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EVALUATION QUESTION SEVEN

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

After completing our preliminary task, I feel the whole group learnt about different things from the end of the preliminary task up until filming and editing the final media product. We learnt mainly about things related to time management, lighting, camerawork, music and sound recording, and editing.

We first learnt about how to plan and complete different tasks in certain times. As our preliminary task was not as long as our final opening sequence we were able to complete  our filming in one lesson, so we took this attitude with our filming for our opening sequence, on the first day we felt that we would be able to complete a lot of filming in one day, however, this was not the case as we had to put all of the pictures up onto the walls which took a lot longer than we had initially thought and were only able to film a little bit of the opening sequence which wasn’t even included in the opening sequence. From this we were able to understand the importance of time management and then planned what we were going to film before each filming meeting. This was extremely beneficial as  we were able to film a lot of our opening sequence during these filming meetings, and without this realisation our filming process would have been very unorganised and chaotic.

In terms of lighting we learnt about how to position the camera in such a way that would allow us to film our footage in the best quality possible. When filming our preliminary task we made the mistake of filming the piece at a direct light source , this made the overall picture bad quality and blurred. After completing the preliminary task we tried out filming the opposite way of a direct light source and hoped that this would produce a better quality. Luckily it did and we were able to film like this and our media product was of an extremely high quality as a result of this. If we had not taken this on board and considered this for our final media product then we would have produced an unclear, bad quality opening sequence. Below is an example of what happened when we filmed at a direct light source and what happened when we did the opposite for our opening sequence.

When talking about camera work we were told for our preliminary task to consider the 180º rule. This is when the director creates large imaginary line down the centre of a scene and one side of this line is dedicated to the cameras and other technologies used to record and film the scene, and the other side is for the acting part of the scene. This rule was made to make sure that the audience do not become confused by any changes in background setting which would be caused if the camera filmed from loads of different angles. This was vital for our preliminary task as this allowed us to understand the basics of how to film our opening sequence. We took this rule and applied it when creating our opening sequence, if we had not done this then the audience would then become confused by the difference in setting. From our preliminary task we also applied the match-on-action rule, this is when editors in post production will put together pieces of footage so that they flow smoothly, for example, if a character was reaching for a door handle in one shot then the next shot would show her opening the door. This rule was made to, again, not confuse the audience and make it look as smooth as possible. This was extremely important for our opening sequence as it allowed us to practise this during post production so that we would understand how to do it for our opening sequence. It also allowed us to understand how much of a scene we needed to film in order for our match-on-action to work as smoothly as possible. If we hadn’t applied these rules then our opening sequence would not have run smoothly and would have looked very unprofessional. From our preliminary task we also changed the camera we used. For our preliminary we used the camera on my iPhone, which did produce a fairly high quality recording but not good enough for our opening sequence. We were given a Samsung OIS Duo to film our opening sequence with which produced a much higher quality picture and sound and was a great improvement from our preliminary task.

As we didn’t use any music or sound recording in our preliminary task there was not much we could go on to develop for our opening sequence. However, the lack of music and sound made the preliminary task sound boring and dull, we took this and decided to include some sounds for our opening sequence. We initially wanted a soundtrack that sounded quite ominous to reflect the topic in the opening sequence but a soundtrack that was also quite fast paced for when panning over the pictures on the wall. After thinking I came up with the “Skinny Love” cover by Birdy. After the girls had listened to it, we all agreed on the soundtrack. We found a instrumental version on Youtube, converted this into an mp3 format and edited it into our opening sequence. Without this music our opening sequence would have sounded extremely dull and boring and would only include the voice over. As there also wasn’t any sound recordings in the preliminary task, other than the dialogue, we decided to include a voice over recording that would read through the letter we created. We first recorded this on iPhone voice memo and then found that this was inappropriate, so recorded the voice over that we used in the opening sequence on Michael’s Mac. Without the use of these technologies we would have produced the high quality voice over that is shown in our opening sequence. Without the voice over idea we wouldn’t have had a clear narrative in our opening sequence and would have had to come up with a different way to make our storyline clear which might have ultimately cost us time.

From our editing process for our preliminary task we were able to take certain aspects of editing and use them when editing our final media product. For example we were able to get used to putting various pieces of footage together in order to try to figure out how to piece our piece together properly using the match-on-action rule. As both of the software’s we used are very similar it didn’t cause a major problem when using a different software for editing our actual opening sequence. As the software for the preliminary task was different to the one we used for editing our media product, we weren’t able to take that much from the editing of the preliminary task to develop for our opening sequence.

Overall, our preliminary task was vital for this course and our progression into creating a media product as without it we wouldn’t of understood anything about real media products and what techniques are used which would have made our opening sequence look unprofessional and unlike any other media product.

EVALUATION QUESTION SIX

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

We used technologies all the way through constructing our media product, including during planning and afterwards. During planning we used the internet to research our genre. We used search engines such as “Google” and “Bing” and then used websites such as “Wikipedia” to research the codes and conventions of a melodrama. We also used “Art of the Title” to research title sequences and opening sequences. Without using this technology we wouldn’t have been able to research our genre in that much detail and wouldn’t be able to get the most up-to-date information as we would have had to use books which might be quite dated.

