Centre number: 16137
Ryan Balloo: 3010
Simon Williams: 3226
Freddie Meade: 3131
Alexander Thomson: 3204
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Friday, 1 May 2009
The Final Cut
Here is our finished opening sequence.
By Freddie Meade, Simon Williams, Ryan Balloo, and Alex Thomson
Freddie's Evaluation
How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience in a fair amount of ways. We did this by using a similar clothing code to what our target audience would be interested in (mainly teenagers). We felt that this would automatically draw in an audience, as it projects the age group and also sets a standard for what the film is going to be. We have also used issues that people of this age are grown into dealing with on their own, such as violence, bullying outside of school, victimisation, and a lot more. Obviously, these could be viewed from two different opinions (covering every person of the age group), either seeking a sense of humour from the bullying, or feeling an understanding and being able to relate to the issues portrayed within the opening sequence.
A small niche intended audience of our film also included bike enthusiasts, and I felt we attracted these from the very first minutes of the opening sequence. After the film starts to the protagonist waking up and leaving his house, it soon cuts to a choppy and fast moving bike race, we also thought that not only will this attract bike enthusiasts or people who are interested in this area, but anybody really. We felt that the speed of this opening clip will draw people in, as it is to an extent; intense, drawing in potentially anybody, and leading them on to a curiosity felt for knowing the rest of the story.
I think we then address the audience in a way that keeps them interested and fully drawn into the film. We addressed our audience by acting styles; we made these acting styles relatable to our target audience. This was quite easy because our actors were the same age as our intended audience, so we didn’t have to do any major changes on how we were in front of the camera, and followed our instincts; using our knowledge we already knew from teenage behaviour and bullying.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I think our film is built up of two different social groups. One of these are bully-victims, and the other being bullies basically. They both chain into different groups, like, bully victims fall into the unpopular, underdogs, losers etc, and the bullies are put in a stereotypical charactership, drawing an automatic representation of violent, threatening, thuggish. We portrayed this with a style of dress, and also I think this representation is built a lot by the first clip of the bully in the opening sequence.
He wears dark colours and obscures his face and identity with his hood; obviously this is a key convention of a thug, carrying a threatening appearance. He is also holding a brick, and hiding round a tree. This puts him into a state of authority, and the dramatic irony of this shot, emphasizes on the innocence and weakness of the bullied characters, and reinforces the power and authority one holds over them. This clever use of different representations creates juxtaposition between the two groups within the opening sequence, bringing interest to our audience (especially our intended audience).
Who would be the audience for your media product?
When looking at demographics, I built an idea of whom our audience were going to be. I think we focused a lot on our target audience, almost to the extent where we based our film around them. We wanted our audience to be teenagers and perhaps younger. I think they would be our audience because this is what we made the film for; it has all the conventions of the age group 10-18 year olds. It is full of action, comedy, and issues that they can relate to. I think maybe even an older audience could watch this and relate, but not to the extent of the children growing up right now, because have based our story around what is happening right now, with teenage bullying, and victimisation, and violence. I feel like this is a privilege the other generations fail to understand, not through lack care, but from never experience this change in modern day society. In conclusion, I think anybody could watch this film and enjoy, however, the use of modern day issues will make the film more effective to this age group.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what d you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
From looking back at our preliminary task, we learned quite a lot from this. We learned how to use adobe premiere pro 1.5, this was very helpful, as when we came to editing our main task, we were already quite experienced with the program, and knew what to do, and how things generally worked on the program. These things took us a lot time when first experimenting and discovering how to use the program, and this time was crucial when we were editing our final piece, so this helped a lot.
We also learned a lot of filming techniques, and how to film a lot quicker. We worked out better ways of lighting, filming, and also, became more experimental with shots. We because more skilled at using the camera, and confident in how it worked. We also became a lot more used to each others working styles when filming and editing, and I think this built our group and our knowingness of how we all work. This lead to us working better around each other, and feeling more open to criticism, and also generally just helping one another out with certain aspects of the film. In conclusion, the preliminary task gave us the experience and knowledge we needed to complete our main production at the level it was.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We used ideas from conventions found when researching similar films of this genre, and also films in general. We created an enigma of what’s going on in the opening sequence, this is to draw people into the story, and build their curiosity, so they want to find out what happens, or what’s going on, and so watch on, and stayed fully focussed on watching the film. We also made the opening sequence quick and fast moving to attract our audience (teenagers who we thought this would work with). We saw this in other films, and decided that it needed to be fast moving to draw people into it. From watching and researching more films, we also found that it was vital to challenge certain conventions that build interest and curiosity of the storyline. Giving little information on the matter, and also creating unknowingness for the viewers can do this.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the duration of making our opening sequence, we all learnt a lot about the technology we used. I used how to use a lot of programs when editing, and I also learnt how to use the camera, because this was the first time we’d ever used this model. It took us a while to get used to, but once we picked up on basics, our knowledge of this technology quickly evolved and expanded.
