Ancillary Task 2: First Draft

In this post you will find a first draft of my completed magazine review. I will make any amendments when I receive feedback.

Ancillary Task 2: Rough Draft

In this post you will find a rough draft of my Magazine Review.

Ancillary Task 2: Draft of Magazine Review Text

Film Review:

Something to open your eyes into the deep dark truths of social media, the new film from Amy Tilley may be one to get you thinking.

This is the second film from Amy Tilley, and let’s says it certainly differs from the last. Where Caught concentrates on the humorous ends of breakup and heartache in a teenage-orientated romantic comedy, Disconnect portrays deep, saddened emotions of the effects of social media, in which we are hooked in to sympathize with the character, not to laugh with him.

Lea Oliver, played by Ollie Lea, plays a depressed man, whose life has been taken over by social media, and he becomes disconnected from reality. The construction of this character has been portrayed well; through the absence of dialogue Tilley has really attempted to make emotion and feelings the centre of her film. This has worked well as the sincere message can clearly be projected and understood in this 4 minute short film. 

People would argue that there isn’t really a market for silent films anymore. With the increasing demand for new technology I worry that this may put people off going to watch Disconnect. However looking past the silence there’s so much to appreciate. The message still pushes through and it is this silence that symbolises the pain and suffering Lee Oliver is going through. The film creates a sense of familiarity and deals with an ever growing modern issue, which is perhaps why the film may target the older generation.

Notably the music eliminates the need for any dialogue as James Craft and Johannes Ringen tell the story through song. This is done tastefully, and the soundtrack has been paid more attention to than in Tilley’s first film Caught.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the lack of relatability to the characters. Caught seemed to have three main characters and therefore it was hard to relate to all three of them as not real relationship was created. The same applies to Disconnect, Lee Oliver’s personality does not shine through, and perhaps this is due to the length of the film, only being around 4 minutes.

Disconnect offers a different experience to viewers, not being your traditional or award ready film, however there is strong message to be revealed in this film and I wish it every success.

Ancillary Task 1: Rough Draft Feedback

I have recently shown my rough draft of my film poster to my class. They came back with a number of feedback points, things that worked well and things that I could add to make the final product good. These things included:

• Perhaps a more interesting title, although the lower case disconnect works well, I could play around with some of the letters to link it to technology. For example, rotating the S 180 degrees, to make it look like some sort of computer cable.
• Think of an effective tag line to go with my film poster and position it underneath the title.
• For the image on the poster, technology is obviously the centre focus. To portray this it was suggested that no actors would be in the image, just a mobile phone. I could also take an over the shoulder shot of someone on a computer using a social networking site. Lastly an image that portrays the message in the film, it was suggested that I could include an image of my main actor looking miserable using this technology, perhaps in a secluded setting to represent this idea of loneliness  and isolation that my film portrays.

Action Plan: 03/02/2015

Over the past two weeks I have began making my ancillary tasks. I have drafted the poster and put it on the blog, however the magazine review is still in the draft phase, and will not yet be completed. I have rendered my Main Task, and therefore can now take screen shots of the video to create an image for the magazine review.

Here are the tasks that need to be completed:

• Take original images for the film poster.
• Take screenshots for the magazine review.
• Begin to look at the evaluation questions and complete question 1.

Skills Development/Progress: 03/02/2015

This week I have been carrying out research for my ancillary tasks. I have began drafting my film poster, but am yet to take my original images.

This week I have used Photoshop to begin my poster. I have previous experience with Photoshop, but still found it challenging to work with as I had not used the software for a long time. I had to familiarise myself with the tools, and once I had done this, I had to ensure I selected suitable tools to get the desired effect for my poster.

One technical issue I struggled with was creating a billing block. This involved downloading a font and uploading this into the software, which I could not do. I overcame this issue by finding a suitable font on PowerPoint and creating it this way. Once I had done this I placed it into Photoshop and adjusted the size as necessary.