When planning our opening sequence we used technologies such as Computers and the We used Computers to piece together our storyboard and understand what order things would go in and how much time it would take up by making a short list of the main narrative of the storyboard. We then used the internet to upload our video to YouTube and then put the video on our blog, this helped as then we were able to constantly refer back to our storyboard to make sure we were sticking to the basic narrative. If we were to do this course again I think we would have made our storyboard more detailed and upload recent and updated storyboards as the course went along, as this would allow us to get a general idea of what to do and how to do it as we felt that most of the filming was made up as we went along. We also used the camcorder to understand what angles would work at what point in the opening sequence. Doing this made the filming process a lot easier as we knew which camera angles, movements and shots to film. We were able to use the internet to gain an understanding on what camera angles we should use as certain camera angles are used to show different emotions, for example, close ups and extreme close ups are used to exaggerate the emotion in a piece so we decided to use these to exaggerate the sympathetic and negative atmosphere in the piece.

The most obvious piece of technology we used when filming our media product was the camcorder. We used this to film all of our footage that was edited together. This was a vital piece of technology for our filming process because without it would not have had a good quality camera to use for our opening sequence and would have had to use a lower quality camera which probably would have made our opening sequence less effective as we wouldn’t be able to use our focuses when the character is reading the letter. Another piece of technology we used when filming our opening sequence was the iPhone voice memo. We used this to record our first voiceovers during the filming process. We recorded some of the voice over on my phone first and then recorded another voiceover on Catherine’s phone, this was extremely lucky that we did this as Abbi had problems with getting the voiceovers off of my phone as it would have completely wiped my memory off my phone. Luckily, Catherine had no music on her phone at this time so we used the voiceovers that were on her phone. Using the iPhone voice memo was very handy for us as a group as we were able to record a high quality sound. Without the iPhone voice memo we wouldn’t have been able to record the voiceovers to such a high quality. Unfortunately though, we didn’t end up using these voice overs as Catherine’s voice didn’t exaggerate the emotion that we wanted.

We used many different technologies to edit our opening sequence together. The main piece of technology that we used was the Macs as this was the technology that held all of our footage that was needed for our opening sequence. At first we found these Macs difficult to use as we were used to the PCs as we edited our preliminary task together and other media products in GCSE on PCs. However, after getting used to the Macs we found that these were easier to use compared to the PCs as the layout is easier to navigate and found that there are more features on the Macs that we found useful, such as the speed of the software. The software we used was also useful towards our opening sequence as these were also easier to navigate and contained a lot more useful features. The software we used was Final Cut Pro and is the software that is used on all of the Macs. We found the software hard to use at first but, like the Macs, we became more and more used to it as the editing process progressed. We used a different form of software to edit together our preliminary task, which is called Sony Vegas. I used this software during my GCSE Media Course so I felt that I knew my way around this software. At first we did not understand where all of the different features were, such as sound effects and different transitions but after getting used to this software we were able to navigate our way around Final Cut Pro without making any mistakes and actually found that Final Cut Pro was easier to use than Sony Vegas. During the editing process we also re-recorded our voiceovers; to do this we used Michael’s iMac. As this piece of technology is also an Apple product we were able to use it very easily.

When constructing our audience feedback the main piece of technology we used was the internet. We used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to attract our audience. We found this form of technology easy to use as the entire group knew how to use the internet as we spend a lot of time on the internet as teenage girls. The internet was useful for getting small amounts of feedback from people, such as small comments and opinions. We found it difficult to gain a large amount of feedback from people on these sites as people found that it would be time consuming to write a lot of their opinions on these sites as the majority of them would have probably been completing coursework at the time. We found the questionnaires that we produced much more useful as this allowed people to give a large amount of feedback.

Throughout the whole process we also used the website WordPress to keep a written diary of all the work we had done at certain points in the course. We found this website very useful as we were able to keep a record of the work that we had done and were able to figure out what was left to be done in terms of editing and filming.

Overall, these different types of technology contributed towards the final opening sequence and the creativity of the piece. This range of technology helped the group creatively as it allowed us to explore different ways of doing things such as filming and editing and allowed us to experiment with different technologies and helped us do things in a way we wanted. These technologies also helped us creatively by giving us different ideas on how to do things which ultimately contributed towards the authenticity of the piece. An example of this was during the filming process when I researched different ways to make Becka’s character look as though she had been crying. We initially tried rubbing Becka’s eyes and adding water to give the effect of tears but we found that this didn’t work. After researching I found that applying a small amount of VapoRub underneath the eyes makes them water. We used this idea which made Becka look as though she was crying which made our opening sequence more authentic.

EVALUATION QUESTION FIVE

How did you address/attract your audience?

This is another video of me and Becka talking about our fifth media evaluation question, in this video we explain the methods we used to attract our audience and also explain which method we felt was most effective.

