Greg's Evaluation Q3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 



Early on in the pre production stage, we created a short list of questions we wanted to ask our audience which concerned some of our early ideas for the short film. Sofia then went around the college and recorded a few friends answering these questions. She then compiled the footage into this video:

From this feedback, we learned that:

• The title (we had at the time) was effective because it is short, easy to remember and it tells people what the film is about clearly.
• If people were to watch our film, they would expect lots of intense scenes, and a creepy, unsettling tone to the short film, with lots of blood. They also expect lots of mystery in close ups, extreme long shots and low-key lighting.
• Our antagonist should wear dark clothing of the era we set our film in (modern) that will conceal his identity and make him more intimidating.
• People seem keen to watch our short film from what we had told them. This tone and genre we are trying to replicate is something they already enjoy and they seem intrigued by our story and how it's based of Jack the Ripper

 

We felt that we had to change our title because it lacked originality, it gave away too much and there is already a film that exists called 'The Ripper'. We decided to change the title to Exhibit J, which resembles how evidence is labelled at a crime scene (Exhibit A, Exhibit B etc).

 

We also had to change the name of the murderer from Jack the Ripper as that was also unoriginal. We changed the name to J, as it's short, enigmatic and links to the title.

 

We had to get more audience feedback on the title and name, and from this new feedback, we found that.

• The name J is short but effective and mysterious, as it gives away nothing of the murderer's identity
• The title is also quite effective and clever in the way it links to the villain's name.



A month or two later, we completed the short film and Sofia and I posted our short film onto Facebook and encouraged our friends to give us some feedback from the film. Everyone that viewed our short film seemed to really like the film, my post got  6 likes and Sofia's got 7 likes, there was also some very positive comments on Sofia's post.

However, that's as far as we got for feedback from our short film. None of the comments that we received were very constructive, so we couldn't learn anything from it. If I was to do this another time, I would make sure I receive some constructive comments I can use for referral.

After the short film, we made our posters. Sofia posted the posters to Facebook as we knew we could get lots of good feedback from her posts compared to mine. This is the feedback we got from Sofia's post (I've hidden comments that didn't give us anything useful):

From this feedback, we learned that:

• Our posters do convey a creepy kind of tone with the images we used and the lighting on those pictures
• Most people are saying that Sofia's poster is better for setting a creepy tone and creating the atmosphere we want to create, but Callum's poster is better for giving the viewer information about the film.
• One person recommended that we should use Sofia's poster design with the tagline from Callum's poster if we wanted perfect Exhibit J poster.

Greg's Evaluation Q2

How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

During our Foundation Portfolio, we created a short film, a poster and a review for Little White Lies magazine. In this post I will look at how these products work together to create a successful marketing campaign.

We decided in research and planning that our short film will be targeted at young adult males aged 15 and over. We had to reflect this not only with our main product but our ancillary tasks as well

 

 

Our short film can be marketed in a few different ways:

 

• Social media - This marketing method works with our product well because our target audience, young adult  males aged 15 and over, use social media websites like Facebook and Twitter more than most other demographics. 
• Word of mouth - The most basic way of spreading word, approaching persuading people to watch your short film isn't the quickest way to get your film out there. But people you tell enjoy the film, they could tell other people, which can slowly gain local recognition.
• Free insert in newspaper or magazine - a more expensive (but effective) way to market the film, we could give out free copies of the film in newspapers, which could give the film national recognition. Our target audience doesn't read newspapers as much as other demographics, so our short film might not appeal to those who do read newspapers, which is the issue with this method.
• Film festivals - entering the film into a film festival can get the film even wider recognition as we are putting the short film up for lots of people to see

 

The Poster:

The poster is very important because it is what can attract or repel potential viewers to your short film. Our poster needed to be both informative for anyone looking at the poster and visually attractive for those viewers, especially to young adult males aged 15 and over.

We wanted our poster to convey to audiences what genre the film is and hint at what the plot could be.

Our short film is a thriller. This is clearer on the poster Sofia and I made, which has a masked face in low key lighting. This creates enigma (a main thriller convention), as the audience will question who the masked man is.

