Evaluation of video production

Evaluation of video production

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

From a technical level our production doesn't challenge conventions in a way of pushing the industry forward to new heights but instead challenges it in that we where making a five minute film produced over 6 months, with around 4 and a half hours of work a week being spent, with extra work wanted by the exam board, no film industry power house behind us, no budget, no crew, no production company and where only four amateur film maker’s. This itself was the biggest challenge. Also out film was a little different in continuity and editing with there being some jump cut in the flash backs to make them seem more like jumpy memory's and to make the vampires seem more mysterious. In terms of genre our production does challenge conventions of real media productions, most vampire films are quite dark (as can be seen in UnderWorld, the film I reviewed) while our production in quite bright, a lot more like the recent Twilight films which are also challenging the conventions of the genre. When watching our production the audience is meant to get pleasure from wanting to know what will happen next while also knowing more about what's going on then the characters in the film, I feel we have achieved this well and the phone conversation on at the end during the credits after getting feedback really helps the production achieve what we set out to do.

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

During the making of our ancillary materials we tried to make them all associated in some way, mainly by using images from the film in the poster, audio from the film in the radio trailer and making them all have a similar theme and feel, so when people see them or hear them they can associate them to each other and the film it self. For our production we made two ancillary pieces a radio trailer and a film poster. When working on the radio trailer we worked mostly as a team, and when making the poster we all went and created 1 or 2 ruff poster individually and then choose the ones we liked best (I liked Luke's best) and made a main Group Poster. I think they are effective at promoting our production the poster especially, in comparison to real advertising products used by bigger productions our radio trailer and poster are more or less up to the standard you would expect.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I think we have learnt a lot from our audience feedback, not only for changes to this production but also learnt what we could have done differently for future productions. Before filming, in the planning stage Luke did a Questionnaire (which results can be seen in his Questionnaire results post on the blog) which helped us get a idea of what people like the sort of film we where making and what people look for in it. During and after the editing I got feedback about the film by putting the film on YouTube (seen in my Audience Feedback post on the blog) and recording the comments on YouTube, FaceBook, Internet conversation and spoken conversations about the film (As stated in my Feedback form YouTube post on the blogger) with this feedback we was able to make many changes to the film which made it all much better.

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

During the research, planning and evaluation stages the internet, with sites like YouTube aloud us to get more research done in less time. During the construction stage we used we used HD Sony Video Cameras which were very useful in obtaining a good picture making the quality of the film better. DV1000s to effectively get the video footage on the the Macs to edit. Zoom recorders were used which are of reasonable quality for the voice overs and the radio radio trailer. We edited the film, radio trailer and created the posters on Macs which despite being over priced, underpowered and having limited software choice they where still effective at doing what we wanted (just in a more annoying sort of way). For editing the radio trailer we used Garageband, to edit the film we used mainly iMovie, for the creation of the poster we used Photoshop which enabled us to create very effective, creative and professional posters which also helped us market our media however a newer version would have been more useful. We also used Microsoft Word on PCs and Macs to write up most of the documentation before putting in on Blogger. On the topic of Blogger this aloud us to easily upload our work and view our groups work were ever we where however our work on the blog had to be viewed so it could be marked was we had to make the blog public (not private) and we found this created 2 problems, 1) Our names, details, pictures, etc. where going on a completely open to view website which was a privacy problem. 2) Any other media group, any where, from any college, at any time can easily fine and copy any other media groups work. So while Blogger may have looked like a good idea it was not the correct choice and hopefully the exam board and/or college will find a solution to this.

Overall the technology helped us develop creatively and it would have been much much harder without the technology however much better technology is available (some even at lower cost then they technology we where given to use) also using the technology didn't come without its problems.