Evaluation

A2 evaluation from katyward26

FINAL PRODUCTS

FILM REVIEW 4

I added the empire online into the top corner instead of the award, I also made the white box longer as you could see part of the picture still. As well as, I tweaked some of the writing as one of my paragraphs went on for too long. I also changed the rating from "4 stars" to 4 little stars as it looks better.

Film Review 3

This is my last and final edit, I made the quote in italics and in bold so that it is more predominant. Also I cut of the verdict at the end of the review so that it is separate to the rest of the review with red dots.

Final Edit - Isolation

Third Film Poster (Final)

This is my third edit of my film poster, the first I decided was completely unprofessional and would not get the audience that I wanted or even an audience at all, the second poster I made was much more developed and I became much more pleased with however it was still lacking something. Therefore, I spoke to my teacher and she said to include the 'alter ego/clone' into the film poster due to the fact that this is a massive part to my narrative and short film as a whole. So I added the same picture onto the second film poster I made and reduced the opacity of the image so that it would look more faded and ghost like, as the second persona isn't real and is only a figure of his imagination so it would make more sense to have a ghost like copy then just a smaller image of himself otherwise the audience will just get confused by the film poster and may result in lack of an audience. I decided to keep the same picture of the main character and to not use another because I think that this image gives off the message that I want it to, to my audience that the character is both confused as well as scared. I also decided to keep the typography of the film title and slogan due to it is different and unique compared to other posters due to I downloaded it from 'dafont.com' instead of just sticking to using just Photoshop fonts. However it still gives off the eerie feel to the poster that I wanted it too and well as the writing also presents that the character has no escape due to all the letters are trapped and connected to one another by the outside shadow of the text. I also kept the credits in the same font/typography as it gives off the professional look to my poster as it is the typical font used on every film poster.

Third Edit - Isolation

After a screen of verbal feedback from my class/teacher I received a lot of positive comments as well as areas to improve:

• Cut some of the shots where he is waking up/walking down the stairs.
• Cut the shot where he says "don't we look alike" as it takes away the seriousness of the film.
• The typography fits in well with the style i'm trying to create.
• The editing choice to mix the flashbacks/dream has a positive effect and made the audience understand the narrative well.
• Composition of the shots are stylish.
• I have a range of filming techniques that have been used effectively. 
• The audio creates a more suspense atmosphere.

Techniques and Further Research From Audience Feedback

When receiving feedback from my class on my short film, one individual picked up on the hand held camera action that happened within it and that it reminded them of when they watched Cloverfield. I then decided it would be a good idea to look into the film as it may benefit my short film, so therefore I researched into the trailer. I realised that the way they used the handheld camera within the film or what was used in the trailer, was in the same technique that I wanted mine to benefit the audience, to show the persona's panic within the situation that they are put in, as well as in a sense it breaks the fourth wall and engages the audience to a higher level as the audience then feel as if they are part of the situation or they are watching over a real life event therefore they are going to engage into the film to a more serious level and more than likely will be engaged until the end of the film as they will be curious to what happens to the persona that hopefully I hook them onto.

As well as the idea of the alter ego/clones reminded them of the film 'Moon' as the film is based on an astronaut that goes up to space however as he progresses throughout his mission he begins to find clones of himself. As he asks the machine which has been looking after him throughout the mission why there is a clone of him the machine responds by telling him it must be a figure of his imagination which is what I was trying to achieve in my short film, that the person hallucinates an alter ego/clone of himself. As well as the more clones that he finds the more he begins to panic and become confused within the storyline, which is what happens in my narrative however they are alive every time my persona see's himself however every time he begins somewhere new, he begins to get closer to himself so that he can try and find out what is going on and why the other version of himself exists however it is only part of his schizophrenia/paranoia.

The techniques I used throughout my short film which made it effective and how I wanted it to be was to confuse the audience by using amateur handheld shots then to professional, film like shots which then creates intensity within the narrative. I then used the lighting/effects to create a flickering/jittering effect to create tension and suspense as well as the intense sound effects which are used in many other films to build up the audience for a big thing that is about to happen in the narrative.

Survey analysis: Feedback from class

 The first question I asked my audience was their age due to the fact my short film has a certain target audience. This meant that I would need to ask people around my target audience to evaluate it, my results came out how I wanted them too as I based my target audience around young adults and 80% of my survey was filled out by 18-24 year olds which I would classify as young adults.

The second question I asked was what would they rate my short film out of 5 due to the fact I wanted an honest answer from what people thought and got from my film. Therefore, I put a 1-5 rating with an explanation so that my audience within my class could give an accurate response to their opinion of my film.

