Task 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

In the First screen-grab we are demonstrating The Title of the film. The Title helps to show the genre of our film, as the fun and young type of text which would appeal to the viewers. The title is not very conventional as it is in its own shot and not over the top of the film clip. However this makes it clear of what the title is saying and gives it a school like effect.   The font of the title is 'Shake that Booty'. 

The setting and location screen-grab is an example of one of the 4 locations that we shot in. The shot we have used is in a walking scene and is  supposedly located outside the characters house. Its quite conventional as it shows the character walking to school and leaving the house, it would appeal to our target audience as it is the sort of day to day routine they would carry out. 

The Costumes and Props department is one of the strongest aspects,  in our film in our opinion. The screen-grab shows the 'Geek' stereotype in her costume. We decided to go over the top with the geek costume and props to highlight the comical effect  in the film. The Big glasses and bag demonstrate this. The 'Fake' character shows the strong contrast between the 2 characters and is also over the top by wearing a dress and heels to school.  The outfits could be seen as conventional in the comical sense, but not in the typical school uniform sense. 

The 4th shot is camera work and editing.  The shot we are showing is the zoom. This is the transition between the geek and fake character. Throughout the film we use fades to make the opening flow more easily and it looks better as it highlights the comparison more between the characters. We also tried to make the shots at an equal time to make the opening have a better level of consistency. We also used a wide range of shots to vary the opening. For example we used long shots to show the background, mid shots to show the character, and we mainly used close ups to highlight certain aspects of the shot. 

We used the Font 'Shake that Booty'. Throughout the opening we used the same font and colour to keep a equal level of professionalism and consistency. We also think that the font really fits in with the genre of our film. The font is almost like 'Bubble writing' which links to a school type of genre and therefore links to the characters and our target audience. 

The opening shot in our film is of the Geek turning on the radio. However it now seems a bit out of place and unnecessary due to misunderstandings in class. We were led to believe that if music was looked to be playing through a radio or ipod etc.. we were able to use it and it wouldn't be seen as copyright. However this was not possible, and we overcome this problem at the last minute by creating or own soundtrack on garageband. However not as good as our original which linked to the story line and the characters we think its fine. The original soundtrack was Taylor Swifts 'You Belong With Me' which really linked to our story-line and helped to explain our story in more detail as the lyrics were related to our characters, e.g. the way they are dressed. e.g.. 'she wears short skirts i wear t-shirts'.

The opening of the film  highlights the genre at hand, in which is comical. This is shown throughout the opening, which is brought in with the character `Geek`, this is as the costume gives a comical effect as it is over done with the huge framed glasses and the braces. We then introduced the shakiness of the camera to make it feel like its real life and also give its a comic feeling as it is seen as amateur. Another comic factor we brought in was the contrast of the character e.g. the `Geek` smelling herself but in contrast the `Fake` sprays herself with perfume, this makes the audience find this comical as the contrast is blatant. 

The characters in our film openings are introduced through mirrors, this is to represent how the two see themselves. we did a transition of zoom in which the zoom starts from one character to the other, in which again shows the huge contrast of the two. We thought this worked well as we could introduce the two characters at the same point in the film opening. Also as the characters are introduced at the same time it shows a bigger contrast as it is immediate. We think this type of introduction to the characters is original and unique and therefore isn't a strong convention.

In the last screen grab it shows one of our transitions, fading out. This an effect we used to make the flow of the scenes more natural and easy. The shot also shows from that point onwards a good example of continuity editing as the shots from then onwards flow really well and use the skills we learnt in our preliminary task. Throughout the opening we think we had a strong sense of good continuity editing as the scenes all flowed well. 

Task 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The character we decided to look at was the "Fake". We have compared her to the "Plastics" in the film 'Mean Girls' The similarities the characters have are the way in which they dress , for example in these images all characters are dressed in short skirts and caked in makeup, giving of the impression of 'Plastic'.  However in this shot due to fading and lighting you can not see the extent of makeup our character is wearing. 

All characters also have similar roles in the films, they pick on people who are vulnerable and they set all the trend, However no one really likes them they just scare people into liking them. 

Below also is an example of the geek character and a similar character to her from the film `A Cinderella Story`. 

 

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

What does a Production Company do?

-Its a company responsible for the development and production of films/radio/preforming arts/TV etc..

- They are sometimes directly responsible for the funding for the production.

- In America they sometimes sell their products to the film studios.

Where does the Money come from?

-The money is sometimes funded by the production Company.

If the film is an independent one the film is sponsored. The 2 options for our film are: The UK film councils print and advertising fund, which is best suited for more low budget films like ours, or, the film could have been entered in a microwave challenge, these are backed by the BBC and the contestants are given and £100,000 budget. Our film could have been the winner.

Idea of a Distributer?

-Paramount Pictures: These are a well known label and have been used with films such as Mean Girls; Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging etc..

-They are well known and reliable and work with films similar to ours.

Titles?

-The main characters names appear on the screen when the opening shots of the characters appear, to show who the actors are playing.

-Other names like Costume Design appear after or before shots where costume is highlighted.

-The directors and producers names are at the end of the sequence to show that they oversee everything in the film.

What Film is similar to it institutionally?

-Mean Girls

-Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging These are all based in schools and the

-St Trinians people are around the same age group.

