Media Means; Our Detailed Evaluation !

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?
MEDIUM: Film                                                                 GENRE: Comedy
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)	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.
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.	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.

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social group?

CHARACTER:	SOCIAL GROUP:	HOW REPRESENTED:	CONFORMS TO/SUBVERTS STEREOTYPE:	EFFECT ON AUDIENCE:
Albert	Lower Middle Class Student Male Aged 16	Albert is represented as the unlucky character of the film, who has no luck with the ladies, or indeed anyone at all.	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.	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.
Kel	Lower class than Albert Student Male Aged 16	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.	Kel strongly subverts the stereotype of the typical teenager, as he isn’t very clever, says silly things and does silly things.	This larger than life character makes us laugh as it is an exaggeration of a character who we may see in mundane life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q3. Who would distribute your media product and why?

 

LARGE GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS WHO REPRESENT HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS:		INDEPENDENT FILM COMPANIES WITH HOLLYWOOD OWNERSHIP	SMALL INDEPENDENT FILM COMPANIES	AMATEUR PRODUCERS WHO DISTRIBUTE PERSONALLY VIA INTERNET
DreamWorks		Warp	Coffee Films	Im Art
20th Century Fox		Working Title	Tyler Perry Studios	Pick N Mix Films
BlueSky Studios		Columbia		Sky Reach Productions
Universal		Mirimax
Paramount
MTV
SONY
Warner Brothers

 

 

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

DESCRIBE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE:	LINK YOUR MEDIUM AND GENRE	EVIDENCE FOR THIS
We decided to aim our target audience at a mixed gender aged between 15-25: for people who enjoy comedy films.	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.	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)

 

 

 

 

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

 

WHAT RESEARCH DID YOU DO TO FIND WHAT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE WANTED?	WHAT CHANGES DID YOU MAKE AFTER THESE FINDINGS?	WERE YOU SUCCESSFUL IN ATTRACTING YOUR AUDIENCE?
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.	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.	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.

 

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 

USING THE CAMERA:	USING THE EDITING SOFTWARE (Macs)
We learnt all the technical terms for camera shots (Close Up, Wide Shots, POV Shots.)	We learnt some of the short cuts to allow us to speed up the editing process.
Camera techniques (Shot Reverse Shot (SRS), Two things happening at once (Cross Cutting)	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.
Camera Angles (High, Low)	How to over lay text and titles onto the movie opening to give information ;like Credits.
Using the tripod to steady the camera; keeping the camera straight on uneven group and for panning.	How to cut and trim the clips with the correct timings so that it runs smoothly.
Shooting various versions of the scene to help keep the continuity in post.	Using transitions effects to soften a switch from one location to another so it does look subtle- Cross Cutting.

 

 

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

 

Our Video Evaluation...

 

The evaluation is here  and we have spent long and hard hours on our film opening, and we decided that we shouldn't give you the boring old explanation.. so we have made a little video explaning our film, and answering the evaluation questions! We will be posting a table with in detail/in depth responses!

Enjoy it!

https://vimeo.com/65843292

Final Draft, Film Opening

After Many Weeks and Months of Planning, it is finally here!

We have our final opening! Written and directed by myself and the production team, we have thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of making this film, and we hope that you've enjoyed it as much as we have!

Please do comment, and let us know what you think of it, hope you enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

Love - Take5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhYboB-XLbo&feature=youtu.be

THE TEAM "TAKE 5"

Right I have just realised we havent given you guys an introduction as to who we all actually are, TAKE5. So to make up for that I have created this... Hope you like it.

MEET HARRY!

This is Harry Hemingway McGhee, he is the head of camera work in our production group. Harry is very talented when it comes to all things media and has been a massive credit to our group. Me and Simon would be lost with out you.

MEET SIMON!

This is Simon Anywar, he is the head of camera and sound in our production group. Simons forte is music, he is super talented and was SO helpful in choosing music and establishing certain genres of music and what appropriate moving actions to add over the top.

MEET MEG, well me!

I am Megan O'Connor and in TAKE5 I was the head of set design. I am the most picky member of the group during the editing stages, as Simon and Harry will tell you- due to the fact i am a bit of a perfectionist.

