1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Many films include titles such as; title of the film, producer, director, main stars, production company and the distribution company. E.g. Cold Mountain.
This film opening shows all of these titles. This is a typical way to begin a film. It gives the film distributors and production companies their time in the lime light. It names the main actors who are going to appear in the film.
This film opening is also good for the use of introducing who is in it, when and where the film is set. It starts with a shot of moving water, this reveals the name of the production company and the distribution company. It then goes onto a woman's voice reading a letter aloud. This tells us the where abouts of the actors and also the plot of the story, she says 'Dear Mr Innman, I began by counting the days then the months, I don't count on anything anymore except the hope that you will return, and the silent fear that in the years tat we saw each other, this war, this awful war would have changed us both beyond our reckoning.' This introduces the characters and the plot, we can see by the letter that a war is taking place in the film, also that one of the main characters is a man called Mr Innman.
We have used many of these titles in our film opening. Main stars, producer, director, title of the film, and the production company. We have also used our film opening to introduce the characters, we introduce them by the use of photographs and flashbacks. We have also introduces the plot of the story through the use of a scrap book.
Early establishment of the relationships between the characters is shown in our film opening. We see this when we see 'Jess' the girl sticking in the photos and articles int the scrapbook. We can see that she was in some kind of a relationship with 'Jamie', we see this as if she wasn't then she wouldn't bother making this scrap book with all her memories in it.
A good example of the early establishment of characters relationships in film openings is Donnie Darko, we are introduced to Donnie and his family whilst we follow Donnie to his house. We can see the 'early establishment of characters relationships' of his family when the dinner table scene arises. It is clear from the conversation that the family is a disfunctional family.
The use of music to create the mood in a film opening in very important. Our film opening has very good mix of music and mood, our mood is set for a solemn genre, and the music helps give it that feeling. This is important because if the music doesnt fit the genre then it won't give the same outcome.
A good representation of this is the film 'Up' this i a good example as it uses music to show the boys life through stages using music. It changes between different times in his life, it is happy when he is with his life and then when they have a baby, but it dies the music changes from a chirpy tune to a more solemn tune, it picks back up again but then changes when 'Ellie' passes away.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film opening is aimed at teenagers, female in particular, this is because it falls under the romance genre. This is portrayed by the whole extract. It is about a young couple, who are madly in love and then one day the boy in the relationship dies, this leaves the girl distraught, it goes on with her finding someone new, but this takes a long time. We decided that this would be best demonstrated through a young couple rather than an older couple, this is because it affects more viewers and has more of an impact if it were a young couple rather than an older couple. We decided that to have the girlfriend grieving over the death of her boyfriend is a good way to illustrate that the idea that with love comes tragedy. We decided to use the scrap book idea as this helps the audience see what has happened to the relationship of the young couple, without being to suggestive. I believe that the part of the film opening that shows the grief the girlfriend is going through best is, the part where we see the tear running down her face, and then when she shuts the book as if to say she cant cope with anymore misery today, and gets up and leaves. This only suggests today, she doesn't tidy the book away forever, but just closes it. The part in which we establish the boyfriends death is a compilation of the shots. E.g. When we see the first picture of the couple together and then the new article showing that the De Aston pupil has died in a road accident. We can begin to understand that the pupil is the boyfriend.
AAA - our film
Other films aimed at the same target audience as ours are films such as:
Dear John
Remember Me
My Sister's Keeper
These are all good examples of films that are aimed at the same target audience as ours.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Many big film distribution organisations such as Warner Bros., Pathe, Fox, Sony Pictures, Icon Movies etc. help to distribute films, but mainly mainstream feature films. E.g. Paul, The Black Swan etc. These organisations fall under the 'umbrella' of the FDA - Film Distributors' Association.
Originally established in London in 1915, FDA liaises and works with many individuals, companies and organisations. FDA's Council, or board, comprising a senior representative of each member company, normally meets six times a year and considers only matters of generic interest to film distributors.
'FDA is a voice for UK film distribution'
Their job is "the highly competitive business of launching and sustaining films in the market place." This is a direct quote from the FDA guide. They are tasked with things such as;
- arranging all the publicity for the films.
- arranging to place the stars on chat shows prior to the opening of the film.
- arranging the print distribution to all the cinemas which ensures a simultaneous opening weekend.
- arranging the collection of the income from all sources and distribute it as per contracts.