Adobe premiere 1.5: We used Adobe Premiere 1.5 to edit our opening sequence. At first, we didn’t know much about this, and had only briefly used this for our preliminary task. However, for our preliminary task, we merely cut and put the clips together, and for this main task, our ideal opening sequence required: effects, sound effects, a soundtrack, better cutting, transitions, opening credits and more. So although we had practiced before on Adobe, we still didn’t feel as if we had learnt enough to use the program to our full potential, however, during the editing, we slowly improved our knowledge of this program.
Blogger: To present our work, we used Blogger. At first, we were puzzled about the site, and it took a while to get used to it. Once studying some other blogs on the Internet, we slowly improved our ‘blogging skills’. I learned how to change the layout, and also make my blog look generally better. Uploading pictures were a trouble at first, and so was the font size, but now, after using this for a while, I could go back on my older posts, and edit them to the standard of my new ones. I think this is a very good way for presenting my work.
JVC GR-D860: We used this camera and learnt how to use it throughout the process of making our opening sequence. We had already done quite a lot of work with this camera during our preliminary task, so this was good practice. By the time we started using it for our main task, we were able to transform our mediocre skills, and turn them into more advanced and complicated ways of using the camera, this lead to a better performance from the filming side of our production.
When editing my work, and also some of the extra scenes, I used other programs to help make our work as best as possible. These programs included: Final cut pro, Soundtrack pro, Aperture, Motion Compressor, DVD studio pro, and Live type. Although we mainly used Adobe premiere 1.5, I used these programs to create some extra clips, such as the scene where the bully throws the brick, and also Alex’s dream.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think an independent local cinema could be a possibility for distributing our film, although I do believe our film has the potential to be well advertised, and put across the Internet, and our television screens. I think we have built strong and funny characters, and also have created fast and interesting shots, that could well be used for a trailer, and with the clips being mysterious and quick, perhaps even a teaser trailer. I think distributing our film on an independent local cinema would hold back the potential to really put our film out to the UK. However, pushing ourselves onto this bigger scale of distribution would maybe require the include of an American Actor – our film has been planned in a way that’s now difficult when thinking about it, to include a foreign film stars, as we based the film around UK schools, teenagers, and issues. I think this holds us back from pushing our distributing of the film onto a world wide scale; limiting us only having a main audience in the UK. This could lead to support from the UK film council, and could perhaps progress onto becoming a digital release, although this idea seems again like it could limit the scale of our distribution, as I feel our film has, due to the film’s storyline and characters, a great distributing opportunity.
We attracted our audience in a fair amount of ways. We did this by using a similar clothing code to what our target audience would be interested in (mainly teenagers). We felt that this would automatically draw in an audience, as it projects the age group and also sets a standard for what the film is going to be. We have also used issues that people of this age are grown into dealing with on their own, such as violence, bullying outside of school, victimisation, and a lot more. Obviously, these could be viewed from two different opinions (covering every person of the age group), either seeking a sense of humour from the bullying, or feeling an understanding and being able to relate to the issues portrayed within the opening sequence.
A small niche intended audience of our film also included bike enthusiasts, and I felt we attracted these from the very first minutes of the opening sequence. After the film starts to the protagonist waking up and leaving his house, it soon cuts to a choppy and fast moving bike race, we also thought that not only will this attract bike enthusiasts or people who are interested in this area, but anybody really. We felt that the speed of this opening clip will draw people in, as it is to an extent; intense, drawing in potentially anybody, and leading them on to a curiosity felt for knowing the rest of the story.
I think we then address the audience in a way that keeps them interested and fully drawn into the film. We addressed our audience by acting styles; we made these acting styles relatable to our target audience. This was quite easy because our actors were the same age as our intended audience, so we didn’t have to do any major changes on how we were in front of the camera, and followed our instincts; using our knowledge we already knew from teenage behaviour and bullying.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I think our film is built up of two different social groups. One of these are bully-victims, and the other being bullies basically. They both chain into different groups, like, bully victims fall into the unpopular, underdogs, losers etc, and the bullies are put in a stereotypical charactership, drawing an automatic representation of violent, threatening, thuggish. We portrayed this with a style of dress, and also I think this representation is built a lot by the first clip of the bully in the opening sequence.