Comments on the film

Some comments on the film

It is such a good film opening

Hahaha, I want to see the whole film

This reminds me of the Inbetweeners movie

Rating the film out of 5 using a sample of 40 students

27% gave the film 5 out of 5

62% gave the film 4 out of 5

11% gave the film 3 out of 5

0% gave the film 2 out of 5 or less

Media concept of genre

Genre is category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.

I will discuss the concept of genre and how this has an impact on my film opening.

The mix of Inbetweeners plus Gavin and Stacey has similar genres that we decided we would try to indicate. We decided we would use the comedic elements of the teenage comedy genre three months advance as well as coming up with the take 5 production company logo.

The film is called, Our Holiday, and tells the story of 5 friends in education, struggling, to say the least! Albert, Jessica, Kel, Jason and Emily are all Year 12 teenagers who have just finished their first set of exams; so they decide to go on a spontaneous summer break abroad. Well that doesn't really turn out the way that they hoped, as Albert makes the decision to take his friends to Oxford - A place that he has been once before. There they meet people in Oxford, who are contradict the stereotypes that Oxfordians supposedly hold. Through a sea of hillarious parties, chortling trips and one very funny man, this film is the perfect film to see you through the summer. 

From an ideological perspective, this film is to show the stereotypes of Essex habitants, and Oxford habitiants, and how they are supposedly from completely opposite ends of the social and cultural spectrum and how they are contrasted when the two come together and make friends. 
However, there is an underlying theme throughout of love - and that can be added to the genre. So I guess the genre is a cross between Teenage Comedy and Romantic Comedy... so... RomTeen Comedy!

The film constantly reiterates the themes of power/control/friendship and love, and I wrote the whole film to play on these themes, to create comedy! 
The use of binary oppositions is also used in this themes - as the steretypical opposites are brought together. 

I hope that makes sense! If you haven't - check out the film opening! Get those views up! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTqqZ1hR-gc

Anaysis our film opening

In the post, I will be discussing the likely effects of CRAGE media product

Class 

The characters are used the film orginallly come from middle class family. The  main chracters are a group of teenage lining in Essex. They decide that they want to go on hoilday by the do not have not have enough monry to go abroad, so they they travel to Oxford because they believe it is a great place to have fun. The group coming to Oxford from Essex is significant becasue sterotype that people from oxford they meet are likely to be Posh. In constrast they will seen as outsider that have lower standard," in other words not on their level.

Regional Identify

The regional identify is similar for all the characters however all the main character in Our Holiday have unique characteristics to stand out. For example Albert is a brain box that is interested in discovering new interesting concept, whilst Kel is the opposite and enjoys making a laughing shock. The comedy used in the opening of the film reinforces this, because the audience can enjoy the situation these teenager get themselves into.

Age

This is a very specific because the group anges range between 16 - 18. The age of these teenagers is considered to be sterotypical because in most teenages come across as young people who enjoy the company of drugs, sex, alchool and not taking there eduaction seriously. In our film we want to show that not all teenagers are into to that way of life. The group of friends in our hoilday are vey polite and kind young poeple that enjoy having a laugh.

Gender

This is an interesting opportunity to show that both girls and boys can have fun in a civilised manner. Our hoilday has 5 main character which comprise od 3 boys and 2 girls. In our film opening we introduce 2 guys and a girl which shows the start of a relationship between a two of the main characters. The way gender is portrayed in our film is that both sexes are equal, no one is superior and no one is inferior to anyone else.

Ethnicity

The ethnicity of the main character in the film opening is the Essex culture that they have grown up in. This is important for the qualities they reflect to the audience because without the audience knowing much about them we can assume that these individuals are from this part of the UK, through the construction of language for example. Therefore the audience has a good idea of what they believe about the culture and they want to find out about other culture with in the uk so they travel to Oxford.

Music & Sound

Music & Sound

The music used is by a  r&b artist called Music Soul Child and the song is called Just friends. Why use this song, firstly we need to find a soundtrack that are entertaining to the target audience. This is because the footage we edited was very appealing at the expectation had to be matched. Secondly the style of the narrative had to match almost perfectly with the song. The narrative is youthful, current and up beat, so the funky instrumental sounds that are used in the beat of the song are very welcoming and warm. Thirdly the situation, Albert is in the library when he see a girl that he think could potential be more than his friend. The lyrics illustrate his emotions in the film opening, reinforcing a message to the audience. Fourthly the music help the audience relax and prepare for the event ahead to unfold; the sound track feels like a new adventure is beginning and it is positive because of the settling tones with the vocal, which is encouraging for the viewers. Finally music is important to Our holidays as it benefits the flow of sequences that occur plus give the film opening an unique edge to it.

