'Intrusion' Draft #2

Here is my 2nd draft of Intrusion! I'm overall happy with this cut and think the vision has came together well.

'Intrusion' Draft #1- Initial Feedback and Responses from Peers and Teacher

After an initial screening of our first draft of our main texts to our peers, I have gotten some strengths and improvements for my first draft of my short film. I found this to be useful to me to quite an extent, as I now have a good idea of what people liked about my short film and also what needed changing or removing.

Some of the common strengths in my first draft were:

- Good use of ambient music. This is something I'm happy with and agree with due to the fact that I thought the piece of score was effective and appropriate for my short film. It was also something  I felt was a highlight in my video so far, so I'm pleased that people found it was good and well selected.

- Good editing. People liked the style of editing and thought the edits between the tripod footage and the handheld footage was good and served a real purpose. The purpose being the handheld footage was from the point of view of the thief's, making it look more gritty and realistic. This was why I used differing camera shot types and am glad people liked the different uses of them and thought it was effective.

- Several people liked the in and out focus of the first shot, as well as the fade in from black. They thought it was successful in achieving an ambient opening to the film; as well as swiftly establishing the setting.  They also thought it added to the suspense of the short film.

- Clever uses of lighting. I think people thought the way I was able to balance lighting with colour correction was well done and it achieves a suitable, respectable look. It makes my colour pallet look dark and low-key lighting but still has a fairly day-time esque colour pallet simultaneously.

- People also are beginning to like the narrative, despite it being only the first half of my short film. I am pleased with this as there is no dialogue in my short film as of yet, so it's good that people deciphering the narrative and plot just by the camera shots and the actions of the characters.

However they also had some weaknesses with my first draft.

- One significant, or more picked up than anything else weakness with my first draft short film is that the non-diegetic audio became repetitive, or made people lose slight interest in the film. This is something that surprised me and made me think twice about how I should go about audio in my product, so now I know in my 2nd draft when all shooting is complete, to have a range of audio types and be sure to change things up a bit, making a mixture of both diegetic audio and non-diegetic. This will keep things interesting for the audience and not have them be slightly put off by only hearing one piece and type of audio soundtrack like in my first draft currently.

- Some people found pacing to be an issue- whether shots went on for too long or some shots in general were't needed, which ultimately dragged out my short film or made it longer than it needed to be, also making it less effective. This is something I'll be sure to change in my 2nd draft round and will pay closer attention to shots that aren't 100% needed, and any ways I can speed up footage or takes.

- Some people found lighting to be an issue- whereas this is something I slightly disagree with. I most likely will just edit my colour correction more next time so that the colours are not as dark and low-key, and be sure to have slightly brighter and more colorful images.

Intrusion Poster Draft #2

This is the revised, 2nd draft of my poster for Intrusion. The first most notable improvement being that this one is now portrait, the standard convention for film posters. This was a fundamental improvement I had to utilise because my poster can't be landscape for significant, established reasons.

Another improvement is the text. I had to add all the necessary text at the bottom that my first draft didn't have. This is the text that will be found at the bottom of every film poster, all the information regarding the films production such as studios, directors, actors, producers and so on. This is also essential information that will be on most commercial film posters.

The image itself for the poster is now in black and white. I feel that this was a necessary improvement/adjustment as it suits the mood and tone of Intrusion much more than by using an image with lots of colour. This is because the black and white creates a bleaker, more sinister tone reflected in the darker, low-key lit colours. I also like how the house is now totally black in colour, creating a very mysterious tone and vibe towards Intrusion from the poster so far.

Overall I am happy with this draft, but I am looking to carry out more improvements for my next draft.

Film Review- Draft No. 2

Here is the 2nd draft of my second ancillary task, the film review. I produced and edited the film review using Photoshop CS5.

From my second draft, I have added all of the text, a secondary picture in the bottom right, the cast and film information on the right hand side, and the plot of the short film at the top right. These conventions are all things I have learned from my research into film reviews. The formatting is all up to speed in my opinion, and the picture and title 'Intrusion' is large and bold to attract the audiences attention. The film review would be for a double sided, A3 magazine page, which also a lot of my researched film reviews had the same structure.

Even though it is only draft 2 of my film review, I'm happy with it and don't think it'll need any more significant improvements or adjustments!

