Evaluation

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

Opening sequences are one of the most important parts of a film. This is because they immediately inform the audience where the film is set and who the characters are. They build the story for the audience and are usually dramatic, this is to draw them in and create suspense. As our opening sequence genre is family film, we looked at previous opening sequences such as Toy Story, Pinocchio and Small Soldiers. This helped us to get an idea of the conventions used in family friendly films. It was important that the costume, setting, location, sound, camera (angles, shots and movements) and lighting used, fitted together and fitted with the genre of the opening sequence. If they didn't then the audience wouldn't understand what was going on in the sequence, which would create bad reviews. We decided that the best place to set our sequence would be in a child's bedroom (like in toy story), so we could clearly show the toys coming to life. We did this by first of all filming them still in a cupboard, and then filming them moving, making their way out of the cupboard. This was a easy way to show that they were coming to life, ensuring that the audience would understand the story completely. We filmed in daylight and used bright colours, by filming in a bright blue room and using brightly coloured toys and floor mats, this helped to create a happy, positive atmosphere, just like family films usually do. The soundtrack we used also helped to create this happy and positive atmosphere, because it was fast paced and fitted in well with the toys moving.

A group picture of the toys from Toy Story is very similar to the group picture of the toys we used in our opening sequence.



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

We had two characters in our opening sequence, Dom Bennett and David Fear.We decided to use these two because they were both comfortable in front of the camera and were also the age we wanted our main characters to be.We wanted our characters to be teenagers because we could easily use someone from our group to act in the sequence. A lot of teenagers still have toys from when they were younger, so we didn't have to worry that the age of our characters wouldn't fit with our storyline. The characters in our sequence were both boys, this doesn't mean that our sequence was targeted at the male gender, it was just easier for us to have them act because we knew that we could rely on them. They didn't wear any particular costume (just casual clothing) because our story line shows typical teenagers on a normal day with the twist of the toys coming to life. Our sequence contained no bad language or violence, so it easily passes as a family friendly film and would most likely be classed as a U certificate.


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

Film 4 distributes low budget films, so it would be the institution which would most likely distribute our low budget British independent film. Our product is gritty rather than glossy because of low budget and lack of equipment, unlike Hollywood films that have millions of pounds to spend on their films, to ensure that they produce the best product possible. Film 4 have distributed low budget films such as Slumdog millionaire (directed by Danny Doyle), which won 8 Oscars (including best motion picture of the year and best achievement in Cinematography) and received great reviews. This shows that low budget films distributed by Film 4, have just as much of a chance that high budget films have of being successful. Because film 4 have distributed films that have won many awards, and have been hugely popular with all types of audiences, we would trust it to distribute our low budget film, hoping that our product would become as successful as films like Slumdog millionaire.

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

The genre of our opening sequence is family film, it is targeted at families and is suitable for all ages. We made sure that it would be suitable for all ages, by keeping the language clean and by making sure that no violence was included. We wanted the genre of our film to be family film because we knew that most people would be creating thrillers, and we wanted our idea to be unique and attract a different audience.Whilst planning our opening sequence, we needed to think about what audience our sequence would target. It was obvious as soon as we choose our idea that our product was a family friendly film and that it would most likely be classed as a certificate U. We didn't think there was any possibility of it being classed higher than a certificate U because it doesn't contain any violence or bad language. All films are given a classification by the BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) before they are released, they do this so audiences understand what films are suitable for different age groups.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We needed to make sure that our opening sequence attracted the audience right from the beginning, if it didn't then the audience could loose interest and decide that they didn't want to watch the rest of the film. We got a few people to watch our opening sequence, and after audience feedback we realised that the audience didn't understand the storyline. We knew straight away that we would have to delete some of our footage and film some more, so that the storyline was clearer to the audience. If we didn't do this and ignored the audience feedback we received, the audience would lose interest straight away (because they wouldn't understand what was happening) and we would of failed to attract our target audience. Whilst re-filming we made sure that we added in lots of new close ups and camera angles, and changed the storyline a little bit. We did this so that our opening sequence was less confusing to the audience, to reassure us that it would attract and appeal to our audience target and would be as successful as we wanted it to be.

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

Throughout the process of developing our product, i have learnt about the different technologies and have become more comfortable with them. I had never properly used a camera before filming our preliminary and opening sequence, so when it came to filming i was not confident about using one. When we started to film our opening sequence i realised that the camera we were using (Panasonic SDR-S26) was quite easy to control and this made me feel more comfortable with filming. We used a different camera when we filmed our preliminary which was harder to control and didn't produce as good of a picture as the Panasonic did. This has made me realise that some cameras are easier to use than others and that the quality of the picture depends on the quality of the camera.

I have also learnt about the different camera angles and shots and how they can work well within a scene. I can now recognise which camera angles and shots are used in a film or in a TV programme, which i wouldn't of been able to do before. Camera angles/shots can make a scene more powerful and dramatic, and help the audience to understand the emotions a character is feeling. It was important for us to understand this, because if we were unsure about the different camera shots and angles and what effects they could create, our opening sequence may not have fitted together as well.

I have learnt new editing skills and how to use Sony Vegas (the software we used to edit). Whilst editing i picked up skills and it became clearer to me which things worked well with our product and which things didn't. First of all we added in fast edits because we thought it worked well with the toys dancing. We soon realised that it was too fast paced and this would mean that the audience wouldn't understand what was going on because they wouldn't have a chance to pick up on the small details, so we decided to slow the edits down. We played around with the different edits which helped us to discover the different tools and techniques that Sony Vegas had to offer.

We used technologies such as YouTube and Facebook to get feedback on our product, which helped us to improve any flaws that we had. Without all of these technologies our product wouldn't be anywhere near as successful as it is now, this shows how important technologies are.

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

In the progression from our preliminary to our main opening sequence, i feel that i have learnt a lot. Our preliminary piece made us more aware of the mistakes that you can make whilst filming and editing. We learnt from these mistakes and made sure that the same mistakes wouldn't be made in our main opening sequence. We were unaware of background noises whilst filming our preliminary, so when we put all the clips together, you could hear noise in the background, this meant that the it clips didn't flow into each other as well as we expected them too. So we made sure that when filming our opening sequence, it was quite so that we wouldn't make this mistake again.

We also picked up new editing skills in the progression from our preliminary to our main opening sequence. We didn't use much editing in our preliminary, just a simple black and white effect, a fade effect (to help each clip merge into each other) and a few fast edits. This meant that when we started to edit our opening sequence we had to experiment with all the different edits that Sony Vegas has, so that we would become more familiar with them and know which edits worked best with our product.

Because we learnt from our mistakes and picked up new techniques, we knew that our opening sequence would be a lot better than our preliminary piece was, which is what we hoped we would achieve from the start.