Thursday 7 April 2011

Evaluation

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

Comparing our Media Production with Films I had already done deconstructions on, I found that some films had started either with a song or diegetic sound going on in the background and as ours is a Romantic Comedy I think that the music we chose (Michael BublĂ© – Haven’t Met You Yet) fits in perfectly with what our film is going to be about. This song continues throughout our 2 minutes.
We researched through a number of Romantic Comedy genre films which gave us a few ideas for our film, although we did have a good idea of what it was we wanted to happen, we just needed a way to link it all together.




We first edited on the name of the production company. We made the Red Balloon Productions bold over the presents because we wanted the production company to stand out so our audience will know who has made the film.



We then made the title of our film transition in from the left and the right, this was also happening as the camera is panning down towards our main characters house which is where our 2 minute film begins. We chose red as the colour for Love, as many red things are associated with love or romance, it also stands out against the colour of the sky.




We then transitioned another name onto the screen so the audience will know who else is also playing a main part in this film.






We then added all our names under the editing subtitle so our audience will know who was involved in the making of our film. These credits were appearing as our film was continuing to play.
We have had the credits continuing to play across the film product as this is what a large percentage of films today do.







Here we took separate point-of-view shots of Tom and Chrissi. We also used a romantic effect to make it seem like a more romantic meeting, so our audience will realise that it's these people that meet and fall in love. We felt that this would tell the audience what genre of a film this is going to be, as RomCom's commonly use this effect.


















2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents the older teenage group (16+), it shows the opportunities they have to meet new people whilst still young, and how easy it is for them. It also represents the fun loving teen social groups of today, who like to go out to meet up with friends in bars. It can also represent the sort of freedom that teenagers have today. We see in this 2 minute extract that the female character is the main focus and has taken the dominant role, as for most of the 2 minutes we only see her and what she's doing.
When we meet our male character he's quite clumsy, and this could suggest that he's trying to hard to impress on the first meeting.
The costumes of our characters are kept pretty casual which creates a relaxed atmosphere, and so we know that their meeting isn't a formal or business meeting, that the audience knows it's going to be a romantic meeting.


3. What kind of Media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our Media product we feel fits the definition of an independent film. We researched it online and wikipedia states that: "Independent films are sometimes distinguishable by their content and style and the way in which the filmmakers' personal artistic vision is realized. Independent films are made with considerably lower budgets than major studio films."


Remember Me is a film that is very much like ours, as this is an independent film as this was made on a low budget, it is also a romantic film.
Our Media product would be a independent film because we didn't use expensive technology for example CGI. We also had limited locations which we could film on, and we also used cheap props.
The limited locations of our film include two houses, and outside of a pub, we had to use one of the houses as the inside of the pub.




4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our Media product is mainly aimed at female teenagers (15+ as our film we thought should be certificate 15) and also older women. We also thought that our film should be aimed at a 15+ audience because the people we gave questionnaires to were all students over the age of 15 and 16. We also think that they are the age group that would be most interested in our film as it's a RomCom.

We put our film onto our Media FaceBook group, we then added friends and asked them for their comments on it.
We thought this would be a good idea to put it onto FaceBook because this is where most female teenagers spend a lot of their time, so we thought we could get a good amount of comments on our film if we were to put it on here.






5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Our target audience was mainly at female students ages 15 and above, it is also aimed at women of any older age. To address our audience we showed our 2 minute film to students at school around the ages 16+ and asked for their comments on it.



Zoe Miller
Age: 17

"it was really good, i loved it"







Imogen Cooper-Moorhouse
Age: 17

"i thought it was great, i enjoyed watching it"








Holly Masters
Age: 16

"Oh wow, i loved it, the editing was really well done"









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

I have learnt a number of things during the making of our product, the main thing being working with the Apple Macs, as i had never used one before, but once you got the hang of it, it was fairly simple to use.
For example our film product was filmed all through the daytime, but when our main character was going out to meet her date we wanted it to look like it was evening time, so we changed the lighting effect to make it look slightly darker. This effect we found was difficult when our main character was entering the pub, this was because we had direct sunlight on our location, this made it difficult for us to darken as we had light reflecting towads the camera off various objects.



We managed to overcome this problem by slightly changing the brightness and contrast of the scene, and then making it slightly darker.
I also learnt how to remove the audio on each section of our product, we did this so you wouldn't be able to hear it over the top of the music we chose to play across the extract, which was something else we learnt, adding music onto a product.

