Evaluation of insomnia

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

In the beginning of our film the way we used our camera is we used long shots of streets with cars, buses and houses. We chose to do this as it shows a real environment; it distinguishes the location and the setting. In the long shot the house is semi-detached. Also in the beginning we chose to use a medium shot of the younger brother looking at something then we used an eyeline match with a point of view shot from behind the younger brother’s head watching TV and combing his afro. We chose to use these shots because it draws the audience into the mind of the younger brother which is done effectively. Also these shots represent the younger brother as lazy and a couch potato because he is sitting down in a relaxed position and talking to the TV.



The way we used our camera to challenge normal conventions, is when the younger brother sneaks out of his room he first peeks through his bedroom door. We decided to use an eyeline match of the younger brother peeking with a panning shot. We decided to use this because it shows that the younger brother is checking to see if the coast is clear but in addition this again brings the audience into the mind of the younger brother, but this time shows a different side to the younger brother personality. Previously, in the film the younger brother is represented as someone who has a one track mind as he is complaining at the TV .But through the panning shot the younger brother is seen as somebody who is clever and mischievous. As before the younger brother leaves his bedroom he makes sure he doesn’t get caught. This shows analysis and thought in the younger brother. This moment in the film brings versatility as there is more to the characters than we first thought in the opening.

The narrative in our film was used in a normal conventional way. The storyline of our film was based on the five part structure of narration which is exposition, development, complication, climax and resolution. The relationship between the two characters is shown as in the climax of the film the brothers argue, the older brother wins the argument this represents the younger brother as someone who is very rebellious. The narrative is used to great cause as it makes our film easier to follow because the film is in a structured setting. What we decided to do unconventionally is present a challenging resolution. We did not want to be condescending to the audience by using a dull, uninteresting and happy ending. We wanted to catch our audience by surprise by challenging the view that the “good guy always wins”. So we decided that the younger brother should get way with his mischief.

We applied the conventions of editing, by using dissolves. We put dissolves in between scenes of younger brother messing up the living room, the older brother tidying it up afterwards and on the establishing shot when it fades from day to night.. We wanted to pull of the effect that time is passing by. However generally using dissolve suggest a long time period, using dissolves shortens the clip and gets rid of unnecessary footage as we did not want to show how much time and effort the younger brother used to we feel this will bore the audience.

The conventions of real media products we used in our film is continuity editing In our film there is editing on the characters moving around the house, walking through doors and walking into rooms. We decided to use this as it pieces our film together and makes it easier to follow this is effective as it makes our film more domestic. Also we wanted to get an authentic life perspective of the characters in the film as this will get the audience more involved because it something they can relate to. We did not want the audience to get distracted from this so we did not add any extravagant fades and transitions

the way we use sound conventionally is through the use of dialogue. We decided to use this as it establishes the character. This is visibly shown in our film as we know the younger brother’s is defiant and immature whereas the older brother’s character is mature and dominant. The soundtrack in our film is Dream by The Game. We chose this track as the music is slow paced and the lyrics in the song associates with sleep. This is effective as it gives the audience hints as what the film is likely to be about. One other ambient sound we added in the film was the song Mr Bombastic by Shaggy when the younger brother turns up the volume to disturb the older brother. We chose this song because this song is raucous and blaring. The lyrics in the chorus of the chorus are “What you want is some boombastic romantic fantastic” This is used to great effect as this represent the younger brother as someone who is full of himself and self assured. Conventionally we used diegetic sound as in the film we can hear the sound of the TV. This is done effectively as it creates the realism of a typical family home in the film.



Conventionally we used mis-en-scene is the characters wore casual clothes. Wearing casual clothes can suggest that no matter how hard the younger brother tries to prove himself he will always belong in the background. We chose not to wear costumes or extravagant clothes this will not represent our film accurately. We used ambient lighting and we decided to keep in all the props such as drawers, tables and beds in the camera shots because it brings reality that the film it shot in a real place. Also it just represents two typical teenagers living in a house who the audience can relate too

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

For our poster we wanted to create brand through the language, picture and image.

The way our poster created a brand through our film is through our image we did by illustrating our characters in. In our poster the older brother is sitting on the edge of the bed, while the younger brother is in the foreground looking over his shoulder. His facial expression is serious and firm which show that he is the main character and that he is up to no good. In the background the older brother is sitting down at the edge of the bed his body language shows he is feeling irritated. Also around the older brother there is a mess this can represent the older brother as someone as who is a messy situation. Through these sign s this could indicate to our audience that our film is a stern drama. The studio that created the film is “white cap productions” through our poster this gives the studio its identity as a producer of dramas.

