point where it would make them think about something deeply such as if food

can relate to the type of guy you‟re dating, this would mean we have connected

with our audience which always results in a positive outcome. We wished to

include the narrative to follow the conventions of Tvetan Todorov who suggests

narrative is simply equilibrium, distribution, recognition, attempt to repair

disruption and new equilibrium because something so simple can create an

automatic connection between the film and the audience watching it which will

make them engage more. We also challenged this due to it not following a linear

pattern but our film still contains some dimensions to this particular theory which

was our initial aim. A lot of rom-com‟s tend to follow this theory and structure as it

is the one which best fits with this particular genre of film.

TVZETAN TODOROV THEORY IN RELATION TO

THE FILM „THE BREAK UP‟.

Equilibrium – 2 main

characters, Gary and Brooke go on

a first date.

Disruption – they end up arguing

which results in them struggling to

work things out or hold a

conversation without it ending in a

disagreement or argument.

Recognition – results in them falling

out and breaking up the relationship.

Attempt to repair disruption – Gary

then attempts to win her affection

back by sweet gestures.

New Equilibrium – they end up bumping into one another, have a awkward

conversation and decide to be civil and go their separate ways.

HOWEVER...

Our film does not follow such a similar structure. We wanted to create a twist

to our film as well as challenging real media products within it which could

relate to our audience as they feel it holds similar situation to their lives. We

do this by holding flashbacks which show Mia‟s failed dates and continue to

use several disruptions which keeps the audience interested in what could

happen at the end. Is she just not meant for love? Are boys actually what

they eat? Will I be that unlucky or is it just this character? Will the film end in

her finding someone on going it alone?. But the disruptions show a pattern

within the film which could tell the audience that she is just looking for the

right guy and that in fact all these failed dates has lead her to a successful

one which proves to be the guy she had previously met whilst shopping.

Mia‟s friend, Ruby continues to give her advice on which boys she should

date and continues to set her up on blind dates, she gives advice in the

equilibrium which is the party scene.

When it came to camera angles which we had been taught over our

years of studying media were represented within our film. We decided as

a group that we wanted a natural flow with a simplistic sequence which

would help the audience have an easy understanding of the story line.

This is shown within scene three with Robbie and Mia when the camera

angle is shown when Mia is talking to Robbie but also a shot after of his

face whilst she is talking so you can see his reactions. This is also shown

within the end of this scene when Mia‟s facial expression is shown as

awkward with the stuff that Robbie has been replying to her showing how

she is uncomfortable on this date showing the feelings and emotions of

each character and how they feel about this experience. Camera angles

are a strong aspect when it comes to representing these sort of aspect

and putting across to the audience what we want but in a short period of

time.

Conventions of

Romantic

Comedies

2 protagonists – Male &

Female

Usually located

within an urban

environment as this

gives more

opportunity for the

main character to

find someone to

„fall in love with‟.

They often have

the main character

as a female looking

for love or

struggling with

something to do

with love.

The protagonist

usually ends up

leading a happy life

and has a happy

ending to the film.

Examples:

He‟s Just not that into

you.

How to lose a guy in

10 days.

Devil wears Prada.

27 dresses.

All end in the female

finding love with

someone.

Sexual innuendo found within

the script at some place or

another.

With the slide above it represents a range of conventions which my film follows. One

been the fact the whole narrative is structured around a female character who‟s aim is to

be happy in life and find the love she wants. Another is how it is set in a typical urban

environment where she does not struggle to find dates or find guys who would have a

slight interest in her. The sexual innuendo found in the dialogue and the disequilibrium

being a happy ending but also found within the McDonalds scene when you can tell

what he is edging towards without the characters actually having to say it. However our

film does not only hold 2 protagonists but it does hold binary opposites where two

normal, genuine and nice people manage to find each other and you can tell they are

going to have a successful date. This will result in a happy audience as they will have

build a connection with the character Mia and will be glad to see she has found

happiness and found what she has been looking for throughout the entire short film. We

leave the film on a cliff hanger as we do not allow the audience to see the happy ending

of the successful date as this creates anticipation of the low angle shot of Sam‟s feet are

filmed up until Mia opens the door as you see her facial expression of happiness and

shock... Ending the film by him shutting the door then making it go to credits, leaving the

audience unknowing of what the date was like but instead leaving them intrigued by

what their relationship is going to be like rather than telling them the full story of what

happens, this creates more of an interesting film.

HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND

ANCILLARY PRODUCTS?Our main product which is our film and our ancillary products which is the poster and the magazine shown

within my blog proves to be effective as they both hold similar context and represent each other in a range of

ways, fitting to the same theme. Within our main product we create a romantic comedy which holds

fun, comedic and meaningful aspects and this meant we could create the ancillary products so that they

could reflect these qualities also but in a different way. This was especially crucial when it came to the

production of our magazine as it is important to represent the objective of the product and is a insight which

helps to capture the audience attention which we are intending to. Due to having done so much preparation

with our pre-production it meant that with each product we had little struggle and if improvements were

needed we would be able to follow it in the most professional way.

With our film poster it had a big impact with our film due to it representing the basic concept of our

film, actors & what goes on within the film. We made sure that our poster did not give away the plot or the

storyline but we gave a basic insight that Mia (our main character) has separate dates with four different

males, using colours such as gold for Sam (David) due to him holding a genuine & kind nature, red for Joe

(Jordan) as this represents him as negative and the unkind one, blue for Harry (Jordan) as this represents

him as cool and calm and blue been the colour which is mainly linked to males and Robbie (Sam) which

represents him as gloomy and misunderstood. By having separate colours as it has connotations with them.

This is important to the audience as it gives them small insights to what each character may be like. By

highlighting David in gold it shows him as some sort of angel who came to rescue her as the other three

peoples colours represents their personalities to an extent. We centre our entire film around the character

Mia so by placing her in the middle of all four images of the males it shows how she is what they all revolve

around and gives the audience an insight that she is the main character who has some sort of connection

with each of the male characters, this also allows the audience to comprehend that she is the centre of

attention. We decided as a group that using a high quality camera would be the most appropriate equipment

as it gives a realist and professional touch to the magazine. We kept the font and colours of the poster

professional and uni-sex so that it appeals to both females and males rather than just one particular

audience and it helps to highlight the characters on the grey/white background as well as helping the black

bold text stand out on the light background rather than them blending together.

We researched into the conventions of film posters so that we fully

understood how to create a successful film poster rather than

producing something which would not fit with the typical layout of a

poster. It is imperative to be aware that not a lot of font is used

within a poster as this would not create an appeal for the audience

and they wouldn‟t be automatically attracted towards it. We used a

caption for our poster which is taken directly from the script of our

film as it automatically links both of the products together and we

ensured that it was not too long and instead was effective, short

and snappy. On a poster it is vital that you have your title big and

bold we ensured that it would be the main point of our poster. By

having „Her Decision‟ in the centre in bold and the biggest text it

informs the audience prior to the film that it is all about Mia‟s

choices and decisions which may take place within the film. We put

the writing in black against white which helps further to make it

stand out and make it the main attraction to the page due to the

colours been objective. We also included our production title logo of

„Bubbles Production‟ alongside the distributor „StudioCanalUK‟ logo

which is conventional to film posters. By including our production

name it helps to represent what our group has achieved and

produced and helps to give our products a link by placing the logo

on all three Furthermore we included the groups names by saying it

was directed and written by Lauren Simpson, Brogan

Mitchell, Hettie Eastell and Bethany Maggs which automatically

helps to show who created the film and where its originated from. I

feel our poster is very complimentary to the film and helps to

represent the basic genre and give an idea of what the film is

about, giving an essential idea that the film will have a genre of

rom-com and the specific intentions hold convenience to our film.

Alongside the poster we also created a magazine review which was a double page spread which held stills from the film to

represent several scenes throughout the film which are crucial shots and also includes text which discusses the review itself

which gives the audience an insight to our film but not too much of an insight so that it gives away the entire plot as this would

mean the audience wouldn‟t be interested in viewing our film. As a group we ensured we did research into magazine reviews

so we knew what type of lexis would be typically used within a magazine review so that we did it correctly and professionally.

We also looked at popular magazines such as Rotten Tomatoes, The Guardian & Empire. We also used objectives and

attention, positive grabbing language to entice the reader to get a basic understanding of the film and create personal views

from reading our review on our film. By creating a magazine review it helps to compliment our film by showing it was four star

and helps to spread the word that our film is enjoyable, entertaining, fits with the genre of rom/com and it a professional

standard film. Our film would typically be viewed in places such as Keighley Playhouse and places similar to that. By looking at

a wide range of different magazines of what the audience would be expecting to read and see within a film review as well as

telling us the basic layout of what a magazine review should look like. We have used visual aid which we placed on the right

hand side of out magazine review which outlines the dates she has been on and the people she has met throughout. We

