Narrative Evaluation Report
Here is my rather long narrative evaluation.
Stage 4 - Narrative Evaluation
During this narrative module, I have developed a wider range of skills and have increased my understanding of film production. During the seminars I have learnt the basics about film structure and processes that I managed to put into practice during this module. I have had practice using the equipment such as video camera’s, and have been trained on how to use the lighting and sound recording equipment. I have been shown how to use design and editor programs such as Photoshop and Premier, most of which, has been completely new to me. I have also learnt the benefits of team working, and how to work well within a group.
The very first challenge I was faced with was to introduce myself to the rest of the group. The first person I met was Aaron. This was a huge relief, as I knew that at least one person in the group was as enthusiastic about the project as I was. Soon after E-mailing the other members of the group, I met Sophie, who was also passionate about the project. This was a huge comfort as I felt very relaxed and found it very easy to discuss ideas and talk to both of them.
In our first meeting, we discussed various ideas for our narrative. After listening to Deborah’s introduction to the narrative module, we had come up with an idea which involved a pair of shoes that go on a journey and fall in love with a sexy pair of high heels. The lecture was very useful for me as I learned a lot about the art of story telling and the different techniques involved. A lot of these techniques we tried to use in our own narrative story. Our narrative followed a classical structure that followed a linear storyline. Lives were affected and the main character went on a quest which involved a ‘problem’, as the shoes were separated, a ‘complication’, as the shoes realised that they have been cloned and are very old and dirty in comparison. The narrative then ends with a ‘resolution’, as the trainers decide to end their life. The narrative also has a clear, beginning, middle and an end. These narrative techniques were all mentioned in the seminar, which was very useful as it gave us a lot of inspiration for our story.
Creating the stage 2 PowerPoint presentation was the first task we worked on as a whole group. This allowed us to share all our ideas for the narrative. I thought we done this quite well. We did have a lot of trouble trying to find the two other members of the group, Neil and Kamal, dispute the many e-mails we had sent. Their lack of attendance at the beginning of the course did make it difficult to make contact with them. However, we still managed to find them in time and work together to create the Presentation on time in order to deliver it to the group. We decided the best way to collect the information was for each person to work on different parts of the presentation and bring it all together. This way we could research in more depth and gather information quicker which would make effective use of each member of the team. It also allowed each member of the group show they can deliver what has been asked of them. Pleasingly each member of the team was able to show what was required of them. As I was confident in using PowerPoint, I was elected to put all the information together and design the slides. Although I hadn’t used PowerPoint for a while, by doing this exercise, I was able to familiarise myself with the program.
Disappointingly, Neil and Kamal never shown up to the presentation, dispute us rehearsing it the day before. Not only did this look bad on the individual, it also looked bad on the group as a whole, as it could have reflected that we wasn’t working together successfully, dispute the fact that we were. I was very nervous about the presentation as I feet uncomfortable speaking to an audience. I spent a lot of time rehearsing the presentation so that I would not have to use my notes. This exercise helped me gain more confidence in speaking out loud to an audience without the aid of notation.
We did get some criticism over the content of the presentation as we did not include any images of the shoes we were going to use, and also, some of the slides were overcrowded. This was partly my fault as I was the designer of the slides and I will take the feedback into consideration for when I design my next PowerPoint presentation. The overall feedback from Andy and Deborah was extremely helpful as they were able to aim us in the right direction and make us aware of any problems with our ideas at this early stage. Our target audience was one problem which was brought to our attention. I had mentioned during the planning of the presentation that the target audience may have been too young, as the plot involved a love scene, and a suggested death at the end. Both Andy and Deborah agreed, and explained that by increasing the target age market, we could make a more mature love scene as it would be difficult to execute this scene to a young audience. Andy explained that there is a fairly large market for adult cartoons, and therefore it would be just as appropriate to aim the narrative at an older audience.