The other poster Callum made is better at giving the audience hints at what the plot could be. The poster shows our protagonist and antagonist in the middle of the poster (Neeson on the left, J on the right), looking away from each other. There is also a tagline that says 'the finest detective, against the finest killer'. This tells the audience that this film is about a detective on the hunt for a serial killer.

Both posters use a lack of colours, the only colours used are black, white, some red and a

Linked with film:

We link the poster to our short film mainly by showing the main character(s) of the short film on our poster. In Callum's poster, we have an image of Neeson taken straight from our short film.

What we didn't do, though looking back I think we should've done, was make the title font of our short film the same as the title font for our posters. It would've made the link between the short film and the poster clearer to the audience.
 

The Review:

Reviews are hard to market your product with because in real life, you have no control over what the review will say; what we said in the review we made was our own opinions. Our target audience of young adult males aged 15 and over are unlikely to read magazines like Little White Lies, but this can appeal to other demographics.

If the review is overall positive about Exhibit J, we can use it as a marketing tool. Our short film could also appeal to those who read LWLs. LWLs readers are mainly aged between 25 and 35, and they work in media or graphic design, or they are general film fanatics. It will also create a lot of hype around the film if the review is good, as people will think 'If the critics like the film, then we might like it too'.

However, if the review is negative about the film, we can't use it as a marketing tool. If we were to use it, it will put most of our potential viewers off our film, and the hype around our film will vanish. Those film fanatics and media or graphic design workers aged between 25 and 35 will not watch our film. We would have to resort to other marketing strategies that would appeal to other demographics (students or working class adults etc).

How the review WE did links to the film/poster:

As all Little White Lies reviews do, we have used a screenshot from the film to put at the top of the review. The picture of Neeson we used was also used in one of the posters, which created synergy between the poster and the review. We also used a quote from the review in our posters, or we tried to. I believe we changed our review a lot, the quotes on the posters are inaccurate now.

Greg's Evaluation Q4

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

Here is the Prezi I made for this question:

Greg's Evaluation Q1

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

Short films have to have a clear equilibrium, disruption and resolution in a space of time shorter than that of a full length film. To get around this, they have to change how genre conventions are used. This is what we tried to do with our short film. We wanted to take the conventions of a thriller genre and change the way they are used to make an exciting and thrilling film that only lasts 5 minutes. We looked at a few other short films to see what they did to make these short films interesting.

THE MAIN PRODUCT

Narrative

In researched short films

Narratives in short films are not at all complex; they don't have time to be complex. All the short films we saw had a very clear beginning, middle and end. They also lacked sub-plots, there is only one story going on in the film.

Todorov's 5 narrative stage are easily applied to the short films I saw. For example, the short film Silent Things had a clear:

• Equilibrium: The start of the film when the world the characters live in is 'normal'. The two friends in Silent Things are flying a kite on the beach in the equilibrium
• Disruption: An event that takes place that causes the world to lose equilibrium, and the characters, or protagonist, have to resolve the problem. The little girl that the man meets on the beach causes the disruption in Silent Things, as she gets in the way of the man and woman's friendship.
• Confrontation: How the protagonist attempts to make things right. This takes up the majority of a feature film, but it's harder to see a confrontation in some short films. In Silent Things, I believe it's when the woman goes to the dock and tries to get to her friend who is having a panic attack.
• Resolution: When the disruption is dealt with, like when an antagonist is defeated. We don't see the resolution in Silent Things, but I believe it would've been when the girl leaves without the man, and when the friends patch things up between them.
• New Equilibrium: The very end of the film, when the world the characters live in returns to a normal (or slightly different) equilibrium. The scene at the end of Silent Things is very similar to the scene in the opening; the two friends are flying a kite on the beach

I also noticed that the short films I saw had little or no dialogue, allowing for the visuals to tell the story. Black Hole is an example of a short film that used no dialogue, but the camerawork and mise en scene made it clear that the story was about a man in a boring office that finds a mysterious piece of paper.

A few short films used restricted narration. Lovefield used restricted narration; throughout the story we believe we are following a murderer trying to dispose of a body. However, at the resolution, we find out that the man was helping a woman give birth.

