Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation question 2 kieran

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Evaluation Question 1

Our film generally follows a simple method in terms of the story telling and goes straight from start to end without any flashbacks or flash forwards but with the twist at the end it has a flashback indicated by the black and white scene, the editing of the film allows the film to break away from conventions as the split screen style shows both our characters at the same time which isn’t conventional in a film.

The convention of continuity worked well within the film and we thought our short film was smooth with the transitions. There was a lot of editing incorporated into our film, in some parts the cuts where very choppy like in the scene of Claire’s face and the not attached to the lamppost. In addition to this, we used shot-reverse-shot which made the conversations between two of the characters more appealing to the audience as they see both reactions of the characters, the conversations between the characters have more of a fluid motion allowing the scene to seem more natural.



We also used a few close-ups in our film, which I have spoken about earlier with the choppy cuts to give the effect that something wasn’t right. The way we did this was by making the shots get slightly larger which gave a zooming in effect to make the cuts more attractive.

At the bottom of the paragraph is a screenshot of a close up of the main characters having a conversation over the phone, this gives the audience the insight of these two young people in love with also the reactions throughout the conversation as you can see their facial expressions when they are talking to each other and gives off this sense of love from the Kieran and almost a slight resentment from Claire as if an argument has taken place with the way she replies.



I personally believe our film has taken a different more artistic approach to how a film should run with the split screen showing the films main characters scenes running at the same time. Also with the artistic approach of the style the genre is quite different and exciting by taking the love and compassion of a romantic film and subverting the stereotype of one by adding the heartache and drama of the disaster. The film starts of as a happy and uplifting film, which we used as the romantic side of our genre that is the general convention of this type of genre, the genre then gets flipped on its head quite dramatically with the twist and the shot where Kieran disappears. I believe it goes against the stereotype of what might happen in the film with them just believing the film to be a romantic film and then completely turning the genre on its head which will cause a hard hitting twist which is what ultimately we are going for.



Our film follows the traditional genre of these types of films and several of our shots are split screens with Kieran on one half and Clare on the other doing the same thing, for example, one of these shots is where they are both putting the coat/shirt on but with it being with opposite arms and the centre of the screen split it gives off the sense that these two are in fact one in the same. Our film and the plot could be compared to the film ‘Titanic’ as the plot is very similar with the story being about two people being in love but then the ending everything changes through a tragedy.



To make the shots look a lot more attractive we edited in a way that the characters where always on the same side as not to confuse people other than the last scene after the conversation between Kieran and Alex as the scene worked better this way. Also we kept the characters similar in size to give off how similar they were. This is seen in all the scenes running up to the conversation between Kieran and Alex with Kieran always being on the left and Claire on the right.

There is not really any reference to any other films in our short film although the idea to use split screen came from an initial idea of the group and other short film that we looked at to see if the idea could be done to a good standard looking professional and smooth. As we wanted an artistic feel to the film we tried to stay away from the conventions of the genre and make the film more unique.

The film link is below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJyeITd_msU

choppy shots – 3:05 – 3:17
Phone call split screen – 0:30 – 0:36
Kieran disappearing – 3:22 – 3:32
Shirt/coat shot – 1:09 – 1:16

Radio Trailer

Here is the radio trailer for our A2 media production. When planning how to make our radio trailer we looked around various different sites on the internet, including YouTube, to look for previously uploaded trailers so that we could absorb ideas for our very own trailer. The structure of our radio trailer is very basic and is like what you would find on most trailers with it being roughly 20 seconds long, having audio clips from the actual production in it, as well as a voiceover describing it in as little detail as possible so that the plot is not given away. We feel this is effective as it builds tension which may entice the listener to go and view the end product.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

At the planning stage we did audience research of our target audience, which is 15-20 year olds, a couple questions about our film, things such as what they think to our plot, story and what they think we should do that might improve our film. This was after we gave them various bits of information such as the main outline of the film and the script.

The audience research was a success as many people who we asked questions to were interested in this genre of film and with the added twist at the end, they would be interested in seeing how the film pans out and how much it alters from films that are similar but don’t have this twist at the end. This twist was a major part of our project so this made it very beneficial to ask the audience what they thought about the twist. The feedback was good to receive as it was very interesting to see what our audience thought about the story and what they thought about the characters. The most beneficial thing we got from the audience research was to keep all main conventions of a romantic film with smiles from the characters and the sense that the two main characters are going to see each other while keeping the major twist unknown as to shock the audience.

