Media Evaluation

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

In the opening of our film we wanted to set a basis of our narrative, we tried to do this by showing a low angle shot and a over the shoulder shot of a policemen walking into an integration room to question a teenage boy, we also used a medium shot to show the teenager sat down looking upset, we did this to try and set the narrative of our film by showing the fact the teenager is being question and is upset of being interrogated and because of the event that he is being interrogated over, the opening of our film is different to some of the other films that are in the same genre. The opening integration scene suits the genre of our film because it gives the basis of the narrative by showing that there’s been a crime and someone is being interrogated over it.

Our opening two minutes of out film is very much like bullet boy in terms of location, the opening of bullet boy shows the main character getting in out of jail and is set in a police station were as ours is seeing our main character in a police station being interrogated over a crime, But Bullet Boy’s opening is different to ours because it’s showing the main character getting out of trouble were ours is showing someone getting in to trouble, this is a binary opposition. The costume in our film links to the conventions of a crime thriller, we use hoodies and tracksuits for the thugs because this is what you would traditionally think gangs/thugs would were in this particular genre of film. The setting for our two minutes also links to the conventions of a crime thriller because we filmed them in a rundown, grubby ally way because we feel this is where thugs would hang out, the reason we used this particular ally way is because you can see the litter on the floor portraying that this is a regular spot for the thugs. Because our film is a crime thriller and includes thugs we wanted to try and make the language more believable, although our thugs did not have much dialogue, the little they did have we wanted to make them sound intimidating and to make them speak in a slang. In our two minuet opening we try to use dark and gloomy lighting due to the fact that traditionally in crime thrillers the lighting is dark to show to crime/violent element of the film. We use flashbacks in our two minuet opening to try and give a basis narrative of one of the reason to why the teenager is being interrogated, we feel that the flashbacks give the audience an idea of how the teenager got involved in the gang in the first place and also give them a general idea of who the main thugs are and how they managed to intimidate him and persuade him to join there gang.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product really focuses on the thug/gang social group, although in our media product we only show two thugs and not a whole gang, these two characters still represent the type of thugs you get in a gang. The scene that shows our thugs is set in an ally way which is were you traditionally think a gang/thugs would hang out, we tried to use a ally which is rundown, not maintained and has graffiti on the walls to show that this would be a regular place that these thugs would be, we also used this ally to try and make it look intimidating.

Our thugs dressed up in what we feel thugs and gangs wear, so that was a hoodie and a jacket, one of the thugs had their hood up and other had their jacket zipped up to the top. We didn't give the thugs much dialogue but the little they did have we tried to make them sound intimidating and try and make them speak there lines in the slang that you traditionally think a thug/gangs would speak like. We tried to make the gang also sound aggressive and be aggressive we tried to do this through the few lines of dialogue and by having the main thug grab Chris (the main character) the throat, this portrays how aggressive the thugs can be and how they are will to cause trouble over nothing.

We used a variety of effects to try and portray the thug/gang social group, for example we used the slow motion effect when Chris is being approached to show how intimidating a group of thugs can be and the fear and worry you would get when walking up to thugs with there hoods up and not showing there face.

The reputation of a gang/thug is not good, they are seen as very intimidating and as bully’s, this is what we tried to portray in our media product we got the two thugs to walk up to the main character very slowly with one of them with the hood up and other with there jacket up covering the bottom half of his face, we did this to make them seem intimidating, we then tried to make it seem like the two are picking on the main character and trying to cause trouble, We are also trying to get across that thugs/gangs can easy manipulate a person to have control over them by being intimidating. Also due to the thugs having control of the main character it has made the main character afraid to tell in fear of what they might do if they ever found out he told, this relates to the gang/thug social group in the real world because you often hear that people are afraid to talk about them due to being worried about what they might do if they gang/thug find out that they have told on them, this is usually referred to as being a 'snitch'.

