Evaluation

Evaluation

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I quite like to scan because i can turn anything i want into a photo. It used it a lot when taking inspiration for costumes from offical 1950s women's magazines. These magazines targetted the age in which my actors were at, so they were very relevant. I checked the times exactly of the magazines and when the photos were taken to make sure that i had the right era, even if it was identifiable just by the clothing.

I also scanned real photos of my relatives for inspiration for the aesthestics for my characters. I scanned these sorts of magazines and photos:

From the very start of knowing about the film noir OTS project, I have made up-to-date posts which documented my progress. This has taught me how to inform, educate and entertain a reading audience.

On my blog i have uploaded photos, videos, hyperlinks and scans, making sure they all link to the production of my OTS.

At first i found compressing a video very time consuming and difficult because it was very time consuming and i was never able to get it right (it kept creating multiple copies of the same file and then owuldnt upload onto vimeo). But after a few practices and guidance i was able to do it. This is a photo of me and one of my first attempts at trying to compress a storyboard:

I not only used a film camera when filming my OTS, i also used it to show my storyboard for both my OTS and for our premilinary task and storyboard. I did however have problems when using the film cameras and importing the filming to iMovie.

The problem i had was that i used my home film camera when filming and then i used the school cameras when importing the filming - because both of the cameras had different settings, whenever i tried to import my film, it would automatically start changing all of the scenes to latterbox - taking ages. This made me lose valuable editing time. But what i learnt from this is that next time, i will use the same camera to film and to import.

This is me filming my femme fetal looking at her cards. The lighting was a bit too bright here so i ended up not using this shot.

When creating my blog, i frequently used still cameras. I first used one when i wanted to show the questionaires, which i only wanted to demonstrate what i did and didnt worry about the technical aspect at all. However, i took photos of my actress to try and play with unnatural light and to see how it hits her face. Film noir is well known for having very dramatic light and shadows, so i wanted to see how i could recreate this. A lot of the lighting i used only shone on half or part of her face so i could create the sense that she is mysterious and was hiding something.

However, i think what i should have done was to take the photos in black and white as my film noir is in black and white I think this would have helped when finding out and experiementing with how light looks on a black and white screen.

I also took photos of my props and i had a few taken of me directing and filming to demonstrate.

I took my own credits backgroudn of a city scene, making sure i captured fog and a night time feel.

When using cameras, i learnt about how certain angles can portay certain images and effects of the characters and onto the audience. a low-angle pointing up to a characters face could give the impression that they are powerful and demanding, but low angles which i use a lot while filming can portray the image of a shy and secretive person who isnt very powerful.

This video proves that the traditonal film noir look can be achieved which modern technology, which is something i have learnt during this production process.

These photos are of my experiment with light and shadow on my actresses face. I wanted to make her seem very mysterious, but seductive and secretive.

I took multiple photos of props, to demostrate how they looked on camera and how they represented certain personas. This ciggarette isnt real but looks legitimate. My male character didnt smoke a ciggarette because it is something for a 'lady' to do so, both of my femme fetales smoked this.

I had to quickly learn how to embed videos onto my blog, upload my files to prezi and upload videos to vimeo. When i uploaded my finak film noir OTS onto vimeo, the video was shown as around 4:51 minutes long, when in fact my actual film noir OTS was really 2:27 minutes long.

Uploading videos onto blog

I had to firstly go onto the page where the video is originally from and then get the embedding code. I would then copy and paste this embedding code into a post.

Uploading videos onto prezi

I have to select the 'insert' button and then choose to load a file. This print-screen is of me choosing a file to upload.

Uploading to vimeo

After compressing the video, it is very simple to upload. Only the click of a button!

Overall, i think that i prefer to use as little technology as possible because i think it is less risky and more reliable not to. However, i think that technology has helped me greatly when making my OTS as i have been able to add sound and effects to my OTS etc.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full produce?

