EVALUATION POINT 2

How Effective Is The Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

Primary and Secondary Research

When faced with challenges such as producing a 5 minute long film, along with a poster and a review, the first thing I reach for is my laptop. From this I can use search engines like Google to find existing real media texts and analyse them in order to help me decide a few things.

Firstly, I opted more for secondary research when it came to short film ideas. When exploring websites such as Vimeo and YouTube, I discovered that there was a huge section of films portraying mental illnesses. This inspired me greatly as I thought it was something very unique that not many people would have thought of doing.

I used primary research more for my ancillary tasks. This included looking at real life film posters and analysing their content, colours and styles. The use of research and development from qualitative secondary and primary research has helped increase the effectiveness of my coursework pieces

When comparing the coursework criteria to last year, I realised that it gave me of a platform to explore. It enabled me to explore different codes and conventions and possibly to challenge them to create something unique and special.

When making a music magazine I found it difficult to adopt a unique way of presenting my images, style and font as I wanted it to look like a professional realistic music magazine. However when producing a film there is a vast range of theories regarding narrative, representation, and gender that helps me explain how I challenged conventions.

 My Film

I believe that the beginning of my film holds both, unrestricted narrative and a restricted narrative. The title of the film ‘In Your Mind’ hints at the idea someone may be experiencing something unworldly, therefore the audience are in expectation of something relating to in the mind. None the less the narrative is also restricted because it isn't until half way through the short film that Schizophrenia is clearly addressed. My short film consists of a linear closed structure with a beginning, middle and an ending with a definite clear conclusion. Most short films that I have analysed have been ones that carry this structure. I wanted to portray the binary opposites of being unwell with health and in order to convey this I needed a concise ending that brings happiness to the protagonist.

Literary theorists Todorov argued that most narratives start with an equilibrium in which life is ‘normal’ then this state is disrupted by an outside force then recovers the disruption and ends with a new equilibrium. I believe that this theory fits my film as the main protagonist is disrupted my his mental illness, in which he goes to get help and confronts the problem face on which leaves us with a new satisfactory ending. This is a useful theory as it reflects my idea of schizophrenia that I wanted to portray in the film as something that can cause a big disruption within somebodies life; however they can end up with a new normality and overcome what they are experiencing through help and self-belief.

A similar way my film was effective and challenged short film conventions was the involvement of anachronism. I discovered that by distorting the time through flashbacks, and flash forwards it represents the confusion of the protagonists and made the film portray the unstructured experiences the protagonists was experiencing. Cameron’s Narrative explains this further by stating that no clear dominance between the narrative threads means that the narrative often repeats scenes directly or via a different perspective. I think this is useful theory because it films such as pulp fiction and memento also capture anachronism and when tackling a subject such as mental illness it reflects how they might have flash backs and hallucinations.

In conclusion, as a media producer (of a short film) my texts are intentionally composed by myself. My film is an artificial version of the reality that we perceive around u but without media our perception of reality would be very limited.  My film is a clear example of how needing and using media helps us makes sense of an reality. Although signs and codes such as stereotypes are one huge element of how people are represented, my short film doesn’t particularly involve common stereotypes but it has, however constructed a reality of its own. Although the preferred reading of my film is that Mental Illnesses are trivial in society and that it can sometimes be underplayed by the media, the theorist Stuart Hall, says that not always people adopt your preferred reading but a negotiated reading is where those who inflect the preferred reading to take account of their social position. Therefore I think that my film does this as it opens the viewer’s up to a world that they may not have known and reflect upon their own. 

Ancillary Tasks

The most important thing that I needed to ensure about both my ancillary tasks is that they reflect the film in every way possible. For my poster I thought that if I used a montage of the images overlapping each other it would represent his mind being everywhere and lost. I thought this was a good way of representing the film and also making the poster look very effective. Most of the lighting is edited on to create an ambient effect therefore I didn’t want to juxtapose this with a vibrant poster. However I do believe that even though the house colours are black white and red, the mid shot image in the middle of the poster is still very eye catching and really draws the eye into the middle of the poster. I feel like the the unusual image in the middle will makes the audience anticipate what the film could be about.

The film review is very much in correlation with the film poster. I kept the house colours the same as well as the fonts. I added a quote from the producer of the film (me) I think this is a typical convention of a film review. If the producer is someone well known then it may draw people into reading it to see their view and opinions on the film. I also thought that adding the image from the film would be appropriate because it may not be as recognisable as a feature length film therefore people may recognize the article and want to read it if they see the poster image. I added a rating onto the review because I think it fits the conventions of a typical Film review.