Filming again

Filming again

Re filming the opening was a very necessary task that needed to be undertaken. This is shown through the weakness in draft 2 we are currently working on. We were advised to add an outdoor scene to the opening which would increase the continuity. We invited Kel, Julie and Albert to re shoot the film because they were our strongest actors. We arranged the setting of the opening and the customs.  We were also advised that using just our strongest character would improve the quality of the opening. We shot for 3 hours and collected enough footage to re edit to present our final draft.

Draft 2 of our opening with feedback from our potential target audience

Draft of your opening 2 with feedback from your potential target audience

Good

Nice sound track

Great quality footage

Sequence of event we clear

Funny

Appealing to target audience

Bad

Levels of sound need improving

Sharper editing needs to be indicated

Remove weak characters

Errors with particular parts of continuity

Limited variety to the setting

Draft 2

THIS IS THE SECOND DRAFT FOR OUR FILM OPENING - WE ARE STILL EDITING OUR FILM OPENING SO THERE IS MORE ON THE WAY!!!!!

http://youtu.be/HTqqZ1hR-gc

^^ GO HAVE A LOOK.

Using Sound – Kung Fu Panda

The layer of sound are used effect in Kung Fu Panda to keep the target audience interested and reinforces the action that is indicates the fast movement of the cartoon character in this  opening.

Picture of sound time line

Research into Production companies that might distribute your film

One of the most common distrubtion companies that would distribute our film would be Entertainment Film Distributors, as there film company has released the inteenwers film that is similar to our media product "Our Hoilday"

Entertainment is the UK’s leading independent distributor. The company was founded in 1978 and has showed continuing growth and success since that time distributing a wide range of product and building a significant film library. Highlights for the company have been the release of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, one of the most thrilling epic adventures in motion picture history, which at its culmination garnered a fantastic seventeen Academy Awards®. In fact, since the millennium the company’s releases have totaled a remarkable thirty-eight Oscar wins and twenty-two BAFTAs ,encompassing a diverse range of genres ,including Traffic, Gosford Park, Million Dollar Baby, Brokeback Mountain, and The Departed, which earned Martin Scorsese his first Oscar for Achievement in Direction, and The Reader, which won Kate Winslet an Academy Award® and a BAFTA Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.

Entertainment has had further success with other big box office hits such as Gangs of New York, Hairspray, Sex and the City ,Saw, 17 Again and The Final Destination franchise and British films such as Stormbreaker, Run Fat Boy Run and St Trinian’s 1 & 2. Future films from the company include Martin Scorsese’s first family film, Hugo Cabret, which also marks the first time the director has shot a film in 3D, the comic book adaptation Dredd and the untitled Freddie Mercury project starring Sacha Baron Cohen.

Entertainment Film Distributors operates both in the UK and the Republic of Ireland and distributes in theatrical, DVD rental and retail fields as well as licensing a substantial catalogue in both Pay-TV and Free-TV sectors.

Notes on your casting

The Casting of Our Holiday is a key to the success of the film. The performance of these characters should be as accurate as possible, so the risk of an event in the in the opening should not flow correctly which lead so the confusion of the audience. This may also deter people from coming to watch the film as the rating is likely to low.

Target Audience Mood Board

Equipment used on the filming

Today I'm going to talk about the problems we had whilst filming our film opening, for AS Media Studies! But first... Check out this song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0b8R71Mu7I

Bit of banter to get you going this morning.. ANYWAY!

We came across a number of problems whilst filming our opening. The first one being the fricckin camera battery! It kept dying on us... But a croissant and a glass of squash later, we had the battery charges, and ready to go!

As you will see when I upload the finalised version, we had the weather on our side - the snow gave us an awesome effect which really added to the authenticity and uniqueness of this opening. It really looked great.

The second problem that we had during filming, was the stability of the camera shots. They were very very jumpy and unstable, so I thought on the spot and came up with a simple stabaliser, that I will share with you now.

I based it on some shoulder stabalisers that I had seen in the past.

