Dear Examiner :)

Dear examiner, my name is Shinmayan Ahtheesan. I would like to take this opportunity  to invite you to my A2 media coursework blog I hope you enjoy going through my blog as much as I did putting it together. For my coursework task I had to produce a 5 minute film. Mine is called 'Forbidden Love' enjoy.......

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

Evaluation Media Technology from sim on Vimeo.

Evaluation: How effective is the combination of your ancillary texts and your main product?

My ancillary texts are a radio trailer, film poster and a song. My radio trailer is made up of a poem, I believe that a poem was a good choice as the film is about love and poems can be related to love. I wrote the poem myself using inspirations from my film and other films that I have watched both Tamil and English. My radio trailer in my view is an effective ancillary text as it challenges the normal conventions of a radio trailer by not having any actual sounds or clips from the film. I t creates an emotional bond with the audience and slowly works through the film from start to finish. I used some slow mellow music in the radio trailer which adds to the emotional effects of the poem and also helps to set the mood of the film.



My song is called 'Asai Pennai' which directly translates to 'lover girl'. The song is written in tamil, I wrote the song myself and sang it myself. I think that this has worked quite well overall as an ancillary text as people who have listened to it have given me good feedback. Even though the song is not in english many people who dot understand the song are somehow able to gain an understanding of the meaning by the way I have sang the song using different expressions in my voice during different parts. I put a large ammount of effort into creating this song, but I believe that it has been worth it as it helps to increase the awareness of the film and also is quite an easy song to listen to.



The film poster is my final ancillary text for my film poster is a picture that I took whilst I was filming. I decided to do this because i thought that it would ensure that the feelings and expressions would come through as the actors are in character. I decided not to have a picture which included the villain as it doesn't give away too much of the story, it keeps the audience on edge about what may be the 'Forbidden Love'.

I believe that all of my ancillary texts work hand in hand with my film each contributing in their own individualistic ways to my film. The radio trailer is able to gain the interest of a wide variety of different possible audience members from the radio medium. The song again will have a similar effect the radio trailer in the way that it draws in different radio listeners but it can also draw in other people in the way that it can be shared around the internet over social networking sites could be downloaded to phones and other devices that means people will have it accessible and can show other people it. The film poster follows the conventions of film posters in they way its laid out, i think that it drags a lot of attention toward the film as it doesn't give much away. The poster could be posted anywhere maybe on a billboard, in a cinema or local leisure center so the probability of it being seen by my target audience.

Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback

Evaluation Audience feedback from sim on Vimeo.

Final Feedback

After I had uploaded my film to Vimeo I decided to put my film up on Facebook to enable me to have more direct contact with my chosen target audience. All feed back that I obtained was  positive  with not much criticism if any. Many people liked the fact that there were a lot of different factors incorporated into the film. For example for people who like comedy there was the scene between the 3 mates where they're just chilling and having their own jokes, people who like serious films there was the main climax in the woods with the main character and the villain in the film, for people who like romantic/love story lines there is the overall narrative of the film. 

                           

This is a print screen of my film linked up on facebook with 24 'likes' on the first day I put it up. This to me indicates that i have successfully managed to grab the interest of my target audience.

This is an example of the kind of comments that I recieved after uploading my film to Facebook.

This is the number of plays that I got after uploading my film up to Facebook

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

This is my radio podcast of my evaluation. I have tried to make it authentic by using introduction music and also by doing an interview off the top of my head so nothing sounds scripted and everything flows.

Forbidden Love Final Edit

Forbidden Love Final Edit from sim on Vimeo.

Third Edit Forbidden Love

Final Edit Forbidden Love from sim on Vimeo.
After my second edit I decided that I needed to change one part of my film as it detracted from the narrative of my film. It is the part in the park where both of my main characters are talking because the wind distorts the speech meaning you cant hear what is being said.  I decided to use the other shot of the same scene that I had already filmed.

Second Edit Forbidden Love

Forbidden Love First from sim on Vimeo.
This is my first edit of Forbidden Love, i thought i had finished editing but when i played the film back through headphones I realised that some of the sound track had gone from stereo to mono, i.e only played out of one side of the ear phones. I then had to go through and double all of the tracks and set the balance.

