The mise en scene shows that this short film is set on a council estate, with the characters wearing grim, dirty clothes which show how poor they are as a family. The close up shots of the young girls faces show how desperate they are for food which highlights how poor they are.
The film maker is trying to make us emphasis with the main character as it may be her own fault that she has all these children but by her repeating the line 'it's my first night out in ages' shows us that she never goes out and never enjoys herself, she spends all her time trying to entertain her children. Due to her having a 'special' dance with her children, and having their art work all around the kitchen really emphasises how much love and care she has for them. By doing this the director makes sure that we are not quick to judge her.
It is a very effective film as it really shows the lives of mothers with lots of children and how difficult it is to survive with only a short amount of money. The cutaway edits during the short film really show how people are living in poverty, the close ups of the door frames were the paint is peeling of the walls, and the close ups of the girls faces show how dirty they are.
Friday, 9 July 2010
Thursday, 1 July 2010
'The Ganzfeld Procedure' - by Keith McCarthy
http://www.youtube.com/futureshorts?has_verified=1#p/u/14/1a5XOQ5dE0E
The short film starts with the mise en scene showing us that it is set in an experiment setting with a voice-over explaining the procedure; therefore giving us a better understanding of what's going on. As the music starts we can see that its going to be a fun/enjoyable journey as the music is upbeat and nice.
We get what look like memories or old tape recordings of the females past as a young girl, as they are slightly unclear and miss sections out it shows that her memory is slightly hazing which adds realism to the film as when your young you don't remember everything. As lots of low angle shots are used it shows they are point of view shots looking up at her relatives as a young girl which suggests that it is her memories of the past. Due to there being lots of colours suggests that she is still young and seeing things all bright and cheerful. It also suggests how difficult it is for her to try and remember the past, its all blurry and uncertain. The use of the non-diegetic sounds of 'swishing' show that time has pasted.
One of my favourite shots is the close up shot of her bare skinned against a black background, with a slight hint of pink lip gloss on and smoking a cigarette (blowing out smoke), its effective as she is sucking it in not blowing it out which shows that the effects have been reversed and creates a sense of time going backwards.
Another shot i feel that is affective is the close up shot of her drinking wine from a wine glass and the light shinning on her face and the glass, as as we have seen her childhood we are now experiencing what she does as an adult and the dangers of growing up and not being vulnerable and naive. Over these few different clips of her drinking there is a sinister/dark sound effect which emphasises the idea of as you grow up your not safe any more.
The quick cuts between different memories creates an effective and realistic view of what's going on in her head and how quick other thoughts/memories take over other ones, it creates a very powerful sense of us as the viewers understanding what she is going through. As the memories are of normal things, like putting lipstick on as a young child it makes it target a large amount of people and draws them in as it reminds us of out childhoods.
I feel that the genre of this short film is a romantic mock documentary as we get flashbacks of the girls life and how she meets the other man - it follows her through her journey. The target audience for this short film would be a possible age of 16-30 as its unique and fun and shows memories that most people have experienced making it add realism.
Overall i feel this short film is very unique and effective by the use of flashbacks and makes me think that flashbacks would be a good effect to use in my short film as i want viewers to feel how i did towards 'The Ganzfeld Procedure' in my short film.
The short film starts with the mise en scene showing us that it is set in an experiment setting with a voice-over explaining the procedure; therefore giving us a better understanding of what's going on. As the music starts we can see that its going to be a fun/enjoyable journey as the music is upbeat and nice.
We get what look like memories or old tape recordings of the females past as a young girl, as they are slightly unclear and miss sections out it shows that her memory is slightly hazing which adds realism to the film as when your young you don't remember everything. As lots of low angle shots are used it shows they are point of view shots looking up at her relatives as a young girl which suggests that it is her memories of the past. Due to there being lots of colours suggests that she is still young and seeing things all bright and cheerful. It also suggests how difficult it is for her to try and remember the past, its all blurry and uncertain. The use of the non-diegetic sounds of 'swishing' show that time has pasted.
One of my favourite shots is the close up shot of her bare skinned against a black background, with a slight hint of pink lip gloss on and smoking a cigarette (blowing out smoke), its effective as she is sucking it in not blowing it out which shows that the effects have been reversed and creates a sense of time going backwards.