I asked my audience what they would classify my short film as, due to the fact i thought that it would be beneficial to see what other people would classify my film as and whether or not it does fit into the boundaries of the genre that I want my short film to fit in.

Finally I then asked whether or not they understood the narrative as I can understand that it can be hard for some people to understand it. The majority of people said that they understood the narrative however it lacked depth therefore I need to add some more depth to it by making the storyline more clear and more engaging to the audience.

Checklist

Storyboard
Shot List
6 more analysis of films
screenshots of editing
finish second shoot analysis

SUMMARY POSTS

Film Review 2

I added the award that the film could get into the top left corner to attract the audience into reading the review as well as I put the text colour to red so that it would stand out. I also added the page number underneath to make it seem more realistic. I also added a white box behind the quote so that the quote was easier to read, as well as I added the name of the person who said the quote. Overall, I am much more pleased with this edit as it looks much more professional.

Second Edit

• The reason I made my film black and white was due to the fact I wanted to achieve the 'film noir' look therefore this meant that it would make my film look more dramatic and intriguing.

•  I used a distorted sounds to create an edgy, disturbing sound track that would keep the audience at suspense throughout and so that my audience wouldn't get bored half way through my short film. 

• I also used a forest sound effect for the effect of diegetic sound and can make the audience feel a if they are in and part of the frame/scene that is on screen which therefore makes the audience feel more on edge and engaged until the end so that they can find out what happens to the main character. 

• I also used ambient noise to have an 'impact crash' on the door which again makes the audience feel as if they are part of the scene/frame thus leaving them scared and on edge.

• I used repetition of sounds not to be lazy but to connote signs of insanity as well as adds elements of schizophrenia to the audience.

• I took the scene where the alter ego of my character walks towards himself due to the fact i couldn't get the right affect for it to look as if he was flickering from side to side, however instead it just looked unprofessional and unedited.

• I added a flash to when my character falls back from seeing his alter ego as it makes it seem as if he dies, leaving the audience in suspense.

• I used flashes as transitions to make it seem more effective and 'psychotic'.

• I used a soundtrack in the second half to add effect instead of keep repeating sound effects, so that my audience would get bored and annoyed with the same sounds throughout.

• I added the title of my film and credits to my short film to make it look more professional as well as they are a vital part to a short film that completes it, otherwise it looks unfinished.

• I used silence at some points to create tension within my audience as it usually indicates something is about to happen.

Second Shoot

For my second shoot I decided to work in the art room where I could choose whether my shots would be dark or light (high and low key lighting), however I chose to also use a spotlight so that the camera could pick up on what I wanted to film. It would also be able to create the silhouette look I was trying to create in some points of my shots as well as I used it to create the flickering effect of the lights, therefore creating an eerie, horror atmosphere. Whilst trying to create the flickering effect the spotlight would sometimes glitch and let out a massive flash which on one of the shots, completed the shot as I wanted the silhouette to appear the drastically disappear and as I was shooting the silhouette to disappear the light glitches and I would say it is one of my best shots as it followed exactly how I wanted it to go.


We started the first shot with my actor George on the floor as the transitions of my film are for my persona to wake up in an unknown dark, isolated place and be highly confused as to what is going on around him. Therefore, in my first shoot we worked in the woods and then in my second shoot I decided to work in an non escapable dark room (similar to the idea of saw however without the torture scenes). I also used a lot of POV shots throughout this shoot to present the persona's emotions much more clearly as well as the many stages of panic of which he encounters.

First shoot

For my first shoot I decided to film in a woods to fit in with the eerie feel I wanted my film to give off to my target audience; due to from my research analysis of films most horrors or twisted films are filmed either at some point in a woods, dark alley or an abandoned/isolated house which then straight away gives on the 'unsafe' atmosphere to the audience that the persona that they are watching on screen is in soon to be danger.

Luckily enough I was allowed to borrow a friend's canon camera which had an option of 'film' on settings which makes everything you film much more clearer and film quality like; therefore this helped massively towards the outcome to my final shots as they came out much clearer and precise.

I was also able to a shoulder mount so that everything I recorded whilst moving (such as when my persona wakes up in the tree) wouldn't be shaky unless I intended it to be, which i pretty much used the whole way throughout filming as it completed the majority of my shots as it made them come out much clearer and stable therefore this meant that I wouldn't have load of shots that I wouldn't be able to include or use at all.



I also used a tripod throughout filming so that my camera work would not be shaken in the slightest, some of my shots had canted angles to give off the eerie feel and to present to the audience that there is beginning to be something wrong in the storyline. However other than that all my shots were not shaken and went the way in which I hoped they would come out.

