AS Preliminart Task

AS Opening sequence

Who would be the target audience for your media product?

Our target audience would be people ages 10-20 years old; I have chosen this age group because this is the age where you are in and around higher and further education or just leaving it so themes and settings present in our media product they would e able to identify with easily.
They can would be of any race and ethnicity but as this is an English speaking film I think, it would be targeted mainly at a UK and US audience as they would get most of the slang and common talk that each characters has in our product.
Due to the genre and that it is not a thriller or action movie with guns and cars chases, I think the target gender would mainly be for girls as they are the ones who seem to enjoy fairy tales more as they get older as in comparison to boys, but I do think boys would enjoy our media products as they would be able to identify themselves with keys element of the narrative, because it is set in a school and it is to do with pretty girls.
The interests that our audience would have to have are an interest in their friends or lack of. They would have to have a lot of friends to identify wit the most popular characters and not a lot of friends to identify with Ben. This is because our narrative has a lot to do with friendship circles and outcasts.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our media product is a very low budget one with no known actors or special effects. So the institution that would distribute our work will be one who supports independent and low budget films.
Content film would be one to distribute our work as it is a London based distributor who focus on feature films and have several rights on television and own a US DVD operation( which is part of our target audience), which would be great for our distribution. As I don’t think our film could compete with the mainstream films that would be out at the time of our release, so that why it think it would be a good idea for it to be realised on TV 1st so that the viewers themselves will talk about how good it and that would be a big part of distribution process the viewers would help sell our film through word of mouth and recommendations.
Also the fact that they have DVD rights is important because it could be that then be released onto DVD is that is what the viewers demand because they like it so much.

Also Verve pictures are a UK based distributing company which, distribute films “relevant to today’s society”. I think they would be interested in distributing our film because we address issues that are alive in modern society such as: bullying, discrimination, popularity and growing up too fast. Because of these issues raised in our narrative I think this would be the best option for us because our production company links to our work that we are doing.

Another recent development in the distribution of films if is to place a film on online site which many people have access to which will give you film a lot of views and publicity on possibly future funding to be made again. Youtube is a site which various people in media have found their fame and recognition, just one example of this is Soulja Boy. You tube would distribute my film from the potentially puplicity they could recieve through my film if it is a success

How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

Our two main characters are Ben and Tiffany: this is clear from our narrative as they are the two in most of the scenes and have most of the dialogue. Our narrative was written around these two characters. These two characters are at the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to popularity in their school.
Tiffany is the popular one with friend and followers and she is represented as our plastic girl, through her dialogue, body language, the way she looks, position on frame, and props. Ben is represented as our geek/inferior characters though his dialogue, the way he looks, body language and props.

Tiffany is very similar to the Regina George character who was the main mean girl in “Mean Girls” because she also was a teenager in secondary school, who had two followers/friends who hung on her every word.
Tiffany s represented as the most important and a girl with authority and power by low angle shot of her looking up, this displays authority and power she amounts her peers in her school because in our opening sequence she is the only one who has a shot of this type. Her importance is represented through several single shots of her in the centre of the frame. One of these shots is a personal favourite of mine, it is the shot where you see tiffany walking in the corridor and the camera zooms out from her shoes to a long shot of her walking towards the camera and the camera follows her with a pan then a cut to another shot, this shows how pretty and well groomed she is like Regina George was land like Bell was in beauty and the beast. This is the 1st time we reveal her face and who she is, in contrast to her 2 best friends Amy and Tia where there identity is revealed in the 1st shot of them.


The fact that tiffany has most of the links in our narrative and the opening sequence what she says is just as important as the way she speaks. Her dialogue represents her as a spiteful, mean and insensitive character very similar to Megan Vandegeld from “white chicks” that is from a high social class than most and has a house in Beverly Hills and is the envy of all her peers and like Regina George and Tiffany.
In our opening sequences tiffany says “I don’t care watch where you’re going next time” and her friends say “yeah” in sync, “roll on, I don’t want people seeing you near me you geek” and friends laugh. This shows her insensitivity through the phrase “roll on” she can clearly see that he is in a wheel chair and she does not care and just speaks to him like he is a second citizen. This one of the issues we wanted to address in our narrative and help the audience see, because disabled people are treated as second class citizens in today’s society and displaying it our film can help the audience identify with him and sympathise with him. Also it pushes us towards our specification of modernising a fairy tale as we brought current day issues into our production. Tiffany and her friends are represented as plastic girls through their props as amid shot shots shows them all with makeup and the mirrors and Tia is looking at her nails as the others check their appearance.
Her posting in the frame is very important also. She is put in the front of her twp friends showing she is the most important and she is the one with the most authority in her group as she is at the front and in the centre.

Ben’s character can be likened to napoleon dynamite and he has no friends and spends most of his times in books and involved in “geeky” activities, like multiplayer games on the internet ECT. Just like Ben as he is the only one who attends his own book club and we can see him logging off from a computer in an empty classroom in our opening sequence.
There is a high angel over the should shot looking down on Ben which represents him as an inferior character to tiffany and he doesn’t keep eye contact with her showing he is almost afraid of her, which is contrast to most male/female relationships
There are several low angled shots, and low mid shots which only show Benjamin’s wheelchair, this represents him just focus on that representing him as all about his wheel chair, which is another issue we wanted to address.

We wrote our narrative and, we had to find our cast. We wanted to find the perfect people that would fit the people we had in mind, so to do this we held auditions. Other than reliability and dedication we wanted specific things out of each of our characters.

For Benjamin we were looking for:
• Somebody the audience could sympathise with
• A geeky looking character
• An inferior looking person

For tiffany we were looking for:
• A bitchy type character
• Very pretty girl
• A girl consumed by herself
• Power demanding character

We believe that we found the perfect characters through auditions and we believed they portrayed themselves as we wanted them to.