We learnt how to use different type of effects to add romance to our film, like the dreamy romantic effect at the part of when our characters first meet.









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



I feel that I personally have learnt how to use the Apple Macs to make our product look more professionally made, such as usign different effects and transitions to make our product more entertaining and to keep our audience engaged.
During the filming of our product I learnt how easy it is to make a continuity error, this made us think much harder and concentrate more when stopping and then starting the camera to think how we had finished that take, and how we need to start the next one.

It was little things like the speed I had to walk into each shot, I realised it had to be the same speed all the way through, this was quite difficult at first because I was walking into the shot before the record button had been pressed, instead of the film then flowing it had jumps, so we decided that we should start recording and I should start walking from beind the camera, and we found that this worked a lot better.




I have also learnt how to use different cameras, before we started our real product I was unsure of how to use the filming cameras properly, but during the making of our main task I learnt how it worked and how to use it.
I also learnt about shot reverse shots, match on action and the 180 degree rule, which had to be remembered throughout our filming and editing.
I feel that since our preliminary task, my use off media technology has grown as well as my knowledge about the technologies.








Final Product: Opening 2 minutes of Love Unexpected



Here is our finished product, we used many of the shots that we used in our preliminary task as we thought these worked well and kept the audience entertained. They also help to tell the story. Our preliminary task helped us make this one much more professional and more like a real film.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

PLANNING: Marketing and Distribution

Our Photoshoot for our film poster was on the 3rd of March. The people who were in the Photoshoot were myself and Tom Hartland, we are also the actors in the film as well. We took quite a few pictures with different poses to find which one showed the relationship between the two characters best. This was the picture we decided was best in the end, as it shows the female character is the main character in this movie as she is looking at the camera, where as Tom isn't. 

We chose this background as the set for our Photoshoot as this background seemed easy to edit on photoshop to change it to a plain white background.








We then used the magic wand tool on photoshop to change the background to white, and to cut around Chrissi and Tom.





After we had cut round our main characters, we cropped the picture so it would fit our film poster.



This is our finished film poster. We have put the names of the actors / actresses at the top so our viewers know who is starring in the film. We have chosen red as the colour of our title and the shadowing as red is related to romance and love, and this is what our film is about. Two people meeting unexpectedly, and falling in love.

Thursday 10 March 2011

BBFC Certification

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom




U is Universal this means that the film is suitable for all. A‘U’ film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. Films in this category include mild/slapstick violence. 

 
Introduced in 1913



 


PG is Parental Guidance this means General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. Unaccompanied children of any age may watch but certain scenes may be unsuitable for children under 8 years old.

introduced in 1982



12A is a category that exists only for cinema films. No one younger than 12 may see a ‘12A’ film in a cinema unless they are accompanied by an adult. ‘12A’ films are not recommended for a child below 12, however an adult may take a younger child if, in their judgement, the film is suitable for that particular child.
Films in this category may include mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, commonly used milder swear words, and moderate violence/sex references.

introduced in 2002

12 films are suitable only for those aged 12 and over. These films may upset children under 12 or contain material which many parents will find unsuitable for them.
Film in this category may include infrequent drugs, infrequent use of strong language, brief nudity, discreet sexual activity, and moderate violence.

introduced in 1989


15 films are suitable only for 15 years and over. Nobody younger than 15 can rent or buy 15-rated films or watch a film in the cinema with this rating.
Films in this category may include adult themes, hard drugs, strong words, moderate-strong violence/sex references, and mild non-detailed sexual activity.

introduced in 1982



18 films are suitable only for adults. No-one younger than 18 can rent or buy 18 films or watch a film in the cinema with this rating.
 Films in this category do not have limitation on the bad language that is used and may include hard drugs, and strong violence/sex references along with non-detailed sex activity.
introduced in 1982



PLANNING: Props & Location

Location:


Recording:
·         In crick club or my house, the pub scene.
·         In B20 at Guilsborough school.
·         At Chrissi’s House in Long Buckby, film the house, the car, the getting ready, the walking down the street.



Props: 

Actors/actresses Chrissi, Tom & Chris?

