Final Final Film :)

Here is the final edit of our film, we have made some minor alterations to it.
Hope you enjoy it :D

The Running Man from Fuse Films on Vimeo.

Media Evaluation

This is our Evaluation of our short film. We decided to create it as a video, rather than all in a text format, as it would be more interesting and engaging for our audience. Throughout the video, we discuss the codes and conventions, genre, target audience etc. which we have also addressed on our blogs, frequently.

Enjoy :)
In our media evaluation video we have included discussion about:
-codes and conventions
-costume
-shot types
-brief planning and research
-filming
-editing
-song/sound
-what went well..
-even better if..
-audience feedback
-target audience
-genre

-storyboarding/animatic

Evaluation- Planning and Research

The role of new media in various stages of production is vitally important as it enabled us as a production company to research thoroughly into short film, analyse certain aspects of short films and understand familiar trends throughout short films. We decided to create a short film, lasting approximately 5 minutes. As a group, during our AS project we created a film opening and thought it would be a challenge to, this year, create a short film, as it would require different skills. We worked well as a group to achieve high grades and aimed to do this again with our short film. The influence of Web 2.0 on the pre-production stages of our project was extremely important as it enabled us to reach a wide variety of resources, and access an unlimited audience.
Using digital technology was an advantage throughout our project as it allowed us to research widely into various short films including 'Lift' and 'Le Cheval 2.1' . 'Le Cheval 2.1' was of particular interest to us as it was a hybrid genre which incorporated an interesting running sequence, featuring a blend of art-house and comedy. The use of digital technology was effective and useful during the story-boarding process. First, we did drawings of our storyboards and scanned them in using the computer, which we could then change into an Animatic. This showed us how the shots would flow together and if they looked right in a particular order. We then uploaded the Animatic to YouTube and Facebook, which were essential to reaching our intended target audience. We also allowed for our audience to comment on certain aspects of the story-line and the development process. We did this in order to incorporate our target audience and involvement them in the development and finishing of our film.

Storyboard Development





Story boarding ideas

In order to understand our target audience in depth we created a questionnaire, using Google Docs, and sent it out through our school email system. This enabled us to access our target audience, who were potentially our peers aged around 16-18. We incorporated ideas from our target audience as we felt it would be important to include what they want and like in a short film, their views also altered our initial ideas. We also felt that by incorporating our target audience into the planning and production process it would create a interactive feel to the overall project. The results from our questionnaire showed that our target audience was aged around 17-19, and wished to see an entertaining short film which featured some aspects of escapism. We incorporated these ideas into our short film. The escapism feedback allowed us to research wider into short films, and understand the aspects of escapism, we wanted to include a 'butterfly effect' theme in our short film. This appealed to the escapism elements our target audience wanted.

Our research into short film was aided by the Internet as it allowed to reach a wider variety of resources. Towards the start of my project I looked at a number of short films and short film festivals to get some inspiration, for a short film for example Independent Lens and DepicT. YouTube was essential as it hosts so many short films, also it provides an embed code which we can then use to post videos of interest on our blogs. I found this useful, especially when we were choosing what song to use for our film, as I could easily post three or four videos onto my blog and again ask for feedback from my audience, and teachers. As short film acts as a genre within itself, whilst researching and analyzing I did not see particular codes and conventions that we could adhere to. However, certain aspects, due to the short time span of a short film, are often used when creating a five minute film. For example, there is a moral high-ground, consequences, feel to a lot of the stories featured which is interesting to watch. For my research I found that many short films provide moral messages and perceptions on life, for example the short film 'Shelf Life' which showed a man being overly sensitive and cautious about his health and safety. However in the end his obsession caused his death, the message here is that wrapping yourself up in cotton wall can result in even worse consequence's. We felt that the role of a short film was to portray a certain message, therefore we decided to stick to these codes and conventions. Our main thought was to portray a karma/butterfly effect message, which implies that every action has a consequence. In order to achieve this we came up with a simple message which was equally thought provoking. In our short film, our main character wakes up late, which ultimately effects the overall outlook of the film, also he loses his hat which also alters the ending, as we use a split screen to distinguish between two characters. We believe our film's message is bold and in some ways true to life, as we related our story line to real life situations, for example missing the bus. Shelf Life

In general, our planning and pre-production went well as we managed to use the Internet and web 2.0 to our advantage and it enables us to reach a lot of resources. From all the short films, I watched and analysed I was able to create one myself.