Overall, i think doing the premilinary task taught me:

• Some understanding about the film noir genre
• Confidence to have my own ideas and create a product
• To work as a team
• How to create mystery and wonder by hiding information and holding back
• How to make a storyboard
• To use different types of medias to make my production more interesting
• How props can portray a certain image of what a character is like
• How to edit
• To organise costumes
• To work with deadlines
• To push the boundaries, but not too far

Here is the post in which our preliminary/continuety task, the storyboard and my evaluation is on:

http://oliviasmith1.blogspot.com/2011/01/cintinuety-task.html

And here are the blogs of the rest of my group:

Jenni Dack - http://asmediastudies-jennidack.blogspot.com/

Emily Dimas - http://emilydimas3.blogspot.com/

Sam High - http://emilydimas3.blogspot.com/

After the finishing the whole thing, we had to write an evaluation alone. This helped me to understand what information and material i have to include when writing an evaluation to get a good mark and the readers understanding.

Overall, i am quite happy with the outcome and it gave me good practice and valuable ideas of what i could do for my film noir OTS. Eventhough i have worked alone while making my film noir, it gave me experience with working with others in a group where we all had an equal input.

This is a still image of part of our continuety task. Here, it shows that we have letterboxed it to make it more conventional for a film noir and the 1950s era in which the film is set. There is high contrast between the black and white which makes the shadows more dramatic. We used a big board as the background which had newspaper pages stuck to it. We didnt plan to use this as the background, but we needed a wall and it was black and white. This man is a detective, so the costumes i supplied were the typical fedora and camel coat. I thought that the hat would hide part of his identity - making him seem mysterious.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I shot my poker scene purposely in a small room to ensure i acomplished the small, claustrophobic feeling. This feeling is conventional of film noir. This small room also makes the light very direct and dramatic which is also very film noir. I had to cover up modern shelves which would break the continuety of the era and i tried to make surei didnt use very wide shots that would show very much of the location.

While filming the following scene, i didnt manage to take digital photos as i was concerned about the time. However i manged to go onto the internet and then onto google.co.uk/maps and collect some print screens of where i shot. Unfortunatley these photos arent in the dark, only taken in daylight so you dont get the mysterious effect in them. I made sure that the location had churches, high walls, railings, a telephone box, steps and an old-fashioned street lamp. These factors are very conventional of film noir.

Characters

Here is a question i asked my target audience about what they most remember about a film noir after watching one:

The lighting i used during the poker scene came from the center of the table and below the faces of my characters. This conventional for film noir because it creates a curiously mysterious presence. This lighting created dramatic shadows. The photo below is of the table with the unnatural spotlight. The light shines straight onto the money for a reason - so it is the main focus, and it is almost as if the money is reflective into the character's eyes - they only have money on their minds. The spotlight shining down meant that only part of the characters faces were in the light which is conventional of film noir. It also means that when there is strong lighting on my characters face, there is a very black background surrounding their faces.

The lighting during the following scene, i could not control. However as it was dark, there was still a very effective and conventional spotlight from the streetlamp. The streetlamp was very 1950s (much like this one to the right). As i was filming around 8 at night, there were resurants open of the street where i filmed, so i had to make sure that i didnt get any of the front in he shots because it would be unconventional and would be a continuety error to have modern resturant fronts in the shots.

The font i used for the opening titles for my film noir OTS, i believe, were conventionally film noir. However, the font i wanted to use only came in capitals letters which i think didnt fit the conventions. This is a scan of the font i used - Trojan Pro.

The background of my credits is a photo of a city scene i took. Here are the pages of the posts i made about my credits background:

http://oliviasmith1.blogspot.com/2011/01/credits-background.html

http://oliviasmith1.blogspot.com/2011/03/finalising-my-credit-background.html

I didnt apply this text via iMovie, i did it via photoshop. I think it would have been better if i had of done it by iMovie because when i imported this photo the text moved with it which i didnt like.