One other way you can notice a film brand’s identity is through the language. The language in our film poster is from the tagline. The tagline in our film is ‘worse than your nightmares’ one of the connotations of this tagline can be with horror films. But at the same time it shows elements of mysteriousness and curiosity. It gets into the mind of the audience. It challenges the thoughts of the audience “what could be worse than my nightmares”? “What does this person know about me”? “How do they know my nightmares”?

In addition the brand of a film can be identified through its design such as the colour scheme. The colours we used in our film poster are red, white, and black. The use of the colours black and white suggests sophistication. It gives the audience a stylish exclusive feel about the film. Black and white are clashing colours which can suggests unstableness this can resemble conflict between the two characters. The use of the colour red has connotations of danger whereas white has associations of purity.

The way our magazine feature enhances the audience understanding of the film is through the language in our film review we did this by briefly explaining the plot this is pulled of really well as it show the originality in our film, which can persuade the reader to see the film or read the rest of the film review. We have used rhetorical questions, “so how do you dodge this bullet?” informal language “its time to grab your coffee this seems like an all nighter”. The way we have written the magazine review is in a chatty style use of language gets the reader involved as it is written in 2nd person. The language in our film review highly rates our film, and shows our film is amateur is unlikely to make a huge amount of money at the box office film but a film that hasn’t taken itself seriously also in our film review it describes amateur filming as a good experience and encourages the audience to make their own films.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The application we use to show the stages of our film process is http//www.blogger.com,using this software has its advantages.

In a blog you are allowed to insert pictures, videos, screenshot. I found this very useful as I can be more interactive to the reader as the reader does not have to read a long lengthy description to get the full picture of what I am talking about.

On other advantage of using the blog is a blog can easily be accessed and shared with anyone who has access to the internet. This allows blogs to be reviewed and commented by large amounts of people. Because I can look at other people’s blog and get ideas also I can look the blogs of the people in my group at the same time without stopping them from working on it. This helped me in my blog as it gives me freedom to express my views and opinions and thereby increase my creativity.

One other tool I found useful when inserting post it collect in a form of a diary this allowed to have an structured collection of our work and when searching for our posts this make this task much easier. also what i foud helpful is that in the blog it organises your post which saves a lot of time trying to sort out your work.

However using a blog has its disadvantages as because blogs is a public space there is no privacy which means anyone could comment anybody’s blog whether it is a good comment or a bad one. This can create a lot of controversy. When inserting a new video it doesn’t always come in a nice format as the format is dictated by the person who made the video this can make.

Blogs are mostly written in informal language which means there can never be a full explanation of what I did. what I didn’t find useful about blogger.com is that although the blog has a diary format you when you plug in the newest post it appears first while the older terms this effects the order of post which can result in the reader having trouble trying to navigate around the blog. one other disadvantage of the blog is there a limited layout which put barriers on my creativity.

the software we used to edit our film is adobe premier.

Using adobe premier has it advantages as on adobe premier the pace of editing is easy to control. The razor tool allow you to cut pieces of film that are unnecessary therefore the pace of the film can be easily manipulated to ensure correct pieces of film are linked together therefore in a finished professional product. This was very useful for us as it helped us to be accurate on our continuity editing. It also possible to add music to the film and add effects to the scene transitions such as dissolve, wipe. If the lighting in scene is too dark, brightness can be added which was helpful as we had many shot in our scene that was too dark. What I find really helpful of adobe premier it is presented in a composed, organised view which is easy to follow.

However using transitions and brightness on adobe premier requires a lot of rendering which can be a lengthy process also the usability of adobe premier is was not very good as it took some time for everyone in my group to get used to, working on it.

what did you learn from your audiecne feedback?

We showed our film to an audience as we wanted to know how our audience would respond to our film. we asked the audience if they could leave any comments as we wanted to know if there were any suggestions of improvement we could do our film. Our audience consisted of 100 people aged 12-18 year old this was their responses to our film. These were their responses

looking at the pie chart a large majority of our auidence enjoyed our film and was pleasantly pleased with what they saw.

about 80% of the audience understood the stroyline in the film this shows our narrative was shown clearly in the film and easy to follow.




about 80% if the audience were correct on the hidden message this shows that the message in our film was shown accurately and clearly. this was really helpful as it show we made progess into reaching out to our target audience.

a large majority of our film beleived the sound was used effecitvely in our theme. as we chose the song dream by The Game to create the overall theme over our film. And the "Mr Bombastic" to show the mischevious side of the younger brother.




all in all, our target audience really enjoyed our film and watching our film was a very pleasant film. we beleive that our target audience was genuine about their views and opinions and if we had more time we would have focused on the sound as some people in our target audience was slighlty irritated of the creaking noises of the movement of the camera.