1. My production ‘The Miracle Of Life’ doesn’t specifically follow many forms or conventions of real media products. I deliberately chose to create a production which was quite abstract and would challenge the normal style. I wanted to make the audience think as they watched the short film, I decided that the best way to do this would be to make in a Brechtian style. By alienating the audience from the main character, by using a male voice-over for the female character, I was forcing them to listen to what the voice-over said and would subsequently have empathy for the main character whilst also feeling the isolation of the human condition.
The Main convention that I used was the voice-over, I have seen this used in many different short films including a short called ‘Eight’. The way that the voice-over was used interested me and so i decided to develop it, so that it suited my style more and so that I could use it correctly. The voice-over in ‘Eight’ was used to convey a message to the audience in a naturalistic style but I feel that the short film wouldn’t have came together or worked without the voice-over. I adapted the style of the voice over so that it suited my message and the alienation that I wanted the audience to feel. The narration of the piece forms the basis of it’s non-chronological order, but this is because the main character is on a journey and recollecting her memories up to the end point of the production. Because of the non-chronological order I didn’t need to do much in the scenes to try and alienate the audience. I also used a lesser used 360 shot where i panned around a space in the forest whilst also doing this in the final scene, I felt that this shot would best suit what I wanted to show the audience, during the scene in the forest I used it to show the audience the whole of the clearing and all of the natural beauty in it whilst the main character sat and observed her surroundings, but I also used it to show the girl disappearing from her seat and interlinking her with the environmental message.
The lack of characters is something which I really struggled with, although I intentionally only had one character when I wrote my script I found that it was difficult to give them a purpose. Only when I decided on my themes and style did it become easy to give my main character a suitable purpose, to enhance the feeling of alienation that the audience would experience. I saw that in many short films there are only a few characters or one main character with some peripheral extras. I had considered using a few more characters but I felt that this would pollute the themes of isolation and the alienation that would be created. ‘About A Girl’ and ‘Eight’ are two short films which I feel heavily influenced my decision to only use one character, in ‘About A Girl’ despite several other characters being present they don’t add much to the story or the impact of the message on the audience and the same can be said for ‘Eight’.
Having watched other short films I got a good sense for the conventional types of music and sound that they use to create emotion and enhance their messages, but I decided that using any music in my production would make it only seem warmer towards the audience rather than a sharp shock that the message is supposed to give them. After deciding on this I was unsure what I should use to open and close the film, I felt that the best thing to use would be digetic sound from what the girl might actually be hearing as she recollects her journey up to the final point so I used the sound of the river running next to where I filmed. Because the girl was hearing this I thought that it should run right the way through the film and I thought that it worked quite well in conjunction with the voice-over and kept the continuity of the film nicely.
The way that I ended the film was quite different to the normal convention as well, because I wanted my message to make an impact I thought the best way to do this would be to make a quick change in the style of the message and make it much darker so that there may have been a lasting impression on the audience. The main message that I was trying to convey was more of an idealogical one but I felt that a dark undertone would create more of an impact that the idealogical message by itself.
2.I think that my product and ancillary tasks are effective together, but as I didn’t choose a specific genre I have nowhere to draw comparisons from. My poster features a lone figure, the girl from the film, in the distance on a path through the forest where the trees look like they are trapping her. I specifically chose this image for my poster because it brings forth the isolation and alienation exhibited by the girl in the film. Perhaps some audience members may take a negotiated or aberrant reading to the name of the film or the tagline i used; ‘The end is coming’ could be interpreted as suggesting that the film is a disaster movie or that something or someones life will end in the film, rather than the message from the film being re-enforced by this. “The Miracle Of Life” is quite an open ended title for the film but it’s ambiguity is supposed to give the audience an early taste of the alienation in the film, but some audience members may see this as a misleading title and interpret that it’s a medical drama or a David Attenborough type documentary. Any expectations that the audience may have had from a negotiated reading or aberrant reading are undermined by the film itself.
The review that I wrote for my film works well in conjunction to my film as it explains some of the elements that I used. I feel that my review page may be suited to a specialist review magazine for experimental and low budget cinematography, or as part of a film festival such as Tyneside Cinemas Northern Lights Festival. Whilst writing my review I was wary of being too positive about the film or being too negative, but I think overall I have been balanced whilst also commenting on the perceived lack of narrative and the content of the film. Some elements of the film which I feel I may have been misguided in using or misjudged their appeal I have criticized it whilst also justifying the use of some others.
4.During the process of making my short film, editing it and making my poster and review page I feel that I learned a lot about the editing software mainly. Whilst I was editing my film using Adobe Premier Pro I found that it was difficult to narrow down exactly which effects would be useful to me and which effects wouldn’t be. I learned that the editing process itself was quite difficult, and I feel that I my have been seduced by the capabilities of the technology in Premier Pro when I chose my editing software. I originally started my editing using IMovie but I didn’t feel that I was getting the most out of the technology which I feel is now a little outdated. Because I used Photoshop as part of my AS project there wasn’t anything new that I could learn whilst making my Poster and review page. Before this year I had not ever used web 2.0 site Blogger, I found that it was extremely useful to put my work onto my blog and then change it for further developed work. There were some aspects of the video editing software that although they seemed like good ideas once I used them, such as the scene dissolve, they took away from the film and so I decided to not use them, and they also made the film seem more genre orientated than its should have been.