The poker scene was layed out over a table which i what is traditionally used for playing poker, however, what wasnt conventional was that there wasnt green felt on the table or the traditional prints on the table to play poker. The chairs i dont feel really suited the era or wealth of my characters, but i didnt want to worry about this very much because an empty seat wouldnt be in the shot. Eventhough it was dark outside, i had to close the curtains behind one of my femme fetales because there would have been a reflection. I thought that the texture in the curtains would create shadow and then to create a closed-in feeling which is conventional of film noir.

Looking back, i feel as if it would have looked more realistic if i have had used a real poker table or a round table which i traditionally used when playing poker. i had only a rectangualr table so i used the end to make sure that may characters were close together.

The money was in the centre of all of my characters until my male character wins it so that the audience doesnt get a hint about who will win. I had a genuine 1930's ash tray which was also in the middle of the table because smoking was very common in the 1950s film noir femme fetale.

The following scene didnt capture any of the shops, so i dont think i broke the continuety. When i was chosing where to shoot my following scene, i made sure that it was all in the same sort of area so it would look more realistic on film and that lamps were near churches, railings were near alley ways etc.

This video which i found on youtube.com is good example of outside scenes with inside scenes.

The credits are around 10 seconds long, which i think is short compared to real film noir products, however, due to the time limit of the whole finished product, i didnt want my credits to be long for the rest of the filming to have to compensate.The timing of the poker game is very fast - creating the impression that it was a quick and easy win for the male character.

The timing of the following scene is possibly a bit fast to be conventional, however not many real OTSs are around 2 minutes long (they are normally longer) and i think that having a fast following creates the impression that it was a fast and easy killing.

I like the pause just before my male character is shot because the audience know what is going to happen and i think it adds conventional drama. Film noirs are traditionally over-dramatic, e.g this scene from the film noir classic 'Human Desire' (1954):

I had to edit in the titles which was conventional of film noir, i also added transitions from the poker scene to the following scene - this added the impression of time passing. As my work had been automatically letterboxing, there were some shots which iMovie didnt managed to letterbox, so i had to edit that in. I decided to keep the letterbox effect because it is conventional for film noir.

I also changed the whole of my OTS to black and white to fit with the era and made the last shot which was of the gun darker - this was because the gun was neon-coloured so it was still bright on screen.

Overall, i trie to make my editing very traditional of film noir - fast, quick - creating suspense.

Dialogue, soundtrack and silence

As i wanted to stick to the conventions of a 1950s film noir, i chose to use diagetic and non-diagetic sound throughout, while also frequently having silence.

The sound which is playing during the poker scene i took from the real film noir 'Spellbound'. I recorded this sound on a film camera which i then uploaded to iMovie to then delete the video recording and keep the audio. As the part i recorded lasted only around 15 seconds, i had to frequently repeat this audio so it would last the full poker scene (arolund one minute). Looking back at my final production, i feel as if this sound is too loud for the scene and my audience almost making it the thing the audience would concentrate on the most - which i didnt want, i wanted them to concentrate on what is going on in the scene. I also think that it is very easy to tell that the sound has been repeated and that it isnt actually a piece of music. It sounds as if it has been edited. I wanted to keep very conventional with what type of music i used.

I believe i should of sorted out the sound earlier because i was thinking about having my male character speak over the top, almost as if he is reflecting back on what happened, however, i felt as this would take the attention away from what is visually going on it the scene.

During the following scene, my male character is walking outside. Whenever there is a shot of him walking, there is the sound of his shoes clicking. I did want this, but at some times, the sound doesnt fit with the steps he is taking. The timing isnt perfect. And also, because i switch frequently from the lady (the follower) and to the man (the followee), it goes completely silence on the shots of the lady. I feel as if this is almost too dramatic and there should be at least a very dramatic sound when she occurs on screen.