Evaluation-Ancilliary Tasks

The combination of our short film, and ancillary tasks, (film review and poster), worked well together to generate important interest in our film. They were effective in working together as a set, rather than separate pieces. We felt it was important to do this as if the ancillary tasks didn’t relate to the film; it wouldn't persuade readers to watch the film.

We knew that the poster was an essential product which would endorse our film if done correctly; therefore we looked at a number of independent film posters, as this would ideally help us generate some ideas concerning what elements to include in our poster. For example, we viewed the poster for Paul Andrew Williams film ‘London to Brighton’ and analysised the ways in which the photos were used and where certain elements were placed. We found that, due to the films tense and ‘real life’ nature, the images used tended to be profound and frightening.


This was appropriate to the genre of film and the audience it was intended for; we took this into consideration whilst planning. The seriousness of the film influences the way the poster is advertised and marketed and the combination of the poster, along with the actual film, excellently portrays what the film will be like. This poster inspired us particularly because it was simple yet fitted directly with ‘London to Brighton’ effectively. Also, we felt it was bold which made us want to watch the film. This is how we intended our poster to be.
Ancilliary Review

We felt that to create an effective combination of ancillary tasks and our main product we needed to keep to the codes and conventions we had applied to our overall project. In other words, the ancillary tasks would need to incorporate our intended audience and engage them thoroughly, as well as in keeping with our genre. As we had thought in depth about our intended audience, we were aware of the materials they would read and view, and in turn, what they wouldn’t. We felt that a long-winded and boring poster would not engage our audience, or work well with our fast-paced and fun short film, so we created a simple yet interesting poster. Our film, named ‘the Running Man’ features a male student aged around 17 years old, wearing a checked shirt and jeans. Due to his costume and appearance we automatically interest a certain target audience, therefore we kept the layout simple to appeal to wide variety of people. We decided as the film is predominantly about running and where our character is heading, the silhouette would feature heavily on our poster. Also the bold title ‘the Running Man’ would be in the centre, in order to grab the audience’s attention and ensure that they remember the name of the film. We kept the fonts similar throughout our ancillary products and the film, to show their importance as a combination, rather than separate media texts.
Ancilliary Review Review

As we had a created a company name and logo, we liked the idea of incorporating a simple theme concerning the fonts, colours and layouts, so that our pieces worked well together as part of a set. Also, the idea that the film would be recognisable due to the poster was important as it would reach a wider audience and generate support quickly. This is why when it came to creating the film review we stuck to the same codes and conventions as the poster, although we were aware that the review needed to work well in the combination for different reasons. Unlike the poster and film, the review would feature in a magazine not created by us; therefore we needed to write it as if we hadn’t actually made the film ourselves. This was difficult as when we researched film reviews, it was limited to blockbuster films. Generally we found that short film reviews were featured on the internet rather than in magazines however in magazines like ‘Total Film’ we did find some short films. We intended to feature our review in ‘Total film’ as we felt it would reach the target audience we wanted, and fitted well with other aspects of our project including the poster. The combination of our three media products work well as a set as they tend to use the same frameworks and the ancillary tasks effectively target our intended audience through the types of media they are.

To create our magazine review and the poster we used Adobe Photoshop, a programme which is used a lot throughout the media industry. At first we found it difficult to grasp the program as it is complicated however after we had spent some time working out what tools were essential and how to do certain things we got the hang of it quickly. We created three different posters, some not finished, initially to run in a series however, we found from audience feedback that one was more popular so we decided to use this as our final poster. Also the final poster, worked well with the review as it featured similar images. Photoshop helped us to create professional looking projects which worked well with our main production piece; also we were able to maintain an overall project that we were extremely proud of. We felt, by creating an effective combination of ancillary and main tasks we would be able to reach a wide audience as well as interesting the one we had. We also liked the idea of maintaining the idea of a production company which effectively used posters and reviews to market their film.

Audience Feedback

Here we have posted a video featuring audience feedback from our target audience:



Thanks for watching :)

Audience Feedback

When we had completed are film we decided to gain some important audience feedback, which would allow us to ultimately change certain aspects of our film. We interviewed around 30 people, aged 16-18 and asked them a series of questions. After our audience completed the questionnaires we were able to understand how our audience felt about the film.

Here are the results of our questionnaires, we have published these using Scribd.com:


Audience Feedback

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK – THE RUNNING MAN

Final Film!

Here is our finished edited version of our film, however we are considering changing some parts as from audience feedback we found that the radio part of the film was a little confusing and long winded.


Leave comments below.