In our short film

Our short film, Exhibit J, is about Detective Neeson trying to find the serial killer J. The way we told our story meant that Todorov's theory can't be applied to it. With Todorov's Theory, the story looks like this:

• Equilibrium: Exhibit J doesn't have an equilibrium. We felt that putting the viewer straight into the disruption would ensure the viewer is interested from the start, and we didn't have time to build up to the serial killer's first murder.
• Disruption: The start of our short film, we see flashes of J near different locations (where the murders happened), in front of an evidence board, which shows the victims.
• Confrontation: The confrontation is our whole short film; the detective visits two locations trying to find and capture J. In the first location, J escapes, but kills the detectives sidekick in the process. In the second location, Neeson finds J and a chase ensues. 
• Resolution: The resolution doesn't resolve anything, because J isn't brought down. Instead, the detective is stabbed and killed by J.
• New Equilibrium: Exhibit J doesn't have a new equilibrium either. Instead the world of Exhibit J is even worse than before, now the detective responsible for finding the serial killer has been killed.

There is a lot of restricted narration, as you would expect with a thriller piece. We don't find out about the serial killer's identity, nor do we find out what happens after Neeson is killed; the story ends when he dies.

One issue we did have with the narrative was the amount of dialogue used. Looking back, it might have been possible to use less dialogue than what we actually used. The opening minute of the short film has too much dialogue for my liking. Fortunately the rest of the short film has very little dialogue, as we let the visuals explain themselves.

Genre

In researched short films

Short films can sometimes be difficult to pin a regular genre on (comedy, romance etc). They don't tend to use conventions of a genre normally.

The Last 3 Minutes is an example of a short film that doesn't conform to a single genre. It's not a thriller, because it lacks suspense and mystery, nor is it a comedy as a story about a man dying isn't very funny. However it does have some romance in it (his love life), but also some action (his time in the war), but not enough to pin the film to either genre.

The genre theory of repetition and variation comes to mind. Short films include different conventions from different genres, and these conventions combine together to make new conventions, like chemistry.

One convention to come out of this for short films was the use of little  or no dialogue. Lovefield, The Fly, The Last 3 Minutes and Black Hole are some of many short films to use less than 10 words in the whole short film.

In our short film

Unlike most short films, our short film genre is quite clearly a thriller. We use lots of thriller conventions, like suspense and mystery. Mystery is used in our piece through J, who we never know the identity of in the film, nor do we know why he murders.

We build suspense in the final scene with the foley we hear of a woman screaming, Neeson finds the warehouse and the body inside it. This builds tension as the body indicates that J is close and that they may be about to meet and fight.

Characters

In researched short films

The characters in short films are mostly very simple characters. There isn't any time for character development or backstory in a short film, so they save time by making most of the characters in short films quite relatable.

For example, the lead from Black Hole starts the film off as a man working in an office. We can see from his facial expression and body language that he is tired of his job, which is something lots of people can relate to.

Also, the main character in the short film iThoughts is a young, shy boy who is struggling to find the courage to talk to a girl, and the thoughts in his head show self-deprecating comments. This is relatable to some youngsters who have a crush on someone, and hate themselves for not being able to talk to him/her.

In our short film

We tried to make our main character Detective Neeson relatable to people who are dedicated to their work. All we see Neeson do in this film is work, we don't know about his family or any of his past times. Like the short films we saw, we don't give him backstory as we didn't have time for it.

J, the antagonist, is not relatable at all. But we tried to make him more interesting by adding enigma to his character. He wears all black and a mask, which hides his identity and adds a sense of mystery to him.

 

Mise en Scene

In researched short films

Because short films tend to use less dialogue than normal films, they rely more on the mise en scene to tell the story. Some pieces of mise en scene have lots of meaning, and in some short films, a single prop can be a very vital part of the story.

In The Last 3 Minutes, the old man's life flashes before his eyes as he looks through a crystal. You can tell the crystal means a lot to the man because he grasps it when he starts having a heart attack, and we see that he's had it since birth, when he was given the crystal as a baby.