Evaluation & Radio Trailer & Song

This is my Evaluation with my radio trailer and the fully completed song as well I have edited them all together using 'Acoustica Mixcraft'.  This I believe gives a realistic representation of what my ancillary texts and my evaluation would sound like to an outsider.

Ready to mark....?

Hi Shin,

Is this all ready for final marking? Email me and let me know. I will mark and then TJ will double mark on first day back.

Target Audience

My target audience are people of a similar age to me. A young audience aged between 16-32 I chose this target audience because I believe that they will have similar interests to me.so i believe it will be easier to make a connection with my target audience. I want my film to be watched by people of all demographics as it looks at issues that i believe are present in all demographics. I also believe that young people will be able to relate to the situations and the characters in the film. 

Marketing

Throughout the the creation and editing of my short film "Forbidon Love" - I have vastly inputted a huge deal of time into the marketing side of things, and I have tried to develop a marketing strategy which will successfully target and influence my target market. I believe that marketing side is remarkably important to the process of creating a film, as it generates much needed awareness of the project and as seen in the modern day, it is one of the main ways in which the film industry can generate a monetary return on their filming ventures due such great competition being present within the industry. One of the main ways in which i marketed my film, was through creating a Facebook page in which viewers could interact with me and give their views and opinions of what they perceived from the movie. This allowed me to achieve not only an increased public awareness but also allowed me to gain constructive criticism about the movie. I choose Facebook, as it is one of the most popular and well established social networking websites in the present day. It is also very popular within my target market meaning that I can directly get through to them through this method of advertising.

Poster designs...

This is my poster design that I drew as you can see it is a very rough draft i just used it to help me visualise my poster. For my poster i decided that I would have the couple in a park because parks are generally places where you would tend to see couples going. they both will have a sad/angry look on their faces as this will bring across their emotions and give the character a sense of life. I decided to have leave out the title from my design as I wanted to view it in as many different fonts as possible in order to be able to fully appreciate what fonts would look effective.

My Film Poster on a Billboard

This is my Film poster on  being advertised on a billboard. By advertising it on the bill board I can be sure that my film will be seen by as many of my target audience as possible as it is on a large bill board it will increase the number of people seeing it and thus will hopefully increase the number of people talking about it and in turn increase the viewing. In order to get my film poster on to a billboard i will have to gain authorisation from the local councils as they controll what is put up on the billboads to maintain the ascetic beauty of their own borough. 

Initial Poster

This is my initial film poster, I used photoshop to edit a picture that i took when i was filming my film. I believe that the image on its own is a very powerful image as it shows that both of them are together but their facial expressions narrate the audience that there is something on their minds that is hindering their love. I have taken a quote from the end of my film and put it on my poster I believe that this will entice my target audience to watch the film as it gives away a small part of the film away. This is known as a strapline.  I have used pink and black as pink represents love and black would normally connote a dark meaning. So this ties in with my theme i decided to put forbidden in pink and love in black just to add a twist to the title.

Good going Shin!

Great to see it taking shape. A little more context on the essays would be good - what were you studying, how will this help you with your film planning etc. What grade did you get etc etc

Facebook Feedback 6

The sound in places need to be changed for example the scene with Iqbal and Ciara the wind comes in and over powers the speech in the film. This is a part of the film I believe needs to be dealt with.

Facebook Feedback 5

The comments that were made here I believe were a fair reflection on the film. There are a few bits that I believe could be changed ever so slightly to make the film a little bit more effective in the way that it portrays the story.

Facebook Feedback 4

This feedback was very positive. Although it was very positive I had no critism to improve on.

Facebook Feedback 3

Again another positive piece of feedback. the length of the film was not my choice, but if it was then the film would have been a lot longer.

Facebook Feedback 2

This is very positive feedback and it even made me think about the underlying issues that my film tackles such as racism and stereotyping. 'unique concept' makes me think that my film is one of a kind and although there are other films that are slightly smiliar to this out there in the market mine is able to stand out a little from the crowd.

