Production Meeting

Production meeting	Date	What happened
1	1-10-2010	We got together in our groups after doing planning and research, to pitch our potential film ideas. We put our ideas on slide shows and produced spider diagrams.
2	4-10-2010	After choosing which film idea we were going to use, we constructed a questionnaire to find out who our target audience would be, we handed these out around the class and to teachers and people in the street.
3	6-10-2010	We collated the information that we gathered on our target audience and put the information into graphs and analysed them. This gave us a greater understanding of our target audience.
4	11-10-2010	This session was based solely on the sound side of our production so we did some minor sound research, then we looked into different tracks that we could have to be the backing track to our film.
5	13-10-2010	After narrowing our song choices down we chose the one which we felt to be best suited to our film and the one that gave us most freedom when filming.
6	15-10-2010	This session was spent drafting emails and letters we could send to the producers of the song we chose to enable us to get permission to use their song.
7	18-10-2010	After sending the letters and emails we did some research into the band we chose history to enable us to get a better understanding for them and what there about.
8	20-10-2010	For our actors to get a better knowledge of the characters they were playing we produced mood boards for them so they could get a glimpse of the characters life.
9	22-10-2010	This lesson was spent analysing our chosen lyrics.
10	25-10-2010	We linked constructionist theorists to our own short film.
11	27-10-2010	During this meeting we sat down and began the scripting for our short film project.
12	29-10-2010	We finished off our scripting and added the final touches to it. We then began to draw out the story board for our film so we had an idea of what each shot was going to look like.
13	1-11-2010	Finished storyboard.
14	3-11-2010	From researching into shooting scripts we had a better understanding of what needed to be in it, so we started our own.
15	5-11-2010	Finished shooting script.
16	8-11-2010	Write up equipment check list and see what’s required.
17	10-11-2010	Location recce with risk assessment.
18	12-11-2010	Plan production schedule with our actors, and write up call sheet.
19	15-11-2010	Filming started.
20	17-11-2010	Filming
21	19-11-2010	Filming
22	20-112010	Filming finished
23	22-11-2010	Capture
24	24-11-2010	Start editing
25	26-11-2010	Editing
26	29-11-2010	Editing finished
27	1-12-2010	Write up edit decision list with print screens of the editing process.
28	3-12-2010	Finished edit decision list.
29	6-12-2010	Ancillary tasks- research poster
30	8-12-2010	Ancillary task- photo shoot of main character and editing of photos.
31	10-12-2010	Create poster and write small evaluation of poster.
32	13-12-2010	Research and analyse film reviews.
33	15-12-2010	Draft our own first review then start final one.
34	Christmas holidays	Finish final review and evaluate.
35	Christmas holidays	Writing our own individual evaluations
36	Christmas holidays	Finishing evaluations
37	Christmas holidays	Create PowerPoint to present to class.
38	5-01-2011	Present evaluation to class.

As a group we were both present for all the meetings.

Evaluation Slideshow presented to the class

Evaluation

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Evaluation

A short film is a motion picture that is shorter than the average feature film in today’s society. Short films vary from 2 minutes to 30minutes. They can include all different genres and sometimes be a lot more direct as they are so much shorter. From my foundation portfolio in As I have learnt a lot of new skills and used them to inform my A2 production.  What I feel I have learnt from my As portfolio to my A2 portfolio is how much research has to be done and the huge input it can have on my final production from the project. In my A2 coursework I have made sure that all my research links to my production and has a good effect on it. For example using features from other short films I researched and following theories from narrative theory studies.

Research into similar texts guided and influenced my choices by a huge amount. When doing my own research on different successful short films it gave me a lot of ideas about different narratives and how many messages can be sent across in a short film in such a small amount of time. The genre of the short film is a hard decision as it determines your target audience and all the genre conventions which should be included. As a group we looked into sound a lot and how it must link in with our target audience of the short film we planned to produce. We knew more about our audience through doing some research in to huge blockbusters such as Titanic and Dirty Dancing and excelled from this through doing an audience survey which I think helped us a lot. From our audience survey we collated the results and put them into pie charts so that we could see which audience to aim towards. We found that the majority of under twenty year olds that filled out our survey enjoyed watching romance films more than any other genres, we also found that romance is still a popular genre with all other ages and therefore we will aim our film towards under 20’s with the use of sound but we also wanted our short film to appeal to all ages. This influenced our choices as to which music to use in the short film and the meaning that these lyrics would have behind the overall storyline.

