Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is Lucy Johnson she is 15 going on sixteen soon and is currently in yr 11 living in West London. She enjoys hanging out with her friends, shopping and all the other typical things that a teenager enjoys doing. She is very family orientated and enjoys spending time with her younger sibling and her younger cousins. She enjoys watching teen comedies as when she is with her family or even friends she takes her younger siblings and cousins to the cinemas to watch teen comedies such as, when the Inbetweeners movie came out. She currently has a boyfriend called Connor who enjoys the same things as her. They spend most nights together watching there favourite TV programmes or watching a DVD.

Her favourite television programmes includes: 90210 on E4 which she can relate to as they are a group of young people currently in education with boyfriends/girlfriends. She also enjoys watching the  Inbetweeners also on E4 which is a comedy about a group of young teens who are outcasts which Lucy finds very funny as she says: ' I find this show absolutely hilarious as the fact that it is based on a group of outsiders emphasises the comedy factor.' As well as the BBC1 soap EastEnders. She enjoys various types of music, ranging from pop music to rock music. Lucy loves listening to music a lot, so much that most of the time she is either listening to her iPod or blasting  out the radio as it  playing her favourite song, her favourite stations include: Capital, Choice FM and sometimes XFM.

Lucy tells us: " I really like teen comedies especially with a range of different social groups like the popular group as I find that I can relate to this as it is set in a school and some of the things the characters go through I mostly go through on a daily basis at school. Some of the jokes can be quite cheesy sometimes but nevertheless I still enjoy it. I love films that make you laugh but not in a typical way like telling a joke but a different way like a silly gesture that you don't see coming." Her favourite films include: She's the Man, Easy A and Angus, thongs and perfect snogging.  She mostly enjoys watching them at the cinema as she gets that ' big screen experience' but she also likes to buy the DVD and watch it at home usually with her friends or family members.

I think our opening sequence would appeal to teens like Lucy because it is a teen comedy which teens can also relate to as their includes different social groups, and is set in a school. Our film is one that she can watch with her friends, younger family members or even her boyfriend as he can also relate to it in the same way that she does. It is for those teens who enjoy having a laugh at the typical kind of humour portrayed in most comedies. I think that this is definitely a film that Lucy can go to watch in the cinema to get the 'big screen experience' with her friends.

Evaluation, activity 3

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

Firstly, what is a distributor?

A distributor is in charge of releasing the film to the public. It has to control the function of budgeting, scripting and also indicating members of staff to particular areas in order to produce a film.

As a group we discussed and referred to the 3 companies that we had previously explored in class, these were Warp X, Warner bros and Working title.

-Warp X use low budget production methods to try and achieve high value films that will attract a range of people. Some of their first productions were as follows: 'a complete history o my sexual failures', 'Donkey punch' and so on. But records show that they have not been as successful as Warner Bros and Working title.

-Warner Bros is seen to be as a more Hollywood type of production company because of their materials and their values. Clearly just by mentioning Hollywood it is vivid that Warner Bros interact with diverse audiences also it can be argued that because Warner Bros is an american producer it has more value than the other two British companies.

-Working Title are another British company but who on the other hand of Warp X use well known actors to perhaps create a bigger chance of bigger numbers of individuals watching their films. For example; Rowan Atkinson who stars in 'Johnny English' is known to be very funny with out even using dialogue, it is through his gestures that the audience understand his character.

Having summarised the 3 production companies we would relate our opening sequence to working title because we are almost certain that our opening sequence would interest our target audience which are teenagers and young adults. The location and story line of our project demonstrates the day-to-day routine that the majority of our target audience go through and therefore can relate to and enjoy watching it on the big screen. We would not state that Warner bros could be a potential distributor for our film because of the standards they work at and the high budgets they invest from. Nevertheless we would not result to Warp X because of their low quality and low budget materials it would not allow us to produce a good enough project that our target audience would spend money on to watch.

Having spoken about budgets it is evident that certain things like props and costumes would have to come from our personal funds due to a certain budget being spent on things for editing or that have to do with the quality of our project. The budget could be funded by either a government grant or other things like sponsorship, donations, fund raising events and other similar methods of obtaining money.

