Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full production?

Technology

 

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think an independent film company would be the best option when it comes to distributing my media product, this is mainly because they deal with low budget films and I would say that my film has a low budget. Independent companies stick to their low budget which is a good thing because then I can't go over budget, because if it were to then my film would probably have to be distributed by a major company instead. An independent distribution company also operates mainly in one country which I think would be the best thing for my film as I don't think it would make a lot of money if it were to be distributed by a major company. The reasons why I chose an independent company to distribute my film are that the directors have more creative control and they try to stay true to their vision as much as possible without an influence from the funding studios. This is a good thing because my film won't be change drastically in any way and it will stay true to how I want it shown to the audience. The independent company will also start out with a limited release when the film it comes to distributing it into cinemas, it will only be shown in particular theatres before it gains attention and is then released into the mainstream to make more money. The reason I didn't want a major distribution company to distribute my film was because the directors usually have less creator control as the studio has a say in a lot if what happens because they're investing into the project. This means that the film could be changed and I wouldn't have much of a say in the matter which is something I don't want due to the fact that I want the film to stay the way it is. The main role of the distributor is to choose a film to promote and in order to get my film promoted by an independent film distribution company I'll need to make my film unique. With this in mind at the start of the production, I have particular unique selling points that will attract a distributor into promoting my film. For example the use of whispers during my opening sequence is different as usually films have a voice over that tells the audience about the main character. Not having a voice over is a good thing because it won't give the audience a lot of information, whispers are more intriguing and mysterious and this will help the film to attract a wider audience.
When advertising my film, an independent company will use posters to get people's attention. Posters aren't too expensive and can be placed literally anywhere which is really versatile when it comes to advertising because they can be put where the majority of people see them. Independent companies also use adverts on websites such as YouTube to advertise their films, this would be a very good way of advertising because YouTube is one of the most popular visited web pages in the world, mainly due to the fact that anyone can use it for free whenever they want or need to. After looking at independent film companies I came to the conclusion that Film4 would be the best film company to use for the distribution of my film. This is because they sometimes distribute films straight through to DVD and Blu-ray so that people can buy it directly. Film4 also put films straight on TV for viewers, this means that it can be regulated and put on at specific times to make sure it's suitable for the viewers. For example after the watershed so that young children can't watch it, as it won't be suitable for their age group. So overall I'm choosing Film4 to distribute my media product, as I think it would be the best distribution company to use.

Evaluation Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social group?

My media product represents particular social groups through the main character and her personality. By having one main character the audience have something to focus on, this will help them deconstruct her traits and behaviour in the opening sequence. The main character represents particular social groups through her clothing, behaviour and attitude towards what she's doing. Her clothing is quite simplistic, which represents the simple minded and innocent people in today's society, some might say there are very few of those left and this would help people realise what type of person they are, just by looking and taking in what the main character wears. This particular social group are then represented in my media product.

The main character behaviour also represents particular social groups, she is calm and collected one minute, and the next she's angry and frustrated. This represents people with a short temper, so they can then connect with the main character and even possibly realise how they could start controlling their temper themselves. So therefore, this particular social group are represented in my media product.

A social group with a bad attitude are represented in my media pro duct through the main character and her negative outlook on things. For example, when she made a mistake on her painting she could've painted over it in a different colour, but instead she chose to ruin it and get angry. If she has a more positive attitude then she may have been able to salvage the painting, and therefore complete it to the best of her ability. This is how that particular social group are represented on my media product.

Other females in various films are represented in lots of different ways, I wanted to find some main female characters who I could compare to my own and then I found Juno. She is a young girl who I feel i could compare to my own main character as she is in a vulnerable state and in need to help. The girls situations might not be the same but their emotions and how they're feeling might be, throughout the film Juno the audience see her fall pregnant and realise what a struggle bringing up a baby would be. Even though the situation is very different from my own characters situation, I thought that the vulnerability both girls are feeling is important. This is mainly because it is obvious to the audience, through the girls body language and facial expressions. Both girls are therefore being represented negatively in the media which I felt was an effective way of addressing and highlighting certain issues to the young females of todays society.