Matthew and I applied the form of a short story to our product as it is extremely short and uses techniques such as music, short takes and fast edits to keep the audience engaged throughout the five minutes. The short film is direct and snappy which works well in such a short product. Aspects of other texts influenced our production by a huge amount, our individual research supports our short film and by looking into the plan of our production in detail has helped a huge amount. I feel this is what I was lacking in my foundation piece of coursework and the difference shows in my A2 coursework folder.

Overall I am extremely happy with our production and I think it is successful. The research into 11 other short films looking at micro and macro elements helped me a lot as I tried to make a successful short film, I took elements from a lot of them which influenced my final edit.  I found it hard to come up with four ideas generations and therefore decided to come up with four completely different ideas which all had advantages and disadvantages. When choosing one of the ideas generations to develop I found it easier when I had all the ideas in a spider diagram. As I wanted my short film to develop from my foundation piece of coursework I decided to research storyboards, scripts, shot lists and shooting rushes in order to make mine the best possible. In my advanced portfolio I also found that looking at narrative constructionists helped me form a professional short film which includes expected conventions. When going into my group we found it easy to pick the idea ‘The Dream’ as although Matthews was also good we thought it would be too complex to film in the time span we had. Having done audience research, sound research and research into the two of our characters we knew exactly what it was that we wanted to produce. Furthermore by doing the script, shooting and storyboard we knew every small detail of what we wanted when we filmed. As we found our self’s organised we are both happy with the final outcome, if I was to change anything I would have liked to of looked into the ancillary tasks a little more and given ourselves more time towards the end of the project.

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

We used many different media technologies in order to create the best possible short film we could. We used a VX2200camera to film our short film which enabled us to use effects such as manual focus, a zoom ring and white balance. We then captured our rushes and edited our short film using movie maker as we had problems using adobe premier pro and we were both experienced in used movie maker. When editing we created a rough edit before making our final cut, we used a lot of effects when editing which makes the short film flow and helps the audience define between the main character in the future and the past. When editing we added a soundtrack which flows with the short film and helps keep the audience even more engaged. We had no problems apart from editing when using adobe premier pro.

Evaluation- What have you learned from your audience feedback?

As a group we found the audience research one of the most important parts of making a successful short film. We started by looking at two successful romance blockbuster films, including Titanic and Dirty Dancing. When looking at these films we found the films appealed to all ages as everyone can relate to them in some way. We then went onto looking at elements that all ages like. One of the main things which helped us in our research was doing an audience survey which gave us results influencing the sound we used in our final product. We created characters so that the audience can identify with them, our aim was for people to identify with the young girl ‘Livy’ and see how she has grown up with a dream and grown up so fast. We feel that the audience are able to identify with her as we see her at two ages with the young man ‘Matt’, showing all her emotions. The genre becomes extremely obvious at the beginning as ‘Matt’ asks ‘Livy’ to marry him showing it is a romance.

Evaluation- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of our main product and the ancillary tasks are extremely effective. For our poster we researched posters from successful blockbuster films which come from the romance genre and have taken elements which show up in each one for our own poster for example the red hints in the photographs of the poster to symbolise love. If we were to use the poster we have produced to advertise our product I think it would be extremely successful as it is made apparent straight away that it is a romance and introduces the audience to the main character. For the film review we analysed a selection of film reviews and looked at different elements they include, from this we were able to create a review for our own short film, this is the only part of the project which I wished I had left more time for.

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

In our production of ‘The Dream’ we have challenged the conventions of both a short film and a music video to create a new style of short film which includes music within it. We have followed the conventions of a short film in the way that it follows the conventions of a well known genre (romance) and it is extremely direct. The music track is used primarily to add meaning to the image. We have done this as it is slightly different and fun and we personally think it will target a larger audience.

Short Film Review

Short Film Review

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