Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

In my final media product ‘My Perfect Life’ I used and developed conventions of a real media product. I did this mainly by using my research prior to the making of my film opening in which I found the Genre ‘Teen Drama’; a subcategory of Drama that includes ‘Soap Opera’ elements. These elements ‘allow the young adult characters to grow and develop over time while facing an array of "realistic" teen issues’.
From this description I was able to concentrate on other Teen Dramas in order to study their conventions and also rule out other sub genres of Drama that did not fit in with the genre that I had chosen. By doing this I was able to know what is expected of a Teen Drama.



Above is my media contact sheet, the first frame is of my Title which enters onto a black screen at the end of the opening sequence. I think that the Title of the film opening; ‘My Perfect Life’, fits in with the conventions of what is expected of a Teen Drama as it is ironic and this therefore fits in with the stereotypical ideologies that come with the Genre; upon seeing the opening of the film it is clear that the main characters’ life is not at all as perfect as it seems, and she is indeed faced with ‘realistic teen issues’. The title comes in at the end of the opening sequence as it makes this idea more obvious to the viewers.
The second frame is of my establishing shot which is of a word document saying ‘dear diary’; I decided to open the film with this shot because it establishes the idea of the younger generation being linked with the use of computers, therefore reinforcing the fact that it is a Teen film.

The third frame that I chose is of the setting, this shot anchors the idea of a teen genre as it is of a girl’s bedroom – this is shown through the toys and feminine looking pillows on the bed, as well as the bottles of perfume and make up shown on the table as the camera pans.

The fourth and fifth frames show the costumes of the characters. As I had originally planned (also shown through my polyvore collages that I made for my characters) the secondary character ‘Jasmine’ is wearing all black and plain clothes in order to reflect the idea of neatness and simplicity of the character.

A convention which I have developed would be the reality of the issue that I have used In my film which is shown through multiple techniques, an example of one would be how characters are introduced, i.e. the voice over in the beginning that introduces the main character as someone who is struggling. The fact that it is the voice of the main character suggests a drama as she is voicing her strong feelings, which are in contrast to the bright and colourful surroundings of her room. The introduction of her sister who is ‘scrubbing’ her hands with a toothbrush vigorously shows the reason as to why this girls life isn’t ‘perfect’ which therefore anchors the feelings evoked through the voiceover and reinforces the Genre of the film.

I did not use any special effects in my film opening as this would go against the conventions of the Genre as it would make my film unrealistic, and the Genre of Drama usually contains themes that are very realistic, using special effects in my film would therefore make it less believable.

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

The opening of ‘My Perfect Life’ represents two particular social groups, firstly the protagonist, a popular girl, and her sister who has OCD.


The character Emma from the TV series ‘Glee’ is similar to the main characters sister because of this, in a recent episode Emma shows the true extent to her OCD as she scrubs the table vigorously with a toothbrush– in the same way that ‘Jasmine’ does with her own hands in ‘My Perfect Life’


However, there are some differences between them such as the fact that ‘Glee’ is a comedy series and ‘My Perfect Life’ is a drama and the extent of Jasmines character is portrayed more poignantly.

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

The Media institution ‘New Line Cinema’ might distribute ‘My Perfect Life’ as it is a British based company that has already produced lots of drama’s such as ‘My Sisters Keeper’, which is very similar to ‘My Perfect Life’.
My sisters’ keeper is focuses on the lives of Anna Fitzgerald and her sister Kate, who has Lukemia. All her life Anna has lived in the shadow of her sister, helping her to remain alive, but finally seeks medical emancipation when her sister is in need of her kidney.

This is similar to the protagonist in 'My Perfect Life's' situation in the idea that she also seems to have to take care of her sister and also has become tired and frustrated with her situation.

Another Production company that may be interested in distributing my film would be 'Celador Films' as they are a UK based company that have produced many drama films, one of these being 'The Scouting Book For Boys', which is also a teen drama. The film is set in a coastal area and features the lives of two teenagers, David and Emily who both live permanently on the same caravan site. When David learns that his only friend in the world has to move far away to her Dad's, he agrees to help her while she hides out in a remote cave on the beach. As his feelings for her grow more and more complicated so does their seemingly innocent situation as secrets come to light, and things take a sinister turn.