The kite in Silent Things is a symbol or peace or normality, because the man flies the kite before meeting the girl (the disruption) and after she leaves, but not while they're 'friends'. Also, there's the hole in Black Hole, which I believe symbolized responsibility, because the man used the hole irresponsibly, and he paid the price.

In our short film

There is one piece of mise en scene we used with importance was J's murder weapons. We use a murder weapon twice, both where the murders took place. We did this to show the audience how brutal the murders were (hammers and screwdrivers aren't exactly sharp), and how elusive J is, because a good murderer would hide the weapon, but J leaves his weapon at the scene with no evidence of his identity (like he's vanished)

We also put meaning into the clothes the main characters wear. Neeson is wearing a suit, which shows us how committed he is to his work compared to his colleagues, who are all (except Jess) wearing casual or scruffy outfits, which shows us how little they care for their work.

J wears all black and a mask, which creates enigma for the character. The mask we use is also used in V for Vendetta and originally represented Guy Fawkes. This makes the character more intimidating, as Guy Fawkes was evil and the V for Vendetta guy was very brutal and extreme.
 

Sound

In researched short films

Short films I have seen don't use a lot of important sound techniques to help tell the story. Most short films I have seen use only diegetic ambient sound and a non-diegetic soundtrack, with a little bit of dialogue.

For example, The Fly only has some dialogue at the start, and the rest of the film is a man in a car trying to kill a fly. There is no non-diegetic soundtrack, there is only ambient sound and some foleys of a fly buzzing around, which is the disruption.

Black hole is a short film that's sound is only taken up by ambient office sounds and the vibration foleys from the hole when the worker uses it. Post It Love's sound editing also only consists of only ambient sound, a non-diegetic soundtrack and some foleys that fill in gaps

In our short film

Throughout Exhbit J, there is always a non-diegetic soundtrack to cover the silence. We don't have a lot of ambient sound, although there is some in places in between bits of dialogue.

One of the most important foleys we used are the scream foleys we used. They indicate that something bad has happened (J strikes again). We also used foleys for some of J's footsteps, like when he murders Officer Jess and also the message alert when J messages a clue to Neeson.

Editing

In researched short films

Some short films use more interesting editing techniques. Some short films, like Lovefield and Post It Love, only use titles and cuts between shots, which is the basic way of threading the plot together.

Black Hole uses some high-level editing when the worker uses the hole. His hand seems to vanish when he puts it inside the hole. They use some very refined split-screening technique to do this.

iThoughts used an interesting editing technique in the short film. There were lots of titles, but the titles move around and distort a lot, which shows us the main character is trying to compose thoughts, but struggles because of the girl. 
In our short film

We don't use many interesting editing techniques in Exhibit J, we main use cuts and titles to tell the story. The most interesting editing technique we use is the flashing of the murderer used at the beginning and end of the piece, which involved quick cuts between J and the evidence board.

THE POSTER

Posters I have researched

For our poster we had to research 2 types of poster: Thriller posters and short film posters.

Most thriller posters I saw followed the same kind of formula. They each had a black background and two pictures that hint at what the plot could be, the title in between those images, in white or red and in a no-nonsense font or a font that looks like it's been written in blood. Also in between the pictures, but just above the title, was the name of the actor that played the lead

At the bottom of the of poster is where you'd find the credit block and any other information (in white). The release date is included in the information in a different colour (normally red), so it stands out and makes the date seem dangerous. Above the information is a tagline that also gives the audience an idea of the plot and also hooks the viewer. Shutter Island is an example of a film poster that follows this formula.

Short film posters are more simple than thriller posters, as there is less budget and less to attract the audience to. Short film posters use one image that takes up the whole poster instead of two, and the title is usually in the middle, but can be placed at the top as well. They also don't give us the name of the actor who played the lead.

The credit block is still at the bottom, except there is usually less information. There is no release date as most of these short films are released online, and there is rarely a tagline used.

Our poster

We decided to try and merge these two genres of poster into one. With have two short film posters, and they both follow similar conventions.

They both have a single image, one of the posters has an image of J taking up the middle of the poster in front of a black background, and the other image takes up the whole poster. Both posters have the title near the lower middle of the poster, and both have the credit block at the bottom of the poster.

