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.