Feedback and Reviews from Peers and Teacher- Poster Draft 1

Recently our media class has undergone some feedback sessions for our ancillary tasks. I presented my first poster draft to the class and was relatively happy with the feedback and their responses to it. Some of the common strengths with my poster were:

- The choice of font, style and colour was effective to a fair extent. I am happy that my classmates and teacher thought this way, as I carefully selected and stylised the font to achieve a sinister, psychological-thriller effect to my poster, in which they also had similar feelings. They also liked the red, striking typography as it captured their attention and interest to the poster and the film. 

- They also liked the name for the short film itself, 'Intrusion'. They found it to be an appropriate, and effective word that represents the film and grabs the viewers attention and curiosity, despite the fact it's only 1 word.

- Another thing they picked out was the actual image from the poster, of my 2 main protagonists sinisterly standing outside of the house. They thought how it reinforced the title was good, and thought it was a good choice of primary imaging on the poster.

- Lastly, a few people thought how the primary colours used in the poster of red and black were successful in representing the moods and tones of the film, such as danger and crime which is what people deciphered from the colours used in the poster, which I'm pleased about as this is what I wanted.

Moving on, I also got given some disadvantages for my first draft of poster. These were things that people didn't like so much about the poster or things they saw as unnecessary or needed changing. Some of these disadvantages include:

- It needs to be portrait, not landscape. This is an essential adjustment I need to do for my poster as the main convention for posters is that they are done in portrait rather than landscape. This is something I will be changing as a result.

- Another thing they commented on was that my poster needed additional credits at the bottom, like how most conventional film posters do so including the production companies, directors, actors, camera and crew cast and so on.

- One person thought the poster would be better if the image was in black and white, as opposed to being in colour.  This is something I'm not fully sure I agree with, however I understand that if the image is in black and white, it may make the poster even more bleaker and explicit in the tone it's trying to create.

- Another person thought the depth and colour of the image on the poster could be improved, and will result in a better quality image. This is something I will do in order to get a better looking poster aesthetically.

These are all things I will be considering in order to improve my drafts of my poster.

Film Review - Draft No.1

This is the first draft of the film review for Intrusion. It is just the basic format and includes a picture and the logo of the magazine in the top left.

The picture is of a still from the film, which is used as a device to give the audience an insight into the film. Even though the image is very vague, the audience can draw some kind of interpretation based on the image, such as because they are hooded they can be considered as villanous or antagonists. And they are also both looking the same way, at the same thing, which can assume they are working together, but not for the best intentions.

I also used a 'Total Film' logo in the top left, this means that the film review I'm using would belong in a Total Film magazine if it were real. This is also used to remind the audience what magazine they are reading when they read the film review.

As an overall mockup and draft 1 of my film review I am happy with it so far and think when I add the text and additional images and titles to it it will look like a good film review, and a conventional film review.

Audience Theory

There are various different audience theories that we need to be addressing and thinking about when it comes to the coursework. These are theories that put across certain statements and understandings about what audiences do with, and what they gain from certain media products and texts. It also establishes how easily, or in what way they come to an agreement with the media and how susceptible they are to believing it, or being 'controlled' by it.

Hypodermic Needle theory: This is a theory that dictates audiences are passive in nature. Ideologies and opinions are passed on to, or injected into the audience through the many different mediums of the media. This 'injection' then shapes and alters the audiences state of mind; essentially controlling their thoughts and beliefs just through showing them things on the media explicitly.

The Agenda Setting theory: The Agenda Setting theory, or model represents a very powerful influence of the media. This theory suggests the media has the power to tell us what is and what isn't important. It can be justified in 2 main points. 1- The press and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it. 2- Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than others. 

Two Step flow theory: This theory proposes that the key information from the media movies in two distinct stages. It can be described by a diagram, the Two Step Flow Model, developed by Katz & Lazarsfeld in 1955. It basically says that the 'opinion leaders', individuals that pay close attention to the media and the information presented, and then they pass it on to many people around them, or as the model describes 'individual in social contact with the opinion leader.' This is how this model suggests information and opinions presented from the media gets around. 

Uses and gratifications theory: This theory is the opposite to the Hypodermic Needle theory and it suggests that audiences are active. It is all about what people do with media rather than what the media does to people. People use the media and all of its products for individual needs and requirements. This can be for social needs, cognitive needs, affective needs and social integrative needs.