When my male character is in the phone box, he is speaking to somebody on the phone and the audience can here it. I think i acomplished my idea of having the audience be interested, but not fully knowing about what the man is talking about, however, i think the audience is able to guess it is about the money the man won while playing the poker game. I recorded the dialogue on the film camera and imported it to the shot of when he is in the telephone box. My male characters accent is Norfolk, so i did think about this but i came to the conclusion that a rich buisnessman in Norfolk would have the accent. I think it also sets the scene if the audience an identify it.

Before recording my sound, i took a look at this video on youtube. It is from the same film in which i took my sound from - 'Spellbound' (1945). The sound in this clip is dramatic and very loud like mine. I also took into account when using music from this film that the music is more than 50 years old so i am legally aloud to use it and also, the film is from before the 1950s where my film noir is set.

How did you attract/address your target audience?

As my target audience is aged 16-25, male and female, i fit in this range. So i was able to know what my target audience would like and find interesting. However after doing my market research, i fould that my film didnt fully target them and they couldnt follow the story - it could be for a more sophisticated audience.

How did i attract the male audience?

• Aesthetically pleasing femme fetales, who were strong and powerful
• Gambling/poker game and the male character won
• Money invoved
• Killing

How did i attract the female audience?

• Costumes and fashion
• The storyline led to the woman getting her own back after she was cheated money - justice for women

How did i attract 16-25 year olds?

• Fast moving, quick and easy to watch, hooking
• The poker game isnt very serious
• Storyline is interesting as it doesnt give too much away too fast
• Especially during the poker scene, there is a variety of different shots to keep the view interested and wonders what shot will be next
• The whole OTS is a homage to the film noir genre

Did i have to break some conventions of the film noir genre to attract my modern audience?

To attract both male and females, i tried not to focus on the factor of love because i dont think it would attract my male audience. I kept very traditional film noir because i thought it would be very different to what my target audience would normally watch - therefore making it stand out.

Film noir is normally very slow, but i didnt want this because my audience would probably want something faster and more action based, with something always happening. So i broke this convention to suit my target audience.

Having two femme fetales can appeal to both the female audience because these woman are powerful and the male audience as im sure they would like to see two attractive women.

who would be the audience for your media product?

As i have predicted that my film is more likely to be shown in a inpendent cinema, i wanted to find out what age grous are more likely to go to the cinema to see if i have predicted correctly. I found a statistics website that can tell me (keeping in mind that these are statistics and may not be 100% reliable) who are more likely to go to the cinema and the results were - 15 to 24 year olds. However this is the box office, more commercial cinema, not the indeoendant cinema.

How does your media product represent any social groups?

Race

Compared to the modern day, there was much less cultural diversity in the 1950's. Not purposely, this was shown in my OTS. Before organising who was going toplay my characters, i did some reasearch on cultural and racial differnces in the 1950s - making sure it was UK data.

How does this link to my target audience?

As my target audience is quite modern, they would probably see males and females as more equal compared to the 1950s. They may see that my both my male and female characters are all powerful people.

Class

I used lots of props to show that my characters are middle-class. The femme fetales are wearing pearls, nice clothing and clearly take pride in their appearce - they like the finer things in life. My male character likes money, dresses smartly, is a buisnessman (this is shown by the suit and briefcase), and both him and the femme fetales are gambling with a lot of money. Also, because my male character grabs the money and pulls all of it towards him in a unmodest manner, he comes accross as very greedy.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think film festivals would target my audience because some are inexpensive to go to and i believe my modern audience would appreicate artistic films.

My film wouldnt benefit financially from this however, i think it will attract and get more attention from people who like homemade homages and my target audience.

An independent cinema normally distributes films which arent commercial enough for box office cinemas. They give films which arent made completely to make money a chance to be shown to the public. I think my target audience would go to see my film in an independent cinema as independent cinemas are for anybody. However the reason why my target audience might not go to see my film in an independant cinema is that they are normally more expensive to go to for teenagers still in education. When i was showing my film to my target audience, the screen didnt show the detail and was very dark, but if this was played in a cinema the detail would be shown.