In these shots shown on the right the tripod and camera were placed with autofocus as George ran up and down within the walkway as he was going to run after his 'other persona' then freak out and run away from his 'other persona' so we filmed about a minute of him running up and down the walkway so that we would have multiple shots that we could choose from and cut out all of the bits that we didn't need instead of keep having to back to the woods and reshooting loads of little bits, making it tedious and unnecessary when we could reshoot bits all at once and make the best out of the day which we got with the best lighting we possibly could of got in a woods.

Film Poster: Second Edit

This is my second idea of my film poster; I think that it looks much more professional as i have gotten rid of the age certificate due to it making my last poster childish as it didn't fit in with the colour scheme.

Also the typography in which i was using was the same for everything such as the title, slogan and credits; therefore i decided that for the credits that I would use the stereotypical typography which you see on every film posters credits. As for the film title and the slogan the typography I was using was seen to the audience as 'too feminine' for the film in which I was trying to picture to the audience; therefore this then lead me to not pick any normal font from photoshops choices, I decided to go further by searching on 'Da font' where you can download fonts for a more serious toned font which is where I found the font that i have used on my final second edit.

As well as, I decided to only use one picture of my character on my second edit as one my first one the two different pictures of my character made it look unprofessional as well as they were off colour with each other. One of them looked very airbrushed even though I had not even used the airbrush tool at all throughout creating the poster and the other picture of the character was too dark compared to the other one. Therefore, through making my second poster I decided to only use one picture and to place my character off centre to present to my audience that my storyline will have some sort of twist to it.

FILM REVIEW 1

This is my first draft for my film review, I have been influenced by empire film reviews and I have adopted the three column layout. The picture takes up 40% of the page and the text takes up 60% this is a common convention within film reviews. The name of the film is the largest piece of text the audience will see and a teaser quote uses alliteration and a different colour of text to make it stand out. 

Film Reviews Analyse Layouts.

The image at the top of the page takes up about 50% of the article as this shows its importance of the article/review, it is an iconic image as they are celebrities so the audience recognise them straight away. The article has 4 columns which is a standard layout for magazine article. For writing, the title is the largest bit of font, the other fonts involved in the article are different colours to make them stand out compared to the others. It uses contrasting colours of the picture and the writing to make sure that they both stand out from each other, resulting in the audience engaging themselves into the article. A white box is used on top of the image to show different comments from the review. The first line of review is bold to make it stand out from the rest of the review. The title is also written in sans serif font so it is simple and effective as well as traditional.

Again the image taken from the film takes up half of the page as well as an iconic well loved actor is shown in the preview to engage the audience. It also includes under the title all the different ratings that the film could or has been rated. It also includes a table of the predicted interest curve that the film could possibly get as it can be seen as a controversy film to its audience. It also uses bold writing where it is most important as well as it has a black box with yellow writing as it is a different part to the review.


From analysing the layout of the above magazine articles I am going to follow the layout of Empire's reviews because I feel it is simplistic yet effective and in this case less is more as the second review looks too busy and cluttered. 

10 Film Reviews

1. The Guardian's review on "The Forest".

"American movies don’t know what to do with Japanese culture. They aren’t world war two baddies anymore and the fear of their determined economy “coming to buy us up” has dissipated. The Forest, a trashy horror picture from first-time feature director Jason Zada and screenwriters Nick Antosca, Sarah Cornwell and Ben Ketai, plays to an audience that probably hasn’t done too much thinking about Japan lately. They eat weird food (it’s still moving!), all the girls wear the same school uniform and everyone believes in ghosts. What powers those ghosts have or how they can harm you is all rather vague, but you best believe it involves being real quiet, then charging at the camera when you least expect it, emitting a high-decibel shriek."

This review starts off highly critical, therefore straight away you get the impression that this film review is going to be biased as they practically begin with 'they don't know what they are doing'. It then carries on to insult the film as 'trashy', therefore this film review seems to very unreliable and biased.



    2. Cinema Blend's review on "The Forest"

"Of course, finding the perfect film to launch Natalie Dormer as mainstream commodity was always going to be hard. Leading roles in blockbusters are hard to come by – even though she has repeatedly been linked to Captain Marvel – while there’s no point in appearing in a well-made indie effort that, while probably showcasing her talents, could easily go under the radar. A genre effort was her best bet, especially a horror film. That’s why The Forest perfectly suits her needs and desires at this juncture in her career, and it gives her the right platform to boost her cinematic profile."