Evaluation Activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

















We decided to use Megan to play the stereotypical character of a fat greasy slob,  this character is  generally in comedies; appearance wise Megan does not look like a greasy slob as she is not fat but fits other factors of being a fat greasy slob such as, being messy/scruffy with holes in her socks. We were influenced to have a range of different characters from looking at a variety of films like 'Mean girls'.
This character is not specifically given a name but her group that she is in is given the title of 'girls who eat their feelings' who fits this stereotype but like Megan she is a girl which goes against the conventional stereotype of a fat greasy slob. Though, in our film Megan portrays this character very well. They are both  in school, with their only care is for food and nothing else, both love stuffing their faces with junk. However, there are some differences such as, their costumes as Megan is in very casual clothes (which she wears everyday to school) and their body posture as Megan seems like she doesn't care and just relaxes with her food in her hand while the picture from 'Mean girls' shows her sitting in the canteen eager to eat when bringing food to her mouth. Although, there facial expressions can be related as Megan is concentrating on her food and ignoring everything else as if it is only her and her food in the room and the character from 'Mean girls' looks like shes concentrating on her food and is very eager to get it, again it looks like its only her and her food in the room at that time.
Whereas, the shot of Megan and the character from ' Mean girls' also allows the different characters to be portrayed in a certain way, for example, the character form ' Mean girls' looks like she seems to care what other people think and does have friends but friends who are losers as the shot allows there to be other people in it looking like shes known in school for the fat greasy slob she is and is therefore, secluded. Overall, both characters are portrayed similarly, allowing the audience to see where we got our influences form.

As well as in our opening sequence representing the stereotypical 'greasy slob' it also represents the social group "the geeks".

The Geek in our film was played by Ana and was the main character.  Her costume was socks and sandals, a  dress with a blue jumper and trousers underneath, big glasses and her hair tied up in bunches.  These all typical of the stereotyped geek. We got the inspiration for the geek from The 'Inbetweeners' character, Will McKenzie.



This is a picture of 'the geek' from 'The Inbetweeners'. He is wearing glasses, similar to our main character and he is smartly dressed, also similar to our character. Just by looking at this image one can tell the similarities between this character and the main character in our opening sequence.









Here is a picture of our main character, the geek, from our opening sequence.      She is similarly dressed to the person in the above picture and both people  represent a stereotypical social group, the geeks.      





Overall, we think that we represent the social group well by the costume worn and also by the way Ana speaks throughout her voice over.

Our opening sequence also represents the stereotypical 'dumb blonde' or as we called the person in our film 'the dipsy blonde'. We showed her as someone with blonde hair, highly interested in cheer leading and covering herself in make up.  We also showed her to be quite bossy.

This is a shot from the film 'St Trinians' showing 'the posh totie' putting on her makeup.  She is very similar to our character 'The dipsy blonde' as she is highly interested in make up.  The shot is also filmed in a mirror which is how we shot our character putting on her make up.

This is 'The dipsy blonde' from our opening sequence, we've shown her similarly to the character in the above picture.

Evaluation activity 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Typically, in some ways our film follows the conventional young teen comedy; we used the Inbetweeners as a template and referred to the stereotypical characters such as, the main character which is the geek. Although, in a way our film does challenge many forms of the convention of real media for our characters such as, the 'greasy slob' as usually a man or a boy play this role rather than a women or girl. Initially, we thought of how to include something unique and different about our comedy that would distinguish our film from other comedy films in the first two minutes of our opening sequence, so we decided to focus on this specifically. We decide to make our production logo on photo shop, which was similar to other groups from our school however, the fact that our production logo is a record disk with a DJ-ing sound playing in the background gave our film some uniqueness.
Having looked at other films gave us inspiration to try these things in our film such as, four different personalities meet but we decided to tweak things in a certain way as we didn't want to copy it. For example, we looked at the Inbetweeners fro inspiration on our characters and target group. As the Inbetweeners is aimed at teens and involves a group of geeks but a variety of characters are actually involved in the programme such as, bullies. A convention of a comedy is generally to have a geek in it such as, Nypolean Dynamite. We have used this convention to reflect our genre of comedy.
                                                                                                                Frame 1:

This first shot allows us to give an establishing shot of the courtyard/school as this gives more of a variety of shots.Additionally, this adds more to the story as from the geek running in the courtyard the next shot is then with the geek running into the corridor. This is the fourth shot that appears on the screen, except for the production logo, the geek banging on the locker and then geek coming out of the locker.