I feel this combination of poster genres worked out well, as the end result seemed to create a poster that both informs and attracts potential viewers to the short film, and we ended up with a final result which created the tone we wanted to create for our poster.

Final Review Layout

The Evaluation!

Q4) How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? 

I have created a presentation on Prezzi to display the technologies that I have used during the coursework from research and planning to editing. 

https://prezi.com/u3bfr4mkwncg/media-technology/#

Q3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

   During all the stages of the coursework, we really tried to focus on audience feedback as this is crucial in creating a successful short film. There were many ways that I displayed our audience feedback on the blog from video footage to a standard blog format. 

      Research&Planning

         During the research and planning stage we ensured to ask our target audience a variety of questions so that we could produce an effective film that will attract the right age group. The target audience includes young adults from ages 15+. The main reason for this is because when receiving audience feedback it was easily accessible as we can ask people at college with no difficulty. In addition, the topic and atmosphere within our short film is quite mature as there are many complex scenes and it is quite a serious, thrilling short film. As young adults, many will be able to understand the storyline and find it fascinating because of the modern twist. The actors we have used are at a similar age to the audience which allows the demographic to relate to the characters. One of the locations we used was Brighton which is a well known area within the youn-

ger generation and it is a very popular place to visit with friends and family. This will shock the audience and possibly cause them to fear the area. As we began to come up with a basic idea for the short film, I asked many peoples opinion which is shown in the video above where I asked questions about Jack the Ripper, costumes and music. I edited and filmed the audience feedback video and made sure to ask media students as they are aware of key terms and have some good ideas. As you can see in the screenshots on the right, there are a variety of posts based on the audience feedback we have received from the research and planning section. Once we came up with a secure idea, we needed to think of title and some more ideas about the villain. We received some great ideas about the title and the villain which really helped us to shape the characters. I had a rough idea of calling the villain "J" which was simple and enigmatic. The audience ask themselves, "Who is this character?'" and "What does the letter stand for?" 

I asked some members of the audience these questions:

 Bethany - "I really like the new name of the villain because it is very mysterious and I want to find out who J is. I also think that the title is effective and I will definitely remember it."

Kyle - "The name "J" is simple but really effective because it can mean absolutely anything which makes the audience wonder what it stands for. The title is really clever and connects with the name of the villain."

Finn - "Thriller is my favourite genre of film because it really grabs the audience so I think that the name is very original and does not give away who the villain is. The name of the villain shows that he  is a copy cat of the real Jack The Ripper but is a modern interpretation."

After we researched a variety of short films and planned in detail (storyboards, animatics and equipment/editing practice) I decided to take a trip to Brighton for the evening and film some location ideas in the lanes and on the dark, eerie beach. In addition, I edited all the footage together and inserted some music in the background to make it more entertaining for the blog. I prefer to show my findings in a video format rather than a standard blog as its far more interesting watch and more useful in creating ideas. The video shows me filming around the area in the afternoon as it was beginning to get dark which is the time we were going to be filming. I showed some of the audience this video as well as my group and they all shared great comments based on the fact that Brighton is a great location for a thriller based on a mysterious murderer as it is so unusual and well known within the country. 

 Filming&Editing

This stage was crucial for receiving audience feedback as this was the footage that would be in our short film. We had to film effective shots to entice the demographic. Firstly, I created a video which included examples of raw footage which we were unsure about so we thought we would ask the audience. I asked many peers at college as they are of the right age group. Many were in favour of the chase scene footage, they believed it really captured the mood and made them feel anxious. In addition, the last scene of the Inspector dying is really effective as it may be gruesome but it is a typical convention of the thriller genre because it portrays death and danger. 

