Critical Evaluation

Question One;

Whilst we was editing our film together we was wary of trying to find any continuity errors that we hadn't seen and tried to cut our film together so it was able to flow without errors.
When our final film was fully edited, there was very little continuity and other errors that was left in the film. At the beginning of the film the sky changes colour as Connor walks towards the door is an example but whilst we was editing our film together, we encoutered problems with people being caught in camera that are suppose to be out of shot, and where people are caught in shot when there not suppose to.
I think that our final film cut is cut together well showing good continuity matches. The shots where there are matches on action between the two boys and their sister in the front room shows the audience who the people are talking to, which avoids confusion and the shot where Connor walks into his room and the door shuts with him in a towel and then reopens straight away with him fully clothed is good continuity and shows fantasy in that he has changed very quickly.

Our film was suppose to be a Drama/Fantasy which I think that we have captured fantastically, as a drama is suppose to be highly emotional and contains some action which I feel we have captured the emotion side of it by the boy feeling lonely and then disappears and the other boy as to get real emotional to bring back his brother in which can effect the audience, being if the audience is sensative that they could cry at the film. We also captured the Fantasy genre well with the boy becoming invisible and things happening in the house that could be unexplained with their being no one there.

With our film, we all felt that our films storyline compared with the storyline of the film “Freaky Friday” in which we got the idea for our film from. The shots where writing on the mirror whilst Connor is in the shower and the shot where Connor shuts the door in a towel and re opens it straight away wearing clothes, is taken from the film “Freaky Friday“ also as we fealt they were ideal and good shots for us to be able to include into our film and make it a great film that is good for our target audience and entertain the audience.



The kinds of Audience Pleasure that we feel we have accomplished from this film when the audience watches the films are Social interaction as there will be people that can relate and interact with the characters in the film. Also I think we have accomplished the Intensity of Eutopeia in Richard Dyres Therory, as our film is a drama so it has to hit every emotion we can, and also I think there is a bit of Energy as we have some quick cuts involved in the film. I think the main one we hit as a film is Community, I think that it is a family film so it is about brothers and a sister which can give only childs ideas to fantasize about and also for current families to relate to how they feel and act to each other. Also our film includes a voyeuristic element as the audience is viewing the film without the involved actors reacting to the audience viewing.

Question 2;

What we was trying to achieve in our film was a film that the whole family could sit down and watch. Also we was aiming for the film to be relatable to siblings, and to bring a moral of bringing families closer together, which brings Lewis closer to Ryan after they where drifting apart as brothers. In our film, there is both enjoyable and sad themes throughout, which would allow the audience to enjoy the film more as they are feeling things towards the charachters.

We was trying to achieve this enjoyment level and to portray morals in our film, because people watching the film will relate to either by experience, emotional feelings or just by wanting to immatate the actors on screen.

For our film poster and radio trailer we produced portrays the main movie well, and that it will attract people to come view our film.

To the film I analysed, I found similarities and differences between our poster and the poster for the film 'Hancock'.

The similarities between the two posters are that there is one main image to capture the focus of the audience, however on ours there is a few other images as well, one as a background for the title to pull focus to that, and another to show the characters in our film as the main image does not show that. As well as the image both posters have reletively the same size font for the title, which you can easily read on both. Both film posters have a tagline on them, with the 'Hancock' posters tagline reflecting the main charachter in the film, and our tagline is on our poster to capture the audience and make them think about the film, and what will happen in the film.

The main difference from the two posters is that you can tell the genre's of the films by the posters, with looking at the 'Hancock' poster you can assume that there will be action in the film, whereas our film poster has the element of fantasy incorparated within it, and also would make the reader wonder what the pocketwatch in the main photo meant to the film, which would intice them to go view the film.

On the radio trailer, we have lines from the film involved which allows the audience to get a sneak of some dialogue and also we have a voice over that tells information and the snipet line of our film, which its intent is to attract the audience to watch the film to find out what “The fate of one, rests with the other” means.