After we finished our opening sequence and finished all of the planning, our next step was to attract our audience. After finishing the group got together and tried to come up with different ideas to attract our audience. Our most popular idea was to create some sort of questionnaire to ask certain members in the category of our target audience. This was the most popular idea as we felt that this would allow us to ask questions that we felt were necessary and would be able to get the feedback we need to. We decided that this would be the most appropriate option. We all made questionnaires and asked different questions so that we could all get a wide range of feedback from different people. We also each asked our own friends and family as this would also get us a wide range of answers from a wide variety of people. These are the questions that I asked:

1. What did you enjoy about our opening sequence?
2. Do you feel it could be improved in any way, if so, how?
3. Do you understand the basic narrative of the opening sequence?
4. What emotions did you feel when watching the opening sequence?
5. Do you feel the music choice is appropriate?
6. Do you feel our opening sequence makes the genre clear?
7. Does the opening sequence of our film make you want to carry on watching?
8. Overall, do you feel that our opening sequence was effective?

I felt that these questions were appropriate to use as they only refer to what the audience thought to most aspects of the opening sequence. I asked questions on how they felt when watching the opening sequence, whether they felt that the narrative was clear and whether they felt that anything could be changed about the opening sequence. I felt that it was only necessary to ask open questions to our audience as I felt that closed questions weren’t really appropriate and do not really link to what they think of the opening sequence. I also felt it would be necessary to get right to main aim of the questionnaire, as I didn’t want to waste the audience’s time with the questions. I also felt that anymore questions would take up more space on the paper, and I didn’t want the questionnaire to be too long so that the audience were less inclined to answer the questions. I sent out these questions to several close friends and family and asked them to fill in the questionnaire based on what they thought of the opening sequence. Here are my results from the people I asked:

One of the people we asked is Megan, she is a sixteen year old student at Arthur Mellows and these were her results:
1. What did you enjoy about our opening sequence?
I enjoyed the montage/pictures that are shown when the letrter is being read, it’s very sweet.
2. Do you feel it could be improved in anyway, if so, how?
The letter could be louder – to create more of an impact. The camera over the pictures could be slower.
3. Do you understand the basic narrative of the opening sequence?
Yes, the narrative is easy to follow. The letter/voice over makes it easy to follow what’s happening.
4. What emotions did you feel when watching the opening sequence?
It was upsetting, watching about the terminally ill/ dead friend
5. Do you feel the music choice is appropriate?
Yes, it is slow and makes a positive impact to the genre and on the opening sequence overall.
6. Do you feel our opening sequence makes the genre clear?
Yes, the emotional aspects make it feel quite dramatic. I think this film would be a melodrama/drama.
7. Does the opening sequence of our film make you want to carry on watching?
Yes, especially when the time flips back to a year earlier.
8. Overall, do you feel that our opening sequence was effective?
As a drama, I think that this opening sequence has the conventions that are needed, this made it very effective.

We also asked my friend Emily to fill out another questionnaire, she is 17 and also goes to Arthur Mellows and these were her answers:
1. What did you enjoy about our opening sequence?
How it starts to build emotion throughout, the music fits in really well.
2. Do you feel it could be improved in anyway, if so, how?
No, not at all
3. Do you understand the basic narrative of the opening sequence?
Yes.
4. What emotions did you feel when watching the opening sequence?
Definitely sadness, very heartbreaking.
5. Do you feel the music choice is appropriate?
Yes, completely.
6. Do you feel our opening sequence makes the genre clear?
Yes.
7. Does the opening sequence of our film make you want to carry on watching?
Yes.
8. Overall, do you feel that our opening sequence was effective?
Yes, so emotional, had tears in my eyes.

Another girl we asked is Sophie, she is also 17 and goes to our school:

1.What did you enjoy about our opening sequence?
It was emotional and touching. The music fitted with the opening sequence well.
2. Do you feel it could be improved in anyway, if so, how?
No.
3. Do you understand the basic narrative of the opening sequence?
Heartbreaking and sadness.
4. What emotions did you feel when watching the opening sequence?
Sad and unhappy.
5. Do you feel the music choice is appropriate?
Yes.
6. Do you feel our opening sequence makes the genre clear?
Yes.
7. Does the opening sequence of our film make you want to carry on watching?
Yes.
8. Overall, do you feel that our opening sequence was effective?
Yes, it makes you want to watch further.

We also asked my close friend Kimberley, she is 16 and also goes to school with us. These were the results of the questionnaire she filled out:

1. What did you enjoy about our opening sequence?
I enjoyed the motions, and the video clip (the flashback)
2. Do you feel it could be improved in anyway, if so, how?
Some of the camera shots over the photos could be slowed down to improve the opening sequence
3. Do you understand the basic narrative of the opening sequence?
Yes
4. What emotions did you feel when watching the opening sequence?
The opening sequence was very emotional and upsetting, you begin to feel as if you know the characters.
5. Do you feel the music choice is appropriate?
Yes.
6. Do you feel our opening sequence makes the genre clear?
Yes, it is made clear through the music
7. Does the opening sequence of our film make you want to carry on watching?
Yes.
8. Overall, do you feel that our opening sequence was effective?
Yes.