He wears dark colours and obscures his face and identity with his hood; obviously this is a key convention of a thug, carrying a threatening appearance. He is also holding a brick, and hiding round a tree. This puts him into a state of authority, and the dramatic irony of this shot, emphasizes on the innocence and weakness of the bullied characters, and reinforces the power and authority one holds over them. This clever use of different representations creates juxtaposition between the two groups within the opening sequence, bringing interest to our audience (especially our intended audience).
Who would be the audience for your media product?
When looking at demographics, I built an idea of whom our audience were going to be. I think we focused a lot on our target audience, almost to the extent where we based our film around them. We wanted our audience to be teenagers and perhaps younger. I think they would be our audience because this is what we made the film for; it has all the conventions of the age group 10-18 year olds. It is full of action, comedy, and issues that they can relate to. I think maybe even an older audience could watch this and relate, but not to the extent of the children growing up right now, because have based our story around what is happening right now, with teenage bullying, and victimisation, and violence. I feel like this is a privilege the other generations fail to understand, not through lack care, but from never experience this change in modern day society. In conclusion, I think anybody could watch this film and enjoy, however, the use of modern day issues will make the film more effective to this age group.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what d you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
From looking back at our preliminary task, we learned quite a lot from this. We learned how to use adobe premiere pro 1.5, this was very helpful, as when we came to editing our main task, we were already quite experienced with the program, and knew what to do, and how things generally worked on the program. These things took us a lot time when first experimenting and discovering how to use the program, and this time was crucial when we were editing our final piece, so this helped a lot.
We also learned a lot of filming techniques, and how to film a lot quicker. We worked out better ways of lighting, filming, and also, became more experimental with shots. We because more skilled at using the camera, and confident in how it worked. We also became a lot more used to each others working styles when filming and editing, and I think this built our group and our knowingness of how we all work. This lead to us working better around each other, and feeling more open to criticism, and also generally just helping one another out with certain aspects of the film. In conclusion, the preliminary task gave us the experience and knowledge we needed to complete our main production at the level it was.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We used ideas from conventions found when researching similar films of this genre, and also films in general. We created an enigma of what’s going on in the opening sequence, this is to draw people into the story, and build their curiosity, so they want to find out what happens, or what’s going on, and so watch on, and stayed fully focussed on watching the film. We also made the opening sequence quick and fast moving to attract our audience (teenagers who we thought this would work with). We saw this in other films, and decided that it needed to be fast moving to draw people into it. From watching and researching more films, we also found that it was vital to challenge certain conventions that build interest and curiosity of the storyline. Giving little information on the matter, and also creating unknowingness for the viewers can do this.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the duration of making our opening sequence, we all learnt a lot about the technology we used. I used how to use a lot of programs when editing, and I also learnt how to use the camera, because this was the first time we’d ever used this model. It took us a while to get used to, but once we picked up on basics, our knowledge of this technology quickly evolved and expanded.
Adobe premiere 1.5: We used Adobe Premiere 1.5 to edit our opening sequence. At first, we didn’t know much about this, and had only briefly used this for our preliminary task. However, for our preliminary task, we merely cut and put the clips together, and for this main task, our ideal opening sequence required: effects, sound effects, a soundtrack, better cutting, transitions, opening credits and more. So although we had practiced before on Adobe, we still didn’t feel as if we had learnt enough to use the program to our full potential, however, during the editing, we slowly improved our knowledge of this program.
Blogger: To present our work, we used Blogger. At first, we were puzzled about the site, and it took a while to get used to it. Once studying some other blogs on the Internet, we slowly improved our ‘blogging skills’. I learned how to change the layout, and also make my blog look generally better. Uploading pictures were a trouble at first, and so was the font size, but now, after using this for a while, I could go back on my older posts, and edit them to the standard of my new ones. I think this is a very good way for presenting my work.
JVC GR-D860: We used this camera and learnt how to use it throughout the process of making our opening sequence. We had already done quite a lot of work with this camera during our preliminary task, so this was good practice. By the time we started using it for our main task, we were able to transform our mediocre skills, and turn them into more advanced and complicated ways of using the camera, this lead to a better performance from the filming side of our production.