Look back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt the progression of it to the full product ?

Brief for my preliminary task:

Film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character. A couple of lines of dialogue must then exchange between charcters&match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule should be demonstrated .

Brief for my main task:

The titled and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes (all video and audio material must be original, produced by candidates, with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source).

The brief for out preliminary was very specific and out lined exactly what we had to do, which made it appear simp0le in comparison to our main task brief when we ere asked for the opening titles of a film the only restrictions we had were it had to be 2mins and the rest was up to us which left us with a lot of work.

Preproduction

For our preliminary task we choose to film a man walking into a room where there is a woman sitting down when he would then conduct a police interview. For this we had a storyboard, which was easy to do because we already knew the characters stage direction. But we did not have a photo storyboard or location reece which presented us with problems. The place where we filmed was cramped and there was a lot of outside noise which was bad for continuity.

We did not have a shooting schedule which seemed to prolong thing because we were thinking what to film next and we filmed in chronological order moving the camera away and back to and from the same place.

We didn’t have any pitch, treatment or mood board to present our ideas to get feedback to improve on, which minimised the chances of our final product being of a high standard.

We didn’t have any rehearsals which affects the way our actors were on set.

Where in our prelim task we just decided we was going to do a police interview, for our main task we done extensive research and textual analysis to help us decide what fairytale we was going to pick and portraying a convincing opening sequence, and rehearsed with our cast a lot.

We pitched our ideas to our class using our treatment and went back and drafted another one until we had a good enough one where they could find no fault with it. We had a mood board to help convey our ideas so they would understand a bit better.

We had auditions that helped us find the perfect cast member we are looking for to fit the character, we described in our treatment.

We also had a shooting schedule which helped things run a bit more smoothly and we are able to get rid of some cast member earlier than others, because we planned it like that, which it made it earlier to manage cast later on.

We had a storyboard and photo-storyboard which we drafted and re-drafted until it was as good as it could be. We also performed a location reece which helped us detect potential problems with our location and note them down. We also had to get timetables of certain areas of the school to know when we are able to film.

Production

Still adjusting to the equipment it took me longer to set-up and time was wasted trying to figure out where things go and how to do certain things, for example where battery goes or which way round the tape goes in, all things that waste little amounts of time the add up when you have a limited amount of time and location.

Because we didn’t have auditions or rehearsals that cast were not sure of their lines and they were not very good actors/actresses which worked against us. The titled and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes (all video and audio material must be original, produced by candidates, with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source).

This was a contrast to what I was like when working on my AS opening task because further practice, work shops and use of the equipment made it easier to use and operate the equipment, manage cast and plan for the actual day. This obviously allowed things to run much smoother and quicker.

Post Production

Just like with everything else, editing was very new to us and we didn’t have much practice with editing. So whilst editing it was very slow because we were new to the programme that means it took up times to find certain things and we didn’t really name our rushes that we made so when it came to find certain shots that we have uploaded which wasted our time.

In our AS we were much used to the AVID technology because we had a book that taught us all the details of the programme and we had much practice, so this meant that we were able to edit a lot more efficiently.

In our prelim all of us edited at the same time which again we very time wasting, but in our AS task we edited at different times and recorded our progress in a editing log which made it much faster while editing.

Evaluation and Feedback:

Prelim:

In this task the feed back I received and my evaluation for this task was very important because it was the feedback and evaluation outlining the problems and issue that I had with this task, such as not being able to edit without assistance, problems with the equipment, casting problems, all that helped me see what went wrong with this task and remember and don’t let it happen in my main task. The main lesson I learnt was to, plan my work fully, have a shooting schedule, do a location recce and hold auditions for cast. All these things I have taken away and applied into my main task, with out the evaluation and feedback, these problems wouldn’t be properly address and sorted out. If I was to do anything different I would re-shoot, making sure all my shots are perfect and that I had a variety of shots for when it came to editing it would be easier.

Main:

In contrast to my last prelim task I was receiving feedback through out my whole task, this helped me a great deal as it; pointed out what was wrong with my work, suggested ways I could improve my work and overall the feedback I received helped me make my work better that it would have been without it. Even though the feedback I received conflicted with my ideas I had I knew it was all constructive criticism which would benefit my work in the long run, which it did. As the feedback I received came from the people from our target audience, I had to adjust it in order for it to live up to the targeted audiences expectations for they are the individuals that I would hope tyo go and watch my film if it was ever made.

Key lesson I have learnt from this task is: how to take criticism, how to use Avid and other equipment with much more confidence, I am more knowledgeable about the whole filming process and distribution, I know more about individual roles in production.

If I was to do anything differently I would have reshot some of the scenes and shot we have because they are not at their best which our latest feedback indicated.

How do you attract/address your audience?

The first thing you hear when our opening sequence starts is our opening music, which is upbeat and hip. This appeals to our target audience because it sounds like most of the music they listen to or are exposed to on the radio.

Our establishing shots show in and around the school this would attract our target audience because they are still on or just leaving education and would want to see why we are in a school, what is going to happen and where are going with it, so it keeps our audience wanting to carry on watching.

We have a series of cut away shot showing Ben and Tiffany’s actions across 2 different ends of the school and theses shots never reveal their identity or faces, just that one is in a wheel chair. So the audience is instantly intrigued because they want to know who they are and why cant we see their faces and why do we keep following them around the school. This will not only attract our target audience it will also attract any audience because viewers will be very curious as to why we can’t see them.

Our audience would have to prior knowledge of the genre of teen films as our opening has clear codes and convention of teen film that the audience can identify with being that it is in a school and the costume of our actors clearly shows that they are in uniform.

The themes of discrimination and bulling will interest our audience because they would want to know what Tiffany is being so nasty to Ben, what has he done to deserve it, and the audience is going to feel sympathetic for him especially because he is in a wheelchair.

