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Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My film opening sequence both develops and challenges forms and conventions of other real media products through form, genre, narrative structure and style. Because our film is a teen comedy there were specific conventions we had to adhere to and some others that we could bend as you'll see in detail in the prezi below.
The main references of real media products I've used to compare my film opening are: "Mean girls","The Inbetweeners" (specifically their openings) and "She's the Man".

Please full screen prezi to view properly and feel free to click on any pictures/videos to view them as bigger images (in full screen).

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular groups?

The main convention we learnt about the teen comedy is that there a range of characters involved and that they're usually based on a social environment type of atmosphere. Therefore we made the representation of different types of people and 'cliques' a main feature of our film

Social groups we're representing: British teenagers (the common cliques you'd find in High
                                                          School, we largely conformed to the media representation of                                                                   them):
                                                                 -Chavs
                                                                 -Hipsters
                                                                 -Nerds
                                                                 -Athletics (usually called Jocks in American teen movies but                                                                   since our film is aimed at a British audience we called this                                                                     group 'the Athletics'
                                                                 -Emos/Goths
The only way we don't fully conform to the media representation of the cliques in High school is in race and gender. For example, usually when you think of a chav, you don't necessarily think of an Asian chav or nerds are usually Asian in most media. Since our school is a north London school, where London is a multicultural society, we decided to mix things up a bit. So we had Asian chavs, white nerds, a female athletic (jock).

High School Musical cliques

Mean girls cliques

Example of how we conformed to media representation of the stereotypical groups in teenagers (The Chav)

Goth from "The Inbetweeners"

Jocks from "22 Jump Street"

Video on some of the ways we represented the above listed subsidiary groups in the social group of British teenagers.(For the video, which shows how we represented the different types of social groups, please feel free to pause between each group and full screen so you can read the annotations)

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

'EGA Productions' (we made this name up)
operating under 'Zodiac Media'- Production studio
Universal Pictures UK- Distributor

Universal Pictures UK 

Evidence of why we're utilizing
online marketing, because teenagers
 are ardent users of "(web) technology" 

Our film opening, although an independently made film, can appeal to mainstream audiences because it has themes that can make it a highly appealing conventional teen comedy film. therefore it's suitable to be distributed by a major film company like Universal.

We felt that Universal Pictures had the resources to efficiently fund the distribution on a wide level, had a UK office which helps it tailor to the UK market better (a target audience we're intending to reach) and has a special section dedicated to only distributing

Teen Comedies distributed 
by Universal 

independent films (which our film is). Also they are a well known company that have distributed other very successful films, not only that but films that share similar themes and genres to ours. Since Universal has never had a partnership with Zodiak Media (the production institution which EGA, our production company, operates under) before, and because it typically distributes "films developed by outside partners" (as it states in it's about section on it's website), distributing our film would probably only be a one off partnership deal. Universal would also want to and can distribute our film because of the genre we are as they've had past success and experience with distributing teen comedy films as you'll see in the examples to the left.

Another reason why Universal would distribute our film and do it properly because it has distributed and marketed for Pitch Perfect, a film with a similar genre to ours and similar age demographic for an audience, and was successful. That's the way most renowned distributors think.

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our core audience is considered to be of a broad demographic, mass audience and national audience:
-British people
-Young people (on the basic range of 15-24 year olds)
but mainly people who are fans of the teen comedy genre which cuts across both the above audience types.

Please full screen prezi to view properly and feel free to click on any pictures/videos to view them as bigger images (in full screen).

 

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

As our audience is mainly made up of British 15-24 year olds, an audience that would want to be entertained as well as identify with the storyline of/themes in our film, so it was important we had codes that appealed to that audience demographic and also similar of that teen comedy genre. This is because our audience has so many of these types of films targeted at them all the time so have become discerning of teen comedies and have specific expectations of them that we have to reach to appeal to them.

Multicultural cast and North London setting used to address the British audience

 (because the different ethnicities and cultures in a British society is represented 

and London is the capital of Britain so should be a relate-able area to them). 

Youthful audience address and attracted through the characterisation of a 

teenage society since they live and function in it everyday in their schools.

However I'm going to focus on how we used the "Uses and Gratifications theory" to attract our audience as you will see in more detail.
Please full screen prezi to view properly and feel free to click on any pictures/videos to view them as bigger images (in full screen).

We also made a survey in order to get audience feedback on the final outcome of our film opening, to which you can find the results below; this helped us decide if we had succeeded in attracting our audience like we intended to. On the whole I think our results prove it a success.