This obviously means that when we are filming and editing our film, we need to make sure that there are no obvious hints about what is about to happen later in the film to make it effective. It was very effective to keep this under wraps throughout the film but we did but one inkling towards it with Liam Fountain’s character swearing after Kieran Lawless’ character says “you better not be drinking cause I’m getting a lift home with thee” and with the screeching car when Kieran disappears gives the audience that flashback of that moment. As our film has a lot of editing in it, with various shots such a split screen, and phone conversations which keep jumping from one person to another, it can get a little confusing for the audience if it is not edited and filmed properly, we made sure that we did this correctly and made sure the story made sense to the audience. When we first made the production the ending was in a different order and after one of our audience watched this they said it didn’t quite make sense so we changed the order round to make it more obvious.

In addition to this, although the main character in the film is dead and this is the twist in the end shows that he is dead, you don’t actually see how he dies which means that it may be confusing for some of the audience to understand that he is actually dead. Originally we decided not to have the sound of a car crash when Kieran disappears although after what we learned from audience feedback that it may be confusing if there is not a clear sign that Kieran is dead we decided to add it.

Another key piece of audience research that we picked up and we decided to take on board and changed our film massively was that the split-screen not working as well as having a little bit of both split screen and normal. This was because we wanted to have the entire film in split-screen although we had more than 2 characters, this made this concept a lot harder to do especially with conversations being had which could have given off an amateur feel to our film. We feel that just having split-screen now and again to show how similar the two characters are and for some phone conversations would work much better than having the entire film in split-screen.

We also felt that we wanted the audience to relate more to the main characters in the film, therefore we added more dialog and conversations between the characters to show what emotions they are going through. This was shown massively with the conversation right at the end between Bethany Vaines’ character and Nathan Denman’s character as the emotion shown in both their faces, body language and speech.

Media Evaluation Question 2

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used many types of media technologies in all stages of producing our movie project; these include types of hardware and software to help us in the production. Examples of these are digital cameras; the camera we used is a Sony HD 100. The camera is of great quality and the boom that picks up sound is also very good which gives clear conversations and has minimal external sounds such as wind making their way into the film.



This is a link to images of the camera we used to film or production. We also used editing software called final cut express. This is very good software to use to add all types of editing and effects to give your production the edge over other productions being shown around the internet. The software has a very simple layout which makes it easy for new uses to get to grips with the software and after a while of using the equipment you get used to the layout you can make a very good production that looks professional.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOTodkjB8KQ

This link shows how the software works and the basics of the kind of things you can achieve with the editing software. Another piece of equipment we used is digital sound recording equipment. We used something known as a zoom recorder to record the sounds we added into the film and also the voice over of the radio trailer we used this piece of equipment. This equipment gives a great sound quality which helps with the clarity and believability of our production.



This link shows images of the type of zoom recorder we used for our production. We also used the internet for our research into many different things about our production. The internet is probably the best part of our equipment as this helps us reach types of research we wouldn’t previously be able to achieve without it as many websites are from other countries so without it we would have struggled to get information and also to get ideas for our production. Websites we used are things such as:

http://freemusicarchive.org/

http://www.youtube.com/

http://lknmedia.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Kieran%20Lawless

These are websites we used to find our music fir our production, get ideas and information and also keep all our findings in a blog on Blogger.
These types of technology helped greatly with the creativity of our film as we realised the barriers of our film were very minimal and we could almost do anything our minds could come up with. A good example of this is the scene where Kieran disappears as the scene is actually two shots placed together instead of one continuous shot which made it very hard to achieve this but the editing software final cut made this possible. The internet helped massively as the music became a massive problem for us as our original piece of music turned out to be copyrighted which isn’t allowed for our production so the internet helped us find a piece of music which fitted well as well as being non copyrighted. The camera helped massively with its professional look and style as this helped the production look more believable and stylish and more like a piece of art than an amateur film. The zoom recorder made the radio trailer possible as without it we wouldn’t have been able to achieve the voice over that gave the trailer a very powerful feel and attractiveness for the audience. There were some limitations with some of the technology such as the editing software final cut only having a limited amount of effect to add. There were some aspects we had to scrap because if this, it wasn’t too bad as we made some changes which were very nice and could also be arguably better than our original ideas we had.
The following Link is for our feature length production:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJyeITd_msU&context=C4bdd1cfADvjVQa1PpcFMByT3JOu8CC38tTqROk_5j_tfP1DvKy-0=