Facebook Feedback 1

This is the first it of feedback that I received from an outsider perspective on the whole of my film. As you can see it is slightly negative but the critism wasn't about the film being bad it was that the film wasn't to his taste. But even saying that this person enjoyed some parts of the film which enabled me to think that I have catered for a very wide  target audience which is what I was aiming for.

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First Draft of Forbidden Love

This is the first edit of my film 'Forbidden Love' as you will hear i need to re-edit the sound and need to refilm a few of the shots.

Forbidden Love first edit from sim on Vimeo.

How do I know that my target audience will enjoy the film?

I pitched my film to my media class who are all of a similar age to me and has a healthy mix of boys and girls. I asked them for their feedback one of the main feedbacks that I got was that they were unable to see how the film would unravel. Obviously this is a huge problem so I went back to the planning stage and worked out every single thing that I want to happen in each scene, this also made it a lot easier when it came to filming. Another criticism that I received was the fact that in my sample scene there was a lack of speech my class was unsure if my hole film was going to be speechless or not, this made me ask my self, do I want speech or not? And I decided that speech in my film is going to play a dominant role in different parts of my film. I was then asked about music from my film. For my film I decided that I wanted to compose my own music and write my own lyrics for my songs. I decided to write lyrics in both Tamil and in English I wanted to do this as I believe that it gives the film more authenticity. Both songs are about love, the lyrics can be found on my blog there is also a brief explanation of the Tamil lyrics as many people will not understand them. Whilst speaking to various people on a one to one basis I found that most of them liked the plot of my story but they needed more substance in the film. for example my original film idea said that the boy and girl get caught by a mothers friend but now the boy gets beaten up by the girls racist brother. As you can see there is a large increase in drama in my film now. By adding the brother it also enabled me to have a more diverse character base and experiment more. I believe that by using the criticisms that I got and continuing to speak to my peers whilst editing my film I will be successful in making a film that will be enjoyable for my target audience to watch.i also set up a Facebook page and invited many people to join i asked a few people their opinions on my plot and story lines many of them liked it but a few said they dont like it as they dont generally like the whole 'lovey dovey' film story lines. 

This is a small part of my film pitch..

film pitch from sim on Vimeo.

What have I learnt about time management?

By setting myself deadlines to which I must complete certain pieces of work I was able to fully complete the work that I was meant to with out having do it all at once. I believe by doing this I gave myself ample time to go over and reflect on different parts of the coursework and change things that I didn't like or knew that I could have done better. Even though I pre-planned there were still things that dragged me back slightly for example it was difficult for me to find a time where all the actors were free to film. I also had to take into consideration the  weather as for most of my film I wanted the weather to be warm and sunny.

Blogger

This is me working on my Blog for my A2 coursework. I used Blogger to do so. The only issues i came across was trying to make my blog my own and for it to be individualistic. I overcame this by using my poster as a banner and by changing the colour and the template of my blog. I believe that using blogger was an effective way to be able to showcase my work online. As it was online it meant that i was able to change it from anywhere aslong as I had connection to the internet.

Editing

This is me editing the film. I used Final Cut Express on the apple mac computers to edit my film i found this quite easy as I had used it for my AS coursework. There were a few problems I came across i resolved these by using YouTube to find tutorial videos I also got help from others in my class who had come across similar problems.

Story

Forbidden love is the story which follows the life of 2 young lovers, one is a Muslim boy named Iqbal and the other is a Catholic girl named Ciara. Their religions are huge barrier between their love. To increase their problems further Ciara has an older brother who a skin head, nutcase racist type who has recently completed his youth offenders community service. He objects the love between Ciara and Iqbal and when he finds out that Iqbal has invited Ciara to the woods he goes down there and show Iqbal his disapproval. This forces Iqbal and Ciara to runaway in order to pursue their love.

Facebook Forbidden Love

In order to raise awareness about Forbidden Love I made a facebook fan page to which i invited people to join. This helped me get in contact with my target audience and spread the word about my film.

Aasai Pennai (My song)

This is a sample of the Tamil song that i wrote for my film in my view i need to rerecord it as in parts of the song my voice goes a little off tune i could easily correct this using auto tuning software but i would prefer my voice to be original rather than modified by the computer.

