Once Heard

By Becca, Ali, Liv and Charlotte

Our Idea

• Pitched our ideas to each other, then decided that we would take different aspects from each of our ideas and put them together to create our group product

• Together we came up with 2 possible ideas-one being about a virus/illness and the other being about an attack/deaf awareness

• We chose to go with the deaf awareness idea• Decided our film genre would be- informative/educational• Our Focal Point for the film-the fact that the problems that

peoples with disability face are underestimated.

Deafness Research• We emailed The Royal Deaf Organisation to ask them some

questions about awareness of deafness and sign language.• From these responses –we decided that we needed to be careful

about how we portrayed people with the disability of deafness.• Aimed to show how deafness can affect anyone in society, yet they

can continue to live a reality normal life and still communicate with people

• Bring more awareness to the subject of deafness in the hopes that it will get more help for people coping with the disability

• We generally researched types of deafness and its causes• We found out that deafness could be caused through injury

therefore we decided the cause of deafness in our film would be an attack on an innocent character.

Forms and Conventions• We researched short films which were about different types of disability in order to see what forms

and conventions they used.• We looked at the short films ‘My Life with Learning Difficulties’, ‘Face of an Angel;’ and 'AMANG'

deaf community documentary P1of 4’. • Recognised that the main things they all had in common were –all tend to focus on one or two

main characters who have a disability and show how they cope with it in everyday life, have an explanation or a voiceover to show how the person is feeling, use several close up shots of the main characters, have music which reflects the tone of the film and their titles are simple so they do not distract from what the films about.

• Our ideas-focus on the main girl who becomes deaf and show how she learns to cope after her accident.

• We decided to not only show the main girls point of view but her friends and the people around her as well.

• We wanted to make sure we used some close-up shots of the main girl to show her feelings; we also wanted to use shots to show things from different characters point of view e.g. the boy that attacks her at the bar.

• We decided to make the titles plain so they would not distract from what was being shown • Ensure any music used fitted in with the location e.g. the diegetic music being played in the bar.

Forms and Conventions continued• In most short films, the narrative is linear and straightforward.• However after doing research , we came to the decision to challenge the

typical conventions and use a non-linear narrative structure because of the documentary feel we wanted the film to have.

• We decided the film would include flashbacks and insights into the different perspectives of each character.

• In our film we wanted to play around and experiment with the focus and depth of field on the camera to represent different things in the film.

• One thing we wanted to do was use different depth of fields to focus on the specific characters at certain points in the film.

• We wanted to try and use the focus to show the change from present past, when there are flashbacks.

• Also we wanted to use the focus to create the effect of Laura losing her consciousness just after she has been attacked.

Representation of social groups• We had to take into consideration that nowhere in the media was deafness

represented as being a disadvantage, or classed as insulting, therefore making us realise that our product although the experience is negative, the female then over comes this and is seen seeking help. This represents deaf people as not being on there own as there are people who’s job it is to actually help them.

• We wanted to make our audience aware of the fact that this unfortunate event could happen to anybody, therefore we had selected a female that was a representation of that of her age (blonde, slender, fashionable and naturalistic make up). This also applied to the males involved and also her 2 friends. They are all representations of there age group.

• Representation was also very important as we had to be aware of the purpose of our film and also the audience that would be watching it. Representing the female and her peers in a stereotypical way enabled the audience to associate themselves with them and therefore allowed them to imagine what it would be like if they were her, thus promoting the educational purposes of the film.

Target Audience• In order to establish a target audience that we were both familiar with and comfortable

with we decided to target our own age group. Taking on such a challenging subject we felt was best to approach it in the style that we would wish to see it therefore making our age range the most appropriate.

• Initially, we conducted a questionnaire asking mainly people of our age group plus some of the more mature members of the public as we believed that we needed to realise what their opinions were as we are aware that teachers in colleges and lecturers in universities would also be viewing it and I think to some extent they have to believe in the product in order to teach upon the products subject so it was important for us that they had some input on the overlay of the production.

• The questionnaire was important to really establish our target audiences needs and what they would like and assume to see from our product. This was fundamental feedback.

• Also, common knowledge and our own experiences made us realise that we watch educational short films all the time in various subjects and the majority are for educational and awareness purposes, just like ours is therefore informing us that we had made the correct selection for our target audience.

Technology• Within the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages we used a

variety of much more informed and enhanced media technologies. Firstly, we took it upon ourselves to use the more advanced camera as a posed to just the handy cam. It involved a lot more manual tweaking and knowledge of the camera in order to work with it professionally. In using this camera we opened up opportunities to complete a more refined product as the picture was much finer and also it allowed us to undertake different movement, angles and focuses that we hadn’t used before in a professional and controlled manner. For example we used pull focus which you aren’t able to carry out on the handy cams.

• When editing within the construction stage we decided to use windows premier pro rather than windows movie maker like the previous foundation production. This involved a huge challenge of getting to know the software and also allowing us to explore exactly what we are able to do without piece as we can put effects on it and edit in a way that you aren’t able to on windows movie maker. It just gave the whole piece a much more professional finalised product that made sense through the editing

Technology continued• Also, another software we used was Photoshop in order to create the

poster, we didn’t have this privilege last year and because myself and two other members of our team are also photography students we were able to interlink our skills from that subject into our media in order to create a more informed and refined poster.

• Furthermore, technologies of email were used in the research stages as we took it upon ourselves to get in contact with a deaf awareness charity. Having this privilege of email which we hadn’t thought to use last year we were able to directly ask questions that were significant to our project and discover answers that were much more informed thus giving us a more precise view on this sensitive subject matter.

Ancillary Texts

The Poster• When combined, our ancillary texts such as poster, double page spread

and our actual main product they help to reinforce one another making it the effective product as a whole that it is. The use of the poster helps promote the product and also, as we used the more up to date software of Photoshop we were able to create a really cool and appealing look to the production that a young audience would take to easily.

• The poster simple also doesn’t challenge the audience in the respect that they will think it’s too complicated, it’s easy on the eye and really helps to engage a young mind as there are pictures and various fonts used. When creating the poster, we used a lot of connotative elements such as the colouring and the pictures used which enable the audience to associate it, interlinking the idea and because it’s not a widely spread subject they may be enthused to learn more on this unknown area.

The Double Page Spread

• The double page spread helped make the product that bit more real as it s been reviewed. The review co-insides with the product as it reassures our audience that the production is well worth watching and having it in popular young magazines not only just promotes the product but it also emphasises to the outside world the types of people we are targeting just from the fact that it’s in a young people’s magazine.

Drawing the audience in

• To try and draw the audience in we tried to make the first part of our short film as interesting as possible, we used many different camera angles shots and movements, aswell as using flashbacks to keep the audience entertained.

Skills/Progression

• We all feel that we have gained a lot of skills and have progressed a lot over this project, we have used our skills to make our short film the best it could possibly be, we are also now all familiar with the more technical cameras and feel a lot more comfortable with the editing software etc.