Evaluation

 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group that is represented in our opening sequence is teenagers, particularly British. We filmed three different teenage boys (Jack, Paul and Conor) completing everyday life activities: Paul was filmed completing work at a computer representing teenagers as intelligent and hardworking; Jack was filmed walking home from football training which represents teenagers as being very sociable but also highly active and sporty. Lastly Conor, filmed watching TV, represents the fact that teens need time to relax and escape from stresses of education or life situations. As a group we believe that this footage is a genuine representation of teenage life as it captures many common factors included in teenage lifestyle.

 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product would be teenagers aged 15+. Many film companies try to make their film more engaging and relatable to the audience and seeing as though the three main characters in our film are teenagers we feel as though this aged audience will be able to relate to what the boys are going through during the film.

Additionally we chose to aim our media product at this particular audience due to the complexity of it. Our opening sequence is complex therefore would need to be watched carefully with full attention to understand the storyline fully therefore we believe people much younger than this age would find it difficult to understand the story and therefore not enjoy it.

 

How did you attract/address your audience?

Primarily we decided to use teens as our main characters as they would be more likely to relate with the audience. Although all of the characters in the film are male, following the traditional action film convention, females would still be able to relate and interact with the characters as they represent a teenager’s lifestyle.

Furthermore, action genre films are highly popular within teenage target audiences, especially male teens as the thrill and excitement would attract them to watch action genre films over romantic genre films.

Furthermore, we could produce advertisements which we could put on social networking sites, such as Twitter, so teens of that age would be able to view the progress of the filming making, which would make them aware of the media product. We could also release small trailers and gifts to keep the audience interested.

 

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

Unfortunately I hadn’t studied media until a few months ago but the progress in my knowledge on technology involved in media has expanded greatly. When editing our opening sequence we used a programme called Final Cut Pro, when using this I learnt to experiment with sound effects and image effects. This has benefitted me as I now feel more comfortable and has allowed me to gain knowledge on editing processes.

When filming our opening sequence we were very lucky that Sophie had a decent camera which also videoed. On our first shoot we used another camera and the difference between the images from that shoot to our final shoot was unbelievable.

 

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary task had to include a match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. Unfortunately I and my group had to re-shoot out preliminary task for many reasons, one being that you could not see the other person in the shot reverse shot. By practising these shot types and many more it helped us to make sure we filmed the shot types we wanted in our opening sequence correctly.

After we filmed our final piece for our preliminary task we had to edit the footage together. This enabled us to gain a lot of knowledge on continuity editing which obviously came in handy when editing our opening sequence. For example we had to edit together two shots of Paul leaving the room, one shot being a mid shot and the other shot being a close up of his feet. When editing these shots we had to make sure he was stood on the same foot in the second shot as what he was in the first shot.

When it came to editing our first shoot we noticed that it was very repetitive as we used zoom in and zoom out too often. After much analysis and group discussion we decided to only use a very small number of zooms and focus more on the variety of shots, for example a close up and an establishing shot.

 

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

As a group we decided to focus our opening sequence on the action genre. Throughout the process of producing our opening sequence we researched the conventions of action films and made sure we included as many conventions as we possibly could in our footage to make it clear to the audience it is an action film.

We followed the Vladimir Propp theory:

·         The hero: the 3 boys (Paul, Jack and Conor). They are the hero’s because they are on a mission to save their group leader, Jake

·         The princess: Jake. Although in many action films the princess is female, in our case the princess is a male as he is the reward for the boys’ efforts throughout the mission

·         The dispatcher: Rick. This is because he sends a text message to the three boy’s telling them to meet at the car park to find out what they have to do to get Jake back to safety

·         The villain: Rick and his gang. This is because him and his gang cruelly kidnap Jake and hold him hostage until help arrives

When I researched what the conventions of an action film were, I managed to find out there were many. However, I have narrowed the list down to: weapons (knives, guns, swords), a question/ mission waiting to be completed, includes both a hero and villain and explosions and crashes.

Unfortunately, due to the complexity we were unable to use explosions and crashes in our opening sequence as we believed it would not look realistic and make the film look poor. Additionally, we didn’t use weapons. You will see in some of my blog posts I have been taking pictures of my dad tied up in a small room under my stairs, in one of the pictures there are some golf clubs. I included these in the picture as I thought they added tension and drama therefore I hoped to use them in the final product but unfortunately our ideas changed and Jake was filmed in a car boot instead of a small room so the golf clubs were not used as they didn’t fit.

However, we included the other two conventions these being a mission/ quest waiting to be completed, in our case the mission was to save Jake from the danger of Rick and his gang, and also we included both a hero and villain, in our case the hero being Paul, Jack and Conor and the princess being Jake.

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

I believe that Universal Pictures UK would be a suitable distributor for our media product. In 2012 they distributed ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ which sees a young woman fight to save her region from being ruled by her evil stepmother, played by Charlize Theron. Personally, I think this film relates to our media product well as when comparing them it is noticeable that in both we see young people fighting for what they believe in and the struggles of everyday teenage life. For example, in our opening sequence we see three boys fighting to save their leader, Jake, whilst trying to deal with their own social and personal problems. Likewise, in ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ we see a young woman dealing with the tragic loss of her father whilst fighting to save other family members and friends.