Finished Editing

We have finished our short film and our very proud of the final result, we are going to, as a class, show our work to our peers and friends and gain some essential feedback. We are currently working hard on our evaluations, which will also help us to produce a commentary to go alongside our short film. This would be like a additional feature on a dvd, an audio commentary. We felt this would be an interesting way to evaluate our project as sometimes reading a evaluation could be a little tedious, whereas listening to the directors ideas and plans for the film would engage the audience effectively.

Day 5 Filming

We finally completed our final shots today and we were able to shot the scenes we still needed. This included some interesting shots of our running man going over a scenic bridge and actually getting on the bus. We tried to ensure that the scenes which would be used for the split screen process were simular so that it would allow the editing process to be a lot easier. The opening sequence is now beginning to look faster and more appropriate of someone who is late.

All in all, the filming section of creating our own short film was an interesting experience as we were able to see that planning was a key factor in everything running smoothly. We stuck to our original storyboards throughout, and we are looking forward to editing.

Split Screen Ideas:

We are currently toying with the idea of how the split screen will appear on screen and whether it should be vertical or horizontal. We decided to do both in order to see the advantages and disadvantages. We also asked our peers to see which one they preferred to watch.

Here is a the vertical split: (SKIP TO AROUND 1 MINUTE 47SECONDS)




Here is the horizontal split:



UPDATE
We have decided that it would be best if we went with the vertical split screen as it provided more of the shot and we are having problems with the scale of the shots.
We also need to assure that the transition to split screen is easy simple and effective, we have trying out effects. We particularly like the rewind/slow motion effect (as seen in 'Sliding Doors') as it isn't jumpy and confusing, instead it runs fairly smoothly.

Final Film Poster

Here are three posters that we created using Adobe Photoshop. As we found it really hard to use the Photoshop programme, because we haven't previously been dependent on it, we had trouble producing this poster and we were unsure of which one to use. We used audience feedback and asked a number of people which they preferred. The final one (at the bottom of the page) proved to be the most successful poster we had created.

This is the final poster, however we were thinking of using some of the other posters in a series.

Copyright-Songs

Record companies continuously face threats from advances in digital technology on a day to day basis. The biggest threat that film companies have to overcome is that of piracy, and it is rumored that companies lose approximatley $6 billion. We have applied for copyright as generally films containing music need to be approved by the company.

Here is the email we to XL recordings for the instrumental version of Vampire Weekends 'A-Punk'.

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am currently in my last year of 6th form, and studying media. My group and I are currently producing our own original short film and would be very grateful if we were granted copyright for one of your songs. The song in question is 'A-Punk' (instrumental version) by Vampire Weekend.
Yours Sincerely,
Mike Fews, Fuse Films

Below is the email we sent to Island Records requesting copyright for the song 'Boys and Girls in Love' by the Rumble Strips:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am currently in my last year of 6th form, and studying media. My group and I are currently producing our own original short film and would be very grateful if we were granted copyright for one of your songs. The song in question is 'Boys and Girls in Love' by The Rumble Strips.

Yours Sincerely

Michael Fews Fuse Films

What song to use?

For the running man part of our film we decided it would look better to have a song playing in the background. We were unsure on what song to use but were able to narrow it down to a few songs that would suit the sort of film we want to produce.

We liked these songs as we felt they suited our target audience and overall feel of the film.

This is A-Punk by Vampire Weekend:


This is She's So Lovely by Scouting for Girls:


This is Skeleton Boy by Friendly Fires:


This is Embers by Just Jack:


This is Girls and Boys in Love, by the Rumble Strips:

Radio News Report

We decided for the end of our short film we wanted to create suspense and show the ending to the bus journey, we intend to do this by having a news bulletin over a shot of a radio. We felt this would be effect as it would give us a conclusion. The man who misses the bus will hear the news report and think that maybe 'it could have been him'.


UPDATE:
Today we finished off the radio report that we plan to put at the end of our short film. We will have a shot of a radio and the clip will play. We used Garageband, which is a software application that allows users to create music and podcasts, it is developed by Apple Inc. It was a great program, that was easy and simple to use. It was also good as it enabled us to create a news report with jingles, sound effects including police sirens, traffic and people talking. This was great as it increased the authenticity of our overall report and film.

Here is the finished news report:





We weren't particularly happy with the finished product as the sound quality wasn't great, so we have decided to re-record it, so that the audio is of a higher quality. This was due to the recording equipment we were able to use. When we watched the clip we felt that maybe some shots could be incorporated so the audience was not just watching a shot of a radio, but we are unsure of whether to do this or not, just yet?

