Final Evaluation James Taylor

Media Product Evaluation

The story of our media product is that of a dysfunctional drug dealer, losing money to one of his employees and then seeking revenge. This story is similar to the movie ‘Shifty’ an independant film by WARP films.

The film itself is classed as an urban fiction, which is described as “a literary genre set, as the name implies, in a city landscape; however, the genre is as much defined by the socio-economic realities and culture of its characters as the urban setting.” Our film was filmed including inexperienced actors and in and urban setting which required no budget.

The story of the film is linear, which is a story which has a beginning a middle and an end in contrast to non-linear, which may have breaks within the structure for such things as Flashbacks to an earlier time etc.

We focused the camera on the main elements of ‘street life’ for example the social interaction of a knuckle bump between the drug dealer and his associate in the first scene of the movie. We also used freehand shots to film the chase scene with transitions in between for dramatic effect. This along with the editing, using fast cuts and transitions made the movie much more jerky.

As the film was only two minutes long, we had to show as much about the characters as possible and their backgrounds, for example their drug habits and the fact that they live in council houses. This with the graffiti scattered around the surrounding area made the characters appear much more dangerous than they are. We used a font called Ghettomarquee for our titles to give the impression that the titles are old and worn out.

In the film we have represented the Hood/drug dealer stereotype. We have portrayed the characters in a way that they fit the stereotypes of a Hood. For example we portrayed the characters as unhygienic with ill fitting clothes. As this is what the stereotype represents, we also went as far as to create fake drugs to make the stereotype more believable, and people see the character as not only addicted to drugs but selling them, as there is a stash of ‘cocaine’ on one side of the room surrounded by the rest of his drugs arsenal, but also a flat screen t.v. at the other side of the room.

When choosing locations to film we had to look for certain aspects within that location, for example, it had to be in an area which may look run down or deserted, with graffiti on the walls, this ties in with the stereotype of a drug dealer, that drug dealers take drugs, this is to stay away from police and not get caught.

When thinking of mise en scene we had to think outside the box of a normal everyday character and do some research, a lot of findings related back to shifty, and the way that the drug dealer does not just sell the drugs, but doesn’t take them. In our film the closest the drug dealer gets to taking recreational drugs is smoking a cigarette.

As urban fiction don’t really appeal to a wide audience, i think that the media product would be distribute by one of the smaller distribution companies, for example metrodome distribution, who distribute many warp films. And also movies of similar genres to ours such as Shifty. In terms of budget i think that it would have a small budget. The budget may come externally from many different sources, such as the national lottery fund. External sources of income are usually used to encumber some if not most of the budget for most independent films

Content wise, i think that if metrodome was to distribute the film i think that they would be able to use actors with more experience than we did, making the quality better and also making it run smoother. However, in terms of editing, i don’t think they would do any different as they use Final Cut Pro as we have used, apart from using a different version.

The target audience of our film would be similar to that of Shifty - a small audience, maybe a locale audience from the area in which the film was filmed, for example More people watching the film from Barnsley than say somewhere else where movies are more prominent such as Hollywood. This is due to the film being an independent film with a small budget. The small budget means that we won't be able to advertise the film as much as a big Hollywood blockbuster such as The Avengers or 21 Jump Street.

Before filming - in pre-production, we decided to do a bit of Market research, this took the shape of a questionnaire drawn up with an outline of the storyline, telling the person answering the questionnaire what we aim to achieve within the product. We then asked the participant questions based on the information we gave about the film. We had one reply to a question, asking "Would you want to watch the rest of the film, and see what happens?" The Answer was "Yes, definitely" Showing some interest in the film in it's preliminary stage. Upon receiving feedback we acted upon the reaction, by adding 3 characters instead of two, making the film seem more believable.

We posted the video on line and asked for an audience representation. We asked for some feedback and we took into account what the audience, said. For example, some members of the audience noticed continuity errors, in what we missed during editing. And also noticed that the story was well written and smooth. This is one thing that not only the audience liked, but also what we as a group enjoyed as well. We enjoyed the fact that constructive criticism helped us develop our film. When working out a age certification, for example, to show a trailer on line for feedback, we decided to choose Age rating 15. This is due to the language and drugs use not suitable to children.

To further improve my work, I could go through the film and sort out various continuity errors not picked up by the group, but had been picked up by the audience. If a budget was introduced then the film would also be of higher quality

When making decisions affecting technology we looked at two main areas - reliability and convenience. All the editing was done on an apple Macintosh computer, this was used to the convenience of the apple macs in College being free of charge and having everything we need within the computer. Programmes we used within the computer are such things as Celtx, which was used
to create the script. The computer had access to the Internet, due to the college's free wifi. In Which we were able to upload our posts and research straight to our Blogger account (www.bcasmedia2012.blogspot.com).

When conducting audience research we used various social networking sites to get through to our potential audience. We used Facebook and Twitter, and posted monthly blogs regarding the film making process on Youtube, to gain some PR.

During the time working on the film, I have learnt much about Editing and Filming. Especially when using effects, for example, inserting fade in/out and created Rolling titles, choreographing the camera shots to the music, was also a skill I learnt, and a skill which I thought was handy to have when editing. It made the music soundtrack and the film flow smoother. I had to take in to account time signature and tempo when editing the sound track. This has all helped me during the filming and editing process to gain the best possible grade that I can, and it has also helped me whilst writing up this evaluation.

As well as positives there have also been negatives to focus on and work around. For example, at the beginning of the project we were a 4 man group. One of our group members stopped coming to lessons on a regular basis, and started showing up when it suited him best. This meant that the workload for us was more but it also meant that the work was ours and no-one Else's. Internet issues and weather also affected the filming process, in which we had to post pone filming due to the weather not being suitable. At one point during the filming we lost the tape, and also taped over some shots, this meant that we lost out on valuable editing time, affecting the final piece.

In comparison to the Preliminary task, which had simple actions and dialogue, I think that I have managed to become better at camera work, acting and editing. This came with practise as the more time I spent with one area, the better I got with it. In the preliminary task the editing was hard and a lot of assistance was given, in comparison to the film I have just done, where assistance was not needed as often however some learning curves were still reached as there was two different filming environments.

As well as the improvement of camera work and editing, I think I have gotten better at external aspects of the course, such as HTML coding, which was used when embedding videos and pictures onto blogger.This also came with practise, and was tedious to do.