Many other teen films have addressed the same themes we have in our opening sequence, like Superbad Napoleon Dynamite, and ‘Drill Bit Tailor’ which all show characters being bullied and discriminated against in their school just because they are regarded as geeks and less popular than other students. These films are all teen films, and all these films are very successful.

Our film is a teen film and it has an area of comedy in it. These two together appeal to a very wide audience because are popular genres. Teen films are very popular all over the world, this genre mainly appeals to teenagers and young adults. Comedies appeal to the vast audience because everybody loves to laugh and it is a good escape when watch a film.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The Avid programme was used to edit my work this year. This programme had an influence on my pre production as it enabled use non linier filming meaning we didn’t have to shoot in chronological order meaning it made my filming more efficient.

Using the edit programme enabled me to add certain effects to the film and cut in between shots which showed action reaction shots making our opening more interesting to view.

The Programme meant that our work more professional and of a higher quality than if we used an editing software such as windows movie maker

The Cannon HD camera was a very big advantage in filming. Not only did allow me to produce a very high quality finish, it also helped the day go faster as the camera is considerably light so it was very portable when moving from location to location which meant it made the day time efficient

The Blog was used to communicate between teachers and students on the Blog we were able to find certain items that would aid us with our work, the Blog was also was big help when we was displaying our work to our fellow classmates for feedback and responses.

Also the Blog made it easier to display our work to be marked online.

The internet was the biggest aid throughout the whole project. This helped me with my research and planning, without this I wouldn’t be able to find certain representations and watch fairy tales online to relate to my work. Also I wouldn’t be able to research opening sequences which I used certain traits when making my own.

Using tripod we were able to perform tilts and pans which made our opening much more interesting. We also used the camera to zoom in and out of characters when filing from a distance which again made our opening interesting, this also enabled us to give our actors room to act because we could firm from a distance allowing them room to move about without worrying where the camera is.

With the help of avid I was able to learn the techniques of a rough assemble which is putting all our rushes in order.

We were able to digitise using the capture tool, which is basically capturing your good shot of the tape, which was able to easily because of our continuity sheet which told us which shots were good and bad.

We were able to input our credits in the correct positions and use fades and dissolves to make them look more interesting.

We used trimming techniques to trim shots that we didn’t need to use or we wanted some of the shot and the same shot but from another angle.

We also learnt how to delete shot and move shots about, we done this quite a lot because at some stages of our editing the sound and the video were out of sync.

The key lessons I have learnt from filming are:

• How to set up the camera, tripod, put in the batteries, tape and sliding the camera on to the tripod.
• How to use the camera to perform tilts, pans and zooms.
• Positioning the camera so the actors are able to perform better
• Placing the boom microphone in a position where it can’t be seen in frame and in the best position to pick up sound.

The key lesson I have learnt from editing are how to:

• Perform a rough assemble edit
• Trim shots
• Splice in shots
• Take away sound from shots
• Deleting and moving shots
• Marking in and marking out shots
• Creating and applying titles
• Adding such as fades and dissolves to certain shots

In what way does your Media Product USE, Develop or Challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

I have researched several opening sequences such as American Psycho, Sunset Boulevard, Spiderman 2, Lady Hawke and haunted mansion. We done this to make sure that we followed the codes and conventions that a real media opening sequence follows. The characteristics that I found that were most dominant in the opening sequences I found were that:
· Music is an important feature of the opening it is used to create atmosphere such as suspense, seen in American psycho or fear present in the haunted mansion.
· Establishing shots
· Setting the Theme of the film
· Credits
· Establishing Main Characters
· Giving hints to narrative

All these elements are present in our op0eing sequence.

Our opening sequence follows the codes and conventions of the genre of a teen film and also has elements of a rom com, like love actually.

Teen films are usually set in secondary schools or high schools and themes consisting of popularity: seen:, social groups: where Ben is seen as a geek , young relation ships: Bret and Tiffany, friends circles: Tia , Amy and Tiffany , Alpha males/ jocks , plastic girls, superior and inferior characters ect.

These characteristics are present in other teen dramas such as “Mean girls” , “Porkies” “Nepoleon Dynamite” , “ Super Bad” and “High School Musical” all these films I have used as a reference to help me when following codes and convention of this particular genre.

As seen in our sequence the whole narrative is based in barking abbey secondary school, which follows the codes and conventions of most teen films where they are set in some type of schooling institution such as secondary school (Waterloo Road/ Inbetweeners).

We established our main characters in our opening sequence this is done to help the audience recognise who the narrative will be about and introduce these characters to the audience.

The main specification of our task was to take a Fairy tale and modernise it. So we chose beauty and the beast. To complete our task we had to research many fairy tales from many different cultures such as: Beauty and the beast ( French Fairy tale), The Bird of truth (Spanish fairy tale), Cinderella ( Greek fairy tale), the Enchanted pig ( Romanian fairy tale, the girl without hands ( German Fairy tale) and the boy who cried wolf ( Dutch Fairy Tale). Researching these fairy tales help us underline the key factors that are present in most fairy tales.

Family connections
Royalty
Death
Marriage
Quest / journey
Natural elements of nature
Helpful Characters
Ultimatums or a ban on action
Elementary colours such as gold and silver holding significant importance
Special Objects
Magic
Enchanted creatures
Human to Animal interaction
Mystery and secrets
Love - Falling in love Fast
Morals
Birth Rights / Inheritance
Justice for bad deeds
Supernatural
Good vs. Evil
Time Periods




A ban on action: Where Tiffany is not allowed to go home and must go book club

Royalty: Tiffany is seen as royalty in the school as she is above and respected by everyone else
Happy ending: This is seen in the end of the narrative

These are just a few of the codes and convention of Fairytales that we have featured.