added a white border around each of the images which helps to make them stand out from the black background and

automatically makes them eye catching , also by ensuring there is no gaps between each of the images this means it looks

professional and looks as if they fit together well. This works well with our main product due to each

image holding an underline meaning . By having the

largest image as an image of Mia and Sam it highlights

how he is the main male character who makes Mia

happy and shows them with natural, happy facial

expressions which represents this is one of the main

happy points of the entire short film. By having the left

side in columns it creates a professional aspect to the

magazine review and it looks professional as a layout

as a whole. We have purposefully used the same font

as the title of our product which is used within all three

products which we have produced, this keeps the

consistent touch to our work and also by having it in

white font on a dark black background it helps to make

it stand out and also helps the writing to fit with the

borders of the images to keep a consistent colour

scheme. We have also kept the following conventions

of film reviews; a border at both the top and the bottom

of the page which holds things such as the title of the

magazine „Film Box‟, page numbers, title of the section

of magazine „Independent review‟, and the website

which fits to this.

By looking into magazines such as the Empire as a group this has enabled us to see that it is an

effective market tool as well as it allowing to express the insight of a particular film. We want to make

our film look as if it is fun, entertaining, relatable to others situations and pleasant to watch. By having

„This short rom-com captures a young woman's love life which fails over and over again‟ this means it

would appeal to particular audiences as they feel they can relate and will find this film interesting due to

their own personal situation. By having the title „Her Decision‟ it helps to show again how its based

around her decisions. The sneak peak of the narrative „Mia and friend Ruby are both teenage boy-

conscious girls who joke together during gossips about previous disaster dates which the films targeted

audience will be able to relate and laugh along to‟ this also shows how the audience can find a range of

different ways in which they can relate. We do not give everything away within our magazine review but

it involves the audience and creates an automatic appeal and includes vital aspects in our review such

as the characters which are included. We feel that the characters are the main part of our film and can

appeal to different audiences depending on the type of person they are or their age. We provided

positive lexis „the beauty of this rom-com is that the story line and characters can appeal to different

people and different ages‟ using these kind of words such as „beauty‟ and „appeal‟ automatically create

a sense that this film will be enjoyable to the audience. This review fits with the main product alongside

the poster because they reflect each other in a range of ways even though some are more detailed

than others but we continue to fit them together with the use of our company logo, the lexis used, the

colours and images used and how it reflects out film as a whole.

Star ratings are usually seen on feature length films but even though ours is a short film we still

included how our film is four out of five stars within our review to ensure the effectiveness is

represented. By making the stars in yellow with the one star in white it helps to make them obvious on

the black background and stand out. We also included a circular purple shape between the two

columns of text which holds a quote from our film „you can tell what a mans like by what he eats‟ as this

gives a personal feeling to our film and helps to represent our beginning scene when friend Ruby is

saying to Mia how she can tell what a guy is like by the food which he eats, showing what our intended

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?Before we began to film our short film we wanted to be fully sure that our audience would have an appeal to our film as well as

finding it suitable and interesting so that this definitely meant we would hit our intended audience. We handed out questionnaires

which had questions such as „Would you like to see a unique perspective between the link of food and males?‟ and when we rece ived

our feedback we found that our initial idea would work as the feedback received said that they would find this an interesting and

different touch to a rom-com film. We asked „Why?‟ after this question as we felt having more of an in depth understanding of why

they think this would be a big help to the production of our film and we got a varied response of personal opinions which stated how

they had not seen a film which had relations between these two things so they would be interested to see how we would work them

together. After we completed our film and it was ready to broadcast we wanted to ensure we had construction feedback from our

audience so we showed our product and ancillary products along different platforms so we got a range of opinions and a range of

different feedback. Firstly we placed our film on the website YouTube as it is so diverse, popular, well used and well known worldwide

so this would mean we would get feedback not only from our intended audience but also from a wider audience as it is on the internet

so anybody can watch it. We was able to see likes, dislikes and comments which were placed on our film once uploaded. Students

seemed to find our film more interesting that others which is the audience we was originally targeting and gave comments such as

„The hidden meaning of food relating to boys is a fun and individual touch of a rom-com, I enjoyed the short film, well done‟. By

placing it on YouTube it also helped us to receive constructive comments which could help us in the future such as „I like it but maybe

you could of used less dialogue to split it up‟, by receiving comments like this it meant we could take them on board because this

meant we could see if we felt the same or not. As a group we disagreed as we did research into rom-com‟s and its all about talking

and getting to know somebody and by adding dialogue this helps to create meaning to the film. In addition we found that females

over males took more of a liking and more sympathy to Mia whereas boys didn‟t as much. We knew this would happen due to

personal opinion and own experiences. Another platform which we used was physically showing a group of males and female

students via projector screen. We received comments such as how the music fits with our production and how they felt the songs we

chose were a smart choice due to the lyrics and the meanings behind the songs. We also received comments on our camera angles

and how the audience felt they were effective in a range of ways which was to show emotions etc.