The style of our narrative was heavily inspired by the 2005 ‘neo-noir’ film ‘Sin City’. We wanted our narrative to look different and appeal to an older audience. Although the actual plot of the story may appeal to a younger age group, we felt that by presenting it in film noir, this would attract a more mature audience. By using still images would also give it a comic book appearance which may interest audiences of all ages. In order to go about creating this effect, we had to research film noir and find out how we can achieve this effect. Having not seen Sin City and not knowing much about film noir, I found the most effective way of understanding the genre was by watching clips of the movie. The official website [1] contained video clips as well as behind the scenes images showing how they created the exposure of colour within the black and white. This helped me to gain knowledge of film noir that helped me envision how the narrative would be presented. Sophie had a much better understanding of film noir and was able to share her knowledge of film noir in order to help me with my understanding of this particular cinematic style. This knowledge could also be useful for future projects.
With knowledge of film noir, I began to think how we would go about creating this effect. Luckily, Aaron had an idea of how to go about this in Photoshop. I already had a reasonably good knowledge of Photoshop as I had used it during my A-level graphic course, however the features Aaron shown me, I had not really used before. I thought of using two layers and reducing the saturation to make it greyscale, and then with the above layer, erase selective areas to expose the colour. However, Aaron showed me how to use selective colour to enhance the effect and create a greater contrast between the black and the white which is a crucial feature of film noir. The images below, show how the selective colour made a difference to the image. Again this showed one of the benefits of working in a team as I was able to increase my knowledge of Photoshop, from the expertise of another member of the team. Equally, I was able to assist Aaron, and other team members with my knowledge of Photoshop.
I helped Neil and Sophie complete the editing as they had a lot of trouble with Adobe Premier. Upon completing the first edit, Sophie lost all her work. I therefore decided to help Sophie and Neil with the editing as time was running short. As a team we were able to assist each other and work together when workload was high. Premier was very new to me as I had only ever used it few times before, during the seminar with Danny Kaye and during the You Tube post. By helping Neil and Sophie, I learnt how to use Premier and more about the editing process. I decided that we would need a removable storage device so that we can have backups of the work to avoid us losing our files again. This has made me and the rest of the group understand how important it is to backup work on different removable storage device encase one fail.
One of the main things I have learnt from this project in the important planning. Although we had a storyboard and a clear script, we did not consider the timing of the narrative as there was a lot of material we couldn’t use due to the time constraints. Better planning would have avoided a lot of time spent on key scene that did not make the final cut. We had a lot of scenes of the character playing in the park, in order to add humour to the story; however we struggled to fit it in.
One of the things I did struggle with as a group was communication. Only half the group regularly attended the production surgery sessions, and the regular meetings. Also the rest of the group did not regularly check the narrative group forum. I did use it a few times; put did not find it as useful, as it was rarely used by the rest of the group. Therefore we relied a lot on text messaging, e-mails and phone calls, which was reasonably effective as you often got a reply instantly. However, in future group projects, I will defiantly encourage the rest of the group to make better use of the forums, as it would be a better way of keeping the whole group informed on the developments of the project, and everyone can contribute to the discussion, rather than sending private text messages and e-mails to select members of the group. I did realise that other members of the group viewed each others Blog on a regular basis, which encouraged me to keep it updated with all the developments on the project.
Overall I really enjoyed the narrative project and the final film. My main concern was whether people would understand the story. However, the people we have shown the narrative too really enjoyed it and were able to understand what was going on. I would change very little on the narrative as I felt that it matched our specification and covered what we set out to do which was to tell a story, about a pair of shoes that go on a journey, filmed in the style of film noir. However, some scenes in the narrative are quite boring as it simply relies on a series of individual still images to tell the story. I thought we could have added more stop animation to make the narrative more visually exciting. Overall the project has been an interesting learning experience which I have benefited from it in a number of ways. All the skills that I have learnt over the last few weeks will help me with future projects which will help me to work to a higher standard throughout the rest of this university course.