To answer our survey we used a random selection of people, with 21% of all the people asked Male and 79% Female, 78% 15-24 year olds, 6% 24-30 year olds and 16% 30+. Meaning that we were able to appeal more to our target audience of 15-24 year olds than any other age group and that our theory of our film relating to even older audiences due to the nostalgic elements and relate-able storyline. However it does also mean that our audiences are skewed more to females rather than an equal gender balance of appeal. 57.9% of our people who took our survey identified the films genre as teen drama, while 42.1% correctly identified it as teen comedy. It's important to point out all other film genres were ignored by them leading us to believe that our representation of a teen comedy genre was pretty well done as all of our audience correctly identified it as being a 'teen' film.

Above is an interview/discussion of feedback with a sample of my target audience who have watched my film opening. It's interesting where they debate whether the use of a male protagonist means that our film would therefore be more skewed to attracting male audiences, even though we did purposely intend to use a male protagonist to break the convention of most teen comedies which have female protagonists. I agree with the idea proposed in their debate that just because there is a male protagonist does not mean that it's skewed more towards males. There have been many films where females have been attracted because of the male protagonist (if they're a good looking/funny character etc.) although they've not been addressed.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

A list of all the technologies we
 used and evaluations of some of them

On the whole I've learnt that your use of technology is dependent on the impact and style you want your film to have. For example if you want an action type of film you would be more prone to use special effects technology on editing software and grade way more than you would on a general comedy because you'd want the film to have a very visual impact for the audience. I've learnt so much on how to use technologies mainly from the process of construction.

In the Prezi below is a video commentary on how to make a split screen demo made by me.
Please full screen prezi to view properly and feel free to click on any pictures/videos to view them as bigger images (in full screen). 

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Prelim Brief:
"To film a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down on a chair opposite a character, with whom he/she exchanges dialogue with while demonstrating continuity techniques, like match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule."

It was good practice on how to make a film because it helped us understand the basics of how to plan and edit a sequence.


Main Task Brief:
"To produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film. All video and audio material material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright free source. It should be clear from your sequence who your target audience is."

For the preliminary task it was imperative we used continuity techniques to create a well-flowing narrative. We also had to focus on this when filming and storyboarding our opening sequence, for example:

Match on action

Match on action from storyboard put into production

Match on action on storyboard 
of main task

Match on action sequence from
 'New Guy' storyboard, influenced 
by the GIF of our Prelim above

We also learnt from our prelim to use a variance of shots to keep the audience interested rather than if shots were just the same standard MS, CU and LS every time; but pans, tracks and angles add depth and difference.

From the Preliminary task we learnt different types of planning needed for a shoot, for example shoot-board, script etc. We decided to implement these same types of planning but instead make it more formal as you will see in the picture below. However in our Prelim, we did not formally sort out a cast, costumes list, or method of communication with actors. For the main task we included this form of planning as we realized we would have a bigger cast than in the prelim so better organization for them was needed.

Also we decided to plan a layout of the location we would be using for our shoot for the main task, which we did not do for the preliminary, because the locations we would be using are unfamiliar to the school where we did our prelims as it was the only location available to us.

Communication with actors evidence

Set layout preparation

In post production we used the same editing software in the Prelim, Adobe Premier pro, as we did for the main task. We learnt that differently to the Prelim we would also need a software for grading as the look on our prelim did not connote 'teen comedy film' but our main task would need to.

Analysis of Post-Production

The only additional equipment that we used in our main task that we didn't use for the prelim was the go pro camera and dolly which we learnt to use before the test shoot of the main task.

The placement of titles we didn't learn for when we made the prelim but we did for the main task because we learnt that it's conventional for a film opening to have titles.

Below is a video of us trying to control our actors on set. For the prelim we didn't need such a large cast so didn't realise set management was need for a shoot until we started shooting for our main task. As you'll be able to see from the video it was very hard, but we managed to take charge and pull through.

I think the most substantial thing that I learnt looking back on my Preliminary task that I didn't learn when making the Prelim was mastering continuity and editing and then relating those skills to the idea of how to attract and address specific audiences using the form and style of opening sequences and genre conventions.

Construction Post 10: Looking back-Reflections on our final outcome

MY FILM OPENING SEQUENCE:

I'm proud of how far we've accomplished with the project and that we've finally made it to the end

Aims..

• That the audience can connect to the character and the situation he's been put in (which is supposedly relatable to many-their first day at a new school) 
• That the audience is immersed by the realism we tried to connote through use of editing and be engaged and want to watch beyond the opening
• That the audience will understand the storyline of the opening sequence and that it's Arthur's first day of school
• The audience will appreciate the niche audiences we've tried to represent in order to reflect everyone's experience of sechondary/high school

Highlights...