Another shot i feel that is affective is the close up shot of her drinking wine from a wine glass and the light shinning on her face and the glass, as as we have seen her childhood we are now experiencing what she does as an adult and the dangers of growing up and not being vulnerable and naive. Over these few different clips of her drinking there is a sinister/dark sound effect which emphasises the idea of as you grow up your not safe any more.
The quick cuts between different memories creates an effective and realistic view of what's going on in her head and how quick other thoughts/memories take over other ones, it creates a very powerful sense of us as the viewers understanding what she is going through. As the memories are of normal things, like putting lipstick on as a young child it makes it target a large amount of people and draws them in as it reminds us of out childhoods.
I feel that the genre of this short film is a romantic mock documentary as we get flashbacks of the girls life and how she meets the other man - it follows her through her journey. The target audience for this short film would be a possible age of 16-30 as its unique and fun and shows memories that most people have experienced making it add realism.
Overall i feel this short film is very unique and effective by the use of flashbacks and makes me think that flashbacks would be a good effect to use in my short film as i want viewers to feel how i did towards 'The Ganzfeld Procedure' in my short film.
Short Films Research
'About a girl' by Brian Percival
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL2z8Qzn1dc&feature=related
The short film starts with the title of the film being written like a text message with the diegetic sounds of the keys being typed in, which straight away shows its going to be about young people and giving a target audience of 13-17.
The opening shot is a wide shot of a dark figure standing in a field singing a well known song, as we can't see the person very well it suggests that what we are about to see could be relevant to a lot of people - it's happening all the time.
A jump cut is then used to show the same girl now talking directly to the camera, it's a close up shot and as the camera is not smooth we can see that a hand-held camera was used, which suggests we are walking along beside her listening to her story making it personal. From this we can see that the genre is a documentary of her everyday life. We hear about all the violence and her dreams which highlights how young she is as she still believes she can be a famous singer, which makes the ending even more shocking.
The mise en scene of her outfit shows that she is from the lower class and poor by the dirty coat, jeans, plastic bag and the way that she talks, the mise en scene of her house also supports this. As she talks really fast and sue to her Manchester accent it can be quite difficult to understand her sometimes but the main issue comes at the end when she drops the plastic bag into the canal after carrying it around with her throughout the film. This arouses our curiosity as we wonder what is in this bag as no attention has been brought to it throughout the film.
We finally see what is in the bag by a mid low angle shot which reveals a baby, this shocked me as a viewer as the film shows how young and naive she is yet she has had a baby at the age of 13, this dramatic twist made me realise that this is happening all the time all over the world and has really affected me. Considering that the girl shows no emotion towards it as she just walks off as if it happens all the time.
This short film has really made me think about serious issues that are going on all the time all over the world and nobody is doing anything about them. Which makes me start to think about ideas for my short film and ways in which my short film will have the same affect on people the way that 'About a girl' had on me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL2z8Qzn1dc&feature=related
The short film starts with the title of the film being written like a text message with the diegetic sounds of the keys being typed in, which straight away shows its going to be about young people and giving a target audience of 13-17.
The opening shot is a wide shot of a dark figure standing in a field singing a well known song, as we can't see the person very well it suggests that what we are about to see could be relevant to a lot of people - it's happening all the time.
A jump cut is then used to show the same girl now talking directly to the camera, it's a close up shot and as the camera is not smooth we can see that a hand-held camera was used, which suggests we are walking along beside her listening to her story making it personal. From this we can see that the genre is a documentary of her everyday life. We hear about all the violence and her dreams which highlights how young she is as she still believes she can be a famous singer, which makes the ending even more shocking.
The mise en scene of her outfit shows that she is from the lower class and poor by the dirty coat, jeans, plastic bag and the way that she talks, the mise en scene of her house also supports this. As she talks really fast and sue to her Manchester accent it can be quite difficult to understand her sometimes but the main issue comes at the end when she drops the plastic bag into the canal after carrying it around with her throughout the film. This arouses our curiosity as we wonder what is in this bag as no attention has been brought to it throughout the film.
We finally see what is in the bag by a mid low angle shot which reveals a baby, this shocked me as a viewer as the film shows how young and naive she is yet she has had a baby at the age of 13, this dramatic twist made me realise that this is happening all the time all over the world and has really affected me. Considering that the girl shows no emotion towards it as she just walks off as if it happens all the time.