Use of a car, for her to get out of

Mirror, makeup, going out clothing, Magazine, kettle, mug, tea, sugar

Pub, bar, glasses, mobile

Computer & laptop in B20. Work clothes, Magazine


PLANNING: Filming Schedule

Date
Friday 11th March
Tuesday 15th March
Thursday 17th march
Location
B20
Chrissi’s house
Annes house/ pub
Time
10:05 AM
4:00
4:00

Friday 18 February 2011

RESEARCH AND PLANNING: Preliminary Questions

Content
·         The opening of these movies I find is what draws us into the movie and makes us want to continue watching it. It also tells us what genre the movie is going to be within these first 2 minutes.
·         The soundtrack (if there is one) normally sets a mood for this movie, also makes you get an idea of what the genre is.
·         The opening introduces you to the characters, so you can tell by which well known actors or actresses that are in it would then make you think whether or not the movie is going to be good, for example in Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are the main actors in this film, this assures you that this film is going to be a comedy.
·         In some of the movies at the start they show credits and the title, again you can tell the movie is going to be good or not by which actors/actresses are in it, and also by what the title is can make the movie appear interesting or not to its audience.
Function
·         The opening of the movie normally tells us the type of genre, it also tells us the time of day this adds to the mood of the film.
·         The soundtrack at the start of the film normally links with what the film is going to be about / the genre.
·         Some of the opening shots of the main character can tell us whether they play a good or bad part in the movie; this also can depend on who the actor/actress is.
Corporate Information
·         The corporate information in these films tells you whether or not the film is going to be good or not, for example Hot Fuzz’s ident is Universal this is very popular in the film industry and might draw people into watching it.

What has your TAR told you about likes, dislikes and viewing habits?
My target audience from our questionnaire results said that they preferred a Romantic Comedy as their favourite film genre; this has made us chose a RomCom as our film genre.
People have said that they prefer to view their film at home, rather than going out to the cinema. They have also said that what really draws them into a film is the trailer; if the trailer looks good then they are more likely going to want to see that film. The questionnaire results also show that most people prefer films that have a soundtrack to the opening and more people also said that the beginning of the film is what draws them in and makes them want to continue watching, and that the beginning of the film is most important.

How have you used the above research to make planning decisions regarding your movie?
Because most people have decided that they prefer a romantic comedy as their film choice, we have decided to have a romantic comedy as our 2 minute opening.
The content of our movie will show our main character getting out of her car and going into her house. As she’s sat reading a magazine the camera zooms and then we skip back to the past and see her sitting at work. We then go back and see her getting ready to go out, we have already found out where it is she is going to from when we skipped back to the past.
 The establishing shot will start with the sky, a few credits will appear and the title will then appear, the camera will then pan down and our 2 minutes will begin, this establishing shot will automatically tell the viewers what time of day our film starts on.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Directors Pitch

Film Media – Directors Pitch
 
·         Our first opening shot is of the sky, a few of our films credits are shown over this. The camera then pans down to a house (evening time).
·         We see our main character arriving home from work (dressed in work clothes). We have a long shot of the house and the car and this then changes to a shot from the back of the car to see the character getting out.
·         We see our character going into the house, the camera follows our character into the kitchen where she makes a cup of tea and sits down with a magazine.
·         The camera zooms into the magazine, and then zooms out showing her work colleague reading that magazine, the camera then pans across to show our main character at work sending an email to her date; this is a past shot of her looking forward to her date later.
We have chosen to do a past shot because we feel it will tell you more about where she is going later on and who she will be meeting. This tells the audience that this film is going to be about love.
·         We see her emailing her date at work, the camera zooms into the email and then out back to her at home getting ready for the date, cut scenes of doing make-up and choosing an outfit.
We have chosen to do these cut scenes of the past and the future to create a sense of excitement for our main character.
·         We then have a long shot of her leaving the house all dressed up for her date, as she walks to the left the camera stays still as she walks off the left side of the screen.
·         The camera then shows her walking from the back and then from the front, this would be a match on action shot.
·         We then see our main character arriving at the meeting place of her date which happens to be a pub/bar; the atmosphere of the film at this point will be excitement yet also tense as we want to see her date.
·         We have a long clip of the clock in the pub/bar which we could then speed up to show that she has been waiting there for a long time.
·         She goes to leave and the pub/bar giving up on her date, this sets a mood of disappointment for the audience. But as she goes to walk out she walks straight into someone else. The camera shows the back of his head as our main character shares a smile with this stranger, this then turns into shot reverse shot as they share a few lines of dialogue.
·         The first 2 minutes of our film ends here.
 
Location
 
Northampton town (area of work)
Long Buckby (their home)
Cold Ashby pub black horse ( place where they meet) we need to get permission.
School B20 (the office, place of work)
 
Resources
Cameras, dolly wheels, tripod, external mics.

Planning - Storyboard