• When we were able to over come our creative differences and come up with a storyline and innovative ideas that suited all of us
• Shoot sessions with all our actors, although hard to manage and keep quiet on set, was fun

Low points...

• Edit week 2 was really rushed and came to the point of being stressful as we had so much to complete in so little time
• Finding a title for our film (we were literally only able to think of one that suited the themes of our film on the last day of editing)

In Hindsight...

• If we had permission to have the school to ourselves for a shoot our actors would have been free to make as much noise as they could to reinforce the mood of 'school' for the camera and would've made it easier to sort out shoot days&times.
• Lighting was a main issue,so we had to stick to filming only one side of the hallway, if it wasn't we could have had a wider variation of high angle, low angle and reverse shots
• More time to explore different ways we could have utilized the go pro camera and its waterproof features as there were only one shot we used out of the whole sequence that was filmed with a go-pro camera although there were other shots we had taken with it but had not time to check if they worked.

Construction 9: My technical learning curve (Production and Post production)

My Personal Contribution:

The whole group played a part in all aspects of the processes (filming&editing) of creating the opening sequence 

• In Production I was mainly in charge of organising shoot logistics (getting equipment release forms signed, shoot schedules signed on behalf of the group so we could take kit out of the school, updating the shoot board dependent on changes made from the shoot before, relaying information to actors regarding shoots and sometimes transporting kit)
• In Post-Production we all sat together to select the best clips we wanted to use and all did our bits in putting those clips together but from then on since we all knew what each other wanted we were able to divide up the jobs. I was mainly in charge of sound and titles.  

What did I learn?

In Production

• How to manage people
• Setting up a dolly
• Setting up lights
• Overestimate time needed for shoots instead of underestimate because shoots actually take a really long time
• How to manage with lighting issues
• How to contra zoom (although we never used it in the end, it was an idea for one of our school long shots, the tutorial we used as inspiration is found on the side)

Me setting up the tripod

In Post-Production

• Split screen technique
• Creating key frames
• Grading
• Constructing Titles
• How to record a voice over

My strengths:

• Organisation and Planning
• Using a camera/microphone
• Setting up a dolly/tripod/camera
• Constructing titles either on Adobe Premier or Typewriter



Me setting up the camera

• Acting

My weaknesses:

These are all things I also need to improve on...

• Grading
• Visual effects (manipulating a clip)
• Setting up lights (mainly because we didn't use lights during any of our shoot apart from the test shoot because we realised we didn't need them)

Construction Post 8: My Personal Contribution to the Edit Sessions

Me at the Edit Suite editing
the voiceovers

Me and Amber grading

My individual contribution to the edit sessions, I found to be much more challenging than to the shoot session. Probably because I'm more inclined to the non-technological side of media. However it was definitely the area where I learnt and gained from the most. I am now able to edit on a higher level than the usual simple cutting and sticking together of clips. The use of the split screen, grading techniques and various transitions and creation of titles challenged me, especially as time was too short for me to grasp the techniques
 and implement them.
I still think I need to improve in grading, in terms of identifying when a shot is too contrasted and when it isn't enough as I find it really hard  to tell the difference. This is because I didn't spend enough time on grading since we all decided to split up jobs in editing (I was in charge of the sound scape, mainly voice-overs, and construction of the titles)

Me and Ela choosing fonts for the
titles on 'Typewriter'-after she helped
 me decide the fonts, it was up to me to
replicate those on the next few titles
we needed, render them as a movie,
import and give them proper
composition on our sequence 

Me editing together clips in
edit week 1

Construction 7: My personal Contribution to the shoot sessions

My Individual Responsibilities:

Me testing out the Go
Pro camera

Me acting as one of the Chavs in the
main school shoot

Me working the
Canon Legria HD camera- I did get to have time filming shots 

I helped organise the
communication between our
group and the actors via a
Facebook group 

Me as a replacement for our actor
Michael who was sick when our test
shoot was scheduled for 

Me in charge of the shoot board-
during the shoots I was in charge of
taking notes on it (e.g. how many takes
had been done  a particular shot) and
as preparation for a shoot, I was in
charge of updating the shoot board
on the computer for every shoot
(test/main/back-up) we had where
 we were reordering timings/replacing
shots for shoots

I also had roles as:

Me as director using the clapper-board
 during the test shoot-the most challenging
 time when I took the role of director was
 during the main shoot at the school
where there were so many people as
cast and managing them was really hard. 

