I'm Not Okay: Final cut film.

Unfortunately our film is late in being published onto our blogs due to a lot of difficulties on the Mac. At first when the film was finished we burned it onto a disc and made two copies of it but the problem was that the size of the film was too big to go onto any sized memory stick and so we had to continuously compressed the file until then changing the format into a WMV and Shockwave to then be able to move it onto a memory stick and then upload onto You Tube. Finally after facing several issues our film is up on the internet and is available for anyone to access. 

I'm NOT Okay (Link to the video on You Tube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSJeBw-eCCE&feature=youtu.be

I'm NOT Okay 

Hope you all enjoy the film!! :D

Poster and Film Review

Poster

Review

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

For our short film we did use a ranger of different technologies to experiment with during the editing and production of the film. Of course we used a small camcorder which we borrowed from our college to film. We looked at all kinds of codes and conventions which Social Realism short films tend to have:

- Hand held

- Jittery/shaky camera movement

- Fast editing and quick camera movement to build up the suspense and tension. 

- Slow flash backs etc.


Because me and my partner have watched quite a lot of different short films and even some social realism ones, we have picked out quite a few important key factors to then be able to discuss them and use them in our film. Of course because this is only a short film and due to a lot of travel limitations we were not able to use typical British Iconography (e.g. London Bridge, red buses, taxis) and also because for our social realism it wasn't really necessary to show typical iconography. Although we did use some dominant ideology to show what topic our film is based on. We uses blades for the self harming scene and some of our film was filmed at a park, this is quite a 'normal' place to film a short film. Because our film did not need a lot of special effects or such because it is not of a science fiction genre we did not have to use very complicated camera or editing techniques. I wouldn't say this has made making a short film any easier because it is just as hard work making a social realism short film as it is making a sci-fi film but I feel as though the editing has come out a little easier. Our film is no longer than 6 minutes which is like a lot other shorts films which tend to be about 4-5 minutes long anyway. One thing I personally like about our film was that the ending was not all clear and this made it seem quote like a warning message or even a propaganda of some sort. I have noticed that this is a quite common thing in a few social realism short films where the ending is left unfinished. It is like another way letting the audience decide what can happen next, or a way to let the audience leave the room still thinking about what could have happened. 

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I think that if we combine both our ancillary tasks (the poster and the review) and our final cut film then I think that this is very effective because from the responses we have received from the people who have seen  the film first and then the poster have said that our poster does explain quite a lot about our film and people who have done vice versa and have viewed the review and poster first have said that our review is very well written and that the poster gave out a strong message of what our film could be about. Although we did get a few pointers on how we could improve it and someone even said that if we had made it a little more darker or used pictures of the characters and the weapons used then this would have made it more eye catching for them personally. Over all I think that both our pieces has had a good effect on our target audience by the responses that they have given us. I don't think that our poster really gives out too much of the film or even the target audience which I believe could be good thing because this way we could gain a completely new age ranged audience but this could also be a bad thing because then our target audience may get confused and think that this may not be the film for them because it might not appeal to them if they are unsure of who it is targeted at. At the end of it both me and my partner are very proud of how both our tasks have turned out to be and like how audience has responded back to us. Their pointers and advice has been very useful to us. 

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We used instruments to experiment with the music and then we also tried websites where you can make your own music but using the keys on the pc keypad to make a tune or even a website where you can use free music. We also used iTunes as a handy equipment because that is the app where we save all our music so that we could test and play around with it later on. 

The Apple Mac also of course played a big part in the production of and editing of our film. Without it we wouldn't have been able to edit our final film. Although there are other ways of editing e.g. using Sony Vegas but unfortunately neither me or my partner had the Sony Vegas system in our home computer drives and even so if we did go and buy a new installation disc, Sony Vegas does take a lot of time to get used to and learn how to use properly. Anyhow, me and my partner found the Macs very useful because they are easily accessible for us and we learned how to use them quite quickly. 

Also I have to say that the Internet was also a very useful piece of technology because of course without it I wouldn't have been able to do all my research about short films or about the genre of my film. I would not have been able to have this blog to record all my research and the development of the film or even find some music for it. Also by using You Tube I have been able to watch many short films which other people have uploaded and this has helped me get more inspired and develop more ideas for my own film.

3. what have you learnt from your audience feedback?

This is the video I made to answer question 3. I tend to express a lot more when I speak as it seems so. 

Editing

The majority of the editing for our film was also done by me along with the filming. We used Apple Mac Software to edit our film as this was the software system which was installed into our school systems. I did have some trouble at the beginning of the because the cord which connected the camera to the PC did not work at all and therefore I had to go through several different cords (many which had faults in them) until finally finding one which worked and let me import all the clips onto the PC. Once all the clips were on the PC I backed them all up onto my memory stick just in case anything went wrong and they deleted off the software. After wards, I put them in order i.e deleted non useful clips I know I didn't need at all and then finally begun putting the film together. Thankfully because we were making a Social Realism this meant we did not have to use any difficult editing or special effects which would have taken a lot longer. Because this was my first time editing as well I wasn't familiar with the software all that much but gradually I learnt how to use it and then realised it isn't too hard after all once I got the hang of things, which was handy. I cut scenes and put different ones together and undid some cutting to see what fit best and whether it looked good or not. It takes a lot of patience and time to edit because each clip needs to be place properly and cut to the right size at the right second and if one bit is misplaced then it looks completely wrong. I must admit some parts were frustrating but it was just as fun as well. After the film was finally put together Me and my partner watched it through a few times just to see if there was anything we wanted to change or add. We included several titles with questions on them and headings in-between the different scenes. I wanted to keep the dialogue in the film but the background sounds out of it so then with the help of my friend Jon we added the music and it already sounded much better. A few fiddling around with the music was needed, for example, fading it out and in when speech was increasing or decreasing in the scenes. After the music was done, all we had to do was turn the entire film into black and white, this is because I said to my partner that I felt if the film was in black and white effect then it would look like more of a social realism film and have that gloomy depressing effect to it. And depressing was the effect I was initially going for anyway. I was very happy with the overall outcome of the film and so was my partner. Then we made copies of it onto DVDs to hand over to our teachers.