Bibliography
[1] Sin City (2005) [Buena Vista Home Entertainment Inc], Retrieved 2006/12/04, http://video.movies.go.com/sincity
Stage 4 - Narrative Evaluation
During this narrative module, I have developed a wider range of skills and have increased my understanding of film production. During the seminars I have learnt the basics about film structure and processes that I managed to put into practice during this module. I have had practice using the equipment such as video camera’s, and have been trained on how to use the lighting and sound recording equipment. I have been shown how to use design and editor programs such as Photoshop and Premier, most of which, has been completely new to me. I have also learnt the benefits of team working, and how to work well within a group.
The very first challenge I was faced with was to introduce myself to the rest of the group. The first person I met was Aaron. This was a huge relief, as I knew that at least one person in the group was as enthusiastic about the project as I was. Soon after E-mailing the other members of the group, I met Sophie, who was also passionate about the project. This was a huge comfort as I felt very relaxed and found it very easy to discuss ideas and talk to both of them.
In our first meeting, we discussed various ideas for our narrative. After listening to Deborah’s introduction to the narrative module, we had come up with an idea which involved a pair of shoes that go on a journey and fall in love with a sexy pair of high heels. The lecture was very useful for me as I learned a lot about the art of story telling and the different techniques involved. A lot of these techniques we tried to use in our own narrative story. Our narrative followed a classical structure that followed a linear storyline. Lives were affected and the main character went on a quest which involved a ‘problem’, as the shoes were separated, a ‘complication’, as the shoes realised that they have been cloned and are very old and dirty in comparison. The narrative then ends with a ‘resolution’, as the trainers decide to end their life. The narrative also has a clear, beginning, middle and an end. These narrative techniques were all mentioned in the seminar, which was very useful as it gave us a lot of inspiration for our story.
Creating the stage 2 PowerPoint presentation was the first task we worked on as a whole group. This allowed us to share all our ideas for the narrative. I thought we done this quite well. We did have a lot of trouble trying to find the two other members of the group, Neil and Kamal, dispute the many e-mails we had sent. Their lack of attendance at the beginning of the course did make it difficult to make contact with them. However, we still managed to find them in time and work together to create the Presentation on time in order to deliver it to the group. We decided the best way to collect the information was for each person to work on different parts of the presentation and bring it all together. This way we could research in more depth and gather information quicker which would make effective use of each member of the team. It also allowed each member of the group show they can deliver what has been asked of them. Pleasingly each member of the team was able to show what was required of them. As I was confident in using PowerPoint, I was elected to put all the information together and design the slides. Although I hadn’t used PowerPoint for a while, by doing this exercise, I was able to familiarise myself with the program.
Disappointingly, Neil and Kamal never shown up to the presentation, dispute us rehearsing it the day before. Not only did this look bad on the individual, it also looked bad on the group as a whole, as it could have reflected that we wasn’t working together successfully, dispute the fact that we were. I was very nervous about the presentation as I feet uncomfortable speaking to an audience. I spent a lot of time rehearsing the presentation so that I would not have to use my notes. This exercise helped me gain more confidence in speaking out loud to an audience without the aid of notation.
We did get some criticism over the content of the presentation as we did not include any images of the shoes we were going to use, and also, some of the slides were overcrowded. This was partly my fault as I was the designer of the slides and I will take the feedback into consideration for when I design my next PowerPoint presentation. The overall feedback from Andy and Deborah was extremely helpful as they were able to aim us in the right direction and make us aware of any problems with our ideas at this early stage. Our target audience was one problem which was brought to our attention. I had mentioned during the planning of the presentation that the target audience may have been too young, as the plot involved a love scene, and a suggested death at the end. Both Andy and Deborah agreed, and explained that by increasing the target age market, we could make a more mature love scene as it would be difficult to execute this scene to a young audience. Andy explained that there is a fairly large market for adult cartoons, and therefore it would be just as appropriate to aim the narrative at an older audience.