-Make-up artist for some members of the cast, who needed make-up (mainly the chavs and emos)

-Transporter of kit from school to shoot sessions; I would usually store the kit at my house during the time in between shoots and give it to Amber after the sessions to transport back to school 

Reflections:

Working together in a group gave me the chance to build on my skills as an individual because I was able to diversify myself as a media student by not only being behind the camera in shoot sessions, but also as an organiser/coordinator, management of people, actress, director, handling equipment etc. If I had just worked on my own, I probably would have been able to experience those roles but not in as much depth. This is because there'd always be someone covering a different role at the same time as me attempting one instead of just me having to be bombarded by having to fulfil all those roles myself at once. We were able to divide our responsibilities equally and work to each others strengths. I'm naturally someone who likes to be in front of the camera, so I had more acting roles. 

Construction 6: Reflections on Edit week 2

This week was a finalization of the whole process therefore we touched up on a lot of things we'd done constructed beforehand, like titles, voice-overs, grading all our shots and altering our sound-scape so they match the action in each shot appearance and disappearance of titles. We also added more transitions so that cuts aren't too sudden.

Grading technique used on 
'She's the man'-Our influence on
 how we graded our shots

Effects of grading on some of 
our shots using a split screen 
view- Before on the right, After 
effects on the left

Grading is a really intricate piece of work and took the longest amount of time because you neither want the hue/balance/contrast/saturation on a shot be too much that it starts to connote an abstract feel to the sequence or too little that it the shot looks dull and lacking realism. With grading, especially for this type of genre where the mood is usually light (due to it being a comedy) it needs to be bright and full of colour.
We didn't leave much time in this week to grade, if we had more time we wouldn't have rushed the process so much and it may have turned out better.

Three way-colour corrector on
Adobe Premier Pro that we used to grade

Me and Ela at the Mac, choosing
fonts for our titles

How we finalized and edited our
titles using 'Typewriter'

 We wanted our font to signify the kind of happy-go-lucky attitude behind our film's storyline. Therefore we chose a simple font, called 'Brain Flower', available to us from the software 'Typewriter'.

Sample of our chosen font

Me working on our Voice over

Voice-over:
We decided to get Amy Bauco, who also acted as our 'Crying Girl' in the corridor scene, to speak as the mum. It needed to be a voice-over since the mum is not to be in any of the routine scene shots, but in the storyline of the opening is shouting from downstairs to wake up Arthur. When recording into the microphone, instead of speaking from 30 cm like one is meant to, we had Amy stand 2 metres away from the microphone so she would be forced to shout and make the voicoever sound more realistic when played simultaneously with the first shot of Arthur waking up.

Construction post 5:The Back-up Shoot

A back up shoot was needed for the house scene shots. We couldn't have one for our school scene shots as our main shoot had to be re-scheduled. Many of those shots needed re-taking because of several framing/continuity errors or just that the shot did not work with our storyline anymore.
Below are some of our main shoot shots contrasted with our back up shoot shots.

1) Putting on jacket shot- because the framing was too close up for the split screen and we had too many shots taking place in the bathroom, so needed some variation 
BEFORE

AFTER

2) Walking out the front door shot-Arthur should say "Bye mum" before opening the front door not after so that it would be easier to edit the match on action of opening the house front door with the walking into the school shot. Framing also needs to be panned more to the left to show less of the door on the right hand side and more of the corridor.

BEFORE

AFTER

Reflections: Although these were all minor changes, it improved our footage a lot because framing was essential in us pulling off the split screen technique our transition from the house to the school depended on continuity. It also brought the level of our actor, Michael,who played the role of Arthur, up because he was able to act his scenes over and over again to a better level each time.

Construction post: Reflections on Edit Week 1

Our two week rota edit schedule- 
our group is from class 12C

High school ambience SFX we
downloaded for our sound-scape since
 it's a copyright free sound

How we created our transitions

Split screen technique we
 used from the film "127 hours"

How we created the split screen  

Our sound-scape

How we created our draft of titles
we started to construct the placement
 of our titles using a simple font
("Sim Hei") on Adobe Premier Pro
before using the mac to create proper
 titles with our ideal fonts and effects

Reflections so far:
1) We decided that some of our shots needed re- taking, we initially wanted to have a peeing shot for comedic effect but realized the framing could not work at all so had to re-take it as a mirror shot where he washes his face instead.

2) We also realized for edit week 2 our priorities would be to grade our sequence, finalize the construction of titles and finish our voiceovers