Evaluation

Evaluation For our short film we decided to do informative/educational video to make people more aware of deafness and the issues that surround it. We decided to make the focal point of the film the fact that the problems that peoples with disability face are underestimated. To research for this we emailed The Royal Deaf Organisation to ask them some questions about awareness of deafness and sign language. The questions we asked/and the responses were: ,[object Object],From these responses we came to the decision that we needed to be careful about how we portrayed people with the disability of deafness. We decided to aim to show how deafness can affect anyone in society, yet they can continue to live a reality normal life and still communicate with people. We wanted to show deafness in a positive light and bring more awareness to the subject in the hopes that it will get more help for people coping with the disability. Another thing we did for research was to generally research types of deafness and its causes, we found out that deafness could be caused through injury therefore we decided the cause of deafness in our film would be an attack on an innocent character. We researched short films which were about different types of disability in order to see what forms and conventions they used. We looked at the short films ‘My Life with Learning Difficulties’, ‘Face of an Angel;’ and 'AMANG' deaf community documentary P1of 4’. After looking at these short films we recognised that the main things they all had in common were that they all tend to focus on one or two main characters who have a disability and show how they cope with it in everyday life, they all have an explanation or a voiceover to show how the person is feeling, they use several close up shots of the main characters, they have music which reflects the tone of the film and their titles are simple so they do not distract from what the films about. The ideas we decided to take from the short films research were that we would focus the film on the main girl who becomes deaf and show how she learns to cope after her accident. We decided to not only show the main girls point of view but her friends and the people around her as well. We wanted to make sure we used some close-up shots of the main girl to show her feelings; we also wanted to use shots to show things from different characters point of view e.g. the boy that attacks her at the bar. We decided to make the titles plain so they would not distract from what was being shown and to ensure any music used fitted in with the location e.g. the diegetic music being played in the bar. In most short films, the narrative is linear and straightforward. However after doing research as a group on several on several narrative theories, we came to the decision to challenge the typical conventions and use a non-linear narrative structure because of the documentary feel we wanted the film to have. We decided the film would include flashbacks and insights into the different perspectives of each character. The film begins by showing the girl (Laura) going to learn sign language and then flashbacks to the moment where the accident happened that caused her disability, after the lead up and the accident is shown, the film returns to the centre for sign language and sees Laura learning her first sign. To help us know what effects we could get from changing the depth of field and focus, we did some research. In our film we wanted to play around and experiment with the focus and depth of field on the camera to represent different things in the film. One thing we wanted to do was use different depth of fields to focus on the specific characters at certain points in the film. We wanted to try and use the focus to show the change from present past, when there are flashbacks. We also wanted to use the focus to create the effect of Laura losing her consciousness just after she has been attacked. As our group decided to create a short film in an educational/informative style, we were given the opportunity to create our own poster and magazine article review (double page spread), these were to be our ancillary tasks. We chose to do the above texts as we felt they would be interesting to create and would also help to aid our short film. Before coming up with the designs for both pieces we went away as individuals and did research to help us come up with ideas for how we put together both tasks. I researched posters from different genres of films to see how they were laid out and what conventions they used. I made sure to research a film with a similar focus to ours; this was called ‘Beyond Silence’, which also looked at issues to do with deafness. From my research, points I thought we should take note of were-that we should try to use colours that reflect the tone and genre of the film, use a large, clear font for the heading so it stands out, use appropriate images, have a clear, bold layout, include names of the stars of the film to attract audiences and have quotes from reviews. I then did research on double page spreads from magazines. For this I looked at articles from film magazines such as ‘Empire’. The aspects I thought we should take from this are that there needs to be a large, heading that at stands out, there needed to be a clear layout, use eye-catching colours that fit with the genre of film, include images/stills from our film to show the kind of film it is and good scenes, have information on the films narrative, genre and interesting points to make the reader want to see the film etc. After researching individually we came together and discussed as a group what we should include in the pieces and came up designs for them. We decided on the conventions we wanted to use for our poster was a large