Social Networking 

During filming and editing, social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were important throughout. It is an easy way to ask the audience what they think and for their opinions as we can screenshot them and put them straight on the Blog as evidence. Nearly everyone has a social media account on their smartphones or computers so can access the questions and videos I uploaded easily. Also, when coming to advertising our short film we would use social media as a base for all our rates and reviews. Short films need to be advertised online as they do not have the budget to show in cinemas or on TV. They rely on film festivals and the Internet to create an interest around the film for free. 
Final Product 

Once we completed all the stages and our short film was finished to a high standard, I uploaded it to Facebook and Youtube in order to get some final feedback and see if our target demographic like it and find it interesting. We received more than 100 views on the film and many likes on FB. I did not only show young teenagers (ages 15+) but I also showed some family members of an older age such as my parents. Everyone I showed seemed to really like it and couldn't believe that a group of college students could come up with such an original idea and portray a sense of suspense and enigma at the same time. 

Review&Film Poster
I really enjoyed creating our review and film poster as it showed a different side to my creativity skills within media. I believe that audience feedback was equally as important for the ancillary tasks as the film poster has to grab the audiences attention and make then want to watch our short film. We needed to reach out to our target demographic so that they could give us some good feedback for our posters and we wanted to know what they'd like to see on it. Firstly, Greg, Callum and I needed to create a poster each so then we could decide which one was most effective. Once we created the posters, we asked our class members which poster they believed was the best and they decided that Callum's was great because of the innovative lighting and original ideas. We all agreed about this but we thought that we could somehow use my poster and Greg's ideas to make another poster. The poster I came up with uses dark lighting and a really simple image in the centre of the poster which is faded out to create enigma and mystery around the character. I used Greg's ideas of the names of the actors and the reviews. Facebook was a key site during this period as I posted the two posters online and got some great feedback. For example, we received positive comments about the lighting and the fact that the posters don't give away too much about our short film. But just enough information is given for the audience to want to watch more. 
As you can see below, I created a post on Facebook, with a link to the blog,  asking the audience to give some constructive criticism on the posters. We learnt a lot from this as we found out that the audience seemed to like both our posters and they would definitely want to watch the short film which is on Youtube and the Blog.

The next stage was to create the film review for Little White Lies. I have previously created reviews during GCSE English and media so had a good idea on how to write one. With the help of the staff too we learnt how to write a review in the Little White Lies house style. Once we came up with the review, which Greg and I worked on together, we needed to create the layout. The layout was quite straight forward to achieve as we had specific measurements etc. I decided to print the review out and give it to the demographic to read as I did not want to post this on Facebook as I believe it should be read on a paper format. In addition, I created a questionnaire with only 3 questions. We received comments such as..

 "I loved reading your review, it made me want to watch the short film." 
"The language used was easy to understand and quite humorous."
"The image definitely didn't give too much away but it helped to introduce one of the characters." 
"I actually read Little White Lies and believe this sounded like one of the reviews, good job."

1) Did you find our review interesting to read? 
2) Do you believe the language used is appealing to our target audience?
3) What do you think of the image we used? Does it give too much of the narrative away?

     In conclusion, for the film poster and review it was really important to get some audience feedback because we had never had to create a poster or review before so we needed some good comments. I enjoyed finding out what others thought of our work as it really helped us because we took all of the comments on board. In addition, audience feedback was vital during the research and planning stage when we began to create some ideas for the short film. They really helped us craft the idea of a thriller film and the villains character (props, costumes, lighting.) Also, the actual filming stage was important as we received so many comments on our rough footage which was included in our short film. I believe, that the group did well in getting our audiences comments (15+) and we incorporated their ideas and learnt from them too!

Q2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? 

For our coursework task, we had to create a short film and two ancillary products which included a film review and poster which I thoroughly enjoyed. Altogether, I believe the products we created really complimented each other and we produced an effective short film, poster and review to attract our target demographic in a marketing campaign. I have come up with some ways of advertising and marketing our short film as we only have a low budget so we cannot use expensive techniques such as billboards or magazine. I strongly believe that social media has helped us to create an affective combination through audience feedback and recognition.

Firstly, I am going to discuss the ideas for our marketing campaign as this is very important for a short, low budget film like mine. There are many different ways that we can market and promote our short film. But, I strongly believe that social media is the way to go in a modern society as we are all on a social site every single day without fail. Tablets and smartphones allow us to access these sites from just a click of a button, its fast and simple. If we were to really market our short film, sites such s Facebook and Youtube would be crucial for success because they are so popular and are updated frequently. As our demographic is majorly males 15+, we know for certain that they all use social media and we can successfully draw their attention to our thrilling film. Also, when advertising a thriller films, images are important ways to stand out to the audience especially images of the villain "J." 

