Question 7

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

Technical skills:

I sense my technical skills of working with a camcorder have improved massively during this project as I have learnt so much. When I was first given a camcorder in class and asked to create a short film of any genre I was immediately alarmed as I had never done anything of the sort, it was all a little advanced for me. However looking back on the complete project I think I managed to pick up and learn a lot of the skills. Below is my first time of filming when given a camrea.
 

 

 
kayleigh, harriet, dani and kate from KayleighGill on Vimeo.



Throughout our film we tried to include as many different camera angles as possible, I had know idea half of these shots existed! The panning shot was easily my preferred shot, panning refers to the rotation in a horizontal scan of a still camcorder. Panning a camera results in a motion similar to that of someone shaking their head from side to side or someone walking up a stairway. I feel using this shot helped create the feeling of motion, nevertheless capturing this angle was exceptionally ambitious as it requires a steady hand and a lot of patience. We also struggled with capturing the angles as we had no idea what it would look like in the completed project, thankfully it has come together pleasantly.

Setting up our surroundings was time consuming, we had it all in our minds yet when creating it we struggled. Doing a test run accompanied this as it gave us an idea of what our set up surroundings looked like on our film and how they tied in with our representation.



Time management and organisation:


I've never really had any skills in management and organisation. Yet I must say whilst doing this project my organisation and management have improved massively, keeping up with my blog and filming at the same time has been a push however I have managed it. 

After a couple lessons at school on this project I decided to create a filming and blogging schedule, this encouraged me to keep up with my work once I had complete tasks on my schedule I was satisfied. I had hoped this would help with the stress levels, unfortunately it did not. Out of the two I feel my organisation skills were achieved a lot better than my time keeping management skills yet I also feel I benefited from this and learned a lot.

 
 

 

Team skills:
 

Functioning successfully as a small team required clear communication on an intellectual level and an emotion level. Open communication where we shared our thoughts, ideas and feelings was crucial as unspoken assumptions and issues could have been destructive towards our project and interrupted our team functioning.

 

 

Harriet, beth and I were able to communicate openly allowing: listening,

questioning, persuading, respecting, helping, sharing and participating all to take place well. I feel

we all did well and we created a strong team bond where we all felt comfortable speaking up, being heard and with the final ideas. 

Effectiveness of the finished product:

When we first got given this project I had no idea what I would be creating and no idea of the skills required,I have learnt a lot of these skills. It's still extremely advanced.

 

Coming up with the storyline/storyboard was the beginning, even this was a lot harder than I first thought, which i did enjoy because we got to chose how and what our stotyrline was.



After doing the storyline it was critical we came up with an appropriate certificate as getting this wrong could distort our film. overall we chose a 15 even though it was just a 2minutes opening which you can't really show much of a certification.




Having a target audience allowed me to focus in-depth on what to include and what not to, it also gave me a smaller area to cover, all I had to focus on was people in their late teens to early twenties instead of everyone.




I hope I have managed to capture the representation my group and I were going for, hopefully I have done this using all the aspects and treating them all equally, not as if one was more important than the other, these factors include the: style, visuality and sound which is called mis-en-scene.

 
 

Overall I have really enjoyed this project it has opened my mind creatively and given me plenty of new skills and made me want to carry media on further in life.

What have you learnt in the progression?Throughout the time during which I created my project I learnt so much, some of which has been thoroughly tough and really tested my patience. However I had to keep reinsuring myself it would all be worth it, now studying the complete project this is clear to me.

Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making this product?

 

Whilst working on this project I have learnt a numbered amount about of new technologies and what good creations they can manufacture. I have divided these into different categories; filming effectively using a camcorder, editing of film sequences and additional post production skills such as; sound, special effects and adding titles.

 

Filming effectively using a camcorder:

Light is a essential part of filming and is largely responsible for the way a film looks. It can easily set the tone of a scene and make or brake a movie. It can also be used artistically representing emotion and holding a meaning.

When doing research before filming I found plenty of resources telling me to repeatedly shoot a sequence, up to five times. I took this constructive piece of information and used it whilst filming and I'm incredibly thankful that I did as it certainly benefited me. This was because if a shot didn't fit in or was terrible quality I would have had spare shots to use as back up material. i found this was true during my filming because my shots didnt match and because i hadnt film something five times i had to go refilm.

Editing of film sequences:

 

 

Whilst in preparation of my film I created a storyboard.