Tamil lyrics for ‘Forbidden Love’

Aasai pennai unmela naan uyiraa iruntheen

Deavaithai pola unai partheen

Yellam vittu un pinale vanteen

(mansu muluka nee than yenga parthalum nee than)

Palikoodam poonaal yenaku padipu yeravilai

yen sinthanai mulka nee than yen pillai

unnai vital yenaku verai yarumee illai

nee yenaku sonthamagividu yenthan devadaii

ulagam neeyee yenthan vaalkaium neeyee

yenthan kadhlium neeyee pennai nee than yen uyiree

(intha ulagam alingalum yen kadhal aliyathe anbe)

Thaniya nadaka vittai yenai paithiyam aakivittai

yennai thaiya vittu yengae nee sendrai

ondrumatuum soluveenee unai theedi varuveene

unai matum thane naan kadhalipeenee

ulagam neeyee yenthan vaalkaium neeyee

yenthan kadhlium neeyee pennai nee than yen uyiree

manasu muluka nee than

paasam tharubavalum nee than

saagum varaikum naan ingee unakaaha kaathirupeen

unmai  sollavaa nee yenaku veenum maa

kadhal enbathu athu unkuda than amma

Do Pal - Veer Zara

This is the original song 'Do Pal' from the hindi film 'Veer Zaara'

My Song

For my film Forbidden Love I decided to write my own song in tamil to increase the authenticity of the film. I found an instrumental on youtube of a song called 'Do Pal - veer Zaara' so i had to email the film producers and ask them if it would be possible for me to use the instrumental.

Radio Trailer

This is my Radio Trailer....

Forbidden Love Radio Trailer Poem

Love forbidden from the start
Cultural differences tore us apart
A tale so sad it'll touch your heart
To be together we must be smart
Emotions run high and tempers run out
The love that's shared is never in doubt
Hope and desire are running throughout
Together as one can't live without

Bones are broken and blood is shed
We must prepare ourselves for what's ahead
What happens next?could be something to dread
You will be the one I wed

Tears will fall sorrow will emerge
Love between us will never diverge
Feelings as one together will merge
Tensions and courage are pushed to the verge

Forever we stay together as one
We've moved away, life's begun
The end is here, we have won
No regretful feelings for what we've done

Ancillary Texts 2

My second ancillary text is a radio advert I used the trailers from other films as inspirations as to how mine should sound. But then I decided to challange the conventions of Radio Trialers by having a poem explaining the film rather than having different parts of the films sound track edited together. I got to planning my poem and the radio advert. As research I mainly just listened to the radio and listed out for different types of adverts.

How did analyzing film posters help me?

Whilst trying to design my film poster I found it incredibly difficult to visualize what it would look like. So in order to gain an idea of what type of structure I would be looking into I analyzed a few film posters. Whilst doing this I was able to identify various aspects that they had in common and which things differed from genre to genre. So now I had a list of the different conventions I was able to decide which conventions I wanted to follow and which ones if any I wanted to challenge. I wanted to have my poster in landscape format with a single image of the main characters from my film. I wanted to take a picture that would inform the audience of which characters are in which role in the film. At first I wanted to use afilm screen shot but I then decided it would be better if I was to go out and take a suitable picture. I drew up a design of the poster just to make it easier for me when I was putting it together on photoshop.

Research for Film Poster

In order to fully gain knowledge of the conventions of film poster conventions i decided to analyse some film posters in my chosen genre which is drama with the main theme as love. The First film poster I analysed was of the film 'Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya' a Tamil film with a similar story line to mine.

Film Poster Analysis 1

The second film poster I analysed was of  the film 'Love Actually'.

Film Poster Analysis 2

Ancillary Texts

The ancillary texts that I have chosen to do are the; Film Poster and the Radio Advert. For my film poster I want to have a similar style to the film poster of 'Forgetting Sarah Marshal' which is one of the posters that I analysed. I want to have the picture with the girl sitting on the park bench looking sad face down, a few steps ahead of her will be her older brother with a hoodie on looking angry and menacing then finally a few steps ahead of him will be the main male character looking straight towards the camera looking sad, angry and kind of lost as if he he is asking the audience for help. This is my poster design

10 Shot Digital Story Board

Why did i do a storyboard?