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

If are film was to be released we would only release it in the UK first, the reason for this is because people that are from and grow up in America may not understand the storyline or some of the references. Also the reason would make it exclusive to the UK is more people would be able to relate to the films, and due to the fact that its set in the UK it will be more appealing to people who live here.

Our media film would not be a mainstream film, it would be realised as an independent film, If we were to choose a company that would be most likely to distribute our media product it would likely to be the same customer that distributed Kidulthood which is Revolver Entertainment, they have distribute around 176 films since 2001, they were behind that massive hit Kidulthood, this makes them a good choice for distributing a crime thriller. If a channel was to play our film I feel that it would be Channel 4 because they normally play a wide variety of films and TV shows that are in multiple genre. A lot of teenagers are likely to watch Channel 4 because they show a lot of shows that cater for that audience therefore our film would also cater for their needs as the character are around the audience age and the audience may relate to the film. There are three film companies that worked on Kidulthood, we feel that these would be a very good choice of companies to distribute our media product because they are all based in England and have a better understand of English thugs and gangs, they are also all independent so we feel it would be better to have independent films work together. We also feel that it would be better if an English film company distributed out film because if a big Hollywood film company distributed it then it may not have the desired effect because they would not know much about how English thugs/gangs work and how they are because independent English film companies would understand how they speak and how they dress better than a big Hollywood film company would work.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The main age group that our media product would be aimed at would be the 16-20 year old age group, This is because the characters from the film are around these ages, also teenagers are more likely to watch the film due to the successes of Kidulthood and Adulthood that are both aimed at that age group, and these two film are the same genre as ours, the storyline to out film is also very appealing to this age group as people can relate a lot more to the characters and have a lot more knowledge of the situation being shown in the film than maybe a 35 year old would.

The film is mainly aimed at the male gender because I feel that this film would be a lot more appealing to the male gender, this is because from talking to other students and other people in my class I have found out that the genre is more suited to the male gender and is more likely to appeal to them. I don’t believe that the female gender would tend to watch a film about gangs but if they were to I believe they would be around the 16-18 gender as the genre may appeal to them more at this age, the reason I dont believe it would appeal to them is because I feel they would not enjoy this genre of film and would not choose to watch it over another genre.

I the genre type I feel is not something that a person over the 35 would enjoy, I also feel that anyone over the age of 35 may not understand references in film because they have grown up in a different generation to what the teenagers nowadays are. I also feel that they would not choose or enjoy a film like this because they would not understand to language used in the film or would not understand the references or may not enjoy or agree with the material involved, they may also not like watching films with a lot of swearing.

The film would not be suitable for anyone under the age of 15 as the material in the film may not be suitable for someone under this age, for example the film would included a lot of swearing and a lot of references to drugs and other explicit material,

The certificate of the film will be a 15, this is because our film will include strong violence, frequent strong language and occasionally drug taking. Having this certificate does not really affect out target audience as we feel are target audience will be around 16-20 and already we knew at the start of the project that the film was not going to be suitable for anyone under the age of 15.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We tried to add as much as we could in an attempt to meet the codes and conventions of a crime thriller because we feel that this is a popular genre, We also tried to aim at teenagers around the same ages of the characters, we did this because we feel that this would appeal more to teenagers as they may be able to relate more to the characters and to the storyline.

In this scene we tried to make it seem to the audience that its a flashback to when the main character first met the gang, We tried to set the flashbacks in a dark, gloomy, rundown ally to show that this is a place a gang would hang out, This would address audience as it would set the crime thriller scene as this is a place, we also tried to make the scene look intimidating by changing the colour of the scene to black and white.

In all of our flashbacks we have tried to make them all look the same, in this flashback you see two of the gang members walk down the ally both wearing what you would typically think a thugs/gangs would wear, This address the audience/attract because they are wearing what they would expect gangs to wear.

This is what you would traditionally expect an investigator to wear in a crime thriller, He is smartly dresses with a suit, The teenager being interrogated is nervous and does not want to tell the investigator anything this address/attracts the audience as it sets the story of the film, it sets the narrative because it tells them that the gang have control over Chris and have made him worried about telling the investigator anything about the gang and not telling him any names.