However our narrative also challenges these elements of a fairy tale because we do not have no magic or any enchanted creatures or a quest.

In our opening sequence we see the clear social difference between the two main character Tiffany and Ben by the way they interact witch each other and camera angles use, i.e. high camera angles looking down to Ben and low camera angles looking up to Tiffany.

Final Plot Points

1. Ben in Wheelchair , rolls over Tiffanys foot by accident she shouts at him and calls him a geek. her friends l;augh at him and she tells him to roll on.

2. there is an incident in the classroom where the people in the class make fun of ben trying to get through the gap between tables

3. Tiffany and her friends graffitti a picture of Ben on the wall , the others flee leaving Tiffany to bear all the punishment, she refuses to tell on her mates , so sh is put in book club for a month.

4. At the first meeting she doesnt want nothing to do with him , he tries to spark conversation and she makes it clear it is not be choice she is here.

(Ben has a diary which he writes in everynight about his secret love for tiffany)

5. Tiffany complains to her friends about how she is stuck in a book club run by ben who she hates and she cant stand it.

6. 2nd meeting ben brings in a magazine about Paris hiton which grabs the intrest of Tiffany, and she begings to talk to him and gets to know him abit more.

7. Tiffany is with her friedns when Ben comes passes and her friedns are laughing and giggling , making fun of him , but tiffany stays quiet.

8.Next meeting Tiffany apololgieses for her friends actions the other day, in the same meeting he reveals reason behind him being in a wheel chair.

9. Tiffany defends Ben next time when her friends are trying it, which provokes the group to question her loyalty , she respomds by agreeing to go to the dance with bret, a popular boy that likes her, to prove she feels nothing for Ben

10. Ben finds out that she is going with bret and gets upset. he starts to distance himself and because of this they argue , causeing him to storm off leaving his diary. Tiffany finds it and reads it.

11. On the night of disco Tiffany arrives at the school hall with Bret.
Benjamin is on her mind and she leaves Bret to go and find Benjamin. In Her search she finds him in the library . Dressed up for the disco but sitting in the wheel chair alone.

12. She ask him to come to the disco with her and explains she has read the diary on thier way.

13. At the disco they share a kissand everyone is amazed to see them two together. Bret makes a comment about her choosing a disabled geek over him.

14. Ben stands up and says i may be a geek but im not disabled (over course the course of the film ben has been going to phyical therpy classes helping him with walking. )

The inbetweeners is all about 4 boys that don't quiet fit in and their characters type rages.
most of this programme is set in their secondary school similar to my film and they are rejected by their peers and not seen as equals that is why they are they subject to many pranks and are beaten up alot in their affairs.

Where as my Film Takes a more general approach Napoleon dynamite focuses on secondary school life from the geeks point of view. This film is about the day to day life of a geek and how he is bullied and seen as a complete outsider. The main character in this film can be liked to my character Ben as they are both viewed as social rejects and are not recognised on the high school Heir Archy.
This film a classed very much as a comedy and yes my film is a little bit more serious but i can be viewed as a comedy as several comical remarks , although harsh , are targeted towards Ben.

Mean girls is a film that is closely linked to our own as it is featured in a seconday school and it is all to do with the hier archy of whose who and loosers ect. As myn film is a very low budget there are somethings this film does that i cant but i can do is compare representations, from my narrative the 3 set of friends is very similar to Tiffany and her 3 girls and Lindsy Lohan plays an outsides who is mocked by the more popular kids , just like ben is mocked in my narrative.

Feedback :New treatment plot points 1

Feedback received that our points were still a bit too vague and could be more specific but it was an improvement on the last treatment

New treatment plot points 1

We have named our two main characters Tiffany and Ben

Plot points

1. He rolls of her foot by accident, she calls him a geek and her friends laugh and she further insults him and tells him to go away.

2. There is an Incident in the class at Ben's expense.

3. Tiffany and friends Vandalise picture of Ben on the wall fro him being president of book club. She Gets left behind and she is the only one that is punished by having to attend book club twice a week.

4. 1st meeting, she doesn't care about him, the boy tries to initiate conversation only for her to snap back and say she is only here because she is forced.

5. Tiffany goes back to her friends saying she hates the book club and insults Ben further.

6. In the next meeting Ben says / shows Tiffany something that grabs her attention which gets them talking.

7. Her friends take the mick out of him but this time Tiffany says nothing.

8. The she Apologises on her friends behalf and the next book club and then he tells her how he came to be in a wheel chair.

9. When next her friends make fun she defends him , they question her loyalty and she restores their faith by going to the Dance with the most popular boy

10. she cant stop thinking about Ben and goes to fin him during the dance

11. they tell each other their feeling and share a kiss in the middle of the dance floor

Feedback

After pitching this idea to an audience we recieved constructive critisim saying that our story is very vauge and didntr have any defining points, our charaters didnt even have names.
So we decided to change all that and instead of haveing a traditional treatment we decided to create plot point instead.

Treatment 1

Characters : there are two main characters a boy and a girl. The girl is a symbol of artificial beauty, she is the most popular girl in the school with the best clothes and reputation.
The boy represents a complete contrast to this girl where he is classed as a geek and is in a wheel chair.

Equilibrium
at the beginning of the narrative both of the characters hate each other as the female character constantly mocks him for how he looks and because he is in a wheel chair.
The boy doesn't like the way she embarrasses him even though he has a secret crush on her.
The boy is mainly based in the library as that is the only place he can escape the reality of school life and loves to indulge into book centred around fantasy.