If we had a higher budget, another way of marketing our short film is by approaching popular film and media magazines such as Little White Lies. Inserts inside the magazine of our short film or a film poster could be offered in the magazine. Although this is an expensive route, it would be very effective as magazines are still popular today. As we have clearly shown on the blog, we created a film poster for LWL's and it seems to be really effective and professional looking. I believe that print media is very important but digital media (such as social networking) is increasing in importance and all media companies will soon be only using FB, Twitter and YouTube etc to approach their target audience. I will be discussing the effectiveness of my review later in this post. 

Also, as we do not have many choices in marketing our short film, festivals are a great way to show our film to a mass audience. Niche film festivals are very popular within sub cultures today especially in America. Festivals such as International Short Film Festival Clermont Ferrand,  Berlinale - Berlin Film Festival and many others.  The primary reason for submitting your film to a film festival is to have it screened in front of acquisition executives who will ‘discover’ your film and make you an offer on the spot, which is what many new directors are hoping for. I believe that, film festivals are useful when it comes to independent films as they are a great and effective way to release your film to a large audience whom will be using social media also. Tourists spend money. Any festival coming to town will attract them and local merchants will experience a respectable spike in business.The best way for an up-and-coming filmmaker and film (like ours) to get their name out there is to submit a film and gain acceptance into film festivals. Whether the film passes or not with the audience, the filmmakers get recognition simply for completing a work and getting it screened. Those with the skill to win over the audience and receive awards reap further benefits. 
Film Review&Poster

Our film poster and review work together to ensure that our film is well marketed and promoted. They both appeal to a different audience as the LWL's review is for the slightly older viewers, especially males, but the film poster is aimed at the younger demographic (15+) as they use the Internet more. Firstly, the film posters we chose have many interesting aspects. We really focused on the lighting, miss en scene, text and images. This is because, every aspect of the poster is important and will contribute to creating a successful combination. For Callum's poster, he was able to show his experience with the software as he's done it for many years. He had a different perspective on the poster and wanted to include the two male protagonists. In addition, you can clearly see on the left, he has used a blue tinted smoke effect across the background which really appeals to the target audience. The text is simple and white because it stand out from the dark background. We would put the poster online such as Facebook and Twitter. Outside marketing, we would put the poster in cinemas, colleges, festivals and billboards. This is because we need to appeal to a wide audience and as our posters are very eye catching they can be seen everywhere. Festivals are very important when promoting short films because we can see how a large audience react to it and get some accurate feedback before showing it in other places. My poster has taken a different approach as its simple yet effective. I believe that sometimes in movie posters it is a good idea to not give too much away so a simple image like the one I used, causes the audience to question the narrative and characters. The main image connects with the villain and is quite disorienting. I really wanted to use dark lighting to build the enigmatic codes and to  make it look more intriguing. I also included white text for the actors names and reviews but used red text from the short film opening as its connotes blood and danger. By using the same coloured text for our poster, the audience can relate to the short film easily and it will become a symbol of our thriller film.  I strongly believe that our posters are really effective and will be useful for marketing. 
Film review. It took Greg and I some time to create the film poster as we split the work between us so that we could both have an input. Greg wrote the first half and i wrote the second and we worked together for the template. We ensured to write the review in the Little White Lie's house style which was actually really enjoyable. On the right is our review and you can see the image we used is of the Inspector. It does not give too much away but shows the blood on the weapon which connotes a thriller film. Also, his eyes are covered by the glasses which is quite enigmatic. Due to having a review in the magazine LWL's, we would definitely get more recognition and more interest in our film. We made the film seem enticing and entertaining. 
Together, the poster and review really compliment each other and are a great and effective combination for our short film. Our short film is full of thriller and enigma and with the film poster and film review we are able to really promote this theme and appeal to our target audience (15+males.) I found this task really interesting and both ancillary tasks help to achieve an effective marketing package for cinemas, festivals and other events. 

Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?