Preliminary Task - Evaluation

 It is my belief that the film poster worked very effectively with the film for many reasons. For one, a good film poster ought to introduce the themes of the film without giving away the plot itself. In order to do this I chose to colourise the image in three sections in order to recreate the Irish Tricolour over the top of the still image of Todd as Michael.

In addition, most posters include their protagonist, which mine does, therefore the audience knows instantly who the main character is.

However, as this is a thriller film, the poster also keeps to convention as it creates a sense of mystery and an unknown element in the film that is then reflected in the poster through the use of the cut out titling over the top of the image, blacking out the rest of the scene from view. Moreover, you can only see a mid-shot of Todd from behind; therefore, obviously, you cannot see his face, which ought to intrigue the audience who should want to find out more.

However, as I am the one who made both the poster and the film this is not an objective evaluation therefore I asked a couple of people how well they felt the film and poster went together:

                “Well the pic [sic] is of your main actor, the 3 flag colours, fits in with the theme well. The title is as very vague (I explained that this was not the title I would have chosen given a choice)
Oh… Then yeah that makes sense, I like it” – Miss K

“I think the style is great, I like the use of darkness around it, which you already toughed [sic] upon in the description, the variety in colour to match the flag was clever, though it was a little hard no recognise what the picture was of, due to the brightness in the centre” –Mr R

From both asking their opinion on the film and poster combination as well as screening the film to my target audience I feel that the reception, on the whole has been a positive one. It was very useful and enlightening to get the opinion of others as they are not attached to the project as I am therefore were able to make constructive critisms:

“Seemed good to me. The ending bit where he made eye contact with the camera with a faint smile was well done sort of threw the viewer off a bit because up until then you couldn't be sure if he was happy to be doing it, or whether he purely felt it was his duty to do it but the emotion there added a bit of a twist by making you rethink what you'd already heard that he really was sincere about it… Also the amen seemed a little late or at least the mouth movement did” –Mr R

 

“Nice clear voice over, bonus point on the Irish accent in relation to the plot and flag. Good opening shot of the beads, let’s you know that the plot will be based on his beliefs/religion. Next time try wide screen aspect, cus yt [sic] keeps changing the screen size! Nice shots, goes with story well. Bit of continuity with how much the voice over says and the amount written but it's minor really!
Liked the end, with the heartbeat and irish language, again fits well with the theme. Just the lipsync might have been rendered a tad out at the end. but more mistake on software’s part cus lipsyncing [sic]renders awkwardly sometimes.” –Miss K

This project has really boosted my confidence when it comes to the main task as I now feel more certain when it comes to editing footage to convey meaning as well as poser creation. I still feel that my camera work is an area that needs to be worked on as some shots that did not make the final cut could not be used due to poor framing.

From my audience feedback it would seem that I ought to learn more about rendering and lip-synching to avoid out of time speech and movement again.