Disequilibrium
The girl friends damage school property and leave her to face the music, her punishment is to attend an after school book club twice a week for a month if she want to go to the end of school dance which coincidentally is in a months time.
she agrees not know that the book club is run by the geeky boy she despises.
Upon arrival she notices that there no one in this book club but the boy and that's how it remains throughout. At the start the both do not talk to each other , but waiting for the hour to tick by so they can get back to their own worlds but over time the Begin to warm to each other by finding common ground. They start asking question and start to discover that they are more alike than they knew.
It is the last week of the detention and the dance is coming up , and the most popular boy has asked the girl out and she accepts , she asks the geeky boy if he would be attending and she prefers to read his books.

Equilibrium
Detention is over and she doesn't have to attend no more. Its the night of the disco and she arrives with the popular boy and she is socialising with friends. Her mind then wonders to the geek and she feels guilty for how horrible she was to him and she want him there to be enjoying himself with her. She finds him in the library reading her favourite magazine and she tells him hows she feels and from now on things are going to change. The boy finally plucks the courage to express how he feels and by doing so the share a dance and kiss together which everyone sees

Script

Amy and Tia are standing in the corridor of the media block waiting for Tiffany, whilst touching up their make up with mirrors ect.

Amy

Where’s Tiffany?

Tia

(Looks toward her left)

Her she is now

Benjamin is wheeling wheel chair when he accidentally rolls over Tiffany’s foot

Tiffany

Ouch watch were your rolling fool

Benjamin

Sorry it was an accident

Tiffany

I don’t care watch where you’re rolling next time

Amy and Tia

(Together) Yeah

Tiffany

Roll on I don’t want people to see you near me you geek

Amy and Tia Both Laugh

Friends laugh as Ben rolls off

Storyboard

This is the final Draft of our storyboard.

Codes and conevntions

After researching alot of fairy tales and only writing about a few below i picked out many codes and conventions that are similar through out the mayjority of fairy tales which were

• Family connections
  
• Royalty
  
• Death
  
• Marriage
• Quest / journey
  
• Natural elements of nature
  
• Helpful Characters
  
• Ultimatums or a ban on action
  
• Elementry colours such as gold and silver holding significant importance
• Special Objects
  
• Magic
• Enchanted creatures
  
• Human to Animal interaction
  
• Mystery and secrets
  
• Love - Falling in love Fast
  
• Morals
  
• Birth Rights / Inhertiance
• Justice for bad deeds
• Supernatural
  
• Good vs Evil
  
• Time Periods

We also noticed other ideas are not so dominant as the ones above

• Books
  
• Main characters are animals
  
• Basing story on a real life situation
• Puniments
  
• Unusual relationships
• Progressive love
  
• Social Classes

The Words in bold are the Conventions and codes feautured in fairytales that i will adopt into my own modernised version as i think they are the most realistic.

Choosing the right Fairytale to modernise

Beauty and the Beast

We could set the film in a school , where an unpopular boy and a popular girl who dislike each other are forced together through a project or detention of some sort, eventually end up falling for each other which is to everyones disapproval but eventual acceptance

We went with beauty and the beast because it was the staory we had the most ideas for and it matched alot of the common codes and conventions of a fairytale


Boy who cried wolf

A boy keeps claiming that a certain rival gang are after him to his friends and to his keep coming to his aid until on the final time when he is actaully in need and is severly beaten up.

We didnt go with this fairytale because the ending wasnt a good one which is a common code and convention of a fairy tale which we would not be able to show. Also the narrative is a bit repetitive.

Red Riding hood

A student is sent on an errand from a teacher and keeps getting distracted from a evil student who wont let them reach thier goal in time because he wants to take credit for dilivering what the teacher asked.



We didnt Go with red riding hood because we didnt believe there was enough event in the narrative to keep the audience interested , and the was a lack in character developement in Red. Plus the ending seemed abit easy and the moral was lost.

Location Recce

The purpose of a location recce is to iron out potential techniqual, safety, practical and contactual problems in advance of filming. This will spot problems which we would address creatively.

Location Recce

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Shooting Schedual

The shooting schedual is the order in which you are filming each shot , out lining the scene, what cast members present, props and the location of the particular shot.
This is used to group the shot in the same location even if the do not run in chronological order , this is a very time efficient way of filming, as you dont have to keep returning to the same location with all the filming equiptment.
The way we organised our shooting schedual enabled us to relieve two of our characters in the first group of shots making it easier to manage only two members of the cast when the 1st set had left.

Shooting Schedual

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Casting

How did We do it ?

Finding the characters that we want wasnt easy. 1st we had to describe clearly what we wanted our charaters to be and have a visual image of them ijn our head , because it is not all abouit what they are like a big part of the representaion is what they look like. Then we went through the year group that our characters would be in years group data base on our schools computer and was able to find charcters that we wanted.

Why did we choose the cast We did ?

Now we found certain potential actors based on thier looks we need to see if they can actually act. so we held auditions to see if the characters matched the ideas shared in our heads.

In my opinion we chose the best actors as they portray the representations we wanted.

Pitch # 1

Like all of you here we have been set a task to modernise a fairy tale, we have chosen beauty and the beast.
Our narrative fits the genre of a feel good family film, but also has very similar code and conventions of a romantic comedy and a teen film.

Our film is about a boy who finds love in a girl who despises him because he is a Geek in a wheel chair. She is very popular and finds herself stuck with him through her being obligated to a book club that he runs. She ends up falling for him even though he is seen as a social mistake and ends up standing up to her friends w1hen she finally admits her feelings.

Morals are important in fairy tales because they are there to teach children life lessons such as; don’t steal / be bad ect
The moral of our fairy tale is that “true beauty lies within”.
By widening the audience to teens and adults, in most cases, we are just reminding and reinforce what they already know and in some cases we might be teaching them a new lesson.