I used a timeline of camera shots, dialect and sound. This was so I had a rough idea to go by, putting the interruptions from my mind on to paper creating a step by step guid. As filming kicked off I started to see things from a different point of view, it was although I felt I had produced some good ideas already but they were just 'good' not excellent like the ideas I came up with whilst looking through the camera. I soon changed a few shots, angles and sounds and realised I didn't have to stick side by side with my storyboard, it was only a bit of gentle guidance in the end i changed most things on my storyboard.

Post production skills- sound:

 

 

I spent an exceptional amount of time listening to songs by various artist however as soon as I heard Chase amd statuses "end credits" I knew it was the one, it fit so finely into the representation. I learnt including sound is one of the most crucial elements in film making and that I shouldn't let my attention run from this by classing it as a 'small detail'. I also picked up that adding sound to a sequence adds emotion and rhythm, it also foreshadows the atmosphere. I was so happy with how my film turned out with the song we used.

 

 

Adding titles was alot harder than I first expected, I have never before experinaced any sort of film editing. Getting the titles in the right position was hard I had to get the positioning and timing especially correct, this was to match the non-dialect sound and sequence of clips.

Iv never paid much attention to the rolling credits usually at the end of a movie but whist I have been creating I have acknowledged them and realised what an important role they play, Learning this really contributed to my project. Adding the credits was again really time consuming, getting the positions and timings perfectly in time with the non-dialetc sound a clips.

Question 5

What elements of your text would attract the target audience?

Thing which would attract my audience is the age of the characters which is a young age this is so the target audience focus on things they appeal to the things which they do such as things like meeting mates and having arguments with people.
 

 

I have made the costumes that the characters are wearing very modern clothes which will appeal to a younger audiences of people who wear clothes which are stylish, they may want some of the clothing themselves.

 

The language used in my film is very teenage like, such as answering back and trying to be smarter than the other person is saying. Are words are not shortened such as "m8" or "lol" these words use to be appealed to the younger generation now people say full correct words. 


 

The music that i have used is a song by chase and status, end credits. This song we chose to put on as jacob is walking along the school listening to music when he puts his headphones on when he leaves classroom. This song is not that popular but however chase and status are a good group/band, they have many good songs and many of the younger generation listen to there songs. This songs shows through jacobs style of music which could be other poeples genre of music could be to.

 

The props we have used are something which will attract our audience such as the guns and mobikle phones as many teenagers live on mobiles and like scary films which include killing and guns.

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

Who is your typical audience member?

Typical audience member

Male, 15-17, British.

Why male?
I think that my film would be more suited to a male audience member, because my film involved gangsters, threats and mild violence. These are all things that a boy is more likely to be interested or involved in.

Why ages 15-17?
I think the ages from 15 to 17 would be the best suited to my film because, my film is a certificate 15, so everything it appropriate for 15 and above, but when you're 18 there a films of a 18 certificate so 18 year olds would probably be more likely to watch them. Also, because my film is based on teenagers aged 16-17 they can relate more to what is going on.
Why British? My film is a British film, it features people who like in the UK, therefore, they are likely to be more interested if it is based somewhere near to where they live.

Their interests..

Mild violence,

Watching films,

Film involving teenagers,

Guns.

why?
The audience watching my film should possible be interested in these things because these things are what my film involves.


These are some things that the males in my target audience might spend their money on...

Typical audience member..

Female, 15-17, British.

Why female?
Because the only violence in my film is mild, girls probably wouldn't mind watching it. Also, because the ring leader in the gang is female it portrays girls as quite strong so girls would enjoy watching this film because they aren't shown at weak, like they normally are in other thriller films.

Why 15-17?
I think the ages from 15 to 17 would be the best suited to my film because, my film is a certificate 15, so everything it appropriate for 15 and above, but when you're 18 there a films of a 18 certificate so 18 year olds would probably be more likely to watch them. Also, because my film is based on teenagers aged 16-17 they can relate more to what is going on.

Why British?
My film is a British film, it features people who like in the UK, therefore, they are likely to be more interested if it is based somewhere near to where they live.


Their interests...

watching films,

mild violence,

threats,

guns.



These are some of the things that the females in my target audience would spend their money on..

What type of consumer are they?

I think my target audience members are likely to have bought versus thriller films before. I could see them watching films such as, Jack Reacher.

Question 3

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

Warner Bros entertainment inc

formerly known as Warner bros studios is an american producer of film, television and music entertainment. it's one of the major film studios, it is subsidiary of time Warner.
Warner bros produce films such as "lights of new York" which was the first full talking film and then on to "on with show" which was the first full talking colour film, by 1930 Warner bros were producing 100 motion pictures a year and controlled 360 theaters in united states and 400 abroad. The company started doing gangster films such as the "public enemy" then moved onto musical films, adventure and drama films. Warner bros later success included "The Exorcist" and "The Fugitive" which are good selling films.