- arranging all other distributions of the film e.g. film rental, DVD/Bluray, Video stream, free-to-air, hotel etc.
- arranging the film premiere.
Not only is there the FDA to distribute your films, but you can use web 2.0 sites such as Youtube. This is generally used for a typical student production with a highly limited budget, made by amateur film makers.
YouTube is a popular web 2.0 site, which holds many videos available to the public, ranging from music videos, to amateur comedy. It has a very big target audience. From young viewers to old viewers. YouTube attracts the audience it has in many different ways. It is found out by word of mouth, this is a typical and very useful way of telling your audience about your product. Also a television programme named RudeTube is used. This is based on the most viewed video's on YouTube of the month. When people have seen this television programme they tend to visit YouTube and search the most viewed video to see why it is the most viewed. A good example of this is the video 'Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise' this has had 99, 534, 459 hits. After people seeing video's such as 'Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise' YouTube gets good reviews and recommendations of the site and it becomes used a lot more.
Our film is a good example of the use of Web 2.0. As we are amateur film makers this is a brilliant way to distribute our films. Many people use the website YouTube as it is reliable and easy to use.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
BBFC (British Board of Film Classification)
What do they do?
All the regulatory work done in the UK is done by BBFC. They have the responsibility of awarding classifications to all: cinema release films, all DVD/BluRay discs and disc content release etc. all across the UK.
BBFC have guidelines for each of their classifications.
All classification decisions are based on the BBFC’s published and regularly updated Guidelines. The Guidelines are the product of extensive public consultation, research and the accumulated experience of the BBFC over many years. They reflect current views on film, DVD and video game regulation.
Guidelines
U - a ‘U’ film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. ‘U’ films should be set within a positive moral framework and should offer reassuring counterbalances to any violence, threat or horror.
PG - Unaccompanied children of any age may watch. A ‘PG’ film should not disturb a child aged around eight or older. However, parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger or more sensitive children.
12/ 12A - Exactly the same criteria are used to classify works at ‘12A’ and ‘12’. These categories are awarded where the material is suitable, in general, only for those aged 12 and over. Works classified at these categories may upset children under 12 or contain material which many parents will find unsuitable for them.
15 - No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work.
18 - No-one younger than 18 may see an ‘18’ film in a cinema.
No-one younger than 18 may rent or buy an ‘18’ rated video.
Sarah and I decided that we should give our film opening a 12A - this being that it contains no distressing or harmful pictures, but it did imply the death of a young boy.
Our target audience.
This is Isla, she is 17 years old. She plays netball for her school. She enjoys hanging out with her friends, and going shopping. She listens to music like Paramore, B.O.B, You me at six, Florence + the machine, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Cee-lo Green, Ellie Goulding, Eminem, Christian TV etc. She enjoys doing adventurous activities, such as rock climbing, canoeing etc. She loves partying with friends. She is a great laugh. She can't stand people who smoke, or take drugs. She wants to get the most out of her life, so she studies hard at school, but she doesn't enjoy school. She loves working with younger children, helping them to develop everything they need for the future.
5. How did you attract/ address your audience?
How we addressed our audience.
Sarah and myself gave out questionnaires which had questions such as:
- Are you Male or Female?
- How old are you?
- What type of genre do you like to watch?
- What do you look for in a film opening?
- How important is the music in the film opening?
We decided that these were suitable questions to ask for our research questionnaire as it gave us as producers and distributors an insight into who our target audience would be.
The response we got to the research questionnaire was very positive and the results followed a pattern.
We found that most females aged 15 - 19 enjoyed watching comedy genre films and also Romance and Rom-com. Where as we found that most male aged 15 - 19 enjoyed watching action genre films and horror.
There was the odd exception of this trend, where some females enjoyed watching horror and some males enjoyed watching comedy.
We also found that both genders, male and female, looked for different things in the opening of a film. Such as:
Titles- Text on screen
- Dialogue
- Music
- Story line
- Voice overs.
We asked these questions because it also helped us to decide what we wanted/ should include into our film opening.
Following the advice on the questionnaires we included many things in our film opening. Music, Text on screen, Titles and Dialogue.
AAA - our film.
My partner and I decided that in order to attract our audience we would need to 'kick up a fuss' about it. So we did this by making invitations, and handing them out to friends and peers around the school. The invitation was inviting them to come to our film opening premiere.