This was our results from a questionnaire filled out by Amy who also goes to our school and is also 16:

1. What did you enjoy about our opening sequence?
The friendship element and the flashback of memories through photographs.
2. Do you feel it could be improved in anyway, if so, how?
No.
3. Do you understand the basic narrative of the opening sequence?
Yes, I connected with the sequence emotionally.
4. What emotions did you feel when watching the opening sequence?
Sad, hopeful, appreciative of my life.
5. Do you feel the music choice is appropriate?
Yes, very effective.
6. Do you feel our opening sequence makes the genre clear?
Yes, right from the beginning.
7. Does the opening sequence of our film make you want to carry on watching?
Yes, definitely.
8. Overall, do you feel that our opening sequence was effective?
Yes, very effective.

We also asked my friend Ryan, he is also 16 and goes to our school.

1. What did you enjoy about our opening sequence?
I enjoyed the way the camera went over the photos while the letter was being read.
2. Do you feel it could be improved in anyway, if so, how?
No, I think it was pretty good the way it was.
3. Do you understand the basic narrative of the opening sequence?
Yes, it was the letter from the girl who passed away.
4. What emotions did you feel when watching the opening sequence?
Sadness.
5. Do you feel the music choice is appropriate?
Yes it fitted very well.
6. Do you feel our opening sequence makes the genre clear?
Yes, it did.
7. Does the opening sequence of our film make you want to carry on watching?
Yes, I would love to see the full film.
8. Overall, do you feel that our opening sequence was effective?
Yes, it was very effective indeed and made me wanting to watch more.

These are our results from a few people we asked, we did ask more people to fill in the questionnaire but the answers were generally the same so I decided to only select a certain few. Overall we asked 42 people to fill in these questionnaires but I’ve chosen to show 6 results on my blog. We asked people who were part of our target audience but we also asked males as well, as we felt that some boys might want to watch our film and might be a part of a small minority of males who would enjoy drama films.

From these answers we found that all of those we asked enjoyed our opening sequence and felt that it was very emotional and sometimes heartbreaking to watch and felt like they had some sort of connection with the characters. This is extremely positive feedback as this is exactly what we were hoping to achieve! We wanted the audience to feel a connection with the characters and feel as though they have known them for a long time. Most people said that they would like to carry on watching the film which is also positive for us as this shows that our opening sequence is interesting, intriguing and gripping, this shows that our audience have taken an interest in our opening sequence which means that it is successful. Most also said that the main emotions they felt were sadness and hope, this is also what we wanted to achieve as this means that we have presented our cancer patient in the right way without causing any offence. We were worried whilst planning not to present our cancer patient in any way which might cause offence to our viewers. If the audience said that they felt sadness and hopeful then this shows that we have presented our characters in a way which makes the audience feel sympathy. The audience also said that they understood the narrative of our opening sequence, which also shows that we pieced together our opening sequence in the clearest way possible, which shows that we edited our opening sequence well. The only criticism that we did receive was when the camera was panning over the pictures, some of those who answered our questions said that the camera should have been slower which would add to the effect of the opening sequence. We could have done this to improve the opening sequence, but this would have added onto the time, which means that we wouldn’t have kept to the 2 minute limit, which isn’t really what we wanted to do as our opening sequence was already 2 minutes and 22 seconds long. I feel the results from Ryan are very unusual as we didn’t initially think that males would be interested in our genre and opening sequence. He also said that he would like to carry on watching which is also unusual as we initially thought that only females would be interested. This shows us that there is a niche audience for our media product and perhaps other people other than females aged 15-30 would be interested in our media product.

We turned some of these questions into various charts. We turned question 3 and 6 from our questionnaire into pie charts and turned question 4 into a bar chart. These charts are shown below:

From these pie charts, we can see that the vast majority of people we asked gave us positive feedback and said that they understood the narrative and understood what genre we were using. With the bar graph we asked people what emotions they felt when watching our opening sequence, we told them that they can say as many emotions as they wanted, the most popular emotion was sympathetic, which is unsurprising as we wanted our audience to feel sorry for the characters and as the majority of those who answered were females, we were unsurprised by this.

We also went onto social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to gain some more feedback from other people. Abbi posted the Youtube video onto my Wall on Facebook and we gain a little bit of feedback from a few people:

From this small piece of feedback we were able to see what kind of people would be interested. From this we also gained some feedback from a boy who is also our age. He said “I want to know what happened one year earlier” this kind of feedback is interesting as it shows that some boys might be interested in watching the rest of the film. We originally did not expect this as we felt that our genre of film would be more ideally aimed at females, this shows that there are possibilities for other audiences other than female teenaagers.

EVALUATION QUESTION FOUR

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience of our media product refers to the target audience, this is the group of people that is most ideal for our media product. The characteristics of a target audience can include age, gender, occupation, household income, marital status, presence of children in the household, home value and geographic regions. Every product that is made in the media has a target audience, whether they are for an ethnic audience, a certain age group or a gender group. Using the example of ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ the target audience would be young girls aged 14+ this would be because the emotion and topics of this film are more suited for the female audience, it would also be because girls younger than 14 would not fully understand the topics that are dealt with in our film.