The style of our narrative was heavily inspired by the 2005 ‘neo-noir’ film ‘Sin City’. We wanted our narrative to look different and appeal to an older audience. Although the actual plot of the story may appeal to a younger age group, we felt that by presenting it in film noir, this would attract a more mature audience. By using still images would also give it a comic book appearance which may interest audiences of all ages. In order to go about creating this effect, we had to research film noir and find out how we can achieve this effect. Having not seen Sin City and not knowing much about film noir, I found the most effective way of understanding the genre was by watching clips of the movie. The official website [1] contained video clips as well as behind the scenes images showing how they created the exposure of colour within the black and white. This helped me to gain knowledge of film noir that helped me envision how the narrative would be presented. Sophie had a much better understanding of film noir and was able to share her knowledge of film noir in order to help me with my understanding of this particular cinematic style. This knowledge could also be useful for future projects.
With knowledge of film noir, I began to think how we would go about creating this effect. Luckily, Aaron had an idea of how to go about this in Photoshop. I already had a reasonably good knowledge of Photoshop as I had used it during my A-level graphic course, however the features Aaron shown me, I had not really used before. I thought of using two layers and reducing the saturation to make it greyscale, and then with the above layer, erase selective areas to expose the colour. However, Aaron showed me how to use selective colour to enhance the effect and create a greater contrast between the black and the white which is a crucial feature of film noir. The images below, show how the selective colour made a difference to the image. Again this showed one of the benefits of working in a team as I was able to increase my knowledge of Photoshop, from the expertise of another member of the team. Equally, I was able to assist Aaron, and other team members with my knowledge of Photoshop.
I helped Neil and Sophie complete the editing as they had a lot of trouble with Adobe Premier. Upon completing the first edit, Sophie lost all her work. I therefore decided to help Sophie and Neil with the editing as time was running short. As a team we were able to assist each other and work together when workload was high. Premier was very new to me as I had only ever used it few times before, during the seminar with Danny Kaye and during the You Tube post. By helping Neil and Sophie, I learnt how to use Premier and more about the editing process. I decided that we would need a removable storage device so that we can have backups of the work to avoid us losing our files again. This has made me and the rest of the group understand how important it is to backup work on different removable storage device encase one fail.
One of the main things I have learnt from this project in the important planning. Although we had a storyboard and a clear script, we did not consider the timing of the narrative as there was a lot of material we couldn’t use due to the time constraints. Better planning would have avoided a lot of time spent on key scene that did not make the final cut. We had a lot of scenes of the character playing in the park, in order to add humour to the story; however we struggled to fit it in.
One of the things I did struggle with as a group was communication. Only half the group regularly attended the production surgery sessions, and the regular meetings. Also the rest of the group did not regularly check the narrative group forum. I did use it a few times; put did not find it as useful, as it was rarely used by the rest of the group. Therefore we relied a lot on text messaging, e-mails and phone calls, which was reasonably effective as you often got a reply instantly. However, in future group projects, I will defiantly encourage the rest of the group to make better use of the forums, as it would be a better way of keeping the whole group informed on the developments of the project, and everyone can contribute to the discussion, rather than sending private text messages and e-mails to select members of the group. I did realise that other members of the group viewed each others Blog on a regular basis, which encouraged me to keep it updated with all the developments on the project.
Overall I really enjoyed the narrative project and the final film. My main concern was whether people would understand the story. However, the people we have shown the narrative too really enjoyed it and were able to understand what was going on. I would change very little on the narrative as I felt that it matched our specification and covered what we set out to do which was to tell a story, about a pair of shoes that go on a journey, filmed in the style of film noir. However, some scenes in the narrative are quite boring as it simply relies on a series of individual still images to tell the story. I thought we could have added more stop animation to make the narrative more visually exciting. Overall the project has been an interesting learning experience which I have benefited from it in a number of ways. All the skills that I have learnt over the last few weeks will help me with future projects which will help me to work to a higher standard throughout the rest of this university course.
Bibliography
[1] Sin City (2005) [Buena Vista Home Entertainment Inc], Retrieved 2006/12/04, http://video.movies.go.com/sincity
Labels: Narrative
posted by Paul at
4:44 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home