Feedback!

In todays lesson we received feedback on our opening sequence from Eniola and Conor on what was good and what could be improved, I found this task very useful as I then knew what I needed to work on in this lesson to make my groups opening sequence better and more professional.

Film Opening Development

This is my self and peer assessment sheet.

In today's lesson my group and I completed a self assessment sheet for our opening sequence. I found this task very beneficial as I soon established what worked well in our opening sequence and what needed improving. As a group we decided that our opening sequence was strong and suitable because it provides enigma codes for the audience to deconstruct. We decided thy the titles need improving as they're not up to scratch and need to be moved so they fit into the opening sequence properly. We felt that the editing techniques were also strong as there were lots of different shot types and angles that overlapped which looked very effective. The music also needs to be improved because we've decided to get rid of the voiceover, this means that the music has to be really strong to reflect the harshness of the situation that Jodie is in. So today my group has worked on the music for our opening sequence, we have made progress in doing so which is obviously beneficial to us as we don't have long left to finish our opening sequence.

Music Maestro!

Screenshot of what we've done on GarageBand so far

In todays lesson we continued making the titles and music for our production, we're using LiveType to make the titles and GarageBand to make the music. Personally I found this to be quite a struggle as I didn't think that the music fitted in with the opening sequence that we've put together. The music for our opening sequence is a very important factor as there is no proper dialogue, just a voiceover, so we need an effective piece of music that is synchronous to what's happening in our opening sequence.

Film Company Logos

Twentieth Century Fox

Film company logos are an essential aspect in the process of making a film, they associate the film with that particular company and make them well known to the public. Film company logos have to be easily recognisable to people so they can establish the fact that they're linked with a specific film. Certain film companies produce certain films, and this will help people link the film company and a film together. Twentieth Century Fox was founded in 1935 as a result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation, and Twentieth Century Pictures. Their most popular film franchises include Star Wars, X-Men, Ice Age, Die Hard, Planet of the Apes and many more. Twentieth Century Fix have also made many TV series such as Family Guy, The Simpsons, American Dad, The X Files and 24. Twentieth Century Fox is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, and then renamed Pixar Animation Studios in 1986 with funding by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who then became its majority shareholder. Pixar has produced thirteen feature films, beginning with Toy Story which came out in 1995. It was then followed by A Bug's Life which was released in 1998, then Toy Story 2 came out in 1999. Monsters, Inc. was made in 2001, Finding Nemo was released in 2003, The Incredibles came out in 2004, and Cars was made in 2006. Ratatouille was the released in 2007, followed by WALL-E in 2008, Up in 2009, Toy Story 3 was then released in 2010, Cars 2 came out in 2011 and Brave was made in 2012.

Reckless Media Productions

The new logo for Reckless Media Productions

This is my groups film company logo, we decided on this sort of design because it's bold and easily recognisable to the viewer. It's plain and simple so people won't get confused by which film company logo it is, because it's bold people will know what company it is just by looking at it. It's not complicated or cluttered which makes it better for the audiences viewing. However, my group changed the design of our company logo because it didn't look professional when we added it to our opening sequence. We then decided, with the help from Miss Butler, that it would be better if we changed the design. Once we'd changed the company logo we felt that it looked much better than the previous one and we were happy to keep it that way for our production.

The Editing Process

Screenshot of me changing the colour of the letters of the title on LiveType

In todays Media lesson we started creating the credits for our opening sequence, as I had already created the opening title for it we didn't need to worry about that. However, Miss Butler suggested we put the title at the end of our opening sequence instead of at the beginning like we had originally done. We changed it and then realised that the letters in black wouldn't be seen because the background was too dark, so we decided to change them to grey in the hope that they would be seen. Once we put the new title into our opening sequence we realised it could be seen so we decided to keep them this colour as it looked a lot better.

