Here it is!

Right, so here it is, after all this time filming and editing, its finally been uploaded. I have enjoyed my time thoroughly creating this video which I am extremely please of. I have posted the video below. Enjoy!

Evaluation

Question One: "In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"

My media product is a comedy showing a funny twist of the every day life of teenagers, whilst attending secondary school.  The title sequence shows a teenage girl getting ready and meeting a teenage boy, who is her best friend, on the street.  It is very realistic and it represents how normal people, and not those seen in glossy Hollywood films, get ready.  The boy and girl are very close and yet there is no romance between them.  Some people might find this hard to understand as usually a relationship like this would end up as a romantic affair.  A coming of age comedy featuring a boy and girl is quite unusual.  'The inbetweeners' shows how difficult it is for a group of boys  to relate to the opposite sex and Mean Girls, illustrates how important status is to a group of girls and how cruel they can be to one another.  The results of my questionnaire show that teenagers between the ages of 15 to 18 would like to see more realistic dramas.

Originally my plans involved 2 boys, but I changed it due to not being able to find suitable actors.  However, I am pleased with the new arrangement as it makes it easier for both boys and girls to relate to it.  It also means that I couldn't rely on the obvious jokes about sex.  The two main characters are mature for their age, which is 17.  Their relative maturity means that they are social outcasts in school, but they do have a good life outside of school.  At school they often find themselves in unfortunate situations as a result of being teased or picked on.    A can of coke explodes all over them, they stand in chewing gum and prank calls are made to them.

The editing I used at the beginning of the title sequence was fast cut, hip hop montage, so you can see the different stages of her getting ready.  You can see from the mise-en-scene that this is an average girl's bedroom and nothing out of the ordinary.  I have edited the sound of an alarm over the track so the audience can hear when she gets up. When the main character is leaving the house you can see that she is a happy character and this is reflected by the way she walks and her facile expressions, this shows the audience that she is a happy and fun character, showing her and the audience can be at a more personal level. This is also clear with the male main character- his walk is uplifted and his also has a happy facile expression, again this is giving the audience a insight into the character at a more personal level. 

The locations that I have chosen for my opening sequence develop  media conventions by using the same idea of having a normal housing estate like in "The Inbertweeners", this shows that they aren't different like students are shown in Hollywood productions, but they live in the normal world. By doing this it lets the audience feel they have a connection with the characters as they are the same. I have developed the idea of this by using the station and the train as part of my opening sequence, it is rare that in comedy's like these that you see walking and another means of transport. 

The use of sound in my opening sequence was inspired by watching other opening sequences, I found the song and tune from "Little Boxes" a relevant and upbeat song. I asked my friend to play the sound track and sing for my opening sequence and then increased the height of this voice so that I gave the song a comic twist. I chose the song as the words relate very strongly to what they are doing in my opening sequence- the song tells its own story of everyone doing the same thing all fitting into "little boxes" and in the opening sequence you can see what every student does every day- getting ready and travailing to school. I feel the song tune works very well and in time with the camera movements. 

Question Two: "How does your media product represent particular social groups?"

My title sequence represents several social groups, these social groups are; 15-20 year old students or past students, female and male, unlucky/ awkward people.

The age group of 15-20 is represented in my opening sequence as the age gap that my characters are, this is obvious as they are going to school, this is shown by what they are wearing (mise-en-scene) when they are walking to school, it is clear from what the characters are doing that they are students and there age rage. I believe that my title sequence represents 15-20 year old students very well as I used two 17 year old actors, there age is then reflected though what they do and the way that they are in school uniform shows how they are students.

The way I represent female and male social groups is by using both male and female actors, I have made them seem equal to each other and them to seem friends. This lets male and female audiences relate to my title sequence.

My last social group that I have represented is unlucky/ awkward people- the reason for this is to show how everyone can be unlucky but some are extremely unlucky- my title sequence is braised on being a comedy of unluckiness and how awkward and uncomfortable things happen to the character. I feel that people that feel like they are unlucky will relate to there problems and feel the same way.

Question Three: "What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that Film4 would distribute my media product (my title sequence), I believe this because Film4 distribute young and new to the media world directors- the reason for this is that they are known for quirky and different British dramas, they are very different from the Hollywood institutions as they do more realistic and extreme films and documentaries. 

Film4 distributed the film "The INbertweeners Movie" which as been some of the inspiration for my title sequence, as there film is about teenage boys coming of age, they also aren't lucky and they are similar to how I have tried to make my character in some parts of the personalities. I feel because of the similarities between my title sequence and The Inbertweeners Film4 are the most likely fit. 