There is an independent cinema in Norwich - Cinema City and there are also a few box office cinemas - Odeon. Here i have compared the two:

Online

This would be done by the public having access to my film via another popular website like youtube or vimeo. This means i can distribute my film for free, while still getting the attention of other people. However, this also means that people older and younger than my target audience will also watch my film eventhough it is not aimed at them.

My target audience are greatly involved in the internet and vastly inflenced by the things on there. I can use this to my advantage. I found some instructions and information on reaching your target audience online:

1 Join a niche forum. Be sure to provide quality input and avoid spamming. Hanging out where potential buyers gather makes them aware of your online presence. Besides, they'll be able to associate any links to your site with a live, friendly and helpful human being.

2 Advertise in e-zines read by your target market. E-zines' publishers will often allow you to purchase ad space in their publications or solo ads to send to their subscribers. Many will even let you submit articles to be published in the next issue of their e-zine. You can place a short bio and link to your website in the "About the Author" section and explode your target marketing efforts.

3 Create a blog. Write posts daily or weekly that will be of interest to those in your target market. Use a free keyword research tool to help you optimize your posts around frequently searched terms that have a small amount of search results. If your blog provides good content, you'll attract many visitors who will already be pre-sold on whatever products or services you have to offer.

4 Utilize social media. There are a number of sites which allow you to build free web pages for social purpose and /or upload videos. Use these niche communities to your advantage and interact with potential buyers to enhance your target marketing efforts.

Independant cinema

Here are some stereotypical shots from film noir films which gave me inspiration to try and recreate:

Film festivals

Blogging

Gender

Eventhough the femme fetales are strong and indepedent, there is patriarchy shown by the male character taking the risk to cheat. He confidently walks down the street and arrogantly hits the winning deck on the table. Ordinary women in the 1950s were normally traditional housewives and my femme fetales do not represent this. I did some brief research on gender differences between men and women during the 1950s.

Here are some texts that i found which define how each gender lived and the differences between them:

http://www.suite101.com/content/gender-and-work-a28597

http://www.trinity.edu/MKEARL/gender.html

When filming the following scene outside in the dark streets, i wanted to film some 'iconic' or very conventional scenes for film noir. I made sure i captured a loney sense with frequent sight of brickwork and frost. Recreating this scenes helped me to understand what creates mystery and drama through a simple shot.

Film cameras

On the night of knowing about the premilinary task, i decided to take a look at others peoples film noir's but mades sure they were modern, homemade and suit the look and era that we wanted to achieve.

This one caught my eye because in some shots it was very high contrast (time: 1:34) and eventhough it was made in 2008, the shots were iconic of film noir and had a hooking storyline. What i didnt like about this film noir was that the costumes did look traditionally film noir and the mise-en-scene and not all of the shots looked film noir in terms of the black and white.

It looks as if it has been filmed somehow through a pinhole camera due to the dark edges and low-angles. I took notes of the modern cars ruining the empty, alone atmosphere and learnt that it was very effective to lead a viewer into thinking someway, and then to prove them wrong at the end - its hooking.

Lighting

Still cameras

Compressing

It was very important for me to create the right, believable lighting because i think this sets the mysterious scene i was aiming for to ensure a believable film. Playing with lighting outside while filming my following scene helped me to adjust to lighting i couldnt change, eg, street lights. I had to move around the lighting. The location in which i was filming luckily had dark alleyways, old-fashioned street lamps and a telephone box.

Filming inside, the lighting i could change, so i could adjust it to how i wanted. I put a spotlight in the middle of the table, so the light would reflect off of the table and money and onto my actors faces - therefore creating shadows.

Using lighting which couldnt be changed by me helped me to try and dicover different angles with the camera, so i could create the best effect possible and to seehow it affects the film.