Evaluation question 4

First of all, when we were doing our initial blog to plan our film and research we used an Apple Mac with the iMac interface and operating systems which are massively different from those I am used to using on Windows, which meant for the first couple of weeks using this, but I got more and more familiar with the overall outlook of the operating system with more experience. When we were researching, we also used search engines such as Google to find out genres of films and different ideas such as posters and radio trailers. Using this, but I got more and more familiar with the overall outlook of the operating system with more experience. When we were researching, we also used search engines such as Google to find out genres of films

and different ideas such as posters and radio trailers. This is a screenshot of the iMac interface.

When we were researching and using the internet to find out information about film genre and looking for things such as posters and radio trailers, I found the search engine Google useful as it gave images and information quickly and easily which made the whole process of researching easier and quicker. To the left is a screenshot of how we used google to look at different types of posters and what we need to put on our posters to make them successful. We have used google many times before on our foundation portfolio so we could do this very quickly and easily.

For our film, we used a Sony HDV 1000 and a tri-pod. Using the Sony was very effective for what we needed to film and was extremely easy to use with very little things to set up before we actually started filming which is always a bonus as we can just get straight on and start filming. But in addition to this, even though the Sony camera was very easy to use, it gives a very high quality picture quality which makes our film seem more professional. The only downside to using this sort of camera is that it is quite big and heavy, especially with the tri-pod as well which makes manoeuvrability quite difficult, it also takes up a fair amount of space when it is attached to the tri-pod, making certain shots more difficult than they would be when using a smaller handheld camera. Although a strong point from the Sony being quite big and bulky is that it gives a solid standing when you are using it with a tri-pod which can make it slightly easier to use on bumpy ground or against poor weather conditions such as wind. Below is the same camera we used when filming.

When constructing our film we used Final Cut express to edit it, this was key aspect of our film and without this we wouldn’t have been able to finish and construct it, this is because a large aspect of our film is in two different time zones and often more locations at once, for example when we used a split screen when two people are having a conversation over the phone, without using final cut express and editing it, our film wouldn’t have really worked and without knowing the story or plot you wouldn’t have been able to understand what was happening. Final Cut Express can be quite difficult to use when you first start although the more experience you have using it and more editing you do, you get more confident using it and editing more of your film. I personally thought it enhanced my creativity as this was only my second time using Final Cut express as I also used it last year at AS level to create my 2 minute opening sequence and I wasn’t very confident when I was using this particular Apple application although using it more made me feel confident using it and made me try more things and make our film more creative with some of the effects we used on our film.

Although editing went beyond our actual final product as we also used Adobe Photoshop when we created our A3 poster. This involved using Photoshop to import pictures such as the image of Kieran and Clare looking at the lamppost with the note on, writing text such as the title of the film and key points such as actor/actresses’ names and add effects such as blurring part of the background out to make the title and images more

prominent and important. Without using some type of editing software such as Photoshop, we wouldn’t have been able to create a poster like this. We also used an 12 megapixel camera to take the photo which would be put onto the poster, I have used a camera many times before so I could take a photo of this very quickly and easily, It is also easy to upload this picture onto a computer as you just need to connect a USB cable in both the camera and computer and upload. Using Adobe photshop massively enhanced by ability to edit large pictures like this into a poster as I have only really used photoshop before for small editing but now I have know how to work a lot of things in photoshop and have confidence to edit and create a large poster such as this one. To the right is a screen shot of me working on the poster using Adobe Photoshop.

To the left is an annotated screenshot of the effects of blur and using blur on our poster. We used blur to make the key aspects of the picture (titles, names and pictures are clearer and more prominant so they are the first thing that the audience sees and looks at on the poster. They can then also see  that they are an important part in the film.