This short film has really made me think about serious issues that are going on all the time all over the world and nobody is doing anything about them. Which makes me start to think about ideas for my short film and ways in which my short film will have the same affect on people the way that 'About a girl' had on me.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a great deal about technologies from constructing my music magazine, as at the start I was very unsure about how to use Photoshop therefore on my school magazine stuck with the very basic tools and didn't go any further. Having had the opportunity to go to a Photoshop workshop I learnt how to do things I had no idea you could do on a program on the computer, for example completely distorting somebodies face/body, making fonts stand out with special effects and merging pictures together. After my tutorial at the workshop I felt much more comfortable using the complex program and started fiddling around with all the different tools and effects to see what they did. I feel more confident with layering things, adding effects like 'outer glow' 'inner glow' and 'strokes', merging images together, using the magic wand tool to outline an image and crop it so its the right size and doesn't contain any empty space and just generally arranging images and text together. All of which helped me greatly in the construction of my magazine.
I have also learnt how to blog effectively, at the start I wasn't too sure how to do it but after awhile I got the hang of it, and now find it a very useful skill to have as I can now create a blog for my own purpose.
Everyone knows how to use a camera but I found that my skills were challenged when I went to take photos for my feature as I had to think really hard about the type of shots I wanted and had to think how to frame them effectively. I had to make sure that the correct mise en scene represented DJing well, for example I had to make sure that the DJ decks were in the shot to correspond with the text and have him looking at the camera so we get to see what he actually looks like.
I have also learnt how to blog effectively, at the start I wasn't too sure how to do it but after awhile I got the hang of it, and now find it a very useful skill to have as I can now create a blog for my own purpose.
Everyone knows how to use a camera but I found that my skills were challenged when I went to take photos for my feature as I had to think really hard about the type of shots I wanted and had to think how to frame them effectively. I had to make sure that the correct mise en scene represented DJing well, for example I had to make sure that the DJ decks were in the shot to correspond with the text and have him looking at the camera so we get to see what he actually looks like.
How did you attract/address your audience?
To help me in the process of attracting and addressing my audience, the readership survey (below) helped me greatly in understanding what this specific target audience want to read about; therefore I took on their feedback and constructed my magazine.
The front cover is the page that has to be the most effective as this is the first thing your audience sees; therefore it has to look effective and different. The primary image attracts the audience as he is a 17 year old male himself which is my average target audience age; therefore the audience can relate to him. He is drumming and looks focused on it, this was one piece of criteria that was revealed in my readership survey. They are interested in new and upcoming bands and the creativity of drummers.
I choose the colour pink for my masthead as it matches with the drums, this may be a risk as pink is usually a feminine colour; therefore turning some males off, but NME used pink headings for one of their issues and it was a great success. I thought that the title 'noise' would be appropriate and appeal to my target audience as the reader can straight away tell that this is going to be a music magazine and 16-19 year olds like noisy music. Noise also can be considered as 'information' which my magazine is trying to give out about new drummers and music. I choose to use the colour scheme of pink and green. Firstly all the sell lines were in pink and I asked a friend (17 year old male) what he thought and he said it looked quite 'feminine' which wasn't my intended audience; therefore I made some of the sell lines green and kept some pink giving it a more masculine appeal.
From the feedback I found out that my audience are very interested in who the top bands are, funny photos, new and upcoming bands and what happens at gigs that the public aren't allowed to attend. This helped me to generate my sell lines. As the survey revealed that the audience are particularly interested in the exclusive gigs I made sure that they had a chance to attend them, I chose to make the '100' stand out to show that they can actually attend them attracting the audience. For the mode of address I have chosen words like 'exclusive' and 'restricted' to show that my readers are lucky to find out about this information as it is selective so they must buy this magazine as they won't find this information anywhere else. To address my audience I have chosen the word 'hard' to describe 'Lucas Greenwood' and 'DJ Woody' as it is a word that my target audience commonly use to describe good/talented artists therefore they can relate to this word, the magazine and feel they are inclusive.
I added a price of £2.90 which I think is a good price for a monthly magazine, i also asked my target population of 16-19 year old males and they agreed with this. As this age group doesn't have a lot of money it seems a fair price.