To find out how to create the film noir-type lighting i referred to this website: http://www.videomaker.com/article/13548/

The print screen (left) is of the page.

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/1441926?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0&amp;color=ffffff" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/1441926">Noir</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/peterbunzl">Peter Bunzl</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

This is how i would create a post ot document my ideas and acomplishments. I would almost use it as a diary.

How does this link to my target audience?

I think i should have made my target audience more specific by identifying which class would want to atch my OTS. However, in this modern day class is much less important in society. Even i have middle class 16-25 year olds watching this OTS, i still feel as if they would see my characters as wealthy people because of the pearls and money.

The mise-en-scene of the following scene is a nice quiet area, however i think it is a contradiction to the wealthy persona i was trying to achieve - would a wealthy buisnessman really be walking around at night on his own without a car? But i could answer this question with the excuse that he was aiming to go to the telephone box.

Editing

I learnt a lot about how to encorporate lots of different medias to put accross a point or to prove i know how to do something. I have tried to use as many technologies when creating my blog, final production and evaluation.

Scanning

Uploading

During editing, i had major problems because the iMovie programme completely shut down on me. Luckly i had nearly completed my OTS and just need to add sound. So to solve this problem, my OTS had to be put onto a disc and then put back onto a new iMovie so i could then carry on editing. It turned out that this made it easier for me because i meant my OTS was now one full clip.

I wanted to create a very tense and quick atmosphere during the poker game, so i made sure that every shot was very short and 'snappy'. When my male character leaves the telephone box, the shots become faster than they were previously, ensuring the impression that something is going to happen. I learnt how much editing and how long a clip is can effect the viewer, and that quick shots tend to keep them hooked.

I didnt need to edit the storyboard filming because i did it all in one continuous clip. I found this very helpful, however, i had to make sure that all of the filming was decent enough, if not i would have had to start from the beginning.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=7191

Olivia Smith

Candidate no. 3530

The audience for my media product are 16-25 year olds, male and female.

I feel as if i had to break some conventions of film noir because my target audience arent the traditional audience who like the film noir genre. Here is a social networking site featuring somebody who asked the public who is the target audience of film noir:

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100119030233AAhKmiR

Location

Questionaires

Timing

I did two questionaires to address my target audience - one to find out what my target audience (16-25 year olds, male and female) like to see in the film noir genre and the second questionaire was to find out what my target audience thought about my plot. I took these photos on my ipod (another technology) and these are only a few of the ones i did.

1st questionaire

The modern shelves which i had to cover up

Credits and titles

Lighting

Blonde femme fetale

2nd questionaire

Editing

Brunette femme fetale

The font i used for all of my credits and text - Trojan Pro.

This is a good example of light shining on the face making the background very black - conventional of film noir.

Mise-en-scene

Camera

When filming the poker scene, i tried to convetionally shot from low angles and high angles, so that the character's identities werent fully shown - a sense of mystery and wonder. Unconventionally, i didnt film it in black and white, which i think i should of done because it would have given me a better idea on the final outcome and also would have saved me time while editing. There were frequent reaction shots from all of the characters, showing their reactions to the poker game. However the audience were never fully informed on what the characters were thinking because there is a possiblility of them having 'poker faces'. I never used any moving shots (unconventional) as i wanted there to be very quick and short shots to create tension. I often used very close-up shots to:

• Hiding part of the indentity of the charaters
• To see the full reactions of the characters
• Close up shots helped to hide the unconventional background which would have been a continuety error.

Similarly, while filming my following scene, i never used any moving shots either. When my male character was walking, i kept the camera still while he walked into the frame and then out. I think i could have used a match on action shot when my male character was coming out of the telephone box, however i didnt because i wanted it to be more simple than technical. Just before my male character is about to be shot at the top of the steps, there is an over the shoulder shot showing my femme fetale pointing the gun - the viewer is almost seeing it from the male characters perspective. This shot is conventional of film noir.