When editing my work, and also some of the extra scenes, I used other programs to help make our work as best as possible. These programs included: Final cut pro, Soundtrack pro, Aperture, Motion Compressor, DVD studio pro, and Live type. Although we mainly used Adobe premiere 1.5, I used these programs to create some extra clips, such as the scene where the bully throws the brick, and also Alex’s dream.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think an independent local cinema could be a possibility for distributing our film, although I do believe our film has the potential to be well advertised, and put across the Internet, and our television screens. I think we have built strong and funny characters, and also have created fast and interesting shots, that could well be used for a trailer, and with the clips being mysterious and quick, perhaps even a teaser trailer. I think distributing our film on an independent local cinema would hold back the potential to really put our film out to the UK. However, pushing ourselves onto this bigger scale of distribution would maybe require the include of an American Actor – our film has been planned in a way that’s now difficult when thinking about it, to include a foreign film stars, as we based the film around UK schools, teenagers, and issues. I think this holds us back from pushing our distributing of the film onto a world wide scale; limiting us only having a main audience in the UK. This could lead to support from the UK film council, and could perhaps progress onto becoming a digital release, although this idea seems again like it could limit the scale of our distribution, as I feel our film has, due to the film’s storyline and characters, a great distributing opportunity.
- Freddie Meade
Ryan's Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We based our media piece on a family comedy/thriller with a sports theme, to gain an understanding on what this entailed we looked to a couple of films for inspiration, firstly we studied the opening sequence of Donnie Darko, this scene is set on a High peak in a forest area, this exudes a mysterious atmosphere that we tried to mirror with our chosen location also atop a Hill, the dense trees in the area helped provide a heavy shade which we incorporated into the chosen shots.
The other film was Cool Runnings. The basic premise for this film includes a sport focused plotline which after studying, encouraged us to do the same, aside from the basic influence of plot and location on these two pieces of media, we chose largely to develop our piece without outside influence and therefore it doesn’t use many other forms and conventions previously featured in works of media.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media piece features only members of our group and others of the same age group and thus only represents the youth in this sense. We attempted to represent the youth group by dressing our characters in a typical young attire, even going into detail by dressing our antagonist in a hoody to realistically reflect the social groups of society today.
The effect of the seriousness that is placed on the idea of a simple child’s bike race is used to exemplify their age group in the way that the characters are all determined to win the race and go to extreme lengths to ensure they do so. This can be related to by teenagers and children who place an unrealistic amount of focus on trivial matters in everyday life in this way.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The intended audience for our media piece was the teenage and youth age groups of the 10 – 18 age bracket. We thought our piece would appeal mostly to this group in relation to the ages of our characters, in this way our viewers could relate to the characters featured in the piece itself.
Although intended to appeal largely just to that younger age group, it is not exclusive in doing so. We kept in mind while making our product that we should include material which could also be understood and enjoyed by our more mature adult audience.
How did you attract/address your audience?
Apart from establishing and attracting our audience through using characters of a similar age group and average social class we also utilised sound and editing to appeal to our young target audience. For example, the musical score of our piece consists of just two songs. One of them is used to establish the film in the opening scenes along with the credits, this song adds a good natured vibe to the beginning of the film before the second piece kicks in. The second and main musical piece we used is a lively, fast paced song which fits in well with the bike race scenes as well as adding exciting, action packed feeling to the scenes which provides the raw mindless entertainment that appeals to our target age group.
We also thought carefully about our editing before proceeding with it. We used primarily fast paced, short shots throughout the bike race, with very few static shots, it helps to maintain the excitement throughout the race which also keeps the attention of our less vigilant viewers, I.e. the younger audience members.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We used several programs in creating our media product. To film our footage we used a digital camera, for editing we used the Adobe Premiere pro 1.5 and to present our findings we used www.blogger.com.
The editing software – Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, has given me valuable experience on editing software in general, cutting clips together accurately, transition effects, timing and credits are all more clear since constructing our product.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In many senses, the preliminary task did serve as a stepping stone to our full piece, I feel it has familiarised me with the equipment and programs that are essential to understand in order to create a professional media piece such as our final product.
I have discovered the importance of planning accurately as our preliminary task was produced with a poor amount of planning and the final cut suffered because of it. When it came to our final piece we planned meticulously before beginning the production to ensure this did not happen again.
