Evaluation Question 1

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

1)   This shot of 'Illuminations Productions' on 'LiveType' and used a special effect to make each letter flash and therefore stand out and seem to illuminate, which links with the company name. The background has been kept very simple and white to emphasise the flashing title. The music also begins during this shot which is an up-beat pop-rock soundtrack which is typical of the Chick Flick genre.

 

 The shot now changes to an 'In Car Shot'. The camera is from the driver’s POV however the audience do not know who the driver is yet. The car is driving a long a straight which creates a verisimilitude as people can relate to the everyday car driving situation. The production company name then appears, saying 'An Illuminations Productions Film'. It is displayed in a handwritten, girly font which once more, reflects the Chick Flick genre. As the car drives forwards the audience can see a school sign for St Mary School, and the audience can relate to this typical English independent school. The impression they get is that this is a rather posh area which is quite typical of a Chick Flicks such as 'Wild Child'. Another convention I followed is starting a film with a journey arriving at its destination which shows a new start.



This shot shows the car which we just saw the interior of driving into the school which the audience also just saw. The audience also get the first shot of the driver which appears to be a young girl wearing sun glasses (Ray Ban). Designer label which is really expensive and representative of the high end product these privileged teenagers can afford. Once more, the title credit 'In Association With JEP Studios' is in a girly swirly font reminiscent of 'A Cinderella Story'.


 

 This shot is now an animation of the Director, Producer and Screenwriter. This is typical of Chick Flicks too. The use of scraps of paper could reflect the school setting, as well as using school type fonts. The background is baby blue which is the same as the car previously shown.

This shot shows the car driving down a really long, grand front drive (Typical of British Private Schools). This shows the whole car and therefore shows that it is a typical first car for girls of that age, and something that the audience can relate to. The title credits still appear, this time showing the actors starring in the production.



 

 This shot returns to inside the car, and once more gives the POV of the driver, there is still a mystery as to who this is though. The audience get a first view of the grand school building through the windscreen of the car which reflects the audiences expectations of such a school.



 

This shot, once more, shows the side of the car driving into the entrance, the car highly contrasts with the green background, which may even foreshadow the upcoming contrasts with the other students. The titles appear again to show another actors name. The audience gets a quick peek at the driver, who seems to be a young girl. However they do not know exactly who yet.


 

 This shot is back from the drivers view. I did this so that the audience can get a really clear view of the school landscape and how it is a very old, grand place. As the car drives around the audience can see even more of the location, and gets the idea that maybe the driver is a student.


 

 This shot, furthermore emphasises the car to the audience,and how it seems to be driving around a roundabout at the front of the school. I panned the camera so that a really clear view of the car is provided, with a final look at a green field behind, with a few girls in smart uniform walking around.

Evaluations Planning- Activity Six DRAFT

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

We have learnt many skills and tricks about using technology during the process of constructing our film.

Firstly, We used a 'SONY' camera to film our introduction. We learnt how to zoom in and out and how to focus to provide maximum quality to our shots, including making our shots stand out and be more defined. We also learnt how to use simple functions such as watching the shots you have just filmed.

We have also become familiar with the rule of filming such as not letting the actor lead the shot, but almost having the camera pushing them forwards and the 180 degree rule which is where filming only take place within an 180 degree angle which allows the audience to have a greater sense of the location of the scene.

We have used a tripod to make our shots steadier and smoother when we were panning. There are lots of panning shots in our film and they wouldn't be as smooth as it is without the use of a tripod.

During the editing phase of our film, we learnt how to use an Apple Mac and we all got used to how they work and function. We also learnt some tricks such as keyboard shortcuts and how to do print screen on Apple products.

We used iMovie to put all our shots together and make necessary adjustments. We learnt how to cut and split shots and put text over our footage in order to put our production company name, actors' names and film title on our film. We also had to put non-digetic and digetic sound into our film which to begin with, was difficult as we had to match the sound track's beat with the action going on in the shot, but eventually, we overcame that. The bit where we have our protagonist 'Sophie Reilly' caused problem as well as she was speaking to quietly, but we overcame that by adjusting the volume and dimming the background noise.

