Audience Feedback

To start I will show some general feedback I have given myself about my media production.

From watching my product over and over again, I can see some negatives and positives.

Negatives

• I may of left too many questions unanswered during the first two minutes of my piece.
• There was also problems with the music, I wanted the song to build up but also have the faster beat during the walk, however in movie make I was limited, and could only choose the start and beginning, leaving me with the choice of sacrificing the build up for the majority of the movie, so after long thinking I decided that the majority of the piece was more important than the build up of the song.
• Putting the song name and artist in the opening was also a risk, because it makes it seem like either a music video or credits, but I promised to the artists that I would include that, and I stuck to my word, however it could of been a mistake in the long run and is was a rather risky choice.

Positives

• I think the mise en scene blended well with the overall feel of the movie, the music and visuals produced that "sad" feeling I was going for.
• The shots were all relatively steady and never had anything that shouldn't be in it.
• Used a variety of shots, such as POV, over the shoulder etc.

As Media Studies Production Portfolio Audience Feedback

Negatives

• "maybe could have introduced more camera angles"
• "Leave out song + Artist"
• "looked like a music video"

Some other critism was not really constructive so I have left it out, however it is nice to see some criticism so I can learn from my mistakes and ultimately improve on them.

Positives

• "Good song choice"
• "Blatant Mise en scene"
• "Song works well with visuals"
• "Use of colors good, I liked the change from B/W to colour"

Obviously I am happy to see some positives in there, there were some more, but most just repeated in different forms, this is also very helpful for the learning approach, I can see what people like and dislike, but as my product was not mainstream, I was expecting some criticism as it does not appeal to everyone, one person even said "I do not get the story" considering it was the first two minutes I never planned for them to understand the whole storyline, infact I aimed to leave them guessing, and let there imagination blossom,  but I guess you can't please everyone.

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

Well my Media piece the number three is a two minute opening of a movie, i have tried to use the conventions of real media products as a template, but then advance on that in my own unique way, for example I have aimed to put more emphasis on images and unanswered questions instead of just force-feeding the information, for example one of the first questions probably asked, who is he? how did he get them scars, why is he wearing a suit, why is he at a cemetery, and who is he visiting, what  or who does the three feathers represent, nearly all of these unanswered in the first two minutes, hopefully to intrigue the audience so they carry on watching. So in a way it does conform with real media products due to its music in the opening credits all stuff like that, but then i developed that into my own unique way so I don't just force-feed the information like some movies do, and yes it may not be so "mainstream" but it is the way I have chosen and its the method of filming I prefer.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From our preliminary task we found out quite a lot about the 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

We also learned about various shots such as the over the shoulder shot, this is common in character conversions, but can also be used in different ways, for example I used it in my movie to show the characters body language along with the feathers and grave to add a more effective mood.

This is a shot from the preliminary task, showing both the body language and the speech of the person providing an excellent shot for conversations between two people.

Another shot, still having the body language and speech present, but from a different angle, however still not breaking the 180 degree rule so the audience do not get confused.

However in my actual piece I decided to use an over the shoulder shot, but higher up, as if it was looking down on the body language and the powerful mise en scene of the feathers on the grave.

There was also another shot I leaned about in the preliminary task, the POV shot, I also realized its true beauty and effect it can have whilst filming with it. The POV shot provides  either close ups of a certain object to highlight where the character is looking, or just direct contact with something or someone making you feel in a way part of the movie.



 In the preliminary as you can see we used the POV shot to highlight the character and get the audience to feel apart of the movie, also showing detailed emotions and expressions of the character opposite.

 However in my media piece I used the POV to highlight the action on kneeling to the gravestone and placing the feathers down, I felt this would be quite a powerful shot, connecting the audience with potentially the saddest part in the clip, or so I hoped.