We based our media piece on a family comedy/thriller with a sports theme, to gain an understanding on what this entailed we looked to a couple of films for inspiration, firstly we studied the opening sequence of Donnie Darko, this scene is set on a High peak in a forest area, this exudes a mysterious atmosphere that we tried to mirror with our chosen location also atop a Hill, the dense trees in the area helped provide a heavy shade which we incorporated into the chosen shots.
The other film was Cool Runnings. The basic premise for this film includes a sport focused plotline which after studying, encouraged us to do the same, aside from the basic influence of plot and location on these two pieces of media, we chose largely to develop our piece without outside influence and therefore it doesn’t use many other forms and conventions previously featured in works of media.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media piece features only members of our group and others of the same age group and thus only represents the youth in this sense. We attempted to represent the youth group by dressing our characters in a typical young attire, even going into detail by dressing our antagonist in a hoody to realistically reflect the social groups of society today.
The effect of the seriousness that is placed on the idea of a simple child’s bike race is used to exemplify their age group in the way that the characters are all determined to win the race and go to extreme lengths to ensure they do so. This can be related to by teenagers and children who place an unrealistic amount of focus on trivial matters in everyday life in this way.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The intended audience for our media piece was the teenage and youth age groups of the 10 – 18 age bracket. We thought our piece would appeal mostly to this group in relation to the ages of our characters, in this way our viewers could relate to the characters featured in the piece itself.
Although intended to appeal largely just to that younger age group, it is not exclusive in doing so. We kept in mind while making our product that we should include material which could also be understood and enjoyed by our more mature adult audience.
How did you attract/address your audience?
Apart from establishing and attracting our audience through using characters of a similar age group and average social class we also utilised sound and editing to appeal to our young target audience. For example, the musical score of our piece consists of just two songs. One of them is used to establish the film in the opening scenes along with the credits, this song adds a good natured vibe to the beginning of the film before the second piece kicks in. The second and main musical piece we used is a lively, fast paced song which fits in well with the bike race scenes as well as adding exciting, action packed feeling to the scenes which provides the raw mindless entertainment that appeals to our target age group.
We also thought carefully about our editing before proceeding with it. We used primarily fast paced, short shots throughout the bike race, with very few static shots, it helps to maintain the excitement throughout the race which also keeps the attention of our less vigilant viewers, I.e. the younger audience members.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
We used several programs in creating our media product. To film our footage we used a digital camera, for editing we used the Adobe Premiere pro 1.5 and to present our findings we used www.blogger.com.
The editing software – Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, has given me valuable experience on editing software in general, cutting clips together accurately, transition effects, timing and credits are all more clear since constructing our product.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In many senses, the preliminary task did serve as a stepping stone to our full piece, I feel it has familiarised me with the equipment and programs that are essential to understand in order to create a professional media piece such as our final product.
I have discovered the importance of planning accurately as our preliminary task was produced with a poor amount of planning and the final cut suffered because of it. When it came to our final piece we planned meticulously before beginning the production to ensure this did not happen again.
Alex's Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For our media piece we looked at a variety of different genres and films but in the end settled for sports based family comedy with some action based sequences. The films we looked at included Cool Runnings and Donnie Darko and the influences are clear in our production. Cool Runnings is a comedy aimed at families with a sports theme and we took influences from Donnie Darko for the bikes and type of locations for the film.
The conventions we used included in our film were using dramatic sequences to excite the audience. We also used mysterious characters and left a lot of unexplained aspects of the plot and characters, this was a deliberate decision as we wanted to create a sense of mystery around the opening scenes in order to get the audience wanting to see more.
To challenge the existing conventions we decided to have very little dialogue in our production, as we wanted the action sequence to be the main part of it, and thought that lots of dialogue would take the focus off of that. We limited ourselves to a small scene with dialogue that we thought we could develop the newsreader character as the film went on.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media production focuses on one main demographic, the male teenager
They are represented in a competitive way and are shown to be so in the production.
Many of the characters run each other off the path or even actively assault them with bricks. This reinforces the competitive nature of the characters in a big way and shows that they’re not beyond the use of violence in order to win.
The methods we used to represent the characters included clothing, the way they ride the bikes and the dialogue.
The main bike riding characters are dressed casually and in a style that reflects their age group, which is 15-18. The main colours are dark and muted with the main character set out with green and the antagonist in red.