After discussion amongst our group, we all decided that we would aim our media piece at people aged 15 up to 30. We decided to choose this age range because we felt that the story line in our film was most suited for those of this age, as it deals with many different kinds of emotional topics, including illness, friendship and loss. We decided on choosing people in their teens as we thought that they would be able to relate to the friendship side of this film and as the characters in our film are also teenagers, we felt that this age range would be able to relate to the storyline better. We also decided on aiming our film on those older than teenagers because we felt that they would be able to relate to the illness and more emotional side of this film. As this film can be closely linked to romantic drama films such as ‘The Notebook’ we felt that target audiences for these sorts of films would enjoy this film as they both involve emotional subjects. We did not feel comfortable with making our target audience age any higher as we felt that any people of a higher age would not be particularly appealed by our film, its genre and the topics included. We also felt that they would not be able to relate to the age range in our film as well as 30 year olds. We also didn’t want to lower the age of our target audience because we felt that a younger audience would not particularly understand the storyline of our film and we also felt that the emotional trauma experienced in this film would not be appropriate for anyone younger than 15. We didn’t believe that anybody younger than 15 would be able to relate to the lives of 17 year olds either. However, we decided to make our film a 12 because after looking at age classifications we felt that our film didn’t contain enough for it to be a 15. After looking at the features of a 12 film, we felt that our film would be more suited to this classification, but we have still aimed our media product at those aged 15+

Our target audience is also mainly females. This is because we felt that females would be more sympathetic towards the topics that were felt in our film. Genres closely linked with our own such as romantic dramas and rom com films are also aimed at mainly females so we felt that females would be able to relate to the topics a little more and would feel more sympathetic towards the emotional topics experienced in this film. For example, the topic of cancer is more associated with females as they are stereotypically more sympathetic towards the topic of illness and disease, we also felt that females would be able to relate more to the topic of cancer because of the awareness raised on the topic of breast cancer in reality, we believed that females would be able to relate more to this topic. We also chose to aim our film at females because the majority of characters shown in the film are females, as this film deals with the friendship between two teenage girls we felt that females would be able to relate to the issues that occur between the two characters. We decided not to aim our film at males as we felt that they would stereotypically be more interested in action or thriller films, as this film features neither of the two, we felt that this film would be inappropriate for males. However, there may be a small minority of males that may enjoy this film, as some males might have different interests and may be able to relate better to the topic of cancer better than stereotypical males. However, this is a niche audience and a small minority so we felt that it wouldn’t be worth including them in our target audience.

These are the characteristics of our ideal audience:
– 15 years +
– Mainly females but some males might enjoy it, it doesn’t particularly matter
– Enjoys drama films
– Can be sympathetic towards certain emotions
– Enjoys films that can make you cry and feel strong emotions
– Watches a lot of television and watches soap operas, such as Eastenders, Hollyoaks and Coronation Street

This picture shows our ideal audience, these are a group of girls that we believe would most enjoy our film. They are aged 16-17 and mostly enjoy drama and action films. These girls watch quite a lot of television and take a particular interest in programmes such as Waterloo Road and Eastenders. They also watch programmes such as The Only Way is Essex and other programmes of that sort of genre. They also like to go to the cinema for social gatherings and mostly enjoy films such as My Sister’s Keeper, Slumdog Millionaire and Harry Potter. As these girls are also over the age of 15, they would be able to go see our film as they are of the correct age and will want to go and see our film.

EVALUATION QUESTION THREE

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

This is a small video of me and Becka answering the above question, we filmed this on my iPhone so the quality is not all that good.

A media institution is an established, often profit based organisation that deal with the creation, distribution, and marketing of a media product, in this case, a film. The most obvious media institutions are big media corporations such as Warner Bros. which has made films such as the global sensation, the ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘The Matrix’ franchise. Another example is 20^th Century Fox which has also made many popular films such as, ‘Star Wars’ and the ‘Alien’ franchise. However, these are American film institutions, so these were not used for our opening sequence. We were assigned to choose a British film institution, which would ultimately be a lower budget. We were told to choose between Vertigo Films, which created the film ‘Monsters’, DNA Films, which also made ’28 Days Later’ and Film4 which produced films such as, ‘The Lovely Bones’ ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead.’ British media institutions are not as popular as American productions as American cinema chains such as ‘Showcase Cinemas’ and ‘IMAX’ dominate the film industry and only show the mainstream American films.

Distribution refers to when a film is showcased in the cinemas or on a TV Channel.  Distributers also sell films to shops for them to sell, distribution is vital as it helps with whether the film will make a profit or a loss at the box office.

After discussion with the group we came to a decision that we believed that Film4 would be the best distributer for our media product instead of Vertigo Films and DNA Films. We decided on Film4 as each of us believed that Film4 was the most popular out of the three, as they show more mainstream films and also have their own television channel so our film would have had more of a chance of being shown. Vertigo Films and DNA Films do not have their own TV channel and we didn’t think many people would have heard of Vertigo Films or DNA Films so there is a less chance that our film would be shown on channels that the majority of our target audience would be aware of.