By using livetype we learned lots of skills about animating a title using confusing software, however after lots of attempts we finally made the production company logo for 'Illuminations Productions' seem to illuminate which emphasises the title as well as seeming as if it were typed appearing letter by letter.

We have also learned how to use this software…Blogger! We have all produced our blogs and posted relevant information about the progress of our film introduction and other pieces of work. We can all now use Blogger efficiently and have learned that blogging has become a much larger phenomenon in todays society.We used green screening when creating our animations, which took numerous attempts.  Creases in the green screen proved to create discolouring in the shot whilst we were editing, as well as this, shadows and incorrect lighting also caused colouring problems.

We have learnt a lot during the process of making our film, it will ensure us that we will take less time to work our way through using technology as we now know lots of tricks and short cuts to help us further develop our knowledge

Evaluation Planning- Activity Five DRAFT

The Making of Pretty Hurts

Evaluation Planning- Activity Four DRAFT

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

Evaluation Planning- Activity Three DRAFT

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

Production company is responsible for raising of funding for the production or may accomplish this through an emissary. The production company can be either a small company or a larger one, selling its products to a film studio or presenting it at a theatrical venue.Media institution such as Universal Pictures may distribute our film because they had already associate with chick flick such as Wild Child. I have also researched other smaller institutions as i thought we might have a greater chance will smaller companies as our film is low budget and not well known. I found suitable institutions such as DNA film or Ealing Studio. DNA film may be interested in helping us to create our film because they participated in making Never Let Me Go which is a romantic film aimed at audiences similar to our film. Ealing Studio collaborated to make St.Trinians which is a film that has the same genre as our film therefore I think Ealing Studio would be interested in contributing in our film as St.Trinians was really successful and it is aimed at a similar audience, addressing similar high school issues and stereotypes. 
More importantly, DNA film had multiple collaboration with Film 4 so I think having DNA film co-produce with Film 4 as our distributors will get us the maximum exposure as we can by play our film on Film 4 which is easy access and most people will have it on their TV in the UK. Showing our film on TV will be the cheapest way to showcase our film, but it will not gain much audience attention, so we would like to show our feature film theatrically as well - in cinemas, as it is the best and most effective way to show a film and it creates a demand to see it. According to the Film Distributor’s Association, the most frequent cinema goers tend to be teenagers, students and young adults, and they are the most voracious media consumers. This benefits us because our media product is aimed at a young target audience. More than half of 15-25 year olds in the UK visit the cinema at least once a month. Due to this, hopefully a good distributor such as Universal Pictures will distribute our product because it is aimed a large, young audience. 
Having Universal Picture distributing our film would not only get us British audiences, it may also promote our film internationally which will get us audience around the world, achieving maximum success.

Evaluation Planning- Activity Two DRAFT

Question 2) 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In the opening of our film, a stereo-typical impression is created of a modern day, upper class, independent school girl; we did this mainly through the clothing worn by the main character (Miranda) as well as the picturesque scenery of the school and the and also the type of car the character was driving which was a Fiat 500; a popular car model for teenagers at the moment and the fact that the car was a convertible emphasised the upper class society that the film is set around.

A character that is similar to the role Miranda played is 'Poppy Moore' (played by Emma Roberts) from the popular and conventional chick flick 'Wild Child.' Firstly, the two characters are visually similar, both being blonde, slim, and generally attractive; this being a typical convention for the protagonist in a Chick Flick. As well as this the characters both dress similarly; Miranda is seen wearing an extravagant fur coat, a pink Ted Baker bag and RayBan sunglasses. Similarly, as shown in the image above, Poppy Moore is dressed in an eye-catching patterned jacket, a Louis Vuitton handbag and is also wearing sunglasses; the style of dress that both characters display shows wealth as they are both dressed in designer garments. As well as being visually similar, Miranda and Poppy are both new students attending an Independent school for girls.