                             Frame 2:

This is the second shot where the geek is locked in the locker by the bullies. On this shot we can also see one of the main characters names which is in turquoise to portray the genre of our film which is 'comedy'. This type of font including the colour is used throughout the beginning of our production to give the audience the feel of our movie even if they do not see the rest of the film they know that it is comedy; this is used until the main character actually enters the class room.
                               Frame 3                                                                              
This close up also freeze frame of the geeks foot conveys the genre of our film which is comedy as well as creating a humorous atmosphere as the geeks is wearing white socks and sandals. The fact that the title of our opening sequence which is '4faces' as cited in the print screen of the shot, appears on the geeks foot adds to the funny atmosphere.
                                
                               Frame 4:

This shot fades into another shot of the popular girl applying make up and then conducting cheer practice with her cheer group which she is the captain of, these shots support the voice over. The purpose of this shot is to indicate the elements that defines the characters personality and so on for the purpose of the audiences understanding.  It also confirms to the audience who one of the four main characters are  which is important so that the audience recognise the relevance of this to the rest of the film.





                                Frame 5:

This shot is relevant to the previous frames of the popular girl and the voice over, it develops the fact that this is an opening sequence which shows that these continuous frames are a form of introduction to various aspects for instance: characters, location and more. This also gives emphasis on 1 of the four faces.




                                
                                
                              Frame 6:
Here we see the boy that according to the voice over is the boy that everyone is after,  nodding at the geek. This close up reveals to the audience another one of the main characters.  Perhaps it possibly interacts with the audience in terms of getting to know the individual characters and their image.

                               Frame 7:
This particular frame supports the previous frame by adding more to this character as well as the story of this character. Similarly, this scene portrays how this character is treated in school. This sot allows the audience to see the mise en scene which is the lockeroom and helps in portraying this characters popularity in school.



                               Frame 8:                                                                                     
Here we introduce a new character but still one of the main characters. Through the costume we refer to the stereotypical greasy slob that is usually in most all comedies. However the fact that it is a girl does not necessarily comply with the stereotypical greasy slob as they role is usually played by a male rather than a female.

                                                                                               Frame 9
This is the second to last shot of our opening sequence it is filmed as a close up to indicate that the geek is weird also showing how different she is from the other 3 main characters that she is put into a group with.  This also supports the voice over as the fact that she is in a lab all alone at lunch time shows her struggle of how she going to cope of being put into this group of diversity.
                                                                               
                                                                                          

Plan for evaluation

As a group we have completed this planning task so that we are clear of how to answer the set questions when we actually begin our evaluation. We aware that we need to use digital technology in order to achieve a high grade and so we will do our best to portray our answers through using both text and things like prezi.

Finished opening sequence :)

This is our finished opening sequence.

Behind the scenes

Here is a video of Ana transforming into the main character, the geek!

Progress

Today, we all gathered at lunch to add the titles and figure out what part of the voiceover that we lost so that the main character could record this again for our opening sequence before the deadline tomorrow. Tomorrow we plan to work on any last minute editing that we need to do before five o'clock

Titles

Today we started working on the titles, using Live Type, for our opening sequence.  We decided on a cartoon style as it fits with our comedy genre for our opening.  We have now finished these as Megan and I stayed after school today to complete these. Once our film has been finished we will be putting them in the correct places and then our opening sequence will be complete.

Wednesday 7th March

On Wednesday as we had a double media lesson in the morning, we decided to focus on importing our footage from the camera onto the computer in imovie and watch the footage through trying to see what else we could add to make our film more appealing to our audience. We decide on the geek, the main character, to start in the opening sequence by banging on the door to a locker for the bullies to let her out as she is late for her lesson. The geek would then run through the courtyard to where we would edit it to the geek running through the corridor to the classroom as she is late. Though, we focused on importing our footage from the camera and filming this scene, prior to this at the beginning of the lesson we were able to do a little bit of editing, even though, it was not a lot and had to be cut short due to us filming.

Plans for the final week

This is a prezi of our plans for the final week before our opening sequence needs to be finished. I think we have a lot to do but will have enough time to complete it successfully as long as we work out side of lesson times, which we have been doing.

Final week on Prezi

5th March-filming

Today, we filmed the main character, the geek, running into the classroom and the teacher telling the geek what group that she is in to do her media project. We also re-filmed the geek running into the classroom from the corridor as we used different costume to film the running into the classroom scene we had to re-film this so the geek would be wearing the same thing rather than different clothes in different scenes.