The Editing Process

Screen shot of the title of our opening sequence being made on LiveType

Today I made a title for my groups opening sequence, to do this I had to use LiveType and to me this seemed quite complicated. At first I didn't understand how to use anything in the programme but after being shown what to do I found that it was easier than I had first thought. To make the title look more effective my group and I decided that one E should be in a different colour and in a different font, to represent the innocence of the main character. This will give the audience something to think about as soon as they see the title which will offer them all sorts of enigma codes to deconstruct throughout the opening sequence.

Focus Group

Today Ralph and I organised a focus group to get feedback from people about the idea we had for our opening sequence. We received some very positive feedback on our idea as they liked the storyline we had created, Scott Long helped my group to establish the enigma codes in our opening sequence by asking different types of questions about our main character and what she would be doing in our opening sequence. We then talked about about the how much we'd reveal to the audience in out opening sequence and with the help from the focus group we decided that not giving much away in our opening sequence would intrigue the audience into watching it. Becky Hagger and Kirsty Staggs then advised us to make the opening sequence subtle in order to keep the audience's attention. We'd do this by having our main character perform everyday things and seem pretty normal to the audience until the end of our opening sequence when there should be a cliffhanger to keep the audience interested in what's going to happen next.

The Editing Process

In today's lesson my group and I are continuing to edit our opening sequence, Ralph and I are concentrating on making it look professional and Dylan is working on the music for it because he is a musician and we feel that he'd be better off working on this as he hasn't been in recently when Ralph and I have been editing. Ralph and I have worked on changing the brightness on some of the shots to make them look more effective and also putting some scenes over the top of others to create an eerie effect that will intrigue the audience and keep them focused on what's happening when Jodie ruins the painting.

The Editing Process

Screen shot of me and Ralph trying out the Opacity filter.

Screen shot of me and Ralph trying out the Colour Corrector.

In today's Media lesson Ralph and I continued to edit our opening sequence footage, we played around with the Opacity levels and the colour corrector as we wanted to see if we could use any effects in our opening sequence to add a bit more ambience. We found that the Opacity levels looked really effective at some points in the footage, for example when Jodie gets the bigger paintbrush and mixes the two dark colours together we chose to reduce the Opacity levels so that the audience can see both her face and her hand with the brush in it mixing the paint together. Ralph and I tried out the Colour Corrector to see if any of the effects looked good on our footage, unfortunately we couldn't find one that fitted our footage so we decided not to use any effects.

Today we also added the voiceover to our footage, it was just a rough try but we now have it in the right place so that when we do record the proper version of the voiceover we'll know exactly where to put it. However, after some discussion about the voiceover and how necessary it is, my group and I have decided not to use a voiceover in our opening sequence. This is because we feel it may give too much away to the audience about Jodie and her situation, so we have decided to keep the whispers and just have them.

The Editing Process

Screenshot of what I've included in the opening sequence today

In today's lesson Ralph and I continued to edit our footage for our opening sequence, unfortunately Dylan isn't in today so we had to manage without him. I have done some editing today as I know how to use the Final Cut Express software now, I feel that my contributions to todays editing lesson has gone well as the editing I have done looks very good. I managed to incorporate the footage of Jodie (played by me) knocking over the easel, dropping her paintbrush and palette and kicking over the bin to wash her hands.

The Editing Process

Screen shot of the software we'll be using to edit our footage

In today's lesson we started editing the footage for my group opening sequence, my other group members started last week but I had exam revision so I didn't attend the lesson. I found this lesson a bit of a struggle because I don't know how to use the software Final Cut Express which has made my contributions to editing the footage very slim, but I am hoping to learn how to use it properly in tomorrow's lesson so I can started editing with my other two group members.

Filming Diary

On day one of filming the footage for my groups opening sequence we began filming in an art classroom because that is where we wanted our main scene to be, once we'd sorted out our props we began filming and everything was going smoothly. My group didn't experience anything bad, everything went to plan. We followed our production schedule and filmed everything at the right time, we even had extra time so we filmed some scenes more than once, this would help us greatly when it coms to putting our opening sequence together because we had a choice of different clips to use for the same scene.