We made these to look official and also appealing. These were given out to our target audience.
We aimed to stick to the BBFC Guidelines of the classification 12/12A. In our film opening we have the suggestion that the boy has died, but we do not show how he died.
AAA - our film.
"Moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood but occasional gory moments may be permitted if justified by the context." - Quote from the BBFC guidelines for 12/12A.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Research
We used many sites on the Internet to do our research;
We also decided to look at some work done by previous students and also look at moving images, to do this we used the above site YouTube.com. here are some of the films we watched;
El Hombre Angelico
Dear John
Remember Me
The Hangover
White Chicks
The Bounty Hunter
27 Dresses
Tropic Thunder
We then decided that we needed to research locations on where we could film. We looked at many different locations;
Mill Lane, Normanby - by - Spital, LN8 2HE
Front Street, Normanby - by - Spital LN8 2HE
Wragby Road, Lincolnshire
Location 1
Location 2
Location 3
This was only needed for the part in our film where 'Damien' was walking the dog.
We used my house for the inside shots.
I have also been using Blogger and my Workbook to record the information i researched. It has been essential for me to record everything down.
Planning
A lot of planning went into our film opening, we tended to use many of the items below for the planning;
Mobile Phones
Facebook
Canon Camera
I have also been using Blogger and my Workbook to record the information i researched. It has been essential for me to record everything down.
Construction
In the construction part of our coursework we used the video camera, Panasonic NVGS 500 mini-DV video camera, this was used to shoot all of our footage for our film opening, we used a Sony tripod, this was used to keep the video camera stable whilst we filmed, an iMac Computer, this was used to access the programs in which we needed, we used the programs Adobe CS3 Premiere Pro, this program was used to cut and edit our footage, input the text and the music for our film opening, Photoshop, we used this to make our invitations for our film premiere and After Effects, which was used to animate our titles and also get the correct balance for our music and dialogue scenes. We also used Blogger to record all of our construction.
Evaluation
A DVD of our film was made and we had that screened through a digital projector to our audience at our film opening premiere. We used Microsoft Word to create our questionnaire's and Microsoft Excel to create our graphs from our results. We used Blogger to record everything that we had made or produced.
With the help of all this technology I have been able to produce a piece of work to a standard that I am happy with and also one that I did not think i would have done a few months back.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have learnt to do a lot in the main task and have achieved a bigger understanding of everything i have done due to the main task
Research
In terms of the preliminary task, I didn't do much research we had a bit of teacher input and that was to teach us about action match and the rule about crossing the line. We also watched past students work on the prelim task. This gave us an idea on what we were aiming for.
Whereas for the main task we looked at past students work, looked at professional work, looked for music and locations that could possibly be used.
Planning
We didn't do much planning for the prelim task. All we did was make a story board of what we were going to do. We also had to choose the location of the preliminary taska dn choose a script out of three choices.
Compared to the main task, we did not do as much planning. For the main task we chose the locations, chose whether we wanted a script or whether we just wanted it to be silent. We chose whether we wanted music, voice over, nothing at all. In the end we chose to have music. We decided that we were going to have the piece of music called 'Morning After The Storm' We also had to dercided whether we wanted words on the screen or not, we chose to go with words on the screen, which would explain the story as it went along.
Construction
Capturing and Editing the film comes under the construction part. For the preliminary task i didn't do too much captruing and editing, in this process i learnt how to use the basic features of Adobe premiere Pro. There was no Music editing needed throughout this preliminary task process.
In comparison to my main task, we have learnt how to use the more advanced parts of the Adobe Premire Pro and also the Adobe After Effects. We learnt how to add Music to my film along with changing the pitch and volume of the dialogue scene. We learnt how to add the text on screen to my film opening and also different effects such as the exiting of the names.
Evaluation
In the preliminary task there was no formal evaluation. All that reallt took place was us, as students, learning from our mistakes.
Where as for my main task, We had a lot more evaluation to do. We had to evaluate everything from the research, to the planning all the way through to the construction stage. We then held a film opening premiere and had questionnaires for our audience to fill in, we then evaluated these and produced our results in the forms of graphs.This helped us to see whether what we set out to acheive had been achieved. This was to - create a piece of work which would show our improvement in skill and portray the correct mood and reflect the concepts we had learnt in terms of film openings.