We also showed our ancillary products to the group and they felt that it would make them want to watch our film which we were really

pleased with as a group. The feedback we received was a learning curve for us and it helped us to create a professional standard

film. By receiving this feedback I could use it with future tasks and it helped to improve my media knowledge overall. Been aware on

things such as editing, lighting, sounds and angles. Each scene of our film holds relevance and purpose even if it is not important the

film still fits it together in some way and still helps towards creating a particular mood or scene work. For example the title of our film

is „Her Decision‟ which is shown at the beginning of our film with non-diagetic sound in the background of „Beautiful Girls‟ by Sean

Kingston and having it fade out then at the end having the credits reappear with the same song but further along in the song which

helps to make both credits fit together and makes the song flow and create awareness that the film has drawn to an end.

HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE

CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION

STAGES?

Throughout my production I have used many media technologies from the pre-production and the entire

production itself. I feel that media technologies are important when it comes to every stage of the production

as it allows you to use a range of different programmes and platforms as well as helping you learn more

about programmes etc. I feel one of the most beneficial aspects for my production was the internet as it

allowed me to use websites such as SlideShare as it allows me to research as well as put my own ideas on.

I also used social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to arrange filming sessions and group

meetings as these were the main sites which we used due to been young people and mostly everything

been based around the internet in some way.

At the beginning of our project we did a lot of research as I need to know a lot about our particular genre to

ensure we produced a high quality film. I knew that YouTube would provide me with films similar to mine with

the narrative structure, genre and what type of angles work well with this genre. I had access to both home

laptops and the school laptops it meant I could use a range of search engines such as Bing and Google to

research the conventions, ideas, audience and other films of the rom-com genre. Everyone within my group

has smart phones so this allowed us automatic internet access fast and effectively so this meant if we

needed details or to find something in particular we could do it easily without hassle of having to find a

computer or laptop. Apart from the internet we also used programmes for our research such as Microsoft

PowerPoint and Microsoft Word as each programme holds different purposes from allowing me to create

research that I could add to my blog or create questionnaires which I could hand out to my audience to

provide me and my group with feedback, present my work on in a unique and different way rather than my

blog just been full of writing which would not create appeal or look as presentable, allowed me to add

links, images & videos so that I had a range of different properties to my work. We also could create bar

graphs and result graphs to show what our questionnaire results were.

When we began to construct our film we had access to software and programmes and equipment such as HDV

Sony Camera‟s, tripods and tape which we constantly used throughout our project. By having the HDV Sony

Camera it allowed us the access to sound settings which we had to adjust as well as the visual colour and the

tripod allowed us to make the camera stand still rather than it wobbling around and creating an unprofessional end

product. Once we had filmed our film we used an editing software computer to insert the USB lead into the

camera where we used the software Edius 4 which is a editing software where captured out footage and edited it

to a high quality, adding music, soundtracks, effects and fitting the scenes together. We created a production logo

and name by using Adobe Photoshop as this allowed us to produce them professionally with the effects, fonts and

tools which were available for us to use on this programme to create our ancillary products. We also used a

professional standard camera to take still images for our ancillary products when filming as this helped us with our

blog also so that we knew the costumes and mise-en-scene also in case filming went wrong and we would need

to re-film this would enable us to be fully understand what we would need to have the overall surroundings looking

like to make the films fit together.

Throughout the evaluation process we used Edius 4 to make our film as high quality as it could be with effective

components such as transitions to help get one clip to another effectively and smoothly. Due to including

flashbacks we said from the beginning we felt the fading effect would be more effective and make it clear to the

audience that she is thinking back onto something which has previously happened. By creating titles and credits

for our film we used Title Motion Pro where it allowed us to choose from a range of fonts which allowed us to find

the one which fit with our genre and film perfectly and it also allowed us to add effects to our credits which made

them look more professional etc.

We find social networking sites are good for advertising our film as well as word-of-mouth as once it is placed on a

social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter it means it is open to the public for anybody to watch.