Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question Two: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Creating linking iconography, similar visual styles, and, overall, a recognisable brand identity, was a crucial goal for us while working during the planning and production stages. However, there were a few initial design goals we had approaching it:

Let the identity naturally develop

This was a key area for us. Making the foundation of what we wanted in terms of visual links was important, but I felt as though forcing the issue at the beginning of the production would restrict us in a few ways.

This is why, initially, we decided to forego mapping out in extensive detail our projected brand identity, including the colours, themes, and layouts we wanted to use. This was because, at this point, we hadn't even fully formed the narrative for our short film. This aspect of our production would definitely determine the look and links of our ancillary tasks, and without it in place creating a brand identity essentially felt like jumping the creative gun. 

The brand identity was something we kept as a fluid, organic process we would knowingly keep as more of a background task until the proper aspects of our products were in place to develop it. This approach had both benefits and drawbacks.

• Benefits;

We could make sure that, if our production changed, we wouldn't drastically deviate into unplanned territory in terms of brand identity. This actually happened to our main task; an entire psychological element and narration were removed. If our brand identity were completed geared up to include these elements, we would've had to adjust a lot of research and planning. 

• Drawbacks;

One of the drawbacks was somewhat of a lack of union in our ideas and planning. We had to keep communication as high as possible during the production stages to ensure that we were all on the same stage. I think some members were better at this than others, but, ultimately, I think all of us had a good enough idea from our extensive research to work somewhat independently but still find an identity that bridged the gap between short film, poster, and review page. 

Moving on to the areas in which I felt as though we showed a unison of ideas:

Font

The font links our productions in a simple, direct and recognisable way. This is most prominent on the poster and short film:

Short

Poster

There was something simple yet quite morose about the sans-serif font in red. The contrast of the clean font/red colouration was purposeful. The red has connotations of the horror genre, as does the 'Slain'. However, contrasted with the visuals of both the film and poster, a sense of social realism is retained.

Neither of these visuals connotes to the horror genre. Their focus is far more on the realistic aspect. I think the red font was a great way to unify the title across both the poster and short film. Not only does it make the title stand out, but also represents the characters general mood. There's a hint of danger in the red of the title, just as there's a hint of danger in the main character's future. 

In terms of media theory, this area best links to psychographics.

We know our target audience is not only used to but interested in seeking out genre-bending aspects of media texts. I think the title of the poster and the short would fit this. It blends some elements of contrasting genres to create a unique, somewhat unnerving atmosphere. 

I'm glad we held this brand identity across the poster and short film. It succeeds not only in reaching our target audience but also in defining the piece creatively.  

Waxwing Imagery other pieces of symbolism inspired by Vladimir Nobokov's 'Pale Fire' 

This aspect of our production developed quite organically, mainly originating at the end of the research stage. 

I was initially inspired by the usage of this text in the most recent Bladerunner film. Although the genre was something completely different to our own, I thought it still brought an element of intrigue and ambiguity to the scenes it was used in and wanted to somehow replicate this in the main product. 

This, at first, translated into directly pasting a narration of a few select lines of the text (the ones we see our main character writing at the very beginning) into the script. 

However, after some consideration, these lines felt like if they existed in isolation they'd be more of a distraction or, at least, would feel somewhat out of place and irrelevant. In order to solve this, I decided to plan into the script, storyboard and plot blocking graph a 'mind' element of the production. 

This would act as an accompanying set of visuals for the narration, and provide an interesting way for us to explore the character's deeper responses and feelings - while preserving the sacred 'show don't tell' rule.

However, when it came to production and editing, were a few reasons why it was cut. 

We realised that the 'reality' part of the production gave us more than enough content to work with.

Overall due to production difficulties we weren't able to film the mind side. However, I actually began to saw this as a benefit to our piece as we began editing. The central story of our product not only covered more than enough content to cover 5 minutes of screen time but also held more than enough narrative information to begin and complete the story in a satisfying way. 

I realised how redundant the 'mind' aspect of our piece was. Also, by consequence, I felt including the narration was also redundant. We ended up making a piece that was far similar to our initial plan; a minimalistic social realist short.

However, we retained the inspiration of  'Pale Fire' and incorporated it in a more subtextual sense. For example, using the imagery of birds, flight and freedom to link to the title was an area of great visual inspiration for us - both in the poster, review page and main product.

The usage of birds in the short became a visual inference towards not only Seb's desire for freedom but the entire cut 'mind' aspect of the piece as a whole.

The tagline of the poster is a direct copy of the opening, barring a tense change of 'was' to 'am' to make the line feel more specific to Seb.

This is the main picture Olly selected for his review page, which heavily links to avian imagery. 