We also felt that Film4 would be more popular with our target audience as Film4 have helped produce many popular films such as ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ we felt that as Film4 produced most popular British Films, we felt that our film would have a higher chance of becoming popular, as opposed to the other distributers. Vertigo Films have produced films such as ‘Bronson’ and ‘Wake Wood’ which are not as popular as films shown on Film4, so we believed that Vertigo Films would not have been as popular as Film4. Similarly, DNA Films have produced films such as ‘Love Actually’ and ‘Never Let Me Go’ these films are a lot more popular than the films produced by Vertigo Films but not as popular as the Film4 productions. So we felt that Film4 would be more popular because they broadcast more mainstream media products.

We also believed that Film4 is better for our distribution because the company has their own channel on television, as this channel is completely dedicated to showing films that are mainly distributed by the company; we felt that this would give our film more of a chance of being shown and watched by our target audience. This channel is popular amongst our target audience so we felt that our film would probably be watched more if it was distributed by Film4.

We also decided to include Fox Searchlight in our opening sequence as we felt that this would also make our opening sequence look more effective. Fox Searchlight is a film division of Fox Filmed Entertainment which specialises in independent films and British films. This company generally looks to find new talented directors and gives them a chance in the ‘spotlight.’ Fox Searchlight has helped distribute films such as 127 Hours, Never Let Me Go and 500 Days of Summer. We decided to include this as it will show that our opening sequence comes from a new talent instead of directors that most people have already heard of. The combination of Film 4 and Fox Searchlight is an example of synergy.

Overall, our group decided to choose Film4 to distribute our film as we felt that it is more popular amongst our viewers as it has its own television channel which is dedicated to showing films that have been made/distributed by Film4, so we felt that our film would have a higher chance of being watched by viewers. We also decided to include Fox Searchlight as this would be a good combination of companies and would enhance the audience’s view of it, and would believe that it would be higher quality.

EVALUATION QUESTION TWO

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Film products within the media represent different social groups in different ways. For example, programs like ‘Waterloo Road’ represent students in different ways, some are represented as trouble makers and others are represented as mature young adults. And some teachers are represented as mature, caring adults and others are represented in such a way that makes them look uncaring and horrible. Social groups within society can include ethnic origin and age group, similarly to target audience. Our media film will represent social groups like, teenagers, cancer patients and females.

In our media piece we represented teenagers as our film explores the relationship between two teenage girls of around 17 years old. We felt that as the piece was quite emotional and traumatic, any social groups below a teenage age would be inappropriate, and the teenage group would be able to relate more as they are of a similar age as the main characters. We represented teenage girls in different ways; we represented them as serious, mature young adults, we did this as when the topic of cancer arises in the film, both teenagers act in a serious manner that makes them seem mature for their age. We wanted to do this as the topic of cancer is a sensitive subject and we wanted to show the audience that these teenagers are not the stereotype that most people perceive them to be, we wanted to show that they are sensible, mature young adults who deal with problems in a sensitive, adult-like way, we also didn’t want to offend any of our audiences so we decided to make the girls behave in a sensitive manner. We also represented teenagers as stereotypical young girls, we did this by taking pictures that were to go onto the wall showing the two girls going on nights out. We wanted to do this to show that these girls are and have been capable of having fun. We also wanted to show that they have had fun and have been happy together in the past, we wanted to show them as stereotypical teenagers who go out and socialise. The audience will know that the main character is a stereotypical young girl as she will have a similar appearance to those that are shown in the picture. She will dress in a similar fashion to normal teenage girls and will wear makeup and have hairstyles that will match her age. We also showed the audience that she is a stereotypical teenage girls in other ways too; for example, we shot our opening sequence inside a girls bedroom, the room was full of posters and pictures and looks like a girls bedroom, the colours in the room also make it look like a girls room, there was also nothing within the room that would lead audiences to believe that the room would belong to anyone of a different social group. If our main characters were males, we would perhaps have shot the opening sequence within a room that has band pictures and have objects inside that you associate with a teenage boy, such as electric guitar or an x box.

We also represented teenage girls in a non stereotypical way as we have created our other character, who has the cancer, to be a tomboy. However we have represented tomboys in a stereotypical way through her appearance, as she wears baggy clothes that boys would usually wear such as hoodies and shapeless jeans and tracksuit bottoms. We also made her look as though she was wearing no make up as this will also make her look less feminine. We decided to create two characters that belong to different social groups because we wanted to show that friendships can happen between two completely different people and we wanted to show how different kinds of people would react when put into a situation such as the one in our opening sequence.

We also represented the female gender group in our piece. We did this as most characters shown the opening sequence are females. We have represented them in such a way that makes appear mature and sensible. This is stereotypical of females as most people would associate them as sensible mature people. However, as these are young females they be perceived in a more negative way so we decided to make our characters similar to both stereotypes because we wanted to make them appear sensible in serious situations but were able to have fun and socialise at the same time. We showed that females were represented in our opening sequence by, again, shooting in a bedroom that looks feminine, we did this by making sure that the camera showed that there were posters and pictures on the wall that would be in a stereotypical young female’s bedroom.