Paramount Pictures

Corporation (commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount) is a film and television production/distribution studio, consistently ranked as one of the largest (top-grossing) film studios. Paramount is a member of the motion pictures It has distributed various commercially successful film series, such as Shrek, Transformers, Mission: Impossible,

The kind of media institution that might distribute my media text...

I think that the people that would distribute my media text would be Warner Bros or Paramount as they have done many Action thriller films and our film is a similar style to theirs so they would be interested in distributing it.

The are many other films companies that could distribute my film but I think paramount pictures will be the best choice as it has other films that follow the same lines as our film. There are films like "Jack Reacher" and "mission impossible" which are the action/thriller films that paramount have done, these films did well in the world wide appeal. 

Real World 

I think my film would be distributed in many cinemas and TV channels such as Vue and Film 4 on television.
My film follows many film lines that have been shown on TV such as Jack reacher it includes getting there own back on other people and a lot of tension considering its thriller. In some ways i think my text could like a real film being presented at the cinemas but its only if we had the proper filmers and actors and a bit more detailed of a film .
Our film is appropriate to be shown as its only a 15 and many films have been done like ours before.

Regulations rules for my film.

We have kept to all our regulations for our film.

Discrimination: I will not be including any discrimination in my film at all.

Drugs: May be shown but I'm not including any drug taking in my film but they will not be included.

Horror: A small amount of threats will be included in my film two minute opening but its still stuck to my rules of whats allowed or not.

Imitable behavior: Dangerous behavior is included in my film but it doesn't dwell on detail which could be copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorized, in my film its only a knife shown but not in a clear view.

Language: There is no use of language in the opening of my film all language is moderate no use of the strongest language example "C**T"

Nudity:Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context, however this is not included in my film.

Sex: Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail.There may be strong verbal references to sexual behavior,

Theme:No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year old, which mine is perfectly fine for 15 year olds. 

Violence: Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction

of pain or injury. we include infliction of pain but  is cut out so people can't see so it's suitable.

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

Question 2 from Bethany Edwards on Vimeo.

 

Our media product represents different social groups while going through college.

At the beginning of our film Jacib looks to be the one who doesn't want to cause any trouble, so having him doing the school work while he recieves the text message shows that he cares about how well he does through college, however in the college environment this can be seen as "nerdy".


Having the gang Beth, Adam and Dom send the message saying "we're waiting" gives the impression that Jacob has no control over what he wants to do, but the gang controls what he does and also when he is supposed to do it.


The gangs costumes, for example the baggy trousers and hoodies represents the image that "chavs" and "gangs" usually have.

The body language of the gang while walking towards jacob to confront him, gives a threatening feel. They have their hands in their pockets and their heads are looking down.

Having the female be the dominant member of the going is unusual to see in thriller films as usually the female is one who needs to be saved.

When the gang approach Jacob he takes a step back and puts his headphones and mobile away straight away, this represents Jacobs chararcter because he doesn't want to aggrovate the going. Having the gang crowd around Jacob shows that they are trying to intimedate Jacob further. When the gang and Jacob finally meet, Jacob replys to beth in a sarcastic manner with a nervous facial expression as he didn't know how she was going to react with the gang around her as she may want to impress the other members of her gang.

In conclusion in our media product we have represented teenagers in a negative light. We have done this by having the main character Jacob use violence to end things between him and the gang, which could have been sorted without violence, also Beth uses her strength to threaten Jacob through her body language.

Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the conventions of a real media products?

Before planning the film it was important for us to understand the rules that make up a perfect thriller movie. Starting with what do the audience members expect to see when they watch a thriller genre.





In the past i have watched many different horror films so i know what to expect, however not all thriller films the rules perfectly are good, directors and producers can follow all the conventions and still bore the audience.

Feedback on my film.

I have taken the advice from these feedbacks and changed my film slightly.
I have muted the background noise so it doesnt distract people while they watch the film.
I have also tried cropping out the movement of the camrea out this is something i hadnt noticed till they gave me feedback.

My film.

Film Complete from KayleighGill on Vimeo.


Overall I am very pleased with my film, everything I wanted to happen has gone to plan. If I could go back I would change the movement of the camera as I kept making camera movements and you could see them in the background.