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

My Primary target audience for my media product would be Teenagers, mostly girls, as it is a Teen Drama. However, my media product could also aim towards older viewers as well.
This could be due to the fact that teenagers may be attracted to watching films that relate to their lives and have a sense of realism where they can see similarities, i.e. the idea that you can be popular and unpopular and still face struggles. On the other hand, older viewers may want to watch something that is completely different from there lives so that they can visualise realistic issues of others that they haven't experienced before.

I think the average viewer for my film in particular, not just the genre of 'Teen Drama' (which covers a lot of other sub genres i.e. comedy series such as Misfits) would be a Teenage girl as the main protagonist and secondary character are both teenage girls and so they may be able to relate to the character.

The typical audience member will be averagely aged 16-18 years old as some one of this age, especially a girl, will be able to relate to the topic of my film opening. She will most probably be quite girly and average and enjoy activities such as shopping, seeing her friends and listening to music (of most genres but probably not rap, hip hop or other music genres of that style). Her favourite artists being Ke$ha, Katy Perry, and also a variety of Pop/Rock Bands such as Boys Like Girls, All Time Low and You Me At Six.

She enjoys films similar to 'My Perfect Life' such as My Sisters Keeper and other dramas such as Remember Me, The Notebook, The Kite Runner and The Scouting Book For Boys. She will also enjoy watching TV programmes such as Misfits and Skins and Soap Operas such as Eastenders and Coronation street.

She Will most probably shop in places such as top shop, Miss Selfridge, River Island and other popular 'high street' shops, over designer shops as she will still be able to buy nice fashionable clothes at an affordable price.

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

In order to attract my audience I used multiple props in the beginning of my film such as perfumes by Chloe and Britney Spears and make up by No 7 - this would attract an audience, especially teenage girls, as they are all popular labels that are recognised by women and teenagers. Including these brands in my film makes my film more appealing to these women as they can relate to the characters and see that they have similar interests and hobbies as well as further reflecting the interests of the target audience.

Another thing that I included in the opening of the film is a 'Tatty Teddy', a well known brand of teddy bears that are made by a company called 'Me To You', this will appeal to the target audience as they are cute and feminine.

In a focus group I asked members of my target audience whether they like/would watch my film and whether they feel like their lives have been addressed through my opening. Key responses are as follows:

"Use of the diary format is key to attracting teenagers as so much angst/important struggles are recorded in this way. In addition, people now use blogs in order to more publicly air their lives"

"The setting of the girl's room at the beginning of the opening is important as it establishes the main protagonist's life as a popular and successful young lady. The images of friends in photos and recognisable cosmetics highlight a typical girl's lifestyle too- my room looks very similar mixing aspects of the childish me with the more grown up self I am becoming"

"The font you have used for your titles is effective because it fits in with the traditional diary writing style. However I don't like the inconsistency of the movement/fades- it seems unfinished." I think it is important to realise how I could have improved my piece and I think this point is crucial. I would stick to one style throughout next time in line with film conventions I have studied.

"I think the use of important social issues is important in social drama and I know someone who suffers from OCD so it makes me want to watch your film and learn from it to help/understand my friend more." I am proud of this feedback because Teen Drama is supposed to affect audience members in this way and therefore I feel I have achieved a small success here.

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

During the processes of making my film opening I have learnt a lot about technology and developed my skills in handling equipment and working wit

h programmes such as 'Final Cut Express' and 'iMovie.

Filming:

When it came to filming I did not experience any problems as I was working on my own and this meant that I did not have to rely on any one else in

order to start my filming.

I learnt that the easiest way to film, which also made the processes of editing a lot easier is by shooting scenes separately and in a logical manner - especially chronologically as this meant that I could organise clips onto my timeline more easily. Another thing that I learnt during filming was that it is good to carry on the film for a few seconds after the scene has ended as this gave me more control over the editing processes as it enabled me to be able to edit down my scenes if necessary - I found that it is better to have footage you may not need than not have that extended bit footage and then find that you need it when it comes to editing.

-Zoom: I found that using zoom during filming would make the film look more unprofessional as well as making it more difficult to edit during the editing processes - instead of zooming mid film i learnt that in order to get the close up shots that I wanted it would be easier to zoom the camera in first and then start shooting or even more simply, moving closer to the shot I wanted to take instead as this was a lot more efficient as it improved the quality of the picture.