The newsreader character is also dressed in dark clothes but to portray his profession he is dressed more formally. He is also the only character with dialogue, this accentuates his social status. The biker riders in the film all have different niches in their appearance to show the different personalities. The main character has a green item of clothing to make him stand out; there is a rider who is wearing a helmet, this denotes his emphasis on safety and shows him to more cautious than the others; there is another character who is nerdy looking and wearing glasses, and represents a stereotype of a person who is a nerd.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our films main audience, would be, hopefully, families. The production is a family comedy and so would attract this audience. However as it would also have comedy and jokes aimed at older audiences as well, teenagers and adults would also come to see it as it is fun for all.
The film also was a focus on action and suspense, which again is an incentive for older or teenage audiences.
We have a number of relatable characters in the film in order to appeal to a wider audience and we tried to represent a broad demographic with characters that have a lot of scope to develop over the course of the film. These means that hopefully anybody would enjoy watching the film.
How did you attract/address your audience?
We wanted to attract a wide audience to our film and so we chose to have characters that the audience could relate to. We also left a lot of things open to interpretation in the film in order to make the audience more involved in the film. The characters’ backgrounds aren’t explained in much detail. We did this deliberately to create a sense of mystery around them, and this should have the effect of on the audience of wanting to see more and how the characters develop and the plot is explained more as the film would go on.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
There has been a variety of different technologies that we used in order to create our production these included:
• Film Camera
• Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 video editing software
• The Blog
The film camera was easy to use and didn’t take long to learn, however I had had some limited experience in my own time and from the preliminary task so the learning curve was not as steep as it was with the other equipment. The camera skills I learnt included: how to record, play back and zoom.
The most useful technology I learned to use was the Adobe video editing software. At first I found the editing difficult as I had never used it before but as I had a similar programme on my home computer and one member of our group had used it before I soon overcome these difficulties.
The blog was another technology I’d never used before, but because it is a relatively simple website, it wasn't difficult for me to learn how to use it effectively.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
There many difficulties that we had with the production of the preliminary task, which we tried to rectify and improve on when it came to the main production piece.
One of the problems we encountered with the preliminary task was the lack of planning we put into it. It was obvious from the absence of quality from the production that we had to plan the main task a lot move thoroughly in order to gain a good mark.
The preliminary task also gave us a good opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the equipment and software we would be using for the main task. This was useful as we had never used the equipment before and it was good that were able to learn this before the main task.
For our media piece we looked at a variety of different genres and films but in the end settled for sports based family comedy with some action based sequences. The films we looked at included Cool Runnings and Donnie Darko and the influences are clear in our production. Cool Runnings is a comedy aimed at families with a sports theme and we took influences from Donnie Darko for the bikes and type of locations for the film.
The conventions we used included in our film were using dramatic sequences to excite the audience. We also used mysterious characters and left a lot of unexplained aspects of the plot and characters, this was a deliberate decision as we wanted to create a sense of mystery around the opening scenes in order to get the audience wanting to see more.
To challenge the existing conventions we decided to have very little dialogue in our production, as we wanted the action sequence to be the main part of it, and thought that lots of dialogue would take the focus off of that. We limited ourselves to a small scene with dialogue that we thought we could develop the newsreader character as the film went on.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media production focuses on one main demographic, the male teenager
They are represented in a competitive way and are shown to be so in the production.
Many of the characters run each other off the path or even actively assault them with bricks. This reinforces the competitive nature of the characters in a big way and shows that they’re not beyond the use of violence in order to win.
The methods we used to represent the characters included clothing, the way they ride the bikes and the dialogue.
The main bike riding characters are dressed casually and in a style that reflects their age group, which is 15-18. The main colours are dark and muted with the main character set out with green and the antagonist in red.
The newsreader character is also dressed in dark clothes but to portray his profession he is dressed more formally. He is also the only character with dialogue, this accentuates his social status. The biker riders in the film all have different niches in their appearance to show the different personalities. The main character has a green item of clothing to make him stand out; there is a rider who is wearing a helmet, this denotes his emphasis on safety and shows him to more cautious than the others; there is another character who is nerdy looking and wearing glasses, and represents a stereotype of a person who is a nerd.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our films main audience, would be, hopefully, families. The production is a family comedy and so would attract this audience. However as it would also have comedy and jokes aimed at older audiences as well, teenagers and adults would also come to see it as it is fun for all.
The film also was a focus on action and suspense, which again is an incentive for older or teenage audiences.
