Media Means; Our Detailed Evaluation !
Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?
What are the forms and conventions of the medium genre you are working in?
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MEDIUM: Film GENRE: Comedy
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Narrative:
Throughout our opening we show the audience what is going on through the perspective of our main characters, Albert (Played by Jake Halsey Jones)
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MIS-EN-SCENE:
The location of a library portrays Albert’s intellectual side and also the genres target audience connoting studying and school life. We also make us of the resources in the library- books. The characters are dressed in colloquial/casual/everyday outfits.
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CAMERA WORK:
POV puts the audience in the shoes of the character which will make them feel similar feelings; it will also make the4 audience know as much as the characters know.
Panning helps to establish shots.
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EDITING:
Transitions in the shots are relatively frequent which also emphasises the everyday/colloquial feel so the film opening. We added our titles in red and white colours which we decided at the beginning would be the most appropriate for our comedic genre.
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SOUND:
In our extract sound is used to make the silences in the film seem less awkward. They are not there to create tension like they would be in a horror film.
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Q2. How does your media product represent particular social group?
CHARACTER:
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SOCIAL GROUP:
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HOW REPRESENTED:
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CONFORMS TO/SUBVERTS STEREOTYPE:
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EFFECT ON AUDIENCE:
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Albert
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Lower Middle Class
Student
Male
Aged 16
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Albert is represented as the unlucky character of the film, who has no luck with the ladies, or indeed anyone at all.
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This character both subverts and conforms to the stereotype; he dresses like a teenager, however his actions are very much that of an unlucky character, which creates comedy, subverting the stereotype of teenagers being rude and disrespectful.
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All of the unlucky things that happen to Albert create comedy within the whole of our opening; from falling over the books, to the phone call with his best friend Kel – They are all embarrassing events that take place to make the audience laugh, whilst sticking to the genre conventions.
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Kel
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Lower class than Albert
Student
Male
Aged 16
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Kel is the stupid one of the group, however he has his wits about him as he manages to stay clear of unlucky events; he just says stupid things instead.
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Kel strongly subverts the stereotype of the typical teenager, as he isn’t very clever, says silly things and does silly things.
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This larger than life character makes us laugh as it is an exaggeration of a character who we may see in mundane life.
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Q3. Who would distribute your media product and why?
LARGE GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS WHO REPRESENT HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS:
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INDEPENDENT FILM COMPANIES WITH HOLLYWOOD OWNERSHIP
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SMALL INDEPENDENT FILM COMPANIES
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AMATEUR PRODUCERS WHO DISTRIBUTE PERSONALLY VIA INTERNET
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DreamWorks
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Warp
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Coffee Films
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Im Art
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20th Century Fox
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Working Title
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Tyler Perry Studios
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Pick N Mix Films
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BlueSky Studios
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Columbia
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Sky Reach Productions
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Universal
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Mirimax
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Paramount
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MTV
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SONY
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Warner Brothers
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Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
DESCRIBE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE:
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LINK YOUR MEDIUM AND GENRE
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EVIDENCE FOR THIS
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We decided to aim our target audience at a mixed gender aged between 15-25: for people who enjoy comedy films.
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Our target genre was romantic comedy. By watching and researching comedy films we were able to use similar shots (quick cuts, point of view, close ups) in our film to make a more successful comedy.
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We carried out a viewing of a few openings we had made to find out what our target audience thought was the funniest, and we adapted our opening on the feedback which we got (can be found on my blog)
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Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?
WHAT RESEARCH DID YOU DO TO FIND WHAT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE WANTED?
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WHAT CHANGES DID YOU MAKE AFTER THESE FINDINGS?
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WERE YOU SUCCESSFUL IN ATTRACTING YOUR AUDIENCE?
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We made two separate openings to show to people our age in our local community to gain a sense of what they liked.
WE also made questionnaires for the same people to fill in.
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We changed/adapted the music to suit our target audience and also re shot a scene to make the scene more interesting and subsequently making it funnier.
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Yes- after completing our film we showed it to a selection of target audiences and got them to carry out our questionnaire. We got lots of positive feedback as well as some constructive criticism, this helped us develop.
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Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
USING THE CAMERA:
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USING THE EDITING SOFTWARE (Macs)
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We learnt all the technical terms for camera shots (Close Up, Wide Shots, POV Shots.)
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We learnt some of the short cuts to allow us to speed up the editing process.
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Camera techniques (Shot Reverse Shot (SRS), Two things happening at once (Cross Cutting)
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How to add and cut sound clips to get tgem in time with the rest of the movie and also add different levels of volumes.
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Camera Angles (High, Low)
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How to over lay text and titles onto the movie opening to give information ;like Credits.
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Using the tripod to steady the camera; keeping the camera straight on uneven group and for panning.
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How to cut and trim the clips with the correct timings so that it runs smoothly.
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Shooting various versions of the scene to help keep the continuity in post.
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Using transitions effects to soften a switch from one location to another so it does look subtle- Cross Cutting.
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Q7. Looking back at your prelim task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression of it from the full product?
PRELIMINARY TASK: SKILLS
Our objectives were to use all the skills that were needed to make a film and had to contain a variety of different camera angles and shots and have a feeling of continuity when finished. We also needed to learn how to use pre and post-production skill like; storyboarding, our ideas (roughly at first) then make a neat copy, create a script for characters to follow and we also needed to learn technical skills and how to use certain equipment when filming; EG. Microphones to make voices clearer when filming.
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PRELIMINARY TASK: EVALUATION
Most of the film has relatively smooth transitions and continuity but at certain points it can be seen as a bit which distracts the audience’s attention from what is actually happening.
We decided to make a home-made steadi cam using a tripod and a dumbbell weight to smooth out the shots when filming.
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MAIN TASK: SKILLS
As a whole our skills have improved from when we created our prelim task. We have studied more camera shots and what effects they might have given an audience, which helped us when selecting what camera shots to put in the film at certain points. We also learnt about lighting and what effects various different colloquial lighting portrayed in an everyday setting. We also learnt more about out use of props and colours for our texts. We decided red and white would be the best colours for our title sequences.
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MAIN TASK: EVALUATION
I think that we successfully improved on the areas that we suggested needing improvement from our preliminary task. We made sure transitions between the scenes were smoother than they were originally. This is shown in the library where the character “Julia” walks around, and there is a smooth panning shot with a clean cut before Albert falls over creating comedy.
We also used music in the background which was missing from our prelim task, however we did have a voiceover in our prelim task.
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