During my presentation I used a digital story board to help the audience to understand what I meant during different parts of my presentation.  At first when I was told that I had to make a digital story board I was reluctant as I didn't believe that it would help me. But only after doing it I realised suddenly how easily everything falls into place when things are planned properly, with just a little bit of effort along with the plan and a camera, I was able to go to various locations and film in the different components of my film with little hassle.

Story board

Media Short Film Treatment

As part of my coursework i was asked to do a pitch presentation to my media class for which i had to write up a treatment. I gathered feed back from my peers and used this feedback to make a few changes to my film and the story ever so slightly.

This is my treatment 

Media Treatment

Vaaranam Aayiram trailer

This is the film Trailer for Vaaranam Aayiram, which is a tamil film where love is a main theme throughout the film. I decided just to watch a few film trailers without analysing them in depth to get a feel of how the audience will feel after they watch the film trailer.

Vinnai Thaandi Varuvayaa (VTV)

This is the film trailer to the Kollywood film VTV. As soon as the trailer starts we are introduced to the producers name. I believe this is very important as it reminds the audience of other films that they may have seen and enjoyed that were produced by the same company. This could automatically give the audience an incentive to watch the film. After the producers name we can hear light mellow music starting to play with the main characters voice over the top. He starts by explaining the meaning of 'true love', this gives a great indication as to the genre of the film . From here parts of the story start to unravel, this gives bits away to the audience, just enough to paint a vague picture in their heads but not too much so they can piece the rest together. Finally the main character leaves us with the question 'why did i love Jessie' this leaves the audience confused and wanting to know what happens.

How did analysing short films help me?

By analysing a various number of different short films I was able to get a feel for how they were made and different conventions that are used by short film directors. I was also able to see that many short film directors choose to do horror genre after finding this out I was determined to make a new story, a new concept that hadn’t been made before. I started looking into the subject of love and religion and the ways in which they can interlink, causing extreme problems in some cases. During my research I became more and more interested in the idea of ‘forbidden love’ and decided that was going to be the main theme of my story. To then further develop my ideas I researched about different religions and their beliefs on marriage into other religions.

6 Shot Analysis.




 What different techniques have I seen in short films that I want to use?

During the film ‘LOVE LANGUAGE’ produced by jubileeProject the focus is on communication. As I watched the film it became evident to me that the communication must be crystal clear between characters on screen and the audience. So I decided to adopt the idea of them communicating through a written method as well as through verbal speech, but instead of the characters actually physically writing the text they type it through their phones. I chose this as mobile phones play a major role in teenage life and I wanted to try and portray teens how they are in real life.I also learnt that the camera is my most powerful technique in itself by having well shot scenes with a variety of shots will convey the story across to the audience so if I was to add the sound and edit to the film hopefully the audience will enjoy the film and fully understand the film.The sound in the film also plays a primary role. The sound in the film has to fit the mise en scen of the shot. If it doesn’t then there should be a reason why it doesn’t. For my film there will be diagetic (noise from an on screen source) and also non diagetic sound (music from an of screen source). Because my film is a love film I decided to make 2 love songs one in English and one in Tamil. I belive that the melodies of the songs help to convey the love feeling and the lyrics help to emphasise the facts of the film.

What is the Short Film Industry?

There are various different reasons that people make short films these may include: experience, a show reel, partnerships, testing out an idea and money. What do i mean by these? It may be that you want to experiment in

To widen my knowledge I went to the ECU the european independent Film Festival which was held in Paris. Here i was able to see various different short films that were being made and also introduced me to a platform which could enable me to distribute my own short film in the future to a wide demographic of audiences. I watch a range of short, feature and animation films, there were also some music videos. These were by both established and amateur directors.