We used media technologies to a large extent when making our film, but also a large amount of our planning also involved using media equipment such as digital cameras. We used digital cameras to take pictures of the different location so we can upload our location photos to the blog. We felt that location photos are a key part of our planning and preparation as they can show the audience what the different locations of our films will look like and how they relate to our film. New digital cameras are very high quality and give a high quality shot to our locations in our film.

Furthermore, we also used a sound recorder which we used both in the film itself when various sound wasn’t recorded properly or how we would have liked and to record a 30 second radio trailer. We found this to be a very effective piece of equipment, and even though we haven’t used one of these before, we found it incredibly easy to use. We then put the recorded sounds on GarageBand where we edited them and made them into a radio trailer.

Evaluation Question 3

Please click for a larger view.


To Summarise:

At the planning stage we did audience research by asking the public, particularly of our target audience (15-20 year olds) various questions about our film, in particular things such as what they think to our plot, story and what they think we should do that might improve our film. This was after we gave them various bits of information such as the story to the film and the script. We did this by sending about 10 people questions on the social networking site Facebook and evaluating the results that were sent back to us.  To thr right is a screenshot of the questions we sent to our audience.

The audience research was a success as many people who we asked questions to were interested in this genre of film and with the added twist at the end, they would be interested in seeing how the film pans out and how much it alters from films that are similar but don’t have this twist at the end. We took this feedback on board and the main point we took from the feedback is that the advertisements and overall story of the film needs to follow particular habits which are found in our genre of film although keep the twist at the end hidden until it actually happens. This means that it will be a surprise to the audience and will be more effective.

This obviously means that when we are filming and editing our film, we need to make sure that there are no obvious hints about what is about to happen later in the film to make it effective. As our film also has a lot of editing in it, with various shots such a split screen, and phone conversations which keep jumping from one person to another, it can get a little confusing for the audience if it is not edited and filmed properly, we made sure that we did this correctly and made sure the story made sense to the audience.

In addition to this, although the main character in the film is dead and this is the twist in the end shows that he is dead, you don’t actually see how he dies which means that it may be confusing for some of the audience to understand that he is actually dead. Originally we decided not to have the sound of a car crash when Ciaran disappears although after what we learned from audience feedback that it may be confusing if there is not a clear sign that Kieran is dead we decided to add it.

Another key piece of audience research that we picked up and we decided to take on board and changed our film massively was that the split-screen may not have worked to full effect. This was because we was originally because we wanted to have the entire film in split-screen although we had more than 2 characters, meaning that we would just have to sharply switch from one character to another, which would make it look slightly amateurish. We feel that just having split-screen now and again to show how similar the two characters are and for some phone conversations would work much better than having the entire film in split-screen.

We also felt that we wanted the audience to relate more to the main characters in the film, therefore we added more dialog and conversations between the characters to show what emotions they are going through.

Evaluation question 2

This is the link to my evaluation question 2 on SlideShare.
Evaluation question 2 link - SlideShare

Evaluation question 1

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

Our film generally follows a simple method in terms of the story telling and goes straight from start to end without any flashbacks or flash forwards, although the editing of the film means that our film may break away from conventions as we used a lot of editing which shows both characters at the same time on a split screen.
An example of shot-reverse-shot during a conversation in our film:



Shot-Reverse-shot



Our conventions of continuity worked and flowed throughout the film quite well and we thought our short film was smooth with no obvious cuts between characters or scenes. We also edited a lot of our film, in some parts when we were cutting between two scenes sharply and we put a black screen before we cut to a different scene. In addition to this, we used shot-reverse-shot which made the conversations between two of the characters, this makes the conversation between the two flow more naturally as you can see the facial expressions of both of the people having the conversation.

We also used a few close-ups in our film which we needed to edit correctly to make our film run smoothly, but they had the effect that they can give more of an indication into the emotions of our characters and writing on a note from Claire to Kieran. Here is a link to our film on YouTube:

Unforgettable YouTube Video Link

We use close ups in a significant amount between 3:06 and 3:15.

To the left is another screenshot towards the beginning of our film, it is a close up of both of the charaters when they are having a conversation over the phone to each other, this gives the audiene a view into how close the relationship is between the couple as you can see their facial expressions when they are talking to each other and shows how similar they are.

