Post Evaluation - Audience Research Interviews

We carried out the same questionnaires that we did at the audience research stage on people that had actually watched our completed media product.

Evaluation - How did you address/attract your audience?

I'm really close to the camera because it was my 7th take, the other six I either messed up the speech or I was inaudible.

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your Media product?

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

1: Don’t film in reflective surfaces. We wanted to have a car scene where it drove up, and because it was a sunny day and the car was quite clean, it reflected back at us, and you could see our camerawoman holding the camera in that shot. We could not edit this out of the prelim later. To counter this, we removed the mirror that was originally in Paul’s garage.

2: Make sure there’s nothing in the room that could make unwanted noise. This wasn’t really a worry for our final product as we added a piano overture to the final thing, but in our prelim, we wanted a dark room brighten up with the light switch but you can hear the click from the light switch in the room we were filming in.

3: About lighting. As mentioned before, we wanted a dark room to brighten up, but because it was a sunny day outside and there were windows in the room, there was only so much blinds could do. Also, there were windows at the top of the room which we couldn’t reach, and the light from the corridor outside, so that couldn’t be controlled. In our final piece, we made sure not to get the actual source of light in the shot to prevent unwanted glares, and also we only kept the light one at one end of the room, and filmed in the other, so it was bright enough to see but could still be classed as low key lighting.

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

The film was produced on a skeleton budget with a little knowledge of how to film and also not as high quality cameras as you may find in the industry, and was produced in a garage rather that a Hollywood studio, so I wouldn’t expect many big media instutions to take our product seriously.

What I would consider doing is trying to get it shown at film festivals that show Indie Films, such as Raindance in France or Frightfest in London as Frightfest is a festival that shows more grisly films, and ours has quite a violent plotline to it (See treatment on blog). If it was to get noticed and possibly distributed on film, I would probably think about contacting advertising agencies near me, but to produce the film I would probably choose would be the branch of Pinewood that are looking to invest in Indie films. They are the creators of massive series such as James Bond, but after the unexpected success of The King’s Speech they are looking to invest in small films.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/mar/08/pinewood-kings-sppech-budget

 I would send it to them because they would help it get off the ground with their investment and maybe use of their studio and equipment, as they seem pretty focused on making the best they can with a low budget.

What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process of Constructing This Product?

Over this course, I have learnt to use the advanced program Adobe Premier Pro 5, which is used by professional filmmakers. I have learnt how to operate this and to use transitional effects such as cross dissolve, in which one scene fades to black and then back into another. Another thing I learnt was how to operate the timeline, and how different things can be threaded over each other, like fades directly into the next shot by overlapping the first shot with the next, how audio can be added and controlled over the shots, how to take away the audio from the original shot (We always had it in mind to have an overture instead of using actual audio from the shot so in the original shots we didn’t bother much about keeping quiet). I also learnt about the screen capture, so that we could capture the original video off tape, which is what we used instead of a digital camera, and also how to operate VCR’s to the extent where we could use them to take the film off the camera.

I also learnt about controlling the key of lighting to work in, We filmed our media product in a garage, that had only the natural light from outside (When the door was open) a fluorescent tube light, and a lamp at the far end of the garage. We opted to use low key light, so we decided that the scene would look spookier if the majority of the scene was filmed with the light coming from behind so that not a lot of light was illuminating the shot. We also used things like height angles, like standing on a step ladder to get a good over the shoulder shot.

This also meant that I learnt about what is conveyed on camera when you film something, and how to control mood, atmosphere, that even ambient noise can completely ruin the product if you don’t mean for it to be there. I also learnt about how media products can be improved by using tools such as the track and the crane, which would have been better that just walking along whilst holding the camera low and standing on a chair to get the high shot – also it would have been a lot more precise.

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

Evaluation Question: How does your Media product represent different social groups?

I used my friends slideshare account as I didn't really want to make one myself for this one off purpose.

Media Social Evaluation

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