For the contents page I continued on with the same colour scheme and house style to make the whole magazine coherent and assessable, I made the index big therefore it allows browsing of the magazine easier and the readers can flick to the pages which most interest them, this appeals to the audience as they can find things quicker and don't have to read the whole magazine as some bits may not interest them. I went with a DJing theme hence the images so that it relates to the feature.
For the feature I focused on DJing as I had covered all of the other criteria that was found from my readership survey, it is an interview with a top DJ in London. I included questions that my readers would want to know about i.e 'how he started' as they may be interested in starting DJing and don't know where to begin, this gives them a helping hand; therefore attracting them.
In conclusion I feel I have targeted my audience well with my magazine as there are things in it that are screaming out to the target audience to buy it, it enables the reader to get 'exclusive' access to the biggest gigs, shows the 'restricted' photos from the NME awards and an 'exclusive' interview with a well known DJ.
The front cover is the page that has to be the most effective as this is the first thing your audience sees; therefore it has to look effective and different. The primary image attracts the audience as he is a 17 year old male himself which is my average target audience age; therefore the audience can relate to him. He is drumming and looks focused on it, this was one piece of criteria that was revealed in my readership survey. They are interested in new and upcoming bands and the creativity of drummers.
I choose the colour pink for my masthead as it matches with the drums, this may be a risk as pink is usually a feminine colour; therefore turning some males off, but NME used pink headings for one of their issues and it was a great success. I thought that the title 'noise' would be appropriate and appeal to my target audience as the reader can straight away tell that this is going to be a music magazine and 16-19 year olds like noisy music. Noise also can be considered as 'information' which my magazine is trying to give out about new drummers and music. I choose to use the colour scheme of pink and green. Firstly all the sell lines were in pink and I asked a friend (17 year old male) what he thought and he said it looked quite 'feminine' which wasn't my intended audience; therefore I made some of the sell lines green and kept some pink giving it a more masculine appeal.
From the feedback I found out that my audience are very interested in who the top bands are, funny photos, new and upcoming bands and what happens at gigs that the public aren't allowed to attend. This helped me to generate my sell lines. As the survey revealed that the audience are particularly interested in the exclusive gigs I made sure that they had a chance to attend them, I chose to make the '100' stand out to show that they can actually attend them attracting the audience. For the mode of address I have chosen words like 'exclusive' and 'restricted' to show that my readers are lucky to find out about this information as it is selective so they must buy this magazine as they won't find this information anywhere else. To address my audience I have chosen the word 'hard' to describe 'Lucas Greenwood' and 'DJ Woody' as it is a word that my target audience commonly use to describe good/talented artists therefore they can relate to this word, the magazine and feel they are inclusive.
I added a price of £2.90 which I think is a good price for a monthly magazine, i also asked my target population of 16-19 year old males and they agreed with this. As this age group doesn't have a lot of money it seems a fair price.
For the contents page I continued on with the same colour scheme and house style to make the whole magazine coherent and assessable, I made the index big therefore it allows browsing of the magazine easier and the readers can flick to the pages which most interest them, this appeals to the audience as they can find things quicker and don't have to read the whole magazine as some bits may not interest them. I went with a DJing theme hence the images so that it relates to the feature.
For the feature I focused on DJing as I had covered all of the other criteria that was found from my readership survey, it is an interview with a top DJ in London. I included questions that my readers would want to know about i.e 'how he started' as they may be interested in starting DJing and don't know where to begin, this gives them a helping hand; therefore attracting them.
In conclusion I feel I have targeted my audience well with my magazine as there are things in it that are screaming out to the target audience to buy it, it enables the reader to get 'exclusive' access to the biggest gigs, shows the 'restricted' photos from the NME awards and an 'exclusive' interview with a well known DJ.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
IPC media is one of the United Kingdoms leading consumer magazine and digital publishers. It was created in 1963 as International Publishing Company. They publish over 80 different magazines that are of various genres at attract all audiences. They publish NME music magazine which is the most similar to my music magazine; therefore making them a possibility for publishing my music magazine. As they specialise in different genres of music this would also be ideal as my magazine covers two main genres. It is also convenient as it is based in the United Kingdom therefore easily assessable.
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