heading, images from the film, colours that would reflect the genre and including names of the main actors in the film. For our poster, we took two stills from our film and faded them into each other. One was a close-up of Laura’s eyes and the other was of her signing ‘okay’. We chose these images as we felt they embody some of the main aspects of the film, the eyes represent the deafness issue and that Laura is looking to start living her life again. The hand represents her finding her way of sorting things out and being able to move on after her attack. We edited the poster to have a yellowy coloured tint which contrasts with the black of the two images overlapping, we thought it helped to make the film to look mysterious which would make audiences want to know more. The yellow tint could also be seen as representing the theme of danger in our film, as the colour yellow is associated with things like danger and warnings. Over the top of the poster at the top is a heading in black of the title ‘Once Heard’ which is in a large bold font, to grab a passer-by’s attention, the black colour also ties in with the rest of the poster and represents the dark side of the film. Lower down on the poster in smaller text are the names of the two main actors in the film, we included these as we felt it would help to attract audiences as they may want to see their favourite actors in the film. The conventions we decided to use for the double page spread were a large heading, a clear layout, eye-catching colours, images from parts of the film and interesting points on the film. Our double page spread has white and yellow text on top of a grey background, so that the text stands out. The white and yellow colours of the text represent themes from the film, the yellow represents the theme of danger (that ties in with the colour used in the poster) and the white represents the hope that Laura has for her future, after overcoming and dealing with her attack. There is a large heading at the top of the first page which says ‘Once Heard’, its in bold white font to tie in with the rest of the text on the page and helps to grab the reader’s attention. We used three images on the double page spread-one on the first page which is actually of the advertising poster we made, and the other two being stills from the film. We used stills so that the audience could see the kind of thing they would see if they went to watch the film. The first still we used on the poster, so the double page spread would tie in with the poster; it’s of Laura signing ‘okay’. It shows one of the main parts of the film. The second still is of Laura’s two friends, running towards her after the attacker has just left her. It’s a dark, shadowy image which shows the film to be mysterious and dramatic, we thought this still would be good as it might make people want to go see the film to find out what’s happening in that part of the film. The first paragraph of text is basic information on the film, which quickly informs the reader on the main facts- it tells them what genre the film is, what age it’s aimed at, who made it, who stars in it and how long it is. The next paragraph is a synopsis of the film, which is meant to explain the main plot of the film without revealing how Laura becomes deaf. The third paragraph talks the films editing style and great performances, in order to attract people to it. The last paragraph then tells the readers where they can see the film. We wanted to make sure that our two pieces not only fitted with each other but also with the main film as well, we did this by using images from the film in both ancillary tasks and also similar colour schemes. We used black and white for the titles in the film, so we ensured we used both these colours for the poster and double page spread. Another thing we did was use very similar or if we could, the same fonts, in all three products. Overall I think that our ancillary tasks work really with our main product, as they seem to complement each other perfectly. During our production I learnt how to use the college’s Adobe Premier Pro editing software to a good standard as I assisted the editor. Another editing software that our group used was Photoshop, we used this to manipulate the images for our promotional poster. I learnt more about what it takes to film a production. I enjoyed helping the main cinematographer, coming up with different shots and angles and experimenting to see what worked best. We filmed, completely out of class time as wanted realistic locations for our film; we went to some offices and a bar in Slough. To film we used a Sony dcr vx-2100 camera, which we borrowed from the college. It is high definition so it gave us a good quality looking film. In this production I think that I was able to use the knowledge and understanding I had learnt in the past year or so to its best effect. I felt that we had more time in this production to experiment and try out everyone’s different ideas. For this production I feel we were more organised and had more time, so we were able to put in far more detail than we did on preliminary one. I think we were more ready to create the main production, as we could film more successfully than last year. If I could improve our production I would have tried to perfect our editing and titles a bit more if we had got the time. However overall I am pleased with our product, I feel we were able to produce something that was successful and portrayed what we were all aiming to achieve. I think it includes all the necessary conventions that are important for a good short, educational film, yet it’s still challenging because of its narrative and the message it’s trying to send out to audiences.

Evaluation

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Evaluation