In our media piece we also represented cancer patients. The main characters best friend has cancer and we worked hard to make sure that this character had similar features to a real cancer patient. To do this we had to look at several images of young cancer patients and tried to work out ways in which we could make our character look as convincing as possible. In the end we decided on buying a ‘bald head wig’ and putting it onto the character. We have represented cancer patients as young, innocent teenagers; we did this to show that the disease can affect anyone, even young children. Although this may shock audiences we felt that it was necessary to do this as we wanted to show our audience that it can happen to anybody and to raise awareness on the subject. We have shown to audiences that our character is a cancer patient through appearance also, we have made our character look pale and ill in some of the pictures that are shown in the scrapbook, and we have also used pictures from before she became ill to clearly show audiences how ill the character has become. We have also made our character look bald as this is the image that is most associated with cancer patients. We had to be very careful to not represent cancer patients in an incorrect way so that wouldn’t cause offence to our audience.

EVALUATION QUESTION ONE

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

For real media products, opening sequences are used to set up the narrative of a film and also establish setting, genre and characterisation, and in some cases ideology and the visual style of the film. For example, in the opening sequence of Dirty Harry, setting is established as there is a establishing shot of San Francisco, establishing shots are used in most opening sequence as it tells the audience where the film will take place. This opening sequence also establishes characterisation as it introduces the main characters of the film; it introduces the protagonist as a cool, slick, laid back guy and the audience aspire to be like him, so we know that this is the protagonist of the film. It also introduces the antagonist through not giving too much away about him. This gives the audience a sense of mystery and makes the audience fear him. It also establishes genre through iconography, at the beginning a San Francisco Police Badge is shown which shows that the film is going to be based around policemen. The narrative is also established in Dirty Harry as the film begins with a murder which sets up the narrative of the good guy trying to catch the bad guy. This also links into the ideology of the film; this refers to the values and beliefs that a media text stands for/represents. The ideology of Dirty Harry is basically good overpowering evil. This is the ideological idea of most films such as Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

Our media product establishes characterisation through the use of pictures. In our opening sequence, the pictures show the two main characters as the majority of the pictures are of Becka’s and Catherine’s characters. This sets up characterisation as these are the only two significant characters in the opening sequence and gives the audience the impression that the film will be based around these two girls. The script also establishes characterisation through the script, as these are the only two characters that actually speak in the opening sequence, so this would also lead the audiences to believe that the film is mainly about these two.

In this media product, we also establish setting. Although this is quite a vague establishment as there isn’t a main establishing shot. However, I believe setting is established in our pictures as they are all taken in a similar area which is the countryside, this would show to the audience that the film is set in a rural area. However, our opening sequence doesn’t establish a specific area as our film would take part in many different areas and not one specific area, like it is done in Dirty Harry. The shot at the end of the opening sequence could be seen as an establishing shot as it shows the location of which the opening sequence took place. The still shots at the beginning could also show the setting as it introduces the audience to the characters bedroom and also gives an idea as to what the girl is like and what her interests are. Overall, I don’t think setting is established too specifically, but if we did it would be quite difficult for us as the opening sequence takes part over a variety of different times and places.

I feel that the genre is greatly established in our opening sequence, as our genre is Melodrama we wanted the audience to get an idea of what the story is about and see that we have taken the topic of cancer very seriously. We have established the genre of our piece through the emotions that are felt in the piece. As our main character is crying through the majority of the opening sequence we thought that this would give the audience an idea of the genre as it is unlikely that the start of a comedy film or an action movie would be of a girl crying, we felt that the audience would be able to guess that the film falls into the Drama category. Genre is also established through the script that we have used. In the letter, there are many words that are serious and would lead the audience to see that it is a Drama. We used emotive language carefully in order to make the audience see that our film is a serious drama. For example, words and phrases such as “terminal” and “maybe I won’t be there anymore” give the audience the impression that someone is ill and is about to die. The semantic field that we have used here would leave the audience to assume that our film is serious and would not belong to any other category other than Drama. The word “terminal” leads the audience to believe that the topic is cancer and would immediately assume that the film is a drama as it would be shocking, unprofessional and insensitive to make this film a comedy when it is based around cancer. The pictures also give the audience the impression that this is a drama as Catherine’s character looks ill and is wearing a head scarf so the audience will also assume from this that the film is a Melodrama.

I feel as though our opening sequence establishes narrative as well, as the letter and the pictures combined give a brief outline as to the main plot of the film. We felt that the letter should give the audience a hint of what the main narrative is about, which is why we included words and phrases such as “hearing the doctor tell me it was terminal” “watching the time go by as I got weaker” and “maybe I won’t be there anymore” this will give the audience an idea of what will eventually happen throughout the film as they will link certain words together, for example, they will link the word “terminal” with cancer and “maybe I won’t be there anymore” with death. This should give the audience the idea as to what the main narrative is. The pictures of Catherine’s character as she becomes more and more ill should also give the audience a greater idea of the events that occur throughout the film.

