Question 1

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

Research was a big part of understanding what we needed to include in our film to make sure that it had the conventions of a short film. It helped us to make big decisions when thinking about our short film. It also helped us to understand what worked well within our story.

The research that I done helped me to understand really what short films try to do in the short time that they have because they only have 5-10 minuets they have to really think about what it is they want to get across, I learnt that most of the short film I watched tried to get a message across and because of the short amount of time they have they have to this they can't spend too long to explore the story. This means that they have to set the scene fairly quick so they can then focus on the message they want to get across.

Love at first sight, this is a short film which is trying to get a strong message across but it also has a little bit of comedic value in it, the message that it is trying to get across is that you shouldn't judge people because of they way they look, this short film also in the short time explores that just because someone is looking at you in a attractive way doesn't mean they like you. The woman in this film is blind and she keeps looking at the man in front of her but he doesn't know she is blind so keeps looking back at her in a sexual way. 

This film helped me within my research as it shows that you can have one film take place in one whole scene or set. There was also no dialogue from either character which showed that you can make a successful short film from just body language and facial expressions. The short film showed me that you shouldn't linger on the shots that the shots should change so that the audience don't get bored. It also taught me about the different shot sizes and angles. For example, the film opens with the man stepping in a puddle and you see the view of the bus through the puddle in a high angle shot. He then walks on to the bus and from there onwards we have different shot sizes and angles throughout the short film.  

It also taught me the differences in short films from having no dialogue to short films that have dialogue, you can have a comedy that have no dialogue at all and it can be just as funny as one that have lots of dialogue.

From researching this short film it helped me during the process of everything, during the post production and production we had to think about duration of shots so that for example we could see the reactions from the other characters. We had to think about if we had enough shots and if we needed anymore. When we were filming we had to make sure that we got lots pf different angles of the same shots, this let us mess around with the angles of the shots but also mess around with the shot sizes within the angles. 

Our short film was a comedy so we had to make sure that we looked at lots of clips of comedic films and short films so that we knew what we needed to include so that our film had the comedic values it needed to be a comedy short film. 

There was one main one that we looked at in order to understand what we needed to create a comedy that was a clip from the film step brother where they go for an interview. This short clip showed us that there are a few main things needed in order to create a good comedy; Good pauses in order to crete comedic value, a good script and good camera work. 

When we had looked at the clip from step brothers we understood more on what we needed to do, also because it was a scene where they are going for an interview and that what our film was about it helped us a lot in the making of of film. 

When we were filming our short film we talked about the script and how we could improve it, we talked about the pauses needed and the duration of them to make it suitable to build comedic value, the facial expressions of the characters after a joke was said that maybe wasn't funny, where we were going to place the characters in the shots so that it would bring comedy and the voice and tone of the characters. In the clip we watch after a joke was said or something was awkward a long pause was created to help the comedic value within the film, the script was also funny/ silly which helped the comedy.

As you can see from the picture above it doesn't look like the characters are used to going to an interview as they are dressed in tux's which alone brings comedy to the scene but al that they are sitting in a line one behind the other. This is scene as odd and doesn't follow the conventions of what a normal interview should be, however this is funny for the viewer. As it gets to the end of the scene the interviewer starts to feel a bit silly interviewing this pair of stupid people which again makes comedy and we can see from the interviewers body language and tone that she feels silly.   

Poster design and Research

I spent a long time trying to find the right posters that would help me in creating poster that would have the right conventions of short film posters 

The main features that really make this poster a really good short film poster is the way the characters stand out and how they are not taken by the background. The first thing you see when you look at this poster is the main characters who are at the front of the poster the male at the front being the main protaganist and his body language and facial expressions. Where the characters are positioned on the poster are the main priority as well as the colours and background. There is also very few words in short film posters all there is is the name of the film and the billing either at the top or the bottom. 

Casting has the same conventions and the first short film poster it has the protaganist sitting down in front of the other characters and he looks like he is in charge. then we have the other characters behind him looking smug like they are up to something. Again it has the billing at the bottom of the page and the biggest piece of writing is the title. This poster has more of a darker feel to it meaning that maybe something is going to happen that changes someones world. The blurred out women in the background suggest time. I wanted to see the difference in posters between a make believe and something that could happen.  

As you can see from the posters above that we created for our short film you can see that we have included the conventions for example:

• We have included the billings in the poster 
• The production company logo
• The title of the film 
• reviews 
• Sundance film festival
• Websites 

As you can see from these posters above they follow the conventions needed for a short film poster but also for a comedy. The facial expressions of the poster show you that it is going to to a comedy and that one of the character might not have any idea what they are doing and that brings comedy to the audience.

Little White Lies Review

We had a look at lots of different Little While Lies review pages to see what the conventions were and what we needed to include for our review to look as professional as i could be. e.g;

We had a look to see what font size we would need to be able to make it look like a LWL review, we had to find out what font they use, what the writing layout looks like, their writing style, the image size, the reviewing system and the word count which is 500 words. 

From looking at LWL review pages and working out what is needed to make it look as professional as possible we then went on to make our own review for our film making sure that we had everything included that needed to be included. The information the we got then allowed us to go and create our own LWL review page.