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

Stanley Pickle (2010):

what have you learned from your audience feedback?

FINAL FILM

Here is my final film, I released it on YouTube on February 3rd and since then it has received 186 views to date, a number of comments and 6 likes. I am incredibly happy with the response because it included a wide range of ages and a lot of people had something positive or constructive to say. :)
Facebook comments: 
such a good idea!
that's awesome!
too cute!! :D
this is great - all the hours have paid off!!!!
very well done! does he die at the end? lovely to see your mum, brother and house!
what can i say?!!! that is excellent, well done.
21 likes

YouTube comments:
very good, how long did it take to get the stop motion bit right?
wow! That must have taken hours of work and what a great end result! Your first attempt at film making was a success. The sound track was beautiful and I really enjoyed watching it.
THATS SOO COOOOL!
6 likes

audience feedback

I recently showed the rough cut of my film to the class so that I was able to gain an external perspective on it and to use the feedback to possibly adapt/enhance my film.
Audience feedback....
Comment No#1
Good ident. Nice use of music. Good range of shots. A film that brought a smile to my face. Nice variety of locations - I think the beach works really well. Good use of stop motion. Love it!!! :)
Comment No#2
I larvvve it! :) Love the dog camera. It must have taken a lot of time and effort. It is also an adorable plot! I really like the titling as well.
Comment No#3
Amazing titles! Really good variety of shots. Very well trained dog! Falling in bin shot is amazing. Interesting editing. Emotive music. Really charming. I love it!
Comment No#4
Love the incorporation of footage and stop motion. Such a quirky idea! However at the moment I feel like it's more of a film opening than a short.
Comment No#5
Effective titling sequence. Variety of shots. Nice POV from the bin's perspective. YAY stop motion. So cute when they get married. Very good! Made me smile. I like that you incorporated stop motion and footage. :)
Comment No#6
Stop motion can be very risky but you handled it incredibly well. Very good storyline and focus on shots. Worked extremely well. Very amazing film! Well done. :)
Comment No#7
I like how you've mixed stop motion together with normal footage and I like how the music you've chosen changes the atmosphere half way through.
Comment No#8
I actually love yours. The fact you've done stop motion as well as normal stuff is just amazing. I do think the stop motion stuff makes the acting in the start not so good though. The music also adds such a touching effect. WELL DONE!
Comment No#9
The sections filming the dog work really well - I love your use of tracking. The shots vary and work/flow together. I love the narrative - it's so cute and creative. 
Comment No#10
Shots were all framed well. The stop motion parts were cute and also brought a little playful side to the piece.

Upon receiving verbal feedback from my teachers, I learnt that to make my film even better I should insert one or more flashback scenes in the prolonged moments during the marriage and also before Oscar and Quin begin walking on the sand dunes. I am thinking of filming scenes in which Oscar is being unwrapped as a present whilst Quin looks on from a shelf to show how the two first 'met' and then possibly another, or making the flashback fragmented that I can insert it in both places. This was a great piece of feedback to receive at this time because I have enough time to film and insert the footage and if I had not received this feedback then I would have missed out on marks.

I was very pleased with the reception of my film; I was initially worried that the audience might not understand why the couple falls in love or lack an emotional attachment with the characters.

Another exercise we carried out was asking the audience to write in one to three sentences what they thought the message of the film was/what the film is about. This was, thankfully, very insightful and effective because as the sole director, producer, scriptwriter, cinematographer, editor, you assume that the message of the film is clear and that people will be able to understand it. This didn't prove to be a problem for myself because as the feedback demonstrates, people understood the plot of my film. Yay.

ROUGH CUT YAY

WATCH IN HD OR 480p! :))

Quick fun little summary

Today I decided to create a video to show how I made my puppet because I noticed whilst on my blog page that the images were not particularly easy to look at without extensive scrolling. Creating a video is also a good method for me to use on my blog because it shows a different use of technology. I used the Stupeflix YouTube App to create the video which enabled me to choose the music that I would like and what images I would like to use, it was a free App which was great because when online I found so many that had to be paid for or you were limited on what you could do. So, YAY, here is my construction video.

Audience Feedback

In Monday's lesson I got the class to watch the video of my idea pitch and then to post comments on my blog what they thought of my initial idea and then to pose a question for me to think about. I was pleasantly surprised by the feedback that I received as everyone was very positive and had constructive questions for me to think about.
Aimee - I think stop motion is a good idea although it is lengthy it could be worth it. Would it all be in stop motion or would you consider having part of it real life filming?
Farah - I think you have a very creative idea which could work very well - the puppets would be very entertaining! If you were thinking of stop motion that would also be very effective - but you would have to already start planning to make sure you manage your time efficiently; if you do it will work greatly! Good luck :-)
Caitlin - I really like this idea, I think it would be really cute for the puppet to fall in love with the mannequin, this still has a fairytale-esque feel to it and the idea of him living in your shed is really good. How would your brother fit into the film? Would he be friends with the puppet? 
Martha - I think your idea is a really good one. I think especially for a young audience, its such a nice juvenile idea, which is refreshing because I think a lot of other people get bogged down in subtext and seriousness. I think you should really use the idea of stop motion as its creative and original. 
Evie - Sounds you have the building blocks of a really fun and creative idea! I'd be very interested to watch this short, should you choose to make it. Have you thought much about sound in your film? 
Alice - I love the idea, think it shall work really well. I personally think that maybe give a try out of the stop motion, because if it works for you I think that will look really effective, but I also think it is good that you have considered how time consuming it can be therefore have thought of an idea where you can also film it through 'real' action. Have you thought about whether you will use diagetic or non-diagetic sound, whether you will include much dialogue etc?
Lizzie - Really interesting idea; it's great that you have already considered actors and have a good idea of where you are going to film and how it's going to work with your vision. Do you know where the story is going to lead?
Ben - The idea is very simple, the stop-motion could be a problem as Alice said; it is very time consuming. But I think that if it does properly stop-motion can add so much more to a piece especially in the case of fantasy as it provides a much more unreal but also fragmented and sharp final product. How do you feel on working with a young actor? And how do you plan to keep his interest in making the film with it being such a tedious production?

audience research

1. How would you define a short film?

• Audience (3 years old): Good.
• Audience (35 years old): A film that is shorter in duration that a feature film which I imagine is within a defined time frame limit (for example less than an hour?).

2. Have you watched any short films before?

• Audience (3 years old): Cars Toons (Time Travel Mater, Air Mater, Heavy Metal Mater etc.), Day and Night, The Gruffalo, The Gruffalo's Child
• Audience (35 years old): I don’t think so. It is difficult to define whether something like The Gruffalo is a short film. I guess is depends on the time frame limit.

3. What kind of short film would you be interested in watching?

• Audience (3 years old): Animals, cars, fun.
• Audience (35 years old): Comedy or drama.

I decided to ask a wide age range in order to gain an understanding of the types of short films watched and also whether it would affect the results. For example, I found that my 3 year old brother had actually watched more short films than the other audience member, purely because they were either Pixar/Disney related films that are quite popular amongst young children. The spectrum of short films available for adults is a bit more specific and the audience has to actually search for the films rather than them being readily available at the cinema, i.e. feature films. 

The genres suggested by these audiences are very helpful because they will enable me to create a short film which is interesting and what audiences want to watch, rather than something a bit more 'out there'. I found these responses very helpful because now I have decided that I would like to create a film which can be watched by both children and adults. :)