Question 3;

When we carried out our audience research on our original film idea we got some responses from different people, and we found out that people do tend to watch similar films to ours in the Drama/Family genre's but also it can depend on what moods people are in, and that we found that not many people view short films but was open to the possibility of watching them. The responses we got to our original pitch to the audience was that they thought it was a good, original and unique idea that would be a good film if we could pull off what we was trying to achieve. From these responses, we have only changed our film minimally from filming circumstances that we were able to shoot, but our idea from the pitch we sold to the audience virtually remained the same throughout the filming and editing process.

Whilst we was filming, we always had the audience in mind in which we would always open up what we was planning to film to in which whether the audience would be able to understand it, and I think that all of our shots that we filmed are easily able to be understood by the audience because of the editing and storyline. We changed very little in the film from the original idea, however we made slight changes in the film due to circumstances like actors not being able to film on certain days in which made us decide to change the film, in which I feel those changes have made the film a lot more clearer for the audience to view.
Once we had put a draft copy of our film together we got some more feedback from the audience which focused on thoughts on the film, editing and music but also improvements we could make to make our final piece the best standard it can be.

We found that the audience enjoyed watching our film and found it entertaining, and we had a response that said the film was good to say it was shot in one location. And that we was able to fit a lot of information into the film in the five minutes we was allocated. People really enjoyed the special effects in our film and they felt that the effects made the film better.
Improvements that was suggested was that someone felt that the conversation between the two brothers when one of the brothers reappears, they felt that it was such a normal conversation and it could have been a more high tempo to the conversation. More often than not it was slight errors in our editing that was suggested for our improvements but we was already aware of those problems in which I think we have erased well.
From these responses, we was able to make improvements to the film and make it into a what I think is to be a very good film. And all round the responses where all similar in that the film was very good and suggested similar improvements.We fealt that the audience's feedback aloud us to focus on the slight errors in our editing as the responses was that we had created a very good film.

Question 4;

Whilst doing this media project, as an individual I have used a lot of media technology to complete the project.

Throughout the film, we used an HDV1000 video camera, which allowed us to shoot footage of our film, feedback or the tour of the location which we shot at in high quality, which would give the audience a better viewing experiance and enhance to speech of the actors.

The HDV1000 camera was relatively easy to use, and I picked up how it worked very quickly whilst filming the footage we needed, as I'd never used any sort of video camera in the past. Using the camera was an enjoyable time with it being so easy to use and with the laughs the footage produced too.

The HDV1000 camera was a real pain to carry places though, in which was the only major fault with the camera. We had to walk about 10 minutes to get to our filming destination for our film and the camera was a bit on the heavy side to carry.

For the editing of any footage that we got, we used Final Cut Xpress as a group, but as an individual I used Final Cut Xpress to edit together the final Audience Research we did to gain feedback on the draft version of our film and to help edit give ideas on how to edit bits of the film together. Again I'm not too experianced in using this software, so it was a new experiance for me and Final Cut Xpress is easy to use with exeption to the few times I had to either ask peers or tutors for help with what I was doing. The features of Final Cut Xpress allowed me to edit the different shots we got from the feedback with being able to view the shots, have a list of the shots and to edit the shots all in one window. I thourghly enjoyed using this software in editing that piece of work together and if I ever had to use the software again, I'd be glad to oblige.

With our radio trailer, we edited it as a group on GarageBand on the Mac's which I found hard to understand fully, only knowing the basic's. When we edited the trailer together, I wasn't really getting hands on with the software and took a back seat role, giving advice and sharing idea's with how I thought it could be edited.

Finally, I used Blogger to be able to store my work on and make it easier to pick up anywhere. Blogger has many advantages which are that you could store all your work in one place, and then to be able to access it easily at home. Also an advantage of Blogger was that you was able to add images, embed videos easily, apart from in the Learning Resource Centre at college which made it hard to embed videos. On Blogger you are also able to tag the work you have produced in which then gives you the option on the side to be able to view everybodys work individually that has worked on the blog.

The only problem that I really had with Blogger was that the ordering of the posts where hard to put in place and we often had work all over the place which was eventually sorted out.

After completing all of the work, I am happy with the involvement I have partaicen in the processes of completing the work, and also happy with the software I have used individually and as part of our group. If I could I would do it all again.