This review automatically goes into phrasing the actress which straight away gives the audience an insight to that the film is going to be biased due to the fact the actress is very well known and liked, as the whole of the first paragraph of the review is about who stares in the film, not the film itself. Therefore if i had to pick out of The Guardian's and Cinema Blend's opinion on "The Forest" i wouldn't choose either however i would side more with The Guardian due to it fixates on the film from the start and doesn't focus to much on the actors/actresses personally.

    3. The independent's review on "The Revenant"

"The Revenant is the brilliant Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu's version of a western – a mad, visionary and quite often preposterous survival tale. It is very bloody, very violent and full of murky religious symbolism but is also often astounding in its flights of macabre lyricism."

This review can begin to be seen as biased due to the fact it starts off talking about the director automatically therefore it can be seen as biased on the person that is writing favours the actor therefore will not want to write a bad commentary on them. However it then goes onto talk about the actual film and the elements that make it a 'mad, visionary' film. Therefore this film is more likely to make an audience believe the critic however is still quite biased thus still making it unreliable.

     4. The Empire's review on "The Revenant"

"Revenge, goes the old Klingon proverb, is a dish best served cold. Which is good news for The Revenant, the new film by Mexican boundary-pusher Alejandro G. Iñárritu, because few tales of vengeance have ever looked quite so butt-clenchingly chilly. It's become the stuff of legend, a nine-month shoot in the wilds of Alberta and Argentina. But Iñárritu has come out the other side with an astonishing sensory experience, one that plunges the viewer into a sub-zero hell that often looks like heaven. It's likely to both storm the Academy Awards and play well on Kronos."

This review straight away comes across as less biased than the independent's review on the same film as even though they are explaining partial information about the film they are also giving the audience a positive insight into the film. Therefore if i had to take a choice out of either of The Independent or The Empire's review on "The Revenant" i would pick The Empire's views due to the fact that it comes across a lot more honest and less one sided.



     5.  The Telegraph's review on "Die Hard (1998)"

"The Die Hard series has become so silly that's it's easy to forget what a brilliant and suspenseful film it was that spawned a five-film franchise that has earned 20th Century Fox more than one billion dollars."

This film review seems to be less biased as it gives off the impression that the critic is explaining that the beginning of the die hard films were original and fantastically produced however as the times and technologies have changed the die hard films have become too 'try hard'. Therefore, this is one of the most reliable reviews due to the fact it is not completely biased and gives off the impression of an opinion rather than over exaggerating the film or completely slating it. 

 

      6. The Time Out's review on "Le Mepris"

"Le mépris. That’s contempt in French, and that’s the rising feeling that Camille (Brigitte Bardot) has for her writer boyfriend Paul (Michel Piccoli) during the time he’s summoned to Rome’s Cinecittà film studios and the stunning island of Capri to help Austrian-born Hollywood director Fritz Lang (playing himself) and coarse American producer Prokosch (Jack Palance) improve their movie version of Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’. Much of the film gives us Camille and Paul’s disintegrating relationship as he’s simultaneously seduced and repelled by the world of filmmaking. You feel that same seduction and repulsion in Godard too: why else cast one of your all-time heroes (Lang) but pitch him against a dumb executive Prokosch (who has the brilliant line, ‘When I hear the word culture, I bring out my chequebook,’ unwittingly misquoting Joseph Goebbels)?"

This film review comes across as more narrative which then gives an audience a insight more into the film thus giving them more of a decision whether it worth while to go and see the film, however overall the review is very positive although it doesn't come across an opinionated review therefore gives the overall review a more trustworthy advice and opinion to its audience.

       7. Roger Ebert's review on "Bleak Street"

"It is not often, unfortunately, that the work of the esteemed Mexican director Arturo Ripstein gets screened in the upper part of North America, outside of the festival circuit. The last film of his I was able to see was his 1999 adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s “No One Writes To The Colonel,” which I felt a misfire. There have been almost ten films between that one and “Bleak Street,” which begins a New York run on January 20. Written by Ripstein’s frequent collaborator (and wife) Paz Alicia Garciadiego, “Bleak Street” (“La calle de amargura”) is a visionary triumph for the 72-year-old director."

This review has contextual knowledge behind it, therefore gives off to the audience that the film review is going to be professional as it seems less biased due to the reviewer giving off a professional approach. Moreover, i would want my reviews to look something like this as it more than likely that the audience that would go and watch the film after if the film fitted their interests.


    8. BFI's review on "Hard to be a God"

"Hard to Be a God is a profoundly, wilfully destabilising experience, one in which all but the most astute viewer won’t so much follow the plot on first viewing as struggle to get the gist of it, gleaning what they can from a smattering of expository voiceovers and the muttered monologues of the saturnine Don Rumata (powerfully builtLeonid Yarmolnik). These are delivered between swills of moonshine and expelled snot rockets as he wades through the murk and mire of the planet Arkanar, which are increasingly mixed with blood and plopping viscera as the film moves along."