We believe our film takes a different approach to how these films normally lay out in terms of content, and is almost like two film genres rolled into one, one of these being a love genre and the other being disaster. Also as the film starts of as a generally happy and uplifting film which is the general convention of this type of genre, it quickly turns towards the end of the film which is why we think it goes against people’s expectations of what might happen in the film which will cause an element of surprise which is what we are going for. Our film and the plot could be considered in some ways, to the very successful film ‘Titanic’ which features two people in love and is a generally happy film throughout until the end where disaster strikes.

Our film follows the traditional genre of these types of films and several of our shots are split screens with Kieran on one half and Clare on the other doing the same thing, for example, one of these shots is where they are both walking past a fence and stroking their hand across it. We needed to make sure that both of the characters put their hand on the rail at the same time and in the same spot so that this particular ran smoothly and started and finished at the same time to each other because we are making the point across to the audience that the two characters are similar in many different ways, if they are not equal in this shot it can have a negative effect. A screenshot on this shot is above.

To ensure that the editting and cutting between two different shots was not noticable and to ensure smooth running we also tried to keep our characters in towards the centre of the picture when they are walking on themselves. This can be seen on the two screenshots above when Kieran is walking out of the house. Keeping the character in the centre of the screen ensures that it is not too noticable that there has been a cut in the shot and makes for a smooth running throughout the film.

There is not really any reference to any other films in our short film although the idea to use split screen came from another short film that we looked at during our research although we changed the method of this in many ways. We generally wanted to make our film unique and offer the audience something which they haven’t seen before in terms of the plot and the content of the film so we decided to try to keep away from using anything which may have been in another film.

We wanted our film to have a certain amount of audience pleasure because it breaks away from modern and general conventions, and we believe that it is an ‘old-school’ film in many ways where we let the disaster happen in the end unlike many modern films where the disaster doesn’t happen, we just let the film get on with it in some ways, which hopefully the audience wll have enjoyed as it doesn’t follow a normal plot and varies throughout the film.. This is why we took serious attention to the plot and script, because we didn't want to give anything away that there would be a twist at the end that breaks away from normal traditions of this type of film genre.

Critical Evaluation Question 4

Here is a powerpoint of the digital media which we used to help produce and edit our film. It shows both the digital hardware and digital software that we used in our production.

Critical evaluation question 4 how did you

View more presentations from stanleyladere.

Critical Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We first uploaded our video onto YouTube not long back. This was the incomplete version and was our target to gain some audience feedback on how we could improve upon our film in different ways relating from sound to different angles.

We responded to the comments made by the audience after their viewing of the initial video by adding some music to it to give it that little bit extra, as most of the feedback was about the lack of music on the video. The previous audience research that we had done prior to putting our video out there for feedback, was that we went round people and gathered primary research by asking them what they like in films and then what they liked about our film and how it could be changed as well as other questions related to this topic.

When we filmed and edited our film we made it apparent to the audience, using their feedback. The way we did this was to change the sequence of events around, so that the viewers could understand it more easily. The scene where the main character is looking at his girlfriend has been edited and moved near to the end of the film to give the audience a better idea of the events that caused this tragedy.

The audience responded to our film when we trialled it by providing us with positive feedback and how effective it was. The comments made by the viewers were very productive and let us know that nothing needed majorly changing with our short production. The film was interpreted differently by different people that watched it. Our film may have affected people of different cultures in certain ways. The reaction from people with different lifestyles and lifestyles similar to those in our film felt that the video related to them in one way or another.

The completed version after audience feedback is featured in the clip below.

Critical Evaluation Question 2

Here is the film poster for our A2 media production. As shown in the mind map above, the film has many attributes that mean it can relate to film posters from extremely successful films.

Below is the film poster for 2010 film 'Inception'. This is the main poster we based our design on. As you can see the title, movie quote and credits are all placed in similar positions to the ones on our poster. Both also feature big images as the background. The main difference is that the Inception poster is vertical, yet ours is horizontal. We chose to do it horizontally as it shows that the relationship of the two characters on each sie are being dragged apart, whereas the Inception poster follows the plot of the story as it's about going through levels of dreams which would be recognised as more vertical.