-Tripod: One piece of equipment that I used at all times during my filming was the Tripod, as I found that it make my footage a lot smoother, straighter and more professional looking in comparison to how it would have if I had filmed with it handheld - it also was helpful as it meant that I could adjust the height of the camera and be able to take accurate point of view shots instead of the camera tilting downwards and looking unprofessional.

I think that overall the filming of my film opening went quite smoothly and there was not any major complications.

Editing:

When it came to editing I used a programme called Final Cut Express, which I had previously used to create an Animatronics before the making of my film. This was in order to get used to the software and get an idea of how to use some of the basic techniques necessary for the making of my film.

Despite the fact that the software was quite complicated, I found that all the transitions and cuts that I needed to make and include in the editing of my film were fairly straightforward tasks to perform and so I did not have many issues with using the software. I did not use any complicated effects such as the speeding up of clips like other groups as this is not something that I needed to use in my film as it would not fit in with the conventions of the Genre.

-Sound: One thing that I learnt to do during the editing process which I think is useful and also something which I think I managed to do quite effectively is putting together my layers of sound. I had both a voice over, sound from the video and a soundtrack that came in halfway through the film. The voice over was extremely easy to produce and upload and took a matter of minutes, excluding prior planning of the speech, and the soundtrack which I got from the Educational Audio Network and is copyright free (https://audionetwork.lgfl.org.uk), was also very easy to place onto my film as an extra layer of sound. The only complication that I experienced with sound when editing my film was that initially, I did not understand how to mute the sound of the video after a certain point (as the soundtrack came in halfway through the film and I wanted to exclude any background noise) and I could not mute the whole layer of sound for the video as this would mute the characters speech in the beginning of the film. I soon learnt,through the use of the internet, that like clips certain sections of sound can be deleted without deleting the video and so this meant that I could just delete the sound that I didn't want after that certain point, therefore resolving my initial problem.

-Credits: Prior to making my film, I already had a clear idea of where I wanted to place my credits, I also thought about this during the filming process, which Influenced my choices of shots quite a bit. For example, the shot where the main character opens the door to the bathroom was a good shot to place a credit on as I could fade the credit in at the beginning of the shot and then fade it out when the door is pushed open - and the same for when the main character is closing the door. At this point in the editing process (creating credits) I initially needed to find a suitable font to reflect the Genre of the film, and so I used the internet to download a new font which I thought was fitting. I downloaded the font named 'Callie Hand' from a website called 'dafont.com' (http://www.dafont.com/callie-kaiser.d2987) which I thought was very useful as it had a wide range of different fonts to reflect different Genres.

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

Looking back at the continuity task, the amount of research, planning, filming and editing that went into creating it was significantly less than the amount that had to be put into the full product.

Firstly, for the continuity task I used iMovie as the editing software which in comparison to Final Cut Express, is a much easier software to use because of it's simplicity - although it would have been an inappropriate programme to use for my final piece as I needed to be able to use the more complicated software in order to create a successful and effective film opening. The intricacies of the technology used for the final piece (Final Cut Express) were not particularly necessary for the continuity exercise as it was not in need of much editing or credits as it was primarily a task to show how to use the equipment efficiently and get us used to the processes in which a film is made.

I have learnt that planning and organisation is key when it comes to producing a film, but being open to being able to change things if something is to go wrong is also important, as initially planning for the continuity task was very precise and we knew exactly what type of shots we would be making, but when it came to creating our full product not all shots were set in stone. I came across a few complications when I found that certain shots that I originally thought would work ended up being a complete failure as there were mirrors involved and the camera would be seen which would have broken away from the film and made it feel unrealistic. To solve this I had to quickly change around some of my shots.

I realised that staying organised, especially with my blog also played an important part in the completion of my full product as it was the only way I could continue with my media coursework outside of school after the film processes as I had to do all the editing inside school on the Apple Macs.

In between the time of completing my preliminary task and completing the final version of my film opening, I learnt the planning is also majorly difference in regards to things like props and the mise-en-scene which are both aspects that I had to plan in incredible detail. All items that I placed within shots, were there for a reason and had been planned very carefully.

I only came to the realisation of the amount of work that went into the film industry in order to produce films when I began creating my film opening; in my research prior to the making of the film I found that there were a wide range of roles that are involved in producing films, ranging from things such as cinematography to producers and costume design and make up, all of which are equally important in the production of film.