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

IMovie allowed me to easily create my media product, the features of IMovie allowed me too import, edit and add effects easily, Importing the clips from the camera we were using was very simple, apart from the fact there was some difficulties, we still managed to import are clips with any major difficulties, to import our recorded it was a matter of clicking a button to search for the camera that's plugged in then checking all the boxes for the clips you want to import then simply pressing import, the importing process takes about 30 seconds per clip. Once I managed to import the clips its was just a matter of dragging the clips in to the correct places and trimming them down to get the best shots. There are many different effects you can use on IMovie but the main one I used was slow motion and changing the colour for our flashbacks, the slow motion tool was perfect for a few of our flashbacks was it gave us the desired effect we were after which was to show the thugs as intimidating and to show the fear that our main character was feeling and changing the colour of our scene to black and white allowed us to show that the character was having flashbacks during the interrogation.

Blogger has been a very helpful program during my project due to the fact it allowed me to post all my groups idea and allows us to post everything that was happening in our task, publishing a post was very simple and quick, and also the fact that my teacher could follow my blog and consistently see my post was very helpful because it meant that I was able to get feedback on what I needed to improve on.

The camera we used was a vital part of out film due the quality of the camera I don't think we would have got as good of shots if we used a smaller, cheaper camera, the camera allowed us to film in HD which allows us to get the quality so that we could put slow motion effects and put the colour to black and white without the video quality changing. The camera was also very easy to use, this was very good for us as non of us are expects at using cameras so the fact it was easy to record was a big help, also zooming in was very easy for us because there was many different types of zooming in and out so this allows us to zoom when recording without it looking jumpy, also setting up the microphone for it was very easy as all we had to do was plug it in to the port and secure it, and the fact that the microphone was of very good quality allowed us to pick noises that added to the scenes and to pick up out actors voices when they were not speaking the loudest, although we did not use it the camera had lots of very helpful effects like filming in slow motion but we found it would be easier for us to add the slow motion in on IMovie.

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

In our preliminary task we used very minimal effects, camera shots. Since then I have learned a lot about how effects can really change the way a media product comes across, within our media product we used a verity of slow motion and and black and white coloring to show the narrative of the film and to give the audience an sense of what is going on by using the effects to show the flashbacks, were as in our preliminary task we made the whole 30 seconds in black and white and the majority of it in slow motion I feel that we used too many effects in the preliminary task because as soon as it starts its already in slow motion, were as in our main task we only put the effects in for the flashbacks and I feel this was a lot more powerful and effective. With the effects I also learned how to improve my editing because I had more clips to edit and put them together to create the finished product, using IMovie gave me a greater understanding of how to edit for future projects.

The progression from the preliminary task to the final product I learned a lot about the codes and conventions of a crime thriller. One of the main points I learned about was that we needed to make our actors realistic thug/gang members, We gad to think about how we could do this and we had trouble doing this in out first attempt and filming the task, the reason we had a problem is because the costume we tried using was not typically what you would think and thug/gang member would use so we had to try and find a way to make the actors more realistic so we ended up having me and Lewis play the thugs/gang members and we used hoodies and jackets that we feel a thug/gang member would wear. The other problem we had was the setting we used in the first attempt, we decided to record right outside the school which was a bad idea because its a middle class area and did not seem like the type of area thugs/gang members would live, the in the second attempt we changed location and filmed in a allyway which was very rundown and had graffiti on the walls, we mainly choose this location because we feel that this is were you would typically expect a thugs/gangs to hang around at, So I learned a lot about how in order to set a narrative and to meet the codes and conventions of your media product that is it is necessary to make the characters and setting to match the story line and genre because if they don’t then the audience would not be able to understand the story and your film will not make sense.

Callum Scott AS Media

Tuesday, 29 April 2014

Media Film Final Product

Filming Schedule

Tuesday, 1 April 2014