This review again seems more professional as it does not give off straight away a point of view towards the film meaning it won't be completely biased. They give off a contextual type of writing style therefore it is more than likely that the audience that is reading this film review will go and watch the film being described. This is a review in which i would like mine to look along the lines of.


    9. BBC's Review on "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

"If someone was remaking George Lucas’s Star Wars, and then they decided that they might as well stick in as much as they could from The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi while they were at it, the resulting film would be Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Directed by JJ Abrams, the most anticipated movie in the history of the universe has everything you remember from the original wondrous trilogy – and, oh all right, one or two echoes of the benighted prequels, too."

This film review gives off a positive view however not overwhelming to the fact that the reviewer is a massive fan of Star Wars, more to the fact that the film in itself is well made as it is "stick in as much as they could" which can be seen in a good or bad way depending on the audiences view themselves.


   10. A.V. Club's review on "Synchronity"

"Synchronicity is more contraption than movie, its plot as mechanically functional as a clock, rotating characters around like gears. Low-rent but high concept, the film tackles that most joyously convoluted of science-fiction scenarios—time travel, of course—with lots of enthusiasm but not much originality. Writer-director Jacob Gentry, who made the middle third of the underrated exquisite-corpse horror film The Signal, appears to have boned up on his Heinlein and Bradbury and Carruth, the last of whose Primer remains a blueprint for any hungry young filmmaker looking to blow minds on a budget. But the ideas here, many of them just twists in disguise, are largely recycled. If you’ve seen one movie where multiple versions of the same person occupy the same timeline… well, you haven’t necessarily seen them all, but you have seen this one."

This film review comes across as quite biased due to the fact it gives off a negative atmosphere meaning that the reviewer did not like the film themselves therefore they are trying to make the audience not watch it or for the audience to reflect on their view and perceive some of what the reviewer is saying and take it for their own beliefs towards the film.

First Cut

This is my first cut i am with the footage that I have filmed and created as well as the whole black and white 'film noir' influenced theme works really well with the idea of my short film however I do know that they are a lot of improvements that need to make, such as the jittering and bluriness needs to be added to make the narrative easier to understand for the audience. Along with the audio needs to be fixed as at the moment  even though my persona's voice is clear on the audio, the background noise is also very dominant however once i have the music in the background or whatever audio i decide to have in the background it will make the short film a lot better quality.

Film Noir research

Film Noir is a term used in cinematic to describe a type of Hollywood crime dramas especially ones in which empathise cynical actions or sexual motivations. The period of the most popular film Noir films was from the early 1940's going on 1950's; from this era Film Noir is associated with the famous low-key black and white visual edits that has connections into the German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the stories created within this time era and much of the Film Noir attitude sourced from the school of crime fiction that emerged in the US during the great depression.

The term 'Film Noir' was created from the French as 'black film' as it was first used by a French critic Nino Frank in 1946 to apply to Hollywood films, however was ignored by most American Film professionals of this era.

Film Noir was originally associated with only American productions however films now are produced all over the world. Many pictures were released from the 1960's which share attributes towards Film Noir being the classical period of production and often can be seen as its conventions self referentially. Some people see the later day works as neo-noir. The cliches of film noir have been inspired to parody since the 1940's.

There have been many different plots to film noir such as the main character may be a private detective, a policeman, an ageing boxer, an unfortunate con artist, a naive individual pulled into a life of crime or a victim of circumstance. My plot is going to be leading a character of naivety and drug misuse (crime).

At the start of the year we were all put in groups and had to make our own small clip of a film noir film, this then inspired me as I wanted my film to come across as dramatic and intense as most film noir productions do. I want to also break conventions by linking the film noir style to a psychological thriller, as normally the films that film noir is linked to are femme fatal and crime. The low key lighting that is used in film noir I want to try and adopt with my interior shots to help build suspense and tension for my audience. I may also use a silhouette as a stylistic approach to present my villain to my audience.

Film Poster

I'm finally making progress with actually producing what I need to so that my short film will be a success.

Here is the beginning of my film poster, i chose black as it sets more of an eerie atmosphere compared to white would just make it seem more based on the fact it is about a mental disorder as white can be related to hospitals and so on. I added a catch phrase to the poster as it intrigues that audience more therefore creates a bigger audience due to the fact that it is a rhetorical question it leaves the audience anticipating for the answer. I then chose this typography as i looked into other film posters with the same film title and the majority of film posters had this sort of typography as it makes the poster seem eerie. I then chose the colour scheme of black and white as my film is Film Noir theme based.