EVALUATION

A2 Media Short Film: "Confessions of a Sock-a-holic"

Brief summary of my role in this production

• After group sessions where we brainstormed ideas and plans for the idents I created them using After Effects and royalty free sound found online
• I acted as the main character Paul Smith
• I helped set up all shots Paul was in along with the rest of the interview scenes and directed Duncan Rowe on what to say and how his line should be delivered
• After group sessions where we brainstormed ideas and plans for the poster I created the poster using Photoshop
• After group sessions where we planned and brainstormed the magazine review I created the magazine review using InDesign and Photoshop. I also slightly edited the text in this to fit and so that it worked better with the photos etc
• Worked with my group to create the plot, script and storyboards

Our Final magazine review

This is our final magazine review. We changed ours massively from our previous attempt. We reverted back to a white background to match the conventions of other magazines. We also noticed how we forgot to put the name of our magazine, page numbers or any kinds of twitter accounts or websites on it. So we added those, changed the pictures to ones much more related to the film. I felt one large photo and a few smaller matched the conventions of a magazine review and was also more pleasing to look at. Feedback upon our film said how Duncan Rowe was by far the best actor yet our magazine review had no mention of him so I edited the text so that there was more emphasis on him.

Personally I think that this looks much more professional than our previous attempt and I am happy with the layout.

Finished poster

After reviewing our old poster we decided that there was a few sloppy mistakes, such as socks not completely edited out in the top so they had to be changed. Then we moved A Synergy Film to the top as we felt that a film company wouldn't have any of their name covered up. We also wrote "Synergy Films Presents" instead of "a synergy film" as we felt this sounded more professional and matched the conventions of other film posters. Finally we added the the #lostsock and the bottom as this matched the conventions of the modern film posters. 

Draft Poster

This is our poster so far. We are happy with how it clearly is similar to our film with the yellow text. It's a rough poster that we are mostly happy with and want to review it later to see if any changes are needed. 

Alternate Ending?

We have planned and shot our ending where it ends with the Dad saying about how he never though his lie to protect his son from guilt would go so out of control.

Shortly after shooting this I watched an episode of Midsummer Murders. Although the style of this is very different from what we have done it ended with a bit of a surprise twist.

I was then wondering wether we could end ours with some sort of twist so I lightly planned a few ideas

1. Paul is being taken away to an asylum-possibly a bit too cheesy and I think it would be difficult for us to film this well and effectively
2. Pauls dad tells Paul what he has done and it ends with Paul sitting on the bed in his room and then it fades to black-I think that is the ending people might expect and ending with it like that might be too predictable
3. Turns out there actually is a sockmonster, and it shows a shot of him removing a sock at the end-decided not to use this as it would give it too many twists and may make our film too confusing

After coming up with some possible other endings we decided that we liked the ending we had the most and couldn't think of an idea that was better so decided to settle with the one we already have.

New magazine

 

 

We have now added in the rest of the pictures and changed the layout. I feel it now looks more like a magazine review with the pictures.

 

We are going to review it again ourselves to see if we are happy with it. Personally I think that we have met several of the conventions of a magazine review but also missed out several important ones.

 

Conventions we have followed...

• Name of film at the to
• Pictures of film but not screenshots
• Text talks about plot, actors performance and a rating

 

Conventions we didn't use...

• White page background
• Name of magazine on pages
• Text commenting on best actor
• Name of cast/directors
• Text being in columns
• Relevant pictures 

At first we thought by not following many of the convention's we would be making it more interesting but after looking at what we created I think it would be much better if we did follow all the convention's. We are going to start again with the layout and slightly change some of the text so that it references Duncan Rowes performance as he is defiantly the star of our film.

Magazine review draft

 

Here is our first attempt at a magazine review, we have used different colours to normal so that it stands out. We need to add in some more picture first and maybe change the layout.



Confessions of a Sock-a-holic: Rough Cut #1

 

This is our rough cut of our film. We still need to add in idents to the film and credits at the end.