We didn’t really establish ideology in our film as it doesn’t really follow the idea of ‘good overpowering evil’ as there isn’t an antagonist in the film. However, you could say that ideology is established as the audience will want Catherine’s character to overcome her illness and get better, as the audience will sympathise with the two characters and will want the character to get better. However, as our film is not in chronological order this doesn’t really apply as at this point of the film, Catherine’s character has already died.

Overall, I feel we followed a similar path to other media products in terms of establishing, setting, genre, characterisation and narrative. As we used My Sister’s Keeper as our inspiration we followed a similar style to this. In this opening sequence script is also used to establish things such as genre and narrative as the voiceover explains that she was brought into the world “for a purpose” As this film is also a Melodrama, we used this as a rough guideline for our opening sequence as we felt that the opening sequence for this film was done very well in establishing various aspects of the narrative.

OUR OPENING SEQUENCE

This is our final opening sequence that will be submitted as our AS Media Coursework. Unfortunately Abbi had a little trouble with uploading this and it took quite a long time to upload onto YouTube. We initially thought it would take a maximum of a couple of hours to upload but unfortunately it took Abbi 15 hours to upload. We are very happy with the overall outcome of our media product.

TECHNOLOGY AND SOFTWARE USED

Throughout the production of our media product we used different kinds of technology to film and edit our opening sequence. We used various cameras for the filming as they would give us different quality pictures. And for the editing we used the iMac.

The camera we used for filming was the Samsung OIS Duo, this was the camera given to us by the school and was used for the entire process of filming. After testing this out when taking pictures we all found that it was incredibly high quality and had great picture. We felt that this would be necessary to use for filming as it would be able to capture the pictures on the wall in an extremely high quality. As we also used a lot of close ups we felt that this camera was the best as it would be able to capture the tears from the main character and exaggerate the emotion felt in the opening sequence. We also used this camera to take some pictures that were put up on the wall, as we found that the camera on this camcorder was extremely high quality, so we thought we’d take a few pictures with it to show variation in the cameras used when the two characters spent their time together. We didn’t have any problems with this camera and would definitely use it again for further media projects.

We also used a Coolpix L120 by Nikon, which was Becka’s own camera. As this is also a high quality camera, we decided that we would also use this to take pictures that would go up on the wall of Becka’s bedroom. As this is a normal camera that is designed to only take primarily photographs, we thought it would be most appropriate as we wanted to make it look as authentic as possible and use a normal camera. We also used this camera to take the video of the flashback as the camcorder was unavailable during the time they were taking more photos. Because it was dark the camera didn’t produce the high quality picture that is seen in the other pictures taken during the day. I believe that this contributed towards the authenticity of the flashback as it looks quite blurred and looks like it just a memory. The only problems we had with this camera had been during taking pictures. As the lighting in some of the locations was different to others, this meant that some photos didn’t look as good as others because the camera couldn’t work properly in all ranges of light.

We also used my Fujifilm Finepix JX camera to take a couple of the pictures. As this camera is lower quality compared to Becka’s camera we thought that we would use my camera to show different quality pictures. We only used my camera to take pictures and not any videos because my camera does not produce high quality video footage and we wanted to create high quality picture with our videoed footage. When taking pictures, we didn’t have any problems with this camera.

For editing we used apple products to edit our footage together. The main piece of technology we used for our editing process was the iMacs in the editing suite at school. At first we found the iMacs difficult to use but we then got used to it and found it quite easy to use in the end. The only problems we had with these was we found it difficult to do certain things that are easily used on PCs. For example, we found it difficult to find a way to print screen what we were doing to put onto our blogs, but we eventually found out how to do this and took a couple of screen captures. We also used a portable iMac to record the voiceovers. We originally used mine and Catherine’s iPhone’s but we later found that the recordings on the phones were not suitable so recorded our voiceover on Michael’s iMac this gave us a better quality sound and overall, a better voiceover.

When filming we used a tripod to keep the camera steady and prevent any shaking that would have occurred with handheld. The tripod came in handy when filming the still shots at the beginning, as we had to keep the camera as still as possible and the tripod allowed us to do this. We used the tripod for all aspects of the filming apart from when panning over the pictures as we found it difficult to pan across the photographs using the handle, as it made the footage look quite shaky. The tripod had many useful features, such as the extendable legs, the handles which allowed us to tilt the camera in any way we wanted and another feature which told us whether the camera was balanced or not.

The software we used during editing was mainly Final Cut Pro. With this software we were able to add non-diagetic sounds and piece together our footage so that it would run as smoothly as possible. We found the software difficult to use at first, because we had never used this software before and we were unaware of how to use various aspects of the software, as we had only ever used Sony Vegas to edit footage together before the iMacs replaced the PCs. We also used Garage Band to record our voiceovers. We didn’t find this software difficult to use at all, as all we needed to do was to press record, do our voice over, stop recording then import the voiceover into our opening sequence. This was incredibly easy to use and it produced a very high quality sound.