I took my tripod and tilted the plate back so that it was facing towards the sky. I then attached my camera onto it, whilst putting a dumbell weight - about 2.5kg - on the feet of the tripod. Then, I put it on my shoulder and we got incredibly steady shots.

Other than that, everything went pretty well!

And here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTqqZ1hR-gc

Narrative- detailed explanation and commentary of how the opening will set up the film’s narrative.

We planned to establish the film world’s equilibrium by analysising the film under the area of editing , camara work, mise en scene Ligthting and sound

Mise en scene

The opening has characters ranging from 16-18 years old, with a dress code including casual clothing. The expected clothing the characters wear adds to the realism of the narrative. The setting of Our Holiday is shot in "Essex", but actually Oxford.  We have set up the environment so that it represents stereotypical view of Essex. Therefore the opening main target is to be current, in other words the represent the social image of young people today. In addition we aim to show the contrast between the two cities Essex and Oxford as they are stereotyped to be two different places, and this film is trying to erase those differences, and show it on a different perspective. 

Editing

The editing of our media product is very important because of the techniques used by Spielberg, or Michael Bay. An example technique we used most effectively the quick cut in the dramatic pats of the opening. This involved the use of mortgage to increase the continuity of the seqence. The editing on more dramatic scenes, involve the wide use of montages, but also colour our film by our lighting, and a bit of post producion to use the colour scemes orange in the foreground and blue in the background. This lighting sceme can be seen in Transformers. It is something we will use. We will use time to our advantage in this film - Eg. Time lapse from day-night. 

Camera work  

Our camera is a Canon 110d, so it is practical - EOS Digital. We plan to use a continuous shot in our opening, and by this we have had to build a Steadi Cam out of PVC Piping! IT WORKS! I can't really talk much about this, as we will only find problems when filming, so keep posted here.

Lighting “colour”

Sound

Again, there isn't much to say about sound.. only that we hope it goes well! One point is soundtracks. As there will be a few montages, music will play a very large part in the film. In our Opening, we have chosen a very appropriate soundtrack (can't reveal yet!)

Characterisation

Characterisation

 

• Our characters are based on the generic characters of the Teenage Comedy Genre - Look at The Inbetweeners for example; There is Will; the sensible one,and Jay; the idiot. These two characters are the inspiration for Albert and Kel, the two main characters in our movie opening. .

• There are various ways in which I intend to introduce and develop characters central to the film opening
• Building up characters qualities as the film goes on
• Sound and music idents
• Variety of shots to establish key character traits, habits, facial expression
• Humor through comedy used by the character
• Mise en scene to show the messages and interests of the characters

Apply concepts of narrative of your film

Apply concepts of narrative of your film

Narrative

The narrative is a teenage comedy which uses the audience as its listeners, through the messages that are indicated. The speakers in the narrative are the group of friends that are main characters. The narrative sets up little puzzles to be solved to pleasurably delay the story’s ending.

Time

The time period of the film opening is around 30minutes from when Albert is in the library until the Kel meets Albert on the streets. The pace of the opening in terms of speed is moderate because the film does jump from the event to the next as quickly. It takes a while form Albert to leave the library and then meet Kel.

Characteristion

The characters are used in Our Holiday to suggest distinctive qualities will clearly make the audience laugh. Through the representation of the main character, makes the story engaging to the viewer as it is easier for the target audience to understand the adaptation of the characters and how character building work it the opening. As the audience get to know the character, the audience will be able to generate expectation which they want to achieve. This can be done by predicting the outcome of the plot if the audience satisfaction can be met.

Structure

The structure of the film opening links well with continuity of the film, because there is a set sequence that is followed strictly. The sequence of the film opening uses Todorov theory of narrative. The opening begins with equilibrium; Albert is read a book in the library. Then this goes into a disruption which is the girl having a conversation with him. This makes the opening take a different direction, encouraging the audience to know what is going to happen next. Consequently this leads to a new equilibrium, which leaves the viewer wanting understand the story this group of teenagers in a more developed way.

 Setting

The setting of the film opening begins in there hometown of essex, the group of friends that want to got on holiday to have some fun. The setting then changes to the holiday location of oxford which is with in the UK. Like most teenage they don’t have enough money to go abroad for a holiday, but this does not stop them having fun and enjoy the summer break.