The narrative will take the audience on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. At the beginning you may feel frustrated/ annoyed and possibly hurt to see the typical segregation of a secondary school and to see how cruel kids can really be to each other. Then you begging to feel sorry for the boy and develop ill feelings towards the girl as they continuously clash. Then feelings for the girl return to a more neutral one as the relationship between the boy and the girl start of a friendship. Then she tarts to fall for him which makes the audience happy, due to the happy ending.

Rehersals

We rehersed on set for several hours , the reason for this was to eliminate any mistakes when filming and make the actual production day more efficient as it will reduce the amount of mitakes made on the day. These rehersals wasnt only for our actors it was used to help me as the camera man where to be when filming, it aided with my position and movement. We done these rehersals days before filming and all the cast members where there along with the crew this ensured that everyone knew what was going on and knew what to do on the day.
I ran through the sequence with the two girls in our film while my other cast members took the actor playing Ben to his different locations to reherse his part.
We used the call sheet to keep in contact with everyone

Call Sheet

This is my call sheet. The Purpose of a call she is to have the contact details of everyboy involved with our film from our teachers , crew and down to our cast.
This callsheet wasnt only given to the crew it was given to our actors to this acted as an extra reminder of when we needed them , where and how long they will be need for. This also helped the actors get in contact with, us , the crew if they couldnt make rehersals or was going to be late, and it helped identify who was doing what role in the our crew

Call Sheet

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Superman Returns

The main colours used in this poster are red and blue. These two colours are the main colours to supermans uniform which, which we can clearly see him wearing.

We can also see Superman in the middle of the frame taking up the whole third , this clearly indicates he is the main focus of the poster even though the earth takes up the whole poster, superman is in the forground therefore more important.

There is only one key symbol used in the poster and that is the superman emblem and as superman is know all over the world it it instantly recognised and associated with him.

I believe the main target audience for this film is teenagers and young adults , and another target could be DC comic fans as superman has proved to be probably the most popular comic generated figure of all time , and fans of the comic will be enticed to watch the film. Also the young adults and teenages maybe influenced to see the film as they have grown up watching superman cratoons and possibly reading comics.

The poster gives a hint of action as a man hoveruing over the earth couldnt mean much else. But as i have said before most people know what superman is about he has been a house hold name all over the world for decades and they know if they are going to see a superman film , there is going to be shed loads of action in it.
This could be a possible reason why they didnt include much action into the film poster as they want the audience to be amazed and shocked when they see the film, i think this film uses the superman name to carry the poster more than the actual graphics which in my opinion has worked well.

Final Group Evaluation

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I have left the notes below for each slide.

In what ways does your media project USE,DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of real media products?

We decided to establish our main characters in our opening sequence, as we thought this was an important code and convention to keep the same. The audience are able to identify the two different types of characters and get an idea of how their character may act throughout the film and the different developments they make. E.g. Tiffany the antagonist is represented as a vicious character through her use of dialogue and body language. Ben is represented as vulnerable through the use of high angle shots showing the power that the antagonist has over the protagonist at this early stage of the film.
The school uniform costume and the signs that represent the location as being part of a school, straight away show the audience where the location is set and gives them an idea of the content of the film. It also allows the audience to relate to this “school surroundings” as it is following typical codes and conventions of school lifestyle e.g. uniform, friends, school signs, doors leading into classrooms.
Issues concerning disabilities are not ones that normally occur during teen films. This was one way in which me and my group challenged the ways in which a teen film is portrayed. We decided to do this as it would 1)bring in a unique feel and theme to the film and 2) allows morals to be made in which related to codes and conventions of a fairytales. This was relevant to the making of a modern version whereby we included aspects of today's society whereby people can relate to.
We decided not to include any magic or enchanted creatures in out film, which are typically known to be present in fairytales. We decided not to use these ate we thought this would be irrelevant with adapting a storyline making it modern. By including these aspects we would not be able to grasp the issue of bringing realism into our film as it was based on a modern day society.


How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

We decided to base our social groups within those that occur at school. We thought this would be an affective way to do this, as our audience was based on teens who would be able to familiarise themselves with the different groups that occur at school and the different personalities involved. These were Tiffany-representing a popular/typical girly girl social group, who are represented to have more power and authority over some other social groups within schools. Ben-represents a Geek social group, who have lower status and importance in the school hierarchy. This is not an established feature of school life, however people are aware of the different social groups and the different personalities that are included within these groups and the way in which the characters treat each other.
When analysing our characters we can see comparisons with her character with Paris Hilton and Regina George-the queen bee character in mean girls. These are seen to be potential role models or important influences towards teenagers, mainly girls, which allow them to relate Tiffany, Amy and Tia to the characters present in the film.
When deciding upon cast members we made sure that they fitted stereotypical conventions of different required elements of what they were used to represent. Ben we decided would fit as when meeting him he was rather shy and didn’t speak much unless we asked him a question. We decided that this would be useful as this nature would come naturally oppose to looking fake and acted.

What kind of institution would distribute our media product ?
Content film is a London based distribution company specialize in low budget films and films that would most likely go straight on to TV or DVD as they have many rights in both fields
Our media product is a low budget one and as a result of that , we have no special effects or big / recognisable actors/actresses in our film. That is just one reason it wouldn't be a good idea to put it in main stream cinema to compete with other Hollywood , blockbuster type films. People go to the cinema to go and see big names and big special effects and our film has neither , so to make our audience pay for something they are going to be let down by isn’t such a good idea.
That’s why our film would do much better on television because people have a choice to watch it and they are not obligated to watch something they haven't paid for , in contrast to going to the cinema.
Plus films that go straight from production to TV have lower expectations than those in the cinema, which leaves us more room to impress our audience with.
By this our audience plays an important role in our distribution, through good reviews and spread of our films name through word of mouth. Because if people like it they are bound to tell someone who would want to see it.
And that is when we start to put our film on DVD.
Also Verve Pictures – for challenges, films that gives them real job satisfaction to release a market.
Its subject matter …. Relevant to today's society. This is a company which focuses on the issues that we face in today's society so I do think, this would be a great company to distribute our film because we raise issues we raise in our work are the type of things the company looks to distribute.