And for the main caption, this is what I decided to write for the review page. I linked the 'avian' imagery to the nature of the short itself, implying how integral it is to the narrative.

In the short, this manifested itself in various ways throughout production and evaluation. We took some great B-roll of various birds and wildlife about Soar Lane, which bridged two shots brilliantly together and served as a way to infer at Seb's wish for freedom rather than try to inorganically and forcefully jam the information/motivation in. Overall, I think this minimalist approach has worked far better than the hyperbolic, overly 'deep' psychological elements would've. After all, at the end of the day, the most important part of the short is the story.

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In the poster, Jake used the symbolism as a way to pepper in certain elements and take visual cues from the short itself, most notably the tagline. By using the symbolism of the short as a way to inspire visual details, a lot in terms of depth and meaning was added to the visual style of the poster in my opinion. 

In the review page, I wanted to make sure that, when writing from the perspective of the reviewer, I identified and picked up on this heavy symbolism and imagery, writing about it in-depth but still from an external perspective. To highlight this successfully I made sure to reference 'avian' imagery. Oliver's selected picture also linked to this.

Successes; 

• I felt like these pieces of symbolism were a success because they linked, in very detailed and intricate ways, our pieces together. Rather than feeling restricted by a colour code or narrow range of images, the small aspects of symbolism could be adapted to fit the widely ranging mediums we were working in. It also allowed each of us to take our own ideas as to what the imagery was and how it could be communicated, creating a nice spin and sense of variety while also retaining a clear identity. 

Failures;

• On the other hand, there were some drawbacks associated with this recurring theme. For instance, some of the aspects of symbolism didn't carry as well into the review page as it did into the poster and short film. In addition, as with all subtextual elements, they didn't immediately and clearly link our products together - we're very relying on the attentive viewer to make those connections. 

Pursuing absolute realism in the visual styles and substance of each of our products

The sense of realism began with our desire to deviate from the benchmark set by Badlands, our previous AS 2-minute opening. 

An on-location end of day shot for the first day of filming Badlands. It was a huge amount of fun and I really enjoyed the experience, but I knew that I not only wanted to move away from the genre in A2 but the location as well.

We were committed from the very beginning to creating a social realist main product. Furthermore, when trading ideas, Jake and Olly both agreed that seeking realism in both the poster and the review page would also be a huge priority as well. 

Social realism seemed to fit that specific niche for me that was at the same time exciting yet also practically achievable. Shooting on a real location with real themes, embodying our budget and minuscule production size rather than trying to compensate for it; these were the design goals associated with the realism that I began with. 

I tried to also combine this with our ancillaries as well. 

This range of shots encapsulates the way in which we sought to visually integrate realistic settings with our story, and make them a part of the narrative. We wanted, as much as possible, to make Soar Lane look like Soar Lane, and the characters as if they lived in Leicester City. I was really happy with this aspect of the production. 

After much planning and research, and also cutting aspects during the editing stage that I felt were ultimately retrograde to our pursuit of realism (the previously discussed 'mind' aspects), the end result of the main product acted as a brilliant foundation. It set, essentially, a realism benchmark; both ancillaries could be measured to see if their level of believability measured with the main shorts. 

For the poster, Jake followed as many technical conventions as he could in order to find this realism. Directly integrating award wreath's in the exact same style as they are in reality was a big part of this:

Notice the similarities in visual style of small details, in this case, the award wreaths. Jake's pursuit of this realism links to the realism of the short film.

Similarly, in the review page, Olly wanted to design a review precisely how a real magazine would for our products; not by devoting a full double page spread to it, but only a single page focus (like an 'indie corner' of a major magazine). 

Considering all the above examples of the review pages taken from Empire magazine, it's clear where Olly got his inspiration from.

This realism in the review page helped both enhance the sense of the small-scale which is, truthfully, what our production embodied, and also linked the realism of the poster, short and review page together in one creatively co-ordinated union.

In conclusion

Though at first, we were initially worried that leaving our brand identity task behind would lead to a lack of unison in our ideas, I think the identity is recognisable between the main and auxiliary tasks - especially the poster and short film.

However, if there is one area I would go back and improve myself it would be the links between the review page and the short film. There was somewhat of a communication breakdown during the very short production cycle of the review page. While at first I understood and accepted Ollie's design decisions the review page, at its end result, is somewhat weakly linked to the poster. Independently, it's a really strong evocation of Empire's style and has strong links to the theme of realism we were going for. After speaking with Oliver about it, I respect his decison, and understand the route he intended to take with it.

Overall, though, I still believe the cohesion was good enough to create a clear brand identity by the end of our production.