-Wild Child

-Beauty & the Geek (TV) Show comparison

-Beauty and the Beast (disney)

-House Bunny- Fake Character

-A Cinderella Story- Geek Character

-Fish Tank This is an independent film like ours, and if our film didn't have the comedy sense to it then it would be quite similar due to the bullying where there could of been violence in the film.

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

These are the type of people who would like to see our film.
They are between the ages of 13 and 19.
They could be Boys or Girls, but most likely Girls.
They spend their spare time hanging out with their friends, going to partys, going shopping, and watching films :)
They are in full time education.
They listen to all types of music, but mainly mainstream music such as the top40 :)
They dress in Topshop/Topman, River Island, Primark and H&M.
They watch Hollyoaks, Big Brother, Skins, The Hills etc..
The girls enjoy sleepovers with their friends and the boys like playing football :)
Thay spend their money on nights out with their friends or boyfriend/girlfriend and going to the cinema etc..
The main types of films they watch are teenage films as they can relate to them they also watch horror films and comedys :)

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

Above is the annotated version of our film with annotations linking to similar films or websites etc our target audience would be interested in, such as topshop and sugar.

Task 6: use of technology.

Above is a annotated picture of Hannah using the equipment we used to shoot our video. We only used the basic materials as we didnt require the more advanced equipment and no extras.

Above is a screenshot of us using final cut, this was used to edit our movie.

Above is a photo of all the websites i used to make my video.

1. Blogger, This was used to upload all of our pre planning.

2.Flickr, We uploaded our timelines etc..

3.Google, we found images and sites from this.

4. Facebook, We got inspiration and images for pre planning from this.

5. Vimeo, All of our videos were uploaded here.

6.Garageband, where all of our soundtracks were edited/made.

To help edit the soundtrack and for a tutorial as well.

Task 7: Looking back at our preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt.

This is an example of where we used The Continuity Rule.


Looking back at our preliminary task and now looking at our final project, you can see how much we have progressed especially in editing. We can tell that we have defiantly improved on the match on action rule, this is where you join clips together to make one scene. We can see a difference in how we edited our preliminary to our film opening, this is as some of our scenes were cut to early and didn't have transitions to let the shots run through smoothly and not suddenly jump from one scene to another.

However unlike in the preliminary task we did not use the shot/reverse rule, this is as we felt it was not necessary as we didn't really have two characters in each clip at once. We did not have more than one character in each scene as we decided that if we did the contrast wouldn't be as clear, and it would have defeated the whole point of our film opening. This is because our film opening is all about introduction the two main characters and there differences, so it would not have worked well using this rule.

We also use the continuity rule in both task, you can see we learnt from the preliminary task as the rule worked really well in our film opening with no sighted faults. Also in the preliminarytask you can see that the continuity rule was not as successful as it jolts and doesn't really fit in with scene before.

Film Categorization.

I think that our film should be classified as a 12A.

The A stands for 'accompanied' and 'advisory'. '12A' means that anyone aged 12 or over can go and see the film unaccompanied. Children younger than 12 may see the film if they are accompanied by an adult (eg someone over the age of 18), who must watch the film with them.

The content of '12A' rated films is suitable for children aged 12 and over, but i would not recommend taking young children to see them. The films may upset children under 12 or contain material which many parents will find unsuitable for them. An adult may take a younger child if, in their opinion, the film is suitable for their child. responsibility for allowing a child under 12 to watch the film at hand is up to the accompanying adult.

A quote from the BBFC concerning the age guidelines for a 12A: "the BBFC considers the content of '12A' rated films to be suitable for children aged 12 and over, and we would not recommend taking very young children to see them."

Their may be language used in the film but it must be infrequent and mild. The BBFC said :"The BBFC's Guidelines state that there may be strong language (eg 'f***') at ‘12’ or ‘12A’, but it must be infrequent."

Moderate violence can be seen in the film but, "it should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if they can be justified by their context (for example brief sight of bloody injury in a medical drama)."

Creative Risks.

The creative risks that our group took for our film opening are the style of our opening. 

Our film is comical and it is a creative risk as our audience may not agree with our style of comedy and it could seem offensive to people who we base our characters on. 

This could cost us because it could make our footage come across as offensive to some viewers. The Benefit of the creative risk we took is that the comedy comes across as funny to most viewers and therefore benefits us.  

Liam & Tom, Feedback.

L3 - GROUP 3 (Tom & Liam) Fim Opening Rough Cut from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Above is Tom & Liams rough cut for their film opening.
So far i think that this looks like a really promising film opening, but there is still things that need to be put in. For example you still need to add titles to your opening. I think you need to make it more clear what the story is acctually about, because from an outsiders point of view it doesnt seem to have much meaning.
I also am not really sure what the audio is at the beginning of the opening,
but whatever it is it needs to be clearer as this could contribute a lot to the opening. I also think you should vary your shots a little more as there seems to be a lot of walking in long shot frames which can seem a little boring. Overall this seems like a good start to your film opening and with a few changes it is sure to be very good :)

Our Rough Cut

L3 - GROUP 2 (Hannah & Emma) Film Opening Rough Cut from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

This is mine and hannahs rough cut for our film opening.
We need to still edit most of our shots as at the moment they just cut to the next shot whereas we intend to have fades etc in our shots.
We also need to add titles, me and hannah have a plan of where our titles are going and what font we are using etc..so this should not be that difficult.
So far i think our rough cut has come out good, the shaky effect in our filming is deliberate and makes it look more like real life.
I think that the humour in our opening is really good, and adds a sense of comedy to our film.