We have a number of relatable characters in the film in order to appeal to a wider audience and we tried to represent a broad demographic with characters that have a lot of scope to develop over the course of the film. These means that hopefully anybody would enjoy watching the film.
How did you attract/address your audience?
We wanted to attract a wide audience to our film and so we chose to have characters that the audience could relate to. We also left a lot of things open to interpretation in the film in order to make the audience more involved in the film. The characters’ backgrounds aren’t explained in much detail. We did this deliberately to create a sense of mystery around them, and this should have the effect of on the audience of wanting to see more and how the characters develop and the plot is explained more as the film would go on.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
There has been a variety of different technologies that we used in order to create our production these included:
• Film Camera
• Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 video editing software
• The Blog
The film camera was easy to use and didn’t take long to learn, however I had had some limited experience in my own time and from the preliminary task so the learning curve was not as steep as it was with the other equipment. The camera skills I learnt included: how to record, play back and zoom.
The most useful technology I learned to use was the Adobe video editing software. At first I found the editing difficult as I had never used it before but as I had a similar programme on my home computer and one member of our group had used it before I soon overcome these difficulties.
The blog was another technology I’d never used before, but because it is a relatively simple website, it wasn't difficult for me to learn how to use it effectively.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
There many difficulties that we had with the production of the preliminary task, which we tried to rectify and improve on when it came to the main production piece.
One of the problems we encountered with the preliminary task was the lack of planning we put into it. It was obvious from the absence of quality from the production that we had to plan the main task a lot move thoroughly in order to gain a good mark.
The preliminary task also gave us a good opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the equipment and software we would be using for the main task. This was useful as we had never used the equipment before and it was good that were able to learn this before the main task.
Alex's Dream
Once our editing was finished, we were left with a lot of ideas and clips we didn't use. I decided to put a few of these together, to make what I would interpret them as Deleted or Extra Scenes. Here is one of these clips, I like to think of this as 'Alex's Dream'.
- Freddie Meade
- Freddie Meade
Storyboard
(This last shot which was originally the conclusion of our piece was cut before the final edit and therefore does not appear in it)
- Ryan Balloo
Pictures taken during filming
Whilst filming, we sort of kept a diary of our filming. Here are some of the pictures we took:
- Freddie Meade
Health and Safety
We needed to make sure everything was done safely when filming. This required protection, and also we had to make sure our bikes were working properly, and therefore wouldn't have any faults with when filming. "We didn't have enough crash helmets for all of us, so I wore one, because we felt my role in the bike racing scene was the most dangerous." says Simon Williams. Safety was one of our number one priorities when filming our opening sequence.
In hindsight, we were suprised that there were a few minor accidents, as the weather was bad on this day. This included Alex falling off his bike, Ryan tripping over when filming, and also, Simon's jeans were caught in his chain during part of the filming. These accidents consisted of no bad injuries, and didn't require any medical assistance. Here are some photos of what we could get of the events:
In hindsight, we were suprised that there were a few minor accidents, as the weather was bad on this day. This included Alex falling off his bike, Ryan tripping over when filming, and also, Simon's jeans were caught in his chain during part of the filming. These accidents consisted of no bad injuries, and didn't require any medical assistance. Here are some photos of what we could get of the events:
- Freddie Meade
Research
Earlier this year, I researched film opening sequences. I analysed the opening sequences for a variety of films, such as: About a Boy, Kill Bill, Donnie Darko, Hot Fuzz, The Edukators and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. This preparation came in handy for when brainstorming, planning, and deciding aspects of our film such as the storyline, shotlist, and generally, how the opening sequence was going to be like - what it gave away, what it kept to build up suspense and so on. It helped me discover the keys to capuring viewers interests, and pulling them in to watching the film.
The picture below, shows the research I did on opening sequences. It was debated whether or not to type up this research onto the blog, but to save the little time we had, as we were quick getting onto the making of our production, I decided to just provide proof of it here. I wrote 8 pages of these notes; analyzing 10 different films. My teacher marked this work as a grade A, in her mark book and commented that it was "some effective and detailed analysis."
The picture below, shows the research I did on opening sequences. It was debated whether or not to type up this research onto the blog, but to save the little time we had, as we were quick getting onto the making of our production, I decided to just provide proof of it here. I wrote 8 pages of these notes; analyzing 10 different films. My teacher marked this work as a grade A, in her mark book and commented that it was "some effective and detailed analysis."
- Freddie Meade
Thursday, 23 April 2009
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