Film4 aren't a well funded institution like the Hollywood distributors as there budget it 10 million and the Hollywood industry's are 200 million- this is shown in the "glossiness" of the Hollywood films and how they use the well know actors, Film4 is more "gritty" English realism and shows a different side to the film industry. Film4 was founded in 1982 as a film production company and since then has gone to a subscription channel and now just distributing films. Film4 is the UK's best known film distributor and in now run by Tessa Ross. 

The kinds of people that watch Film4 films like "The Inbertweeners movie, Shaun Of The Dead and When Harry Met Sally, will all be the age group of 15-2 year old's that will watch my media production and this is why I feel that Film4 would be the perfect distributor for my media production. 

Question Four: "Who would be the audience for your media product?"

The target audience for my media production would be 15-20 year olds, both male and female and lower class to middle class British people.  

The reason my target audience is raging between 15-20 year olds is because it's about students that age, the actors and the characters are both 17 year olds and therefore I want people to relate to them. I believe that having a older target audience they wouldn't understand what teenagers have to go though in this time and therefore wouldn't understand my media production. My media production is about these age groups and what they go though on everyday life- so having this age gap for my target audience it in ables the audience to relate to the problem that my characters are going though.

The gender for my target audience is for both male and female because that is what the characters are, at the first parts of my planning I was going to only use males as my character, as this would attract a stronger male target audience. Due to not having the actors I changed to having both male and female characters-I am now glad of this change as now my media production can relate to both genders and will be understood and enjoyed by both. 

The class of my target audience is because this these are the classes of the people in my media production because of this I feel that the audience will relate strongly to the characters. I feel that my target audience will have to be British as I don't feel that other cultures will understand the concepts that I am using like taking a training to school is something that you never see in Hollywood productions. 

Question Five: "How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted/ addresses my audience by my opening sequence not being something you see all the time in cinema's, my opening sequence is realism's and different therefor strongly relating to the people watching it, it shows life from a normal persons view nothing special or unrealistic, although there are many E4 series coming out about what life is really like, like the series "Girls" about the real life of real girls I feel there is a real market for films like this at the moment. My target audience are young and therefor what to see something real. This is how I attracted my target audience by making a media production that isn't like a glossy Hollywood film but is "gritty" and truthful to everyday life. 

My media production will focus on giving everyday life a funny twist and making comic edge to a bad situation, this was shown in the film "the inbertweeners" and therefore I feel that asking everyday happenings and turning them in to funny situation so the audience can relate and yet enjoy the production is how you successfully attract/ address your audience. 

Question Six: "What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?"

The technologies that I have learnt wile constructing my product have been filming, editing, how to use miss-en-scene, camera techniques and planning my product. I learnt this all this year as I have never taken Media Studies before and therefore knew nothing about any of this. 

I learnt about how to edit on my mac by using imovie- something that I have had no experience using before. I learnt how to use the transitions to make the move from each clip smother and using a special effect to fit in with the moment before, I also learnt how to use the adding text button so that I could add the titles to my opening sequence and make them appear differently on the screen in the way they move on and off the screen, there size and there colour. I learnt how to put a sound track and replay the track and fade it out at the end of the title sequence so that it doesn't have an abrupt stop, and how to put the sounds over the top of the music so that you can hear it ( the alarm). 

I learnt that I could film with my Nikon camera to get the most stable and clearest shot- I learnt how to use the shots to make my production different like using the car to help do a tracking shot and using a tripod to stop the camera from having any movement. 

By using miss-en-scene to change what people see your production is also new to me, I now know that you can change something to look like a different thing all together just by using effective miss-en-scene. By using the lighting and what the character is wearing you can make the audience see what you want them to see in your production. 

I discovered how to use effective planning for my product and how ideas can grow, I started off just knowing that I wanted to do a comedy and having no other ideas to ending with my final product. The planning that I used helped my get my characters, when and were to film and what to do when I was filming- with out planning my title sequence wouldn't have got so smooth and I feel planing had a huge part in making sure that everything was right for my opening sequence. 

I have never used blogger before and therefore this was another new thing to me, from only know how to "blog" I now understand how to use it in the best and most effective way by uploading pictures and videos from my computer, and uploading pictures from the Internet and my computer. 

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

Looking back at our preliminary task I feel that I have learnt a lot. Firstly I have learnt that you have to plan everything that you do- for our preliminary task we didn't plan much at all and chose a very basic story line to follow, because of this I feel that our preliminary task isn't as good as it could be with proper planning. I learnt from this by planning my title sequence and making use the story line was clear for what I was planning to do. 

Another thing that I have learnt is that although I found to easier doing it in a large group as I am not experienced in media studies and didn't know what I was doing, I found working on my own made me have to learn how to do everything so it improved my skill a lot more- even though I made quite a few mistakes and had to redo and re film it gave me the know age to make it better. 