A short film that is a film that is too short to be considered a feature film, 40 minutes running time including all credits. Long films were very rare up untill the 1920's the films before this time were only about 5-10 minutes. Short comedies were popular in those times with actors such as Charlie Chaplin.
The short film industry has advanced greatly from the days of charlie chaplin. Now with modern technologies it is  a lot easier for any budding amateur film maker to make a short film. They can enter their films into the short film awards for free. And win prizes for various categories such as best film etc.

This is a single shot analysis of  'About A Girl' I did this to view the various technical aspects of the film and see how they worked hand in hand to produce an effective scene. I looked at the aspects such as lighting, costume, framing and mise en scen.

About a girl Single Shot analysis

Short films

I will be using various online sources to view different genres of short films to ensure that i have a wide enough knowledge about the short film industry. here are print screens of some of the different web pages I visited. For any project planing is crucial. By watching various short films I was able to see what other short film makers had made, this gave me inspirations as to what I wanted my film to be like.

This is my analitical essay on the short film 'Insane'. I analysed this film to gain a better understanding of the conventions of a short film.

The Insane Final Ting.

The Insane

John Vincent is a cop on a quest for vengeance. After finding his wife murdered in his own home, he decides to dispense justice on the murderous psycho's who have destroyed his life. Armed with only a crowbar and his wits, John takes to the city streets and takes out the insane maniacs only to find there something much worse out there.

Directed by: David J Ellison & Mark Cripps

My 6 shot analysis of the short film 'Love Language'

6 Shot Analysis.

Smashed

Smashed – A Short Film By Peter Snelling
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Smashed is a thrilling and moving drama about four friends on a night out drinking. As the night descends their love lives unravel, they find themselves in grave danger and try to claw their way back to the surface.

Despite being funded by Avon and Somerset Police, the script was written independently. The producer's inventive approach to sourcing funding led to a partnership with the police that was surprisingly unrestricted and creatively free.

While filming, a major concern was that the actors avoided over-the-top drunkenness, but we were so cautious we ended up having to do reshoots because no one looked like a drop had passed their lips.
After worrying about over the top drunkenness we had to do reshoots because no one looked like a drop had passed their lips.

Cast
Kayleigh Lawrence
Joshua Jenkin
Natasha White
Domonic Rowntree

Crew
Writer/Director.....Peter Snelling
Producer.....Kate Saunders
Director of Photography.....James Price
Production Designer.....Nagea Rose
Music.....James Price
Editor.....Rachel Tunnard

Produced for Somerset Film and Avon and Somerset Police


I was asked to analyse the technical codes of the short film 'smashed' I believe in hindsight that this has helped me greatly as I was able to use the techniques that I found in the all the films and trailers that i analysed in order to enhance the success of my own film. By analysing a wide variety of different genres i was able to gain a knowledge  of the conventions that were associated with the genres and why these were used.

Short Film Analysis

I analysed many short films inorder to gain a feel for them. I analysed various aspects of the films including camera angles and mise en scen. This is the essay i wrote about the short film 'Smashed' I have written the essay appying technical and analitical terms from the key concept of media language.

Analyse the Short Film Smashed

Initial planning of ideas

I am working on my own for this coursework task this had its benefits and its drawbacks. It will be beneficial as I will be able to use  my own ideas without having to compromise my vision whilst not having to try and visualize someone else's vision. One of the drawbacks I believe that I will feel is that there will be no one to challenge my ideas so I will have to do that myself.

I need to come up with an idea for my media film so today I made a spider diagram with different ideas for genres and content. By the end of this lesson I've decided the following:

• I am not going to make a horror.
• I would like to make a story about love.
• The story will be about two people who love eachother but can't be together because of their religion
• I will be in the film and hopefully one of my friends will agree to play the female role
• The film will be shot in my house and in my local area

Scanned Notes

Welcome Note

Welcome to my A2 media blog where you will find my final products, my planning and progress of my ideas and skills. My project was to produce a short film of no longer than 5 minutes and two ancillary tasks to promote the film. I chose to produce a film poster and a radio trailer both of which you will also find on this blog. I worked on my own for the project so there are no team meeting posts but I did blog my thoughts each time I needed to make decisions on how to progress. This project has been a lot of work but I have developed my production and planning skills and I've enjoyed the challenge of all the different tasks.