Who would be your target audience for your media product ?
Our film would be most likely targeted to people aged 10 -20 because this is the age that people are coming into and out of secondary and college education and being that our production is based in and around school this would be the audience who relate to this the most. Plus they would be able to identify with themes and issues raised in our production.
As our film isn’t a high budget one we do not have any special effects , high speed chases ect girls are more likely to be interested in our film than boys are. Because girls like films with happy endings. Also I think girls tend to appreciate fairy tales just as much as they did when they were young , in contrast to boys who tend to drift away from them as the mature.
But males would be able to identify with themes raised as they are in school and see the things, we are trying portray in our work, on a daily basis.
Being that our film is an English speaking one, I do believe it would be best suited for a UK and American audience solely because I think the would be able to follow it better and understand the language and common slang talk that we have in our narrative. And a UK audience would be able to identify with the way schools are run as they are currently attending
Why we have chosen this audience is because if we were to fall in to any category that would be it (with an exception on the girl part). So being the type of audience we are writing for, we would know what our audience is expecting so that’s why we can make our work so appealing to our audience. So what we would expect to see is what I audience wants too . Plus we had feed back from teenagers when we made our pitch to them and they were able to help us change a few things which would make the audience much happier.

HOW THE FILMS OPENING ATTRACTS THE AUDIENCE?

Starts by establishing the scene and the audience see a range of long shots showing the school building, the playground and a disabled toilet. These setting attract the audience straight away as they start to imagine how these places are going to come into act during the film. The audience can also gather that the film is set in a school environment so they can look forward to seeing what issues school children face around school.

Camera follows characters user close up of hands and feet and wheelchair and bags. These are things which relate to characters but we don’t reveal there face till the end.
When we finally meet the characters they have a conflict we see the difference between tiffany at school and Ben’s status at school. We get introduced to themes such as bullying, the different status at school and we establish how characters are represented at the beginning. The audience gain pleasure and some humour and some emotion when tiffany mocks Ben. And can look forward to a ride of emotions in the film


When Tiffany mocks him and tell him to “role on you geek” it makes the audience feel sorry for Ben and anger towards Tiffany for her cruelty and when the girls start laughing at him It’s clear that bullying is taking place. The low angle of Tiffany looking at Ben shows her as being more powerful and lets the audience know that she is more dominant over him even though she’s a female so the already start to ask questions of why this is as it’s unusual. This also gives the audience an in site that the film will involve these types of issues and the audience can look forward to seeing more conflicts during the film and what the outcomes will be. This attracts the audience because the conflict changes the tone of the opening and changes the level of drama during the film to keep the audience enticed.



creates a sense of mystery as the audience don’t know who the character is yet we get small hints and clues about the character as we see that he’s in a wheel chair and that he goes to through his uniform and the fact he is at school. We also see a bird’s eye view shot of Ben’s journal which suggests he’s an organised person. We are taken on a journey from both characters view but we only see close ups of tiffany’s foot and Ben’s wheelchairs. This is important and very effective as it grips the audiences attention and makes them want to continue to watch the opening, it makes the audience start to ask questions in their head which they want to know the answer to.



What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Canon mini DV- used to film the whole opening sequence onto the tape which was inserted before filming. Different button and controls such dials used when balancing the sound levels, zooming in and out to create a different effect for a shot.
Tripod - It was convenient for our project as we was able to adjust the level to capture a certain shot from a different angle/view allowing us to experiment with different ways in which we could film things
tracks – we used tracks to our advantage as we good track character during our opening effectively and still keeping a steady good quality shot
microphones - used to pick up diagetic sounds and dialogue within the scene. We attached a boom pole to the microphone to get a better quality sound closer to the scene When shooting we did have some problems with our sound, e.g. picking up Un-wanted sounds. We overcome this problem by taking specific notice to the sound levels when filming that appeared on the camera screen and also adjusting the dial on various occasions to pick a higher or lower level of sound.
Avid – the software we used to edit our final opening, we had to Digitise our shots, we trimmed shots and fades shots in our sequence. We also had to sync our sound

Headspace-We had to make sure that the shot we was shooting was positioned correctly with the camera and that characters/objects that were significant to the scene were 1) not cut 2) have irrelevant space between the top of the frame and the top of the object/characters head.
Rule of thirds- we made sure that each important feature within the frame was positioned in the middle to show the audience what they should be looking at (audiences attention is immediately drawn to this.)
180 degree rule- that all scenes were shot from the same view whereby we see an object/character from a 180 degree angle only. This prevents confusion occurring with the audience, as they would be continuously changing location of how they are viewing this.


Looking back on your prelimnary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?


During our preliminary task we did not have time to do a pitch. During are main we had time to present are idea to the class and get initial feedback both positive and negative. After doing this I have learnt that this is an important aspect of pre production process as feedback can be very useful so that you can take on board the different elements that may be in need of adjustment based on the audiences expectations.
Rehearsal time was important as in our preliminary task our cast were not aware of their role meaning we wasted time directing them on what to do and say. We learnt from this and in our main task made sure that we done 2 hours of rehearsal time to make sure that all cast were comfortable with what was required of them e.g. lines and usage of the wheelchair.
During our shooting we came across many obstacles with our location mainly with disturbances with sound. So we had to rescedule our shooting in that local for a more quiet sutable time.
Development an in site into the use of sound equipment, setting it up, correct use and how to achieve the most effective sound in a shot by adjusting the sound volume. We used a microphone and boom pole during our main task rather than the canon video recorder microphone which we used in preliminary task.

