Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Evaluation Question 1

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

Conventions of film openings: Title sequence, narrative titles, ident/logo, establishing shots, the genre is set up, protagonist(s) are introduced, music/sound.

Film openings set up the rest of the scene and introduce the characters.

Title sequences must follow a strict order similarly to real film openings as we are trying to keep our opening sequence to our film as professional and realistic as possible.

Most films follow the order of: distribution company, production company, starring actors, film title, featuring actors, casting director, costume designer, music by, edited by, production designer, director of photographer, executive producers, written by, directed by.

We have followed the conventions of title sequence to maintain a realistic look to our opening sequence, this will attract people to watch it if it looks similar to existing films.

Click below for a photo collage of our title credits
A photo collage of our title credits

Conventional themes portrayed in our opening sequence included themes of partying, both characters attending school (common of a teen film), the girly girl and the more nerdy girl. These themes are relatable for our target audience as teenage girls will have experienced or have witnessed these things.

Ways we have used camera work, editing, mise en scene and sound to follow the conventions of real media products:

Camera work: We used a variety of shot types, shot angles and shot movement in order to maintain an interest to convey different types of emotion. Making sure we have good shots that are in focus will allow us to insure a professional look to our opening sequence. We used many close up shots to show the emotion of the character, this lets the audience to emphasize with the characters and relate to their situation.

Editing: We have followed the conventions of films by using match cuts and continuity editing. Our opening sequence is quite fast paced allowing all the action to happen and to keep up with the lives of teenagers as they're always busy either studying or having fun.

Mise en scene: Both characters are dressed appropriately for their stereotype, the party girl in a little black dress and the nerdy girl in pyjamas. After, they both get changed into school uniform, this conforms to the conventions of a teen drama as most teen films are set in school or around school environment.

Sound: Sound is important in our opening sequence to establish a fun and upbeat feel to our opening sequence, it engages with the audience. We used two main pieces of music, a classic song and a house music track. The classic 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' relates to many girls and is well known to many people, and 'Ready For Your Love' is a new innovative track that would be known by many teenagers of today.

The editing, mise en scene, sound and camera work we have used is typical of a teen film, we did this to keep to the conventions that are already made and conform to stereotypes.

The storyline and themes developed in our opening sequence are typical of a teen drama as many teen dramas are set around the school environment and the daily struggles (whether it be partying or studying) of teenagers, showing the reality of teenagers in the 21st century.

The name for our film Double Trouble, and use of titles reinforce the generic identity of our opening sequence as all the titles in our opening sequence are pink, which is a connotation of feminine attributes and conveys a fun, girly theme to our teen drama/chick flick.

We have stuck to many of the conventions within the narrative, themes, characters and film style.


Evaluation Question 2

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

 
Julie Luong's Slidely by Slidely Slideshow

Representation: how something is expressed and described. 

We have represented the rebellious party girl and the good schoolgirl in our opening sequence. We have presented the stereotype of the rebel as negative whilst the stereotype of the nerd as positive. We have done this by showing the party girl come home late whilst the nerd is sleeping with many study guides around her, showing her academic dedication whilst the party girl enjoys herself. The binary oppositions explore the stereotypes of our two characters.

This over the shoulder shot into the mirror was inspired by Skins as this shot shows the extent of the party and rebellion, and how it is used to get rid of all last nights evidence.
The character of Analiza, who plays the rebellious party girl was inspired by Effy from Skins. Effy is seen sneaking home after a rough night out and we have used a similar shot here with Analiza showing her sneak up the stairs. The lighting is similar as we had to keep it realistic, as it would still be slightly dark when the rebellious teenagers sneak home before school.
The character of Julie was inspired by Betty from Ugly Betty.
We were inspired from this high angle birds eye shot of Tony in bed and have incorporated this into this shot of Julie asleep. 


In this split screen, it is clear to us that Julie (the nerd) is rushing as she is late for school, up late studying however although Analiza (the party girl) is late, after partying she is relaxed and casual in getting ready for school.

When the two girls leave for school we can see the clear contrast between the two. Analiza (left) is seen in a short skirt where as Julie (right) is seen in a long skirt and long sleeves. This also shows the contrast as Analiza's room is pink whilst Julie's room is neutral, illuminating their clear differences.



Evaluation Question 3

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




This is our Facebook page where we have promoted our opening sequence to Double Trouble.

Evaluation Question 4

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

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Evaluation Question 5

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





Evaluation Question 6

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

We have used Final Cut Pro, Motion 4, Creative commons, JVC cameras.

My Animoto Video


We used Final Cut Pro to edit our shots, put them together and create match cuts and continuity editing. This technology allowed us to add music, sound effects, transition effects which helped us to maintain a  a professional and create more interest and engagement with our audience. During editing we had to import the clips from the SD card, then we put it into the Mac, putting the footage into our hard drive and started to edit.

We have used Blogger, in order to document our planning and research up to the making of Double Trouble, this has allowed us to look back on previous work and work on our research. Through Blogger, I have also learnt new technologies to integrate with our blog such as Timetoast for production schedules, prezis for presentations.

 Motion 4 is a software we used to make the production and distribution indents for our opening sequence, we learnt how to use this software using a YouTube tutorial. This is conventional of film openings as all films have a production and distribution ident at the start in order to establish the companies and give them recognition for their work.

Creative commons is a platform where we can find copyright free music and sounds to use in our opening sequence. At the start I wasn't aware of how many sounds were copyrighted and unable to use in our work so we went through many music and sounds before we found ones suited to our genre.

JVC cameras are the cameras we have recorded both our preliminary and final task with. I have learnt how to focus, zoom, record, watch clips back, delete clips and generally use the camera efficiently.

 We also used the internet to research ideas for inspiration on our opening sequence, looking at existing films of our genre, teen drama and chick flick.

Technology has been very important in the process of constructing of our opening sequence in many ways, through actual filming, planning, editing and blogging.