On the second day of filming we had been told that we'd broken the 180 degree rule, this was a shock to us because we hadn't realised, so we filmed the scene again making sure to avoid breaking the 180 degree rule. This went well so we moved on to film outside in the street, it was cold and windy which could've been a problem for us as the character Jodie takes stuff out of her bag in the search for something and we were worried that her things might blow away. However when we started filming we found that the wind was an advantage for us, this is because it added a lonely kind of effect to Jodie as she broke down in tears and her hair blew in the wind.

This is me applying the paint in little brush strokes to look like scratches for Jodie's arm. Once we started filming I also started to scratch my arm which made it go slightly red, this helped us because it shows the audience that Jodie was very distressed and scratches her arms to relieve some of the stress she was under.








This is my arm once I'd finished applying the paint to it, the red paint made the scratches for Jodie's arm look more realistic which was good because we didn't want them to look fake and I didn't want to actually cut my arm.

Questionnaire Analysis

I found the majority of people who took my survey preferred comedic movies.

The questionnaire results are going to inform me and my group of any possible changes that we might need to make to our opening sequence to make sure it fits in with what people want to see.

I found that most people who took my survey enjoyed scary/horror movies.

When analysing my questionnaire results I found that the majority of people who took my questionnaire were male.When analysing my questionnaire results I found that the majority of people who took my questionnaire were aged between 16-19. I found that the majority of people who took my questionnaire enjoyed watching Comedies instead of any other genre.

I found that people wanted to see a dark twist in a storyline.

These are the responses I received from the people who took part in my questionnaire. They're not very detailed but they give me a good enough overview of the films that different types of people enjoy watching. I then found out how often people go to the cinema, the aspects that actually attracted people into watching a film, most people preferred the actors/actresses, storyline and trailer than anything else, what people like to see in psychological dramas, what sort of characters they'd expect to see staring in psychological dramas.


This was rather interesting as overall people expected to see a character that was suspicious and mysterious, and I thought that the character in my groups opening sequence was rather mysterious. I found the types of genres that people disliked and their reasons why, the reasons are fairly general and I was worried that whoever didn't like Dramas wouldn't be attracted in watching my groups opening sequence. Overall I think my questionnaire got some substantial results although I do wish people had taken more time to fill it out and be a bit more serious with the answers they'd given. More serious answers would have helped my group improve our idea better but I am fairly happy with the results we got.

My questionnaire results have helped me to establish what my group could include to make our opening sequence more appealing to people. For example, adding a twist to the plot will keep the audiences attention when watching the opening sequence because it will be unexpected and a shock to them. It will also offer the audience a range if different enigma codes for them to deconstruct as they won't know what is going to happen next in the story. 

Mise-En-Scene, Lighting, Sound and Editing.

During a few of my groups meetings we discussed what ideas we had for our production in the different categories which are mise-en-scene, lighting, sound and editing. Firstly we'd established who was going to take on which role during our filming process:

Chelsey Gritton as Jodie/Camera Woman/Joint Editor
Dylan Streader as the Camera Man/Main Editor
Ralph Akighbe as the Camera Man/Main Editor

Set and Props

My group filmed most of our opening sequence in this art classroom, this was good because we had a large space to use and lots of props that were at hand if we needed them. We had tables that we could film from which gave us a better range of shots to use for when it came to the editing stage, this setting was useful because no one else was there while we filmed which made Jodie look even more alone than what she was.

My group and I used a range of props during the filming of our opening sequence, these included paintbrushes, a paint palette, a sink and an apron. These were helpful when filming because it made everything look more realistic and lifelike, the props connote her artistic side which is really explored during my groups opening sequence.