Persuit of Happyness

The 2 bodies take up the left and the middle third of the frame. bright white light behind them suggest peace and happiness and innocence.

The backhround of the poster is white and it takes no attention away from the characters and aids with the contrast.

The production company is show as a gimic to help boost the reputatiuon of the film , as coloumbia pictures, is a very well established production company.

Besides the two charcters everything in this poster is in black and white, except for the word "HAPPY" which is in red. Red usually is a connotation of danger, love, anger ect, this could suggest that happyness comes at a cost but it is clear to see the love between the father and son displayed on the posters.

This poster doesnt really suggest a target audience, the only indication of a target audience is that both charcters are black and the name of the film is called the pursuit of happyness and black people are usually represented as struggling and striving to get out of their tough lives.

even though all posters do have the same job which is to sell the film visually , instead of taking the conventional route of packing the poster full with colour i think the pursuit of happyness just uses very simple methods to sell thier film and i do think they have done so sucessfully.

The conventions used in this posters link this film to a drama as it doesnt really have any bright colours or any action going on , it is very simple as mentioned previously.

There is a USP mpreset in the poster , which is will smith a very well known actor with a high repution and is high in demand for these type of films, we can see he is tyhe main figure in this poster as he is the biggest single object in the frame taking up a whole third and his name is placed above the title.

We used our moodboard to disect our moral of the story and try to display what each word really means and how each one could be interpreted.

Activity 2

1The main character in the this story is the slave because the narrative resolves around him, he is the one that escapes, helps the lion, and is the one who is captured.

2 the slave at the beginning couldn't wait to get away from civilisation to escape and then as the narrative progresses he ends up craving human contact. Plus he was a slave on the beginning and now he is free in the end.

3 Goals of the slave

1. Escape master
2. Find shelter
3. Survive the encounter with the lion
4. Help the lion
5. Human contact
6. Stay alive when facing lions
7. His freedom granted

4. The story feels finished because all loose ends have been tied up and the audience are bot left asking any questions because everthing has been resolved.

Activity 1

Option A

I think it's a bit boring other than the escape there is nothing to overcome, no character developement.

Option B

There is more events and information than the first alternative but there is no casual connection between the good deed to the lion and the better treatment he recieves from his master - so what Is the point?

Option C

this option is abit of s joke. It is almost a comical reversal of the audience expectations of the lions actions, the lion acts out of character because it's actions are unmotivated.

Cindarella

One of the earliest fairytales and regarded as a classic cindarella is a tale of a beautiful girl stuck and belittled in her own familybut she is able to rely on her fairy god mother for support and later rediscovers what it means to be lived through the prince.

This story is excellent as it is a rollercoadter ride of emotions as her father dies, she has to stay In a family who doesn't love her, she is bullied by them, she has no hope until her fairy god mother appears and allows her to go the ball. But as in real life nothing is ever perfect and she has a limit on how long she can stay. Her hastey exit causes her to leave her glass slipper behind and the is what sparks the princes nation wide hunt for her, and like in most fairy tales they end up living happy ever after.

These ups and downs keep the reader/viewer very interested and hooked as emotions vary throughout the narrative.

The moral of this story is to find you true love, never give up hope and it teaches lessons in humility.

This would be a great tale to modernise because it's main theme is love and love is what makes people happy and very much alive in today's society and there is a key elemt which is discrimination which,unfortuantely is still alive in today's society.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The story structure is good although repetitive. The boy cried out 3 times and on the third noone believed him. The boy must be young and immature to repeat something bad and then in the end he pays for it. This is unusual for fairytales as it has magic and not really a happy ending but it installs very hard morals. Which are don't lie, honesty is the bed policy and liars will be called liars even when they are telling the truth.

The boy is the main character even though he isn't named, and only really changes nearer the end when he realises the full effect of what he has been doing .

This would be a great fairytale to modernise as everbody could relate to this story as everbody has told a lie once in thier life and most of the te peoples lies go unpunished so this would be a great moral to show.

Beauty and the Beast

This story flows really well with lots of problems to overcome for example the father looses all his money , meaning thire family is poor, father has to give up his daughter, the death of the beast.
The fairytale, like most, has a feel good factor about it where everything is ok in the end and all issues are resolved. Like any story but espeacially in fairy tales there are good and evil characters, in beauty and the beast Bell is represented as the good characters , the protagonist and her sisters , who use Bell's good nature against her are represented as the antagonist , the evil characters. These two elements are key in making the fairy tale sucessfull.

Several morals are taught through this fairytal, such as; dont jugde a book by its cover, beauty is only skin deep, anyone can find love , be nice to people and what goes around comes around.

The father basically stays the same throughout the narrtive , he does rub off as a bit of a failure as a father , loosing money , but at the same time wantting to buy his daughters whatever they want, we can clearly see he loves his daughters. But then he comes across as a bad father when he gives up Bell's freedom to save his on skin.

The sisters are spoiled , decietful, high maintainance and jealous throught the narrative, not much change can be noticed in them.

Bell was more like her sisters at 1st but not as bad. Being poor effected her, she knew life wasnt al about riches, more than her sisiters she knew she had to adapt , which represents her as the most wise out of the 3. Unlinke her sisters in asking for expensive things she only asks her father for a rose which consequently lead to her being the beasts indefinate companion.
She grows to love the beast, and isnt scared of him , she treats him like and equal , having daily converstaions with him and throughout the whole the story she rememebers her family.
Maybe she is too kind possibly nieve, as she is easily pursuaded by her sister another day , and in her absense the beats dies from heart ache buts she returns , keeping her promis (honest), to him.
Ad even when he is dead she shows her compassion for him and tells him she loves him and even shedding a tear which is the catalyst to his ressurection and regeneration.

This would be a good fairytale to modernise because there are certaing issues and morals that are present in this