Friday, 22 April 2016

Complicated Love Final Film


This is our Final Film



Official Film Poster

Our Official Film Poster

After getting audience feedback on the previous film poster (see blog post Film Teaser Poster) we decide that this poster would be best as a teaser poster and that we would change elements of Hayley's Individual Film Poster. Below is our official film poster.



Radio Trailer Final

This is our Radio Trailer

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Working as a group, together we realised the how thorough planning posed a great importance to our media production. Websites such as YouTube and Vimeo contain a lot of content in which we was able to view several videos and specifically other short-films similar to our own intended project. Because of this we took the opportunity to study these films that have been made by professionals, other students and other filmmakers, as too assist us with our research into making our film as good as possible.
Even during the planning of our film, we would use various technologies to communicate with each other to make sure we was all on the same page when we finally came together in person. Constant communication was essential to organisation, using our mobile phones and the applications on them such as Facebook, Blogger, and Messenger. These being used at the start before our film idea had even been created, to collaborate our ideas for the beginning of our film. Once we’d brought our ideas together, we intended on using simple processing packages such as Microsoft word as to create a brief storyline to work our script off of.

Other websites also came in handy during our planning and research of our film. Sites such as BBFC was useful when researching into film certifications and what certificate our film would be most ideal for our film. IMDB was also another good website to research off of, as this allowed us to view similar films in our intended genre, and what synopsis of these films was compared to ours. Finding these sites was obtainable by using the Google search engine.

Hardware to create the film had to be the best as to create our film as good as possible. Using a Canon Legria camcorder as to film all our scenes with, and to film some of our audience feedback with. This technology made our filming experience very easy, allowing use to add effects to our film before the editing stage (using the pull focus to take away focus from one object to another).  A zoom recorder was also used to record sounds that we couldn’t quite get using the ordinary camcorder, making sure the sounds were much clearer. The zoom recorder was also used for our radio trailer as only sound was needed and no video recordings. Scene photos were taken using an iPhone 6’s camera, as this was as good a quality as we required.

One of the most important pieces of hardware we used was the Fujitsu computer, as this is where we essentially put together and made our film. The software available on the college computers is what we used to edit our film. Adobe premiere was the key software application where we edited all our film, created our radio trailer, and edited our video questionnaire. Other than giving us the ability to simply piece different scenes and clips together, it gave us access to many effects that allowed for transfers over scenes, such as a fade in and fade out. Other useful effects include slow motion, colour correction, other types of fading and cutting, and the ability to add an opening title sequence and credit scene at the end of the film. As well as video editing, it allowed for the editing of the diagetic sound from within the scene, as well as non-diagetic sound added on-top of the scene. While we used Adobe premiere, other movie editing software such as Final Cut was readily available to us on other pc.

As well as video editing software, we also used image editing software in creation of our film poster, film logo and film title. Previously stated, majority of the pictures taken were taken using an iPhone 6 and then imported onto the computer to be placed on Blogger, or placed onto the Adobe Photoshop application. This was used to create the film poster, the film title, and production logo. All our own images were used on every image piece. Photoshop helping with any editing that we needed to do to make it more accurately like movie poster, adding any effects where needed.
Using social media again was important for gaining client feedback on all drafts of our film. Especially at the overall completion of our film in which we created a Twitter account to advertise our film to friends so they can give us feedback, and view our film. Our film was uploaded onto YouTube, and this is the primary way of viewing our film. It’s also viewable on our blog as well as the draft versions.


While the technology is greatly effective in what we wished to accomplish, there was occasionally a delay due to some issues we experienced. Battery length was a significant contributor, having to record parts across several days as we was unable to record full scenes in one day. As well as this, when proceeding to move the recording over to the computer, it appeared to be missing which resulted in having to spend more time re-creating the scene. This could’ve partly be done to human error however, in not checking if our scenes were recording or accidently deleted. This could’ve been stopped if we backed-up our work and saved it in another place. 

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1
In what ways does the media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products
Continuity was very important for our production, and the impacts on our production if it had not been achieved successfully. After studying other films on various sites as well as other students from previous year’s films, we realised that continuity was an important concepts to place into our film.

An example of continuity in our film is the scene where Harry sees Hayley from atop a balcony, and then proceeds to go through a door, down some stairs and through another door and down to talk to Hayley. The continuity is shown as Harry’s action of going through the door is matched at the other side, then the continuity is same while going down the stairs, keeping the continuity in the scene. Some eliptical editing was used to cut out one part of going down the staris, as well as missing out on set of doors, to continue the pace of the film, and to reduce the drag.

Our film is delibarate in subverting the conventions of a romantic comedy genre, as the central character doesunfortunately doesn’t end with the girl that he fancies, and in a stereotypical romantic comedy, it is a conventional theme for the main character to end up with the girl at the end of the film, and live with a happy ending. Our film however is clear in showing that the main character is in fact heartbroken at the fact that he doesn’t end up with the girl, as the central plot to the film is that he has been trying to get her, and that the girl actually ends up with his best friend, creating a sense of betrayal. In turn subverting the conventions of the romantic comedy genre as it contrasts the stereotype of the genre. However, our film  does uphold some of the conventions of the genre through the use of music, design and high key lighting used throughout.The music in the film is lighthearted and gentle, reflecting the unrelenting optimism of the main character (Harry), which is another common theme amongst romantic comedies. Main colours used for the poster,title sequence and the actual title are purple, white and pink which are colours generally associated with the genre, as they connote things such as passion, love and romanticism, as well as connoting that there will be no violence in the film this advertises the film as very light hearted, and a low certificate rated film.

The story line for our film can be seen as fairly common, and similar to other films in the genre, having  what would be known as a ‘love triangle’ between three people, where one of the three ends severely disappointed and without the girl, however we have made this into our own adaptation by subverting some of the codes of the genre so the the main storyline is focused on the character who doesn’t get the girl, rather than the one that does, which is a contrast to that of the general convention of the romantic comedy genre is. We havent took this any idea from any film particular, but merely used a film idea and changed it around to suit what we intended for our film.


I am sure our film develops uses and gratifications, such as entertainment and complies with the entertainment theory. According to Richard Dyers theory, the film gives a sense of tranparency due to each of the characters feelings being understood by the audience towards the end of the film, and the end scene in-particular.