Lighting

As a group we decided to use natural light because we felt it would reflect the seriousness of the situation better, this came to good use as we were filming nearly all of our opening sequence in a classroom with windows. It made everything look more natural and lonely as we want the audience to feel sorry for her because she has no one close to support her in her time of need.

Sound

During our opening sequence there is going to be a soundtrack playing, this soundtrack is going to be calm at first while Jodie paints but then when she starts getting frustrated the pace of it picks up and it begins to get darker and louder to reflect how angry Jodie is. There are also going to be whispers at times when Jodie is most angry, these whispers represent all the people she's lost and the people who think she's weird or different to the norm that is supposedly maintained in society nowadays.

Editing

During the editing process of my groups opening sequence there will be lots of jumpy camera shots to make the action look faster and more anticipating, this will be during the part when Jodie starts to get angry with herself because she's slowly ruining her painting that she's worked so hard on.

Words To Describe My Opening Sequence

This is my Word Cloud which describes the overall themes of my opening sequence.

Production Schedule

This is the video for our production schedule that we did in today's lesson, this is us explaining what's going to happen in our opening sequence and everything we're going to need in order to film it successfully.

Target Audience Profile

This is my target audience profile, for this task I was asked to create the type of person that would watch and enjoy my groups opening sequence.

This is Holly

Age: 16
Gender: Female
Occupation: Sixth Form student, studying psychology
Likes/interests: Reading, going to the gym, watching films.

Holly is interested in the brain and mind, she enjoys reading books about crimes and solving puzzles. She likes watching TV crime dramas such as CSI and Criminal Minds, when she leaves university she wants to become a Forensic scientist. She goes to the gym to keep fit and healthy and goes shopping with her friends in her spare time. She loves watching films but feels that there aren't a great deal of films targeted towards young people her age so she would like to see a film that stands out and is targeted to her age group.

Font and Opening Titles

The fonts my group experimented with

In todays Media lesson my group and I were experimenting with different types of fonts we might use for our titles for the opening sequence we're doing, we came up with these three ideas that Ralph drew out as he is the artist of the group. We've titled our opening sequence as 'SIXTEEN' because it's relevant to the young girl Jodie who is sixteen herself, we chose the first font because it looks like it's been drawn by a girl as it's bold and the curves on the letters connote Jodie's artistic side. The colour pink is going to be used in our opening sequence so we thought that putting it in the title would connote that Jodie may have wrote it as she likes the colour pink. The second type of font is a bit more unique as it isn't in a straight line, some of the letters are different sizes and it looks like 'SIXTEEN' has been written twice. Once in black and  again in pink behind it, this connotes that the film is more psychological than it seems to be in the opening sequence as it looks quite jumpy and distorted which is usually associated with psychological thrillers. Adding pink to it makes it look more feminine and not so threatening which isn't associated with psychological thrillers, this will help the audience differentiate between the two genres. The third font is more plain than the others, it connotes neatness and form as it's in a straight line and then letters are near enough the same size and width. This links in with the character of our opening sequence, Jodie, who has a mild case of OCD and doesn't like it when things aren't perfect. Unlike the other two fonts this one doesn't have any pink added to it, this is because we wanted to keep it simple to reflect Jodie's personality as she struggles with OCD.

I looked at the title sequence of 'Black Swan' and found that this title is two different colours, this inspired me to have two different colours for my groups title as it was effective in telling me what 'Black Swan' might be about. The fact that two different colours are used connotes that the main character might have two different sides to their personality, white connotes innocence and purity whereas red connotes danger, lust and love. My group wanted this sort of effect for our main character as it gives an active audience an enigma code to deconstruct. This would make their viewing of our opening sequence more enjoyable as they won't just be sitting there looking at it, it will give them a chance to think about what's going to happen and why we have used these certain colours in our title.

I also looked at the title sequence of 'Girl Interrupted' and found that this title has a girly kind of font as it looks hand written. The typography isn't straight or coherent  which gives the impression that the main character isn't a perfectionist. This title doesn't use two different colours, but the black writing on a white background really stands out.