Critical Evaluation Question 1

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

Our media product uses forms of real life media products in various ways. The first thing that is similar to real media products that most people will pick up on is the different camera shots. These are done from different angles and really capture how one of the characters is feeling, may this be through facial expressions, posture or body language. The way the character on the right is walking up and down the room would signify a slight sign of anxiety. Another sign of anxiety can be sensed through an action that one character performs during the outdoor conversation. This occurs when the character puts his hand over his eye (below) after the other character in shot mentions about him driving home from a party - again this challenges conventions of those in real media products.

Our film develops conventions from our last media product, in the way it is edited. Last year we used a lot of fading in and fading out to cut between shots and scenes. This year we have developed this to make it look like it goes straight into the next shot or scene, This gives it more continuity in the sense that it gives the film a better flow.



The way the actual film runs from start to finish is quite similar to real life media products that are recently gaining popularity in the fact that the order of the film is different to the events that occurred in the film. Other factors that contribute to a lot of recent films which is challenged in our film is the use of split screen images. We use these to mix up our production and give it a bit more variety. In ways it also compares the two characters in shot's lifestyles. The shot shown below is one of a couple of split screen shots in our film.




We wanted to try and relate our film to the audience that view it so we didthis in as many ways as we could, but yet still trying to make the film effective. One section of the film - where Nick and Ciaran are conversing - is a section in which we thought the younger audience of whom our film is aimed at could relate to, as it refers to a party and going out and just having a good time. I feel that our film challenges conventions of real media products with the different range of shots that we use in our film. We have used a lot of close up shots to really capture important features like facial expressions and certain movements. Some are shown here:













The two shots that we captured here contrast in every way. They contrast in gender as one is male and the other is female. They contrast in moods as Ciaran's facial expression comes across as happy, whilst Claire's comes across as quite sad. They also contrast in the fact that one of these was shot before the incident, and the other was shot after the incident.

A3 Poster

Independent film distributor

Momentum Pictures- The first independent film distributor I have looked at is Momentum Pictures, this is one of the leading independent film distributors in the UK and Ireland and releases around 20 theoretical motion pictures a year. It was established in London in 2000 and is also known as Alliance films. Momentum's most successful films include the Oscar and BAFTA winning 'The King's Speech'. In February 2011, Momentum won 8 BAFTAs including Best Film and Best Actor for 'The King'sSpeech', and 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' won best film but not in the English language. These 8 BAFTAs were more than any other UK distributor. Upcoming films include 'The Woman in Black' which the main character is Daniel Radcliffe from the famous Harry Potter series. This is due to be released on February 10th 2012. They also use the Social Networking site Twitter to advertiseand give a feed out to their fans with information about their films and release dates. I think that this is a very good idea for an independentUK film distributor as it is very low-cost and easy to run but still branches out at millions of people around the world who are interested in films. Below is an examples of how they advertise and on twitter and what their profile is like. The site also gives links to another social networking site in Facebook so they can advertise on that as well and also a link to their full company website.

Entertainment film distributors- Entertainment film distributors is a british distributor of independent films in the UK and Ireland for various production companies, the company was formed in 1978. Entertainment films is also considered the UKs leading independent distributor. Notably between 1990 and 2010, Entertainment films distributed films made by New Line Cinema along with films from other independent production companies. This was until the distribution rights for New Line Cinema was folded into Warner Brothers in 2010 which is a massi

ve company and possibly, the best-known

in the film industry. The most notable film series to date is The Lord of the Rings trilogy which the first film of this series was made in 2001 and the last made in 2003 Entertainment Film Distributors operates both in the UK and the Republic of Ireland and distributes in theatrical, DVD rental and retail fields as well as licensing a substantial catalogue in both Pay-TV and Free-TV sectors. Since the Millennium, Entertainment's releases have totalled 38 Oscar wins and twenty-two BAFTAs. Notable films which have been distributed by Entertainment are Traffic, Brokeback Mountain, Million dollar baby and The Departed. This company has plenty of experience in distributing big name films with big name actors, as well as various series of films to small films.

What I also liked about Entertainment film distributors is that is tries a different approach to branch out and gives information to their fans on their official website through their 'film club'. This appeals to our group and film because it is a low-cost way of attracting new people to watch films and give information out to them about new films that are due to be released and their release dates. This simple approach could work extremely well for small independent UK films as they won't have to spend a high amount of money advertising their films to people.