I have also learnt from then that the quality of the sound and the music you put with it makes a huge difference to the quality of your peace. I only used music that was in time with my title sequence were as the preliminary task was all talking I personally feel that music has a much stronger and more effective effect on the productions. 

I also learnt from my preliminary task that the long edited shots are not interesting and that fast cuts like in our hip hop montage are most effective- I used a hip hop montage in my opening sequence and thought that ti would well, I also tried to keep the long cut shots down and not too long as I feel that didn't work very well in our preliminary task.

To conclude I feel that I have learnt a lot in the process of moving from the preliminary task to my final title sequence, I have gained a lot of knowledge that I didn't know anything about and shown myself that although working on my own rather than in a group was difficult at times I learnt a lot more than if I was working in a group. 

Final Story Board

In this blog I am going to show my story board, this is going to show the camera movement and what they are going to be showing.

Behind the Scenes

In this blog I am going to be showing the behind the scenes shots;

These are the images of when I was filming the extreme close ups- when we were doing the hip hop montage;

These are the images of when I was doing the tracking shot out of the car window. to make sure the camera was still I used the car to balance the camera.

Subtitles and Names

In this blog I am going to be showing how I got the titles on to the title sequence and what fonts, size and formats I used. Also I will be giving the list of names in my title sequence (real or not).

For my title sequence I used size 18 American Type Writer, the reason that I chose this size is that its not so big that it takes up the too much room, but its also not so small that viewers will not be able to see it. I chose this font as because I am going a comedy I wanted something different but also wasn't too young for my target audience. This is the font panel on imovie were I picked the font and size of my titles;

The way that the title comes up on the screen is different on most of the clips, some of the titles fade in- when it is a long shot, were as others (when a short cut shot) move on to the screen from either  the left or right. Here are some examples of how the titles appear on screen in title sequences; 

although this title sequence is animated it still shows a great use of how to move the titles to make it interesting to the viewer. 

Filming Techniques

In this blog I am going to be analysing the filming techniques that I used wile filming my opening sequence.

Tracking/ Traveling shot: This term is used for a shot when the camera is being moved by either and car or a train.  The movement is normally quite smooth, and the tracking can be either fast or slow. For my title sequence I used a tracking shot to film when the actors were walking and down the road for the first clip of the title. I shot this out of the car window so that it would be smooth. 

Here is an example of s tracking shot;

Medium shot: This shot frames a character from the waist, hips or knees up/down. The camera is far enough away that you can see the background but close enough to see the characters face expressions. I used this shot, here is a still image of my medium shot; 

Close-up/Extreme Close up: A close up shot is when the camera is very close to the subject that your filming, if its the characters face it it very close so you can see the expression on the persons face clearly. An extreme is like a close up but closer in on the subject. I used a close up in my title sequence when she was putting her make up on, here is the example of when I used it; 

This is an example of when I used an extreme close up; 

Questionare

This blog shows some of the questions that I asked my focus group, as my target audience is between 15-18 I asked my questions to people of this age group, I asked 10 students three relevant questions for my opening sequence research. 

Simple Editing, and Final Editing

This blog is about the editing that I used in my opening sequence, I am going to show the soft wear that  I used by screen shots;

Editing;


For my editing I used my Mac and the Imovie that comes with the lap top, this is a simple editing soft wear- although I found it quite hard to use as I have not used this soft wear before but after finding
out how to do everything I found it quiet simple to use and get the effects I wanted for my title sequence.

Opening Credits;

For my opening credits I made one myself, I tried to fade a picture of a rearing horse to show an extreme, and I named the producers "A Harvey Production" I used the different fonts and titles that imovie offers to create the opening credits. As the beginning of the title sequence is a rolling shot down a road I cut the opening credits to fit in the road, this is a screen shot of the opening credits;

These are some of the titles that I used as well, there are many different titles in the way the move across the screen- I tried to use the movements that I though worked with the clip were I put the titles.

The shots for my small hip hop I used very fast editing and timed cuts- I changed the transisions between the shots by using the transitions- the transitions that I used were the Cross blur and the fade in. I used the transitions when there was a sharp cut and the cuts were jumpy.
This is a short vidio so show fadding and how in works;

These are the other transitions that imovie has and that I could have used; 

I added some sounds over the sound track so that the audience could hear the sounds, I used the sound of an alarm clock when the girl gets up- it starts when you go though the door and finished when you see her hand touch the alarm clock by the side of her bed. I think that this has worked well as you can hear and see whats happening. This is a screen shot of the alarm clock sound over the sound track in when I was editing my title sequence.