Evaluation

· In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
With our film, we went for a British cockney gangster type of film so we used some ideas from films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Trainspotting which were our inspirations. We use different ideas from both films such as the voice over to explain the story, running down the stairs (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), freeze frames (Trainspotting), and the whole chase idea which we were inspired by from both of these films. We thought of these two films as we made our film as our film replicates what these films are about. They are both British made films which is what we have also gone for. How we have developed these ideas further is by merging the two ideas from both films together while adding our own bits such as the story and we have represented youth instead of adults because our film deals with teenagers that don't take life seriously and get into trouble. We have the cliché characters with the voice over explaining who each character is whilst simultaneously hinting at what part of the story they have a play in. for e.g. Adrian (Addy) is a rough character with a short fuse and he loves himself. So you can imagine he is the one that will probably get the group into trouble and Danny Boy as the main protaginist and leader naturally has to find a way out of the trouble. The way we challenge different films is by tackling the story straight away to get the audience involved instantly with what is going on so they feel enticed to watch the rest of the film. But while using these two films as our inspirations, using youth culture challenges the typical drug using adults. Using youth, it has more important to their lives as they are young and have their whole lives to look foward to so it has more of a dramatic effect.
· How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product represents young people in the sense that young people are the main focus of the film. They are school kids that have all been kicked out of school and have got themselves into trouble which is bigger than them. It shows morality that kids that cause trouble can end up in life and death situations for something as stupid and reckless as sleeping with a girl that you didn’t know who happens to be a mob bosses girl. This film is a British gangster film with younger people who are only 16 or 17 so essentially not even adults yet so it is bound to represent and attach to social groups such as young teenagers that do the wrong thing and it always has bad consequences in the end. Our film represents youth culture obsessed with sex, drugs and violence which as our film states is “…not necessarily the right thing.” So I think our media represents youth in school the most. While other social groups may be interested, i think that because we have decided to make this film a 15 certificate for teenagers and above and the film represents youth, then it is more likely to be popular around that age region.
· What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think that a small, British publisher will probably sign up our work as our film will only appeal to a British audience as British gangster films have never been popular off shores. So I think that a British publisher would be suitable as they will be more likely to publish a British made film, especially a gangster film. Also, it would have to be a small publisher such as Celador or Film4 as it is a new product with unknown directors and team so a big publisher would be unlikely to invest into our film. While the film will be small scale, i think a film like this can be very popular and I think that many small British based publishers would be interested in investing in our film.
· Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience that we have targeted is the British audience as we don’t think that people outside of Britain would be interested in our film as it is British based gangster film and as I have said before, they have never done well outside of Britain. I think that teenagers 15 years and over would be interested in our film as it would relate to them the most. It would also attract young and older adults who would be interested in seeing how youth can be in Britain, but as our film has a 15 age certificate, this is the age that we are centralising round and trying to attract.
· How did you attract or address your audience?
We attract our audience by first off selecting our characters as teenagers that have been kicked out of school. We show this by having flashbacks in our film to show the background of each main character to show why they have been kicked out. Each character that is featured in the opening of the film has their own specialised characteristics. Adrian is the angry guy with the short fuse that likes to get into trouble and loves himself, Tez or Tezza is the guy that deals around and cons people. He is a good talker and is very persuasive, he also likes to think he has a way with the ladies. And finally Danny Boy who is the leader of the group and is very clever which naturally makes him the leader but also is quite mouthy and thinks himself above people. These characters have very strong personalities and stand out from the crowd and are alos very funny. Using these characters, we hope to attract our audience. To attract the audience by other techniques, we started off our film with a chase scene to it would grab the audience straight away as young people would probably get bored with a slow start to a movie. This way, the audience is immediantly captivated by the film and feels enticed to watch the rest of the film. We also have techniques such as freeze frames, close ups and a wide variety of different camera techniques used. The freeze frames added humour because as we showed people the movie, a lot of poeple laughed as those bits so we thought the freeze frames were a good technique to attract our audience. We used Kasabian – Club foot as our song because it is fast and goes with the chase well. We also have Eminem – ‘Till I Collapse at the end of the song as youth like Eminem and the name of the film is called ‘Till I Collapse so it goes well when the title comes up, the song starts as well. we also added humour into our opening such as the freeze frames with extreme close ups on our face and the voice over also had humour in it which would attract the teenage audience.
· What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a lot on technology on the making of this product and i think my skills have definitely vastly improved. Before this project, I didn't know how to use Adobe Premiere Elements but now i can do things on it which i never thought i could of done before such as fading in the music on chase scenes and then fading them out on talking scenes. I have learnt some useful editing techniques as well of making the cuts looks consistent and fluent. I have also learnt how to use a HD camera for the first time in my life and while we didn't get into too much detail on the effects of the camera, we could adjust the sound, zoom, blur, etc. I also learnt how to use the tripod and how to set out the camera and the tripod correctly so we could do a variety of shots and so that the camera was safe in our shots. We also used the radio room to record the voice over so i also learnt how to use the computer and the radio station to to record our piece. So my knowledge of technology has grown on both pieces of hardware and software and i think these techniques will help me in the future.
· Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product
From my preliminary task, I have progressed so much on camera techniques, editing as there was so much more that you could do with an opening to a movie. With the preliminary, it was very restricted to what you could do as their were guidlines to what it should be such as walking across a room and having a conversation which limited the situation of the piece extremely. The opening was much more broad as you could choose a age group, have any situation and create a good opening to what you envisaged it to be. The switch from the little camera to the HD camera was much better as the quality was much better and the difference showed so much. The tripod was also much more bigger so we could actually stand up with a fixed shot rather than have the tripodon higher ground. Another annoying thing with the little camera was that you could hear the camera make a noise every time you stopped recording so each cut is interupted with a little noise which made the scene not semm as natural as the opening of our movie. Also, I felt that i could use the HD camera to do tracking and quick shots without blurring up like the little camera did. I think when you have more minds working on a project, it helps a lot more as someone can offer a second opinions to what they think is best and you can merge ideas together which is what we done. Otherwise, with the preliminary video, it was me that chose what happened but if I had other people creating it with me, it owuld have been much better. I had lots of research up to the making of the opening to our film such as questionnaires and focus groups so I could really understand what the youth audience really wanted so it would have a better reaction to them while the preliminary task did not have any research prior to the task. The finished movie product is a mixture of what we all wanted to achieve individually and ended up agreeing on and I'm extremely pleased with the finished product. With the preliminary with just me working on it, I had less opinion and therefore it wasnt as good as the main task. The editing techniques used in our main task was really good and i didnt have no editing in my preliminary apart from straight cuts as i didnt know how to do things such as freeze frames. As i look back at my preliminary video compared to our main task, the difference shows and i think i have progressed hugely. The ideas, camera work, editing and music is all better than my preliminary task. My favourite part of the movie was the beginning where the music starts exactly when the voiceover finishes and we open the door and the end where the main character gets punched and blacks out. I am extremely pleased with the finshed product of the main task whereas with the preliminary task, I was only satisfied and I think that shows the difference between the two most of all.