Independent Distributors

For this part of the blog, I have decided to look at 6 different film distributors from the UK. The distributors that I have chose to have a quick look at are;

Momentum Pictures

StudioCanal UK

Dogwoof Pictures

Soda Pictures

Diffusion Pictures

Entertainment Film Distributors

Momentum Pictures

Momentum Pictures are a film distributor from the UK founded in London in 2000. Before getting popular as Momentum Pictures, they were known as Alliance Films UK. They release approximately 20 theatrical films a year and also have several STV releases each year. The most successful release by Momentum is 'The King's Speech' which won 7 awards at the 2011 BAFTAs. Other notable releases are Law Abiding Citizen, The Crazies and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

StudioCanal UK

Formerly known as Optimum Releasing, StudioCanal UK were founded in 1999 in London. When it first started off, Optimum was acquired by Vivendi SA, a French international media conglomerate and when they released films, they released them under four strands; Optimum Releasing (Theatrical new releases), Optimum Home Entertainment (DVD, blu-ray disc and HD DVD new releases), Optimum Classic (DVD re-releases of back catalogue films) and Optimum World (New and back catalogue world cinema). They also released over 200 films as Optimum, the most famous being Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Tyrannosaur.

Dogwoof Pictures

Dogwoof Pictures was founded in 2004 by Andy Whittaker and Anna Godas. The distributor is based in London. They originally planned on making foreign films, but have recently started making documentary films. The foreign films they first started of with were 'Don't Move' (Italian), 'Fateless' (Hungarian) and 'El Lobo' (Spanish) until they then moved on to documentary films. The most notable documentary film that they distributed was called 'Black Gold' which came out in 2006. This film was an insight into the inter

national coffee trade and its ramifications for the farmers who grow coffee.

Soda Pictures

Soda Pictures came about in 2002 and like most other UK distributors, is based in London. They have provided distribution for many award-winning films including 'Frostbite' which won best film at the Fantasporto Film Festival in Portugal in 2006.

Diffusion Pictures

Founded in late 2006, in London, Diffusion Pictures have only distributed a small number of films - 7 in total. These films are; Funny Ha Ha (2007), Mutual Appreciation (2007), Reprise (2007), The Boss of it All (2007), Bacon's Arena (2008), Gunnin For That #1 Spot (2008) and their latest release, Mommas' Man (2008). They also distributed a documentary on the life English philosopher, Francis Bacon.

Entertainment Film Distributors

Entertainment Film Distributors is a UK film distributor that was founded in 1978 in London. It's owned by Nigel Green. They have distributed several series films, the most notable of these being Lord of The Rings and Austin Powers trilogies. They have also distributed a lot of comedy films including The Inbetweeners Movie, Wedding Crashers, Run Fatboy Run, Little Nicky and all of the Rush Hour movies. Directors of films that were distributed by EFD have included award winning Peter Jackson. Actors have included Rowan Atkinson, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

Location Photos

1st shot - Ciaran's Bedroom:

2nd shot - Stairs and hallway out of Ciaran's house:

3rd Shot - Ciaran's door and drive:

4th Shot - Ginnel where Ciaran walks down and the fence both Claire and Ciaran put their hands on:

5th Shot - Lampost at the end where Claire drops the note:

This is also part of the final shot where there is a lamppost and the street where Claire walks down:

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing plays a big part of advertising films in today's age. It can be passed around from person to person and can spread, like a virus. If this is done well, or done excessively, then this may create a real hype for the film in question. Viral marketing does not cost very much either, unlike other sources of advertising (TV, Radio, etc.)

Here is a picture that basically shows how viral marketing and advertising works. One person tells others, they tell others they know and so on until it has spread to thousands of people.

A film that used viral marketing was 'Cloverfield' which came out in 2008. The film was first publicised with a one-and-a-half-minute teaser trailer attached to the film Transformers. Nothing was known about the film before this trailer. The trailer did not advertise the name of the film; only the producer's name, J.J. Abrams and a release date, 18.01.08. An element of viral marketing included pages being created for fictional characters on the social networking site MySpace. The viral marketing also lead to websites being created for fictional companies that were later alluded to in the film.

