Wednesday, 6 April 2016
Monday, 21 March 2016
Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our film is centred around the protagonist, Lola, a 17 year old girl from London. It follows her struggle with drug abuse and her downward spiral in her mental and physical health. Although the storyline is focused on Lola it also follows the lives of her friendship group and her deteriorating relationship with them as well as the breakdown in her relationship with her boyfriend, Marlon.
With our opening sequence we attempted to explore the forms and conventions of real media products and either develop or challenge there form, genre, narrative structure and style.
We also experimented with interesting camera angles to give the sequence a more artsy feel that is often seen in British Indie films.
We tried to adhere to the forms and conventions of real media products as closely as possible as the reason why these forms and conventions are created is because they are effective. However, we did try and put our own spin on our project as it is important to somewhat challenge the norm to suit your project and the purpose of it.
With our opening sequence we attempted to explore the forms and conventions of real media products and either develop or challenge there form, genre, narrative structure and style.
Form
Genre
Our film fits into the Teen Drama Genre.
Style
As our film is a British Indie Film we wanted its style to fit its genre. The main way we wanted to connote this was through camerawork and this played an important role in pre- production, production and post production. With our opening sequence we wanted to create a distorted feel with lots of movement to reflect the emotions of confusion that the protagonist was feeling. We found the best way to present this was in a fast paced montage sequence which would introduce all the characters and their lifestyles whilst giving us creative licence to explore different shot framings and camera movement.
We introduced our filming style with the big opening tracking shot which introduces the audience to the friendship group as well as introducing some of the dynamics in the group.
We also experimented with interesting camera angles to give the sequence a more artsy feel that is often seen in British Indie films.
We tried to adhere to the forms and conventions of real media products as closely as possible as the reason why these forms and conventions are created is because they are effective. However, we did try and put our own spin on our project as it is important to somewhat challenge the norm to suit your project and the purpose of it.
Evaluation Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The main representation we wanted to focus on and address was our representation of age. By using influence from other films and TV programmes in the media we attempted to conform to and revert some of the stereotypes that are enforced in the media.
British Teenagers
The age group our film opening represents is teenagers. There is a lot of representation of teenagers in the media as many TV programmes and films are centred around teenagers. This also means that many stereotypes for teenagers have been developed, both positive and negative ( the majority being negative).
Dress
It was really important to us that what our characters wore accurately represented what teenagers in London wear today to make our sequence as identifiable and idealistic to our audience as possible. We wanted to give our actors as much freedom as possible to allow them to truly represent their style. Instead of designing each actors outfit we gave them guidelines for what we suggested they wore. We made suggestions based on what we wear ourselves and also what we see teenagers in films and tv dramas wearing, seeing as most of our styles are inspired by the media.
Teenagers are known for partying and having a good time and this is something we were keen to put across in our opening. We wanted to create an almost idealistic party lifestyle for the audience as it is evident the characters are having a lot of fun with their friends.
It was really important to us that what our characters wore accurately represented what teenagers in London wear today to make our sequence as identifiable and idealistic to our audience as possible. We wanted to give our actors as much freedom as possible to allow them to truly represent their style. Instead of designing each actors outfit we gave them guidelines for what we suggested they wore. We made suggestions based on what we wear ourselves and also what we see teenagers in films and tv dramas wearing, seeing as most of our styles are inspired by the media.
Branded clothes and streetwear/sportswear is very popular amongst teenagers in London and we ensured that this has come across in our project.
Often the negative representations that are placed on teenagers are also placed on the clothing they wear e.g. hoodies and other streetwear. My exploring the individual personalities of our characters throughout the film and presenting them in a positive light we wanted to show that even though our characters are wearing clothing that can be associated with anti- social behaviour they themselves are not delinquents, to enforce that you cannot stereotype people and make assumptions on their behaviour and personalities based on their clothing.
Behaviour
Teenagers are known for partying and having a good time and this is something we were keen to put across in our opening. We wanted to create an almost idealistic party lifestyle for the audience as it is evident the characters are having a lot of fun with their friends.
However, teenagers are also often presented as badly behaved, rowdy deliquents in Tv programmes and films. This can be seen in programmes and films such as Skins, human traffic and kidulthood.
Although there is drug and alcohol usage in our opening the focus is much more on the dangers of this and we want it to stand as a warning to the consequences of overuse of drugs and alcohol.
Overall we wanted to adhere to some of the typical stereotypes of teenagers so that we could attract our target audience of teenagers as the film would be relatable to them. However, we also wanted to show through further character development that there is much more to our characters than just drugs and parties and at the same time bring awareness to some of the problems that teenagers face that are often undermined in the media.