Ancilliary Tasks

This is our film review page, which we created using Adobe Photoshop reviewing London to Brighton.

Editing Update

We are currently nearing the end of the editing process which has taken around 3 weeks in total. We really like how our film has turned out, however from some audience feedback we have got some things we are going to change:

• The music is quite repetitive, maybe a music change
• The ending, credits on top of radio shot
• Where the credits should appear
• The split screen and the timings

We are currently in the process of altering these.

Analysing Reviews for Films

Here I have analysed a review page for Empire online. I annotated to show what I liked and what influenced me when creating my own review page. I particulary liked the layout of the review, however, our review page will be a print one featured in a magazine, so the interactive features will not be appropriate.

Analysis of Review Page


I did this on Scribd, which was a really good as it allows you to zoom in and view in more detail. This is the type of magazine I would expect our review page to feature in.

Film Poster- Development

For the second part of our ancillary task, we decided to make a film poster. This poster would work in part of a series along with the review and the actual short film. We were unsure of how to create this poster as we didn't really have any inspiration concerning what we wanted it to look like. We researched some posters for films and were particularly interested in the following:


This is from the film 'Vantage Point', we really liked the idea of a silhouette filled with pictures and film information, along with the title of the film. I thought this film poster was effective and interesting. We created a silhouette of JJ in a running position to see what it would look like if we used our own photos.

This is the silhouette we made using Adobe Photoshop, we attempted to insert some photos into the silhouette but the shape of our man made it a little awkward, so we abandoned this idea.

Whilst we liked this idea, it didn't quite go to plan, so we researched a wide variety of film posters and decided that we liked the London to Brighton one. I liked the idea of having a few photos on the poster and film reviews which told you a little bit about what the film was like.





We based our film poster on the London to Brighton one as we felt it was most effective and professional, I decided to review London to Brighton too, in order to maintain the same kind of genre and theme.

Filming and Editing

Were currently in the process of editing our short film, as we have completed almost all of the filming, however we do have one shot to re-do, as we weren't pleased with the way it turned out. It's going really well and we are happy with the way our film looks. We have gained some interesting feedback from our peers and teachers who have helped us to change some important parts to ensure continuity and engage our intended audience. We also need to create titles and credits to insert into the film as it is currently 4 minutes long and the approxiamate appropriate time would be 5 minutes long. We have had certain ideas regarding the titles, for example theme flashing across the screen after our running man has ran past, or quick bursts every couple of 2 seconds.


During editing we have had some trouble incorporating our split screen theme which will really finish off and polish our final film, however we are working hard on it, with the help of our teachers. We don't feel there would be a better way of showing two seperate, yet comencing at the same time, storylines. We have done a number of practise split screens though and they have proved to be successful.


Our ancillary tasks are nearly complete, with just a little work needing to be done on the film poster. We created the Review Film Page using Photoshop in which I reviewed the independent film, by Paul Andrew Williams, London to Brighton. I researched into online film reviews and was interested in Empire, which specialise in online reviews.

I liked the layout of the Empire review and made sure that I took into the consideration of the size of font and picture. I named my magazine 'Motion' as I felt it was appropriate due to the film reference. I wanted it to be colourful and bold so that it would stand out, also it works well with the film poster which uses a lot of the same colours, e.g. red, white and black and the font is big and different. Overall, I found it hard to use Photoshop as it is complicated, yet in the end it gave us a good result which, combined with our film and poster all work well together as an overall project.

I also looked at more online reviews on sites like http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/, which enables users to give a rating on selected films.

Day 4 Filming

Today, myself and Frank returned to my house to re-film some sections of film that we didn't originally like. It was really cold and began to snow, so when we were filming the outside shots I had to ensure that the camera remained shielded from the cold and snow and that Frank was warm enough.

I filmed some good shots which had both Frank and the bus in, we will be able to use these in the split screen sequence. This time I filmed from a variety of angles as I thought it would make it easier to edit the film as there would be more choice. Overall the filming went well, and I completed a lot of the shots that we needed.

Day 3 Filming

We have finsihed our third day of filming, which took place around school. We felt like we needed more variety when our man is running to the busstop. We did some shots of running through alley ways and lanes. We felt that filming went well although, it begain to rain again and our running man fell over and injured his hand so we thought it would be best to stop.

We assesed the situation, to find that the footage from Day 2 was a little slow, so myself and Frank (our lovely actor) will return to my house to re-film sections.

We need to film:

• Getting on and off bus
• More running, if possible, not essential
• Walking back after missing bus
• Waking up sequence