Another film that used viral marketing to their advantage and gained plenty of advertisement was the 2008 film 'Shifty'. Just before the film was released the website for the film allowed users to send an e-mail with a friend's face attatched to a person in a photo which is meant to be from the police. The photo is two people who appear to be doing a drug deal. The person who receives the e-mail is supposed to be fooled in to thinking that they have been caught dealing drugs by the police. The e-mail also came with the following warning: "If you fail to respond to this e-mail within seven days of receipt please be aware that this will then become an official matter and there will be a strong likelihood of criminal investigation". This fits in well as the film in question is about a drug deal. The image below shows what users could send to their friends or family.

Another form of viral advertising , from 2007, was done by Portuguese football club Sporting Lisbon in an attempt to raise season ticket sales. Before the start of the 07/08 season, a video was integrated into the club's website. Before the video started playing, the user had to enter his name and phone number into the boxes. The video featured then coach Paulo Bento and the players waiting in the changing room while the coach makes a phone call to the user saying that they can't start the season until he buys a season ticket. The synchronisation between video and phone call and the fact that it was a new experience for the user lead to nearly 200,000 page views and phone calls in less than 24 Hours. Here is the link to the video.

Genre Research

Our film is a Romantic Drama. This is a very unique style of film as the love side of the story particularly in our film is very hard hitting and dramatic. as this is very unique to our film i am going to look at drama's as a whole. Drama films are made to put viewers in the spot of the characters so that they feel the pain and suffering of the character like Claire at the end of our film, or the joy of someone as seen with the mexican man realising his daughter is alive as seen in the film i'm going to use as an example of a drama film. Crash is a film about several stories that interweave during two days in Los Angeles involving a collection of inter-related characters, a police detective with a drugged out mother and a thieving younger brother, two car thieves who are constantly theorizing on society and race, the white district attorney and his irritated and pampered wife, a racist white veteran cop (caring for a sick father at home) who disgusts his more idealistic younger partner, a successful Hollywood director and his wife who must deal with the racist cop, a Persian-immigrant father who buys a gun to protect his shop, a Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter who is afraid of bullets, and more. this story is a great drama as it is very hard hitting throughout and with the interweaving storyline keeps the audience interested. This is a very good example of a hard hitting drama that interweaves love, pain and happiness. The scene below is with the Hispanic locksmith and the Persian man from the store and shows the daughter of the locksmith being shot but the shocking twist at the end is just like our movies ending with the audience realising Ciaran is dead. As the film is copyrighted i can only link the scene with the web link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9vg4TjX5HI

Poster Analysis

I looked at several poster designs in preparation for designing a poster for our own film. The posters I looked at reflected our own film in some way, shape or form. We have to make sure our poster doesn't give away too much of our film because it's only a short 5 minute film.

The first poster I looked at was for the film 'Adulthood'. The form of the poster is landscape which shows a wider image. This could be saying that there is a wide range of races, sexualites, etc. The poster shows the main characters of the cast set out along an urban background, which is identical to where our film is set. The characters look very intimidating, especially the guy at the front. His head tilted up, hoodie up shows he is quite a rough character. He also looks like the leader with him being at the front of the gang. The girl in the pink tracksuit looks like she is trying to fit in with the rest with the way she is posed, whereas the other two girls are posed in a feminine way. The sky is not an ordinary sky blue colour. The combination of yellow and orange in the sky shows that there could be a lot of chaos throughout the film and that not everything is going to be simple. The title has a lower case 'd' in it. This could be to symbolise that there is an obscurity in the gang and signify that not everyone plays by the rules which would be key to the arguments which entail in the film.

Another film poster which I analysed was the film for the 1997 drama film 'Titanic'. It is a portrait which emphasises the size of the ship on the poster. This also emphasises the size of the terror that the characters will encounter. The poster is set out with two characters at the top of the poster. This gives you the idea that they are the two main characters. It also shows you that the film is a romantic film. You can tell this from the posture of the two characters and how DiCaprio has got his arm round Winslet. Just above each of the character's heads you can see their name. This may draw the audience in if they know who is in the film. Despite the disaster that occurs in the film, the sky is a nice light blue which gives off a positive vibe. This is a good little twist. Another twist, referring back to the two characters, shows them in the sky fading in a dream-like way. Yet in the film, it unravels to be nothing like a dream, but a nightmare. The title is in white and stands out against the black ship. The font is smart and classic which reflects the time period of which it was filmed in.