Overall we wanted to adhere to some of the typical stereotypes of teenagers so that we could attract our target audience of teenagers as the film would be relatable to them. However, we also wanted to show through further character development that there is much more to our characters than just drugs and parties and at the same time bring awareness to some of the problems that teenagers face that are often undermined in the media.
Evaluation Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Production Company: Stealth Films Ltd.
Why we chose Stealth Films Ltd:
- London based production company so will understand London culture to help give us a more accurate and realistic film.
- Stealth Films produced Kidulthood and West London 10. Both indie films shot in London.
- Kidulthood has a similar gritty, urban feel to our own film.
- Kidulthood was produced on a 600,000 budget which is a similar budget to what we would want our film to have.
Distribution Company: StudioCanal UK
Why we chose StudioCanal UK:
- Based in London. It's useful to keep the Production company, the Distribution company and the filming locations all in one place for maximum efficiency.
- They have experience in distributing British Indie Films as they distributed Comedown in 2012 which also has the same director as Kidulthood.
- Important to have a UK distributor as our film is for a UK audience.
Our release plan:
Marketing:
Due to our low budget for marketing we would have to heavily rely on social media. Creating online awareness for our film would be the best way of reaching our Target Audience. We would create a FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram page for our film and regularly use it to update our followers. One of the best ways to create mass awareness for something would be by getting videos and pictures to go viral as this is the best way to reach a large audience. Therefore we would have to create interesting and exciting, current content to keep our followers interested in the film.
Posters would also play an important role in our film and by creating an artsy poster this will attract our creative, young audience.
Evaluation Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?
To conclude, through our core audience, secondary audience and tertiary audience our film is intending to reach a broad range of people and we ensured that this was taken into account in post- production, production and pre- production. The primary purpose of the opening sequence is to appeal to its audience and it is important to take into account that all of the audience has different wants and needs and to cater to these needs to the best of our abilities.
Evaluation Q5: How did you attract/ address your audience?
We attempted to use the Uses and Gratifications theory to attract our core target audience (16-24 year old British teenagers), our secondary target audience ( Fans of the British indie genre) and our tertiary audience (Domestic abuse campaigners). The theory states that audiences 'are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives' and that they use media to fulfil their own gratifications, typically one of the following four:
Below is a table where you can see how we used the 'Uses and Gratifications theory' in our finished product:
In my first evaluation question I discussed the ways in which our project developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media products. By conforming to many of the expectations of the audience this will help to attract and appeal to them.
Throughout our project we stressed an importance on obtaining audience reactions and feedback to our opening sequence. We found this was a really good way of altering our project to our audiences needs.
After our test shoot and during the editing process we were constantly getting friends to watch our project to see what they liked about it and what could be improved. These were some of the comments we got during the process:
At the end of the project we created a short questionnaire to find out what our audience thought of the project. We put the answers in a bar graph which can be seen below.
- Identity - ability to recognise product/setting/person or role models with similar values, someone you would aspire to be
- Educate - ability to acquire information, knowledge and understanding]
- Entertain - getting enjoyment and form of escapism from consumption
- Social Interaction - ability of product to produce topic of conversation between people and spark debates
Below is a table where you can see how we used the 'Uses and Gratifications theory' in our finished product:
In my first evaluation question I discussed the ways in which our project developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media products. By conforming to many of the expectations of the audience this will help to attract and appeal to them.
Throughout our project we stressed an importance on obtaining audience reactions and feedback to our opening sequence. We found this was a really good way of altering our project to our audiences needs.
After our test shoot and during the editing process we were constantly getting friends to watch our project to see what they liked about it and what could be improved. These were some of the comments we got during the process:
At the end of the project we created a short questionnaire to find out what our audience thought of the project. We put the answers in a bar graph which can be seen below.
Overall we found the best way to find out what our audience liked was to have constant communication with a variation of different people within our target audience. This gave us a good idea of what we needed to do to attract them
Evaluation Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During this process I have become a lot more comfortable with the technologies used in both the Hardware and Software used in the production and post- production process.
Overall I feel that I have massively developed my knowledge of different technologies as well as my developing my skills when using them. I found the biggest challenge for me was using some of the trickier tools on the editing software, however, I feel that by the end of the project, although definitely not perfect, my editing skills were much improved.
Hardware
Canon HFG30.
Tripod.
Software
Adobe Premier Pro.
I had already used Adobe Premier Pro before this project and was pretty comfortable with editing together a basic sequence. However i really enjoyed exploring the software and using it it to the extent of its abilities in this project whilst fine tuning my editing skills. I had never used the effects on it before and this project was the perfect opportunity to try some out.
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| We used the ghosting effect on the shots from Lolas point of view to highlight her level of intoxication and it really allowed us to develop our story effectively |
Livetype.
We used LiveType to make our titles which are obviously very important for an opening sequence. It was important to us that the titles themselves fitted the general vibe and feel of the opening sequence.
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