Evaluation - Question 1 - Cinematography

One of the most well known forms and conventions present in the style of a mockumentary would be the 'talking head'. This is a device usually used to deliver punchlines, exposition, or even (as shown below) intense emotional character development. I have included an example of Talking Heads from 'Spinal Tap' below...





This is a way to give character information, exposition and (most importantly) a punch line. This is one way in which I followed the forms of the mockumentary genre through my camerawork as seen below.

This is an example of how I have followed forms and conventions of the mockumentary style through camerawork. I think that the 'talking head' is an extremely useful way of moving a story along in a believable way, and allows a way to present the main narrative features within the story such as the equilibrium and disequilibrium and the new equilibrium.

Evaluation - Question 1 - Introduction

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

The genre of my piece is what is called a 'mockumentary' which is a fictional piece, often grounded in comedy and a through line of self awareness, shot in the style of a documentary. A heavy influence on Lecture was 'The Office'. This was the first largely serialised TV mockumentary. The creator/star/runner of the show has since moved on to do more work in a similar style such as the show 'Derek', and this style has become well known and accepted, which is shown by how well it transferred to American TV with 'The US Office'.

Another example of the 'mockumentary' style is a film called 'This is Spinal Tap'. They joke in the film about it being a 'rockumentary', but the same forms and conventions are still largely present. It is a fictional story shot in the style of a documentary that draws its comedy from highlighting the mundane and through the ridiculousness of the characters, just as 'The Office' does.

I primarily tried to follow the forms of this genre in the script, as well as the cinematography and the editing of the piece, at least as far as my actual film goes. When it came to my ancillary tasks, I stuck to a simple design/house style, which took inspiration for the advertisements/house style for 'The Office'. I didn't feel that 'Spinal Tap' would be an appropriate inspirational text for this part, primarily due to the style of that being reflective of heavy metal music in it's design.

Ancillary Task - Magazine Spread

Above is my final magazine spread. The spread is based on magazines such as Empire. It reviews the film whilst providing various stills and keeps with the style of the advertising (such as the poster I had previously designed). 

Ancillary Task - Poster

Here is the first of my ancillary tasks, a poster for my film.

In this poster, I decided to include the films two primary characters, Rachael and Michael. Michael is to the right, with his arms open. Compositionally, his arms are open towards Rachael, suggesting that he is open and accepting of her which in turn codes the audience expectations of the film to believe that they may be close friends or a couple, which is true of the film.
I created a whiteboard graphic as well as a few extra bits and pieces such as the 'skool sux' graphic and added all the smudges and pen marks on the board myself with the Photoshop brush tool. I then cut Rachael's picture down and added an effect that made it look as if she had been drawn on the board. Because of Michael's stance, it is suggested that he drew her and is proud of that. I did all of this because I wanted the audience to get some knowledge of the setting of the film, and thought that adding in this whiteboard with the graphics I have included would give that.
To follow conventions of the format, I included the title of the film with the consistent graphic I have used throughout production, and added the two primary actors names below it in a similar font which gives a uniformity to the poster and adds to the whole 'school' feel. I then made a credit block, which can be seen at the bottom. I used a font that was as close to the industry standard as I could find and used all appropriate formatting for the block. I then included an age rating and the logo of the production company (Dawson Woods Films) in the bottom left and right corners, respectively. These are all techniques used in professional designing of posters, and in turn they add a professional look to my poster.

The primary way my research factored into this design was from the poster from 'The Office'. The poster I deconstructed followed a simple style, showcasing primary characters on a white background and leaving most of the work up to the audience's imagination, which is something I have tried to imitate in this poster. I believe, by having Rachael look drawn, and Michael looking as he does, it looks to the audience like he has drawn her.

One of the biggest problems I had whilst making this poster was cutting the people out of their photos. For most of the photos, the background was a yellow wall which made it difficult to cut. It would have been far easier to do this if I had used a white backdrop, as it is much easier to differentiate between a white background and a person in a picture. Using the yellow background left some of the characters outlines quite difficult to define and it required some very finicky erasing and cutting to fix this, which I believe could have been avoided had I used a white background.

Final Product

Here is the YouTube page where I have posted my final product, Lecture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7KDnr-hiUA&safe=active

Time Management Update

After spending a few weeks intensely editing my film, along with recording the audio for the film and gathering stills for my ancillary tasks, I have nearly finished my final draft of the film. Sometime soon I will be uploading this final draft to the YouTube channel as I have previously stated.

I have gathered an ample amount of stills to use in my ancillary tasks, and I will also be using screen caps from the film to add to this. I am going to be beginning these tasks this week if everything goes as I have planned.

Original Song

As part of my film, and to avoid copyright infringements, we wrote an original song which we called 'Lungs'. I decided to upload this song to the YouTube channel as a promotional video for the film.

This video can be found here

After filming this promo video, we realised that ripping the audio from this recording would suit the needs of the film, as the recording was not high enough quality. We got in touch with a local recording studio called The Garage, whose website can be found here, and booked in to record. We managed to get a great version of the song recorded in just over 2 hours, and then I uploaded the song to YouTube, along with a free download link if people felt like they wanted to have this song on their iPod etc.

The final version of the song, with the audio I have actually put in the film, can be found here.