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

Our product very much develops stereotypical forms and conventions of a real 'teen drama' film/television product. The storyline itself follows a typical teen drama storyline, as it has a underlining message; which teen dramas are mainly based around, ours is about peer pressure and the consequences of giving into it.

       Our Geek          Stereotypical Geek

From the very beginning our film introduces a stereotypical geek, wearing geeky pyjamas, reading glasses and pigtails. As the film goes on we are also introduced to some stereotypical popular kids with lots of makeup, long curly hair, fashionable. We write the characters to deliberatly conform with a typical teen drama character set up. We filmed in believable settings that our audience would be able to relate to, these settings are normal everyday household settings which are typically featured in 'teen drama' films.

Band Logo

Throughout the party scene we use original music by a local band called 'Scarlet Sunset' i feel that this music is a unique part of our film as we use different songs off just their album, this is effective because it holds the whole story together, and the rock theme behind it emphasises the house party that the film is set in, which again follows the conventions of a typical 'teen drama'. 

On a technical level i believe that we've used all the possible conventions of continuity and the language of film and editing. Continuity is particularly important in making a film run smoothly, due to having filmed on several occasion we have to make sure we had our hair and costumes the same every single time, we also made sure that we filmed at the right time of the day so that the lighting was right for the time of day. We made sure we stuck by the 180° rule, however in some parts of the party scene we broke the rule for effect. We also used match on action when cutting between different film shots, such as knocking on a door, walking in the door, and shutting it.(as shown in the clip below)
                                             Match on Action in Our Film

What is the 180 degree rule?

Editing of continuity, and
editing titles to the beat
of the music.

Furthermore, we used rhythmic editing in our titles editing to the beat of the music to again conform to continuity so that it was smooth and easy for our audience to watch.  However, when it came to editing continuity isn't something that was absolutely crucial within our film, as we used a very effective jump cut and cross cut editing techniques throughout a lot of the film.  We thought this was an effective way of showing passage of time as well as it being time efficient as we only had 5 minutes time limit for the entire film. (as shown in the clip below)

To avoid making the film too jumpy and hard to follow we made sure that we put in parts which were longer and have a lot of dialogue in order to shape the film.


Our Jump Cut Scene                                    Jump Cut Scene in Breathless (Godard, 1960)


Wild Child cross cutting                           Our cross cutting

This montage of cross cutting between getting ready and walking down the stairs was influenced by the teen drama film 'wild child', we thought that this sort of editing sequence would be upbeat and a great contrast between the conclusion of the film. This scene is used to subvert the expectations of our audience, in that they are made to believe that she's going to have a good time, shes going to meet new people and her life is going to be a whole lot better, however; this isn't how our film is concluded.

Our film creates a lot of audience pleasure, it follows richard dyers theory of entertainment and utopia.
Utopia is an ideal world, where people are transported when watching the film; Giving the feeling of what the audience lack.

If the audience are lonely, it gives the solution of community (lots of new people, house party)

If the audience are tired/exhausted, it gives the solution of energy(jump cuts, party scene)

• If the audience are Bored, it gives the solution of Intensity (high/low emotions)

Our main objective when researching, planning, filming and editing for our film was to involve as many conventions to conform with a typical 'teen drama', in order to both entertain and educate our audience about peer pressure and the possible consequences of giving into it and having the need to fit in with people, is it really worth it?

Evaluation, Question 2- How effective is the combination of your main product and its ancillary texts?

Reads:
Our intentions when starting the piece were to both entertain and educate our audience about peer pressure and the consequences. 

Throughout both filming and editing, I believe that we have included all the possible conventions in our main product in order to get across the message we were hoping.

We used close ups of alcohol and drugs and a combination of stereotypical characters and believable settings in the hope that our audience would be able to relate to it. 
 

We aimed to get across the idea that Fiona was in with a strike of luck and that she was going to develop a close friendship with a lot of new people whilst making it clear that she was a little nervous about being in a new situation, at the beginning of the film so that the ending it home harder when they realised that they guessed the ending wrong. 

Our film poster was initially designed and created in Photoshop and the pictures featured were taken in a photography studio to get the best authentic look possible. 

I feel that our poster strikes the right balance between shock and interest in order to intrigue our target audience.

The simple design is effective in that it gives the audience an initial insight into the characters, suggesting the hold Alice has over Fiona. (Hand on shoulder)

It attracts the attention of our audience, without giving too much away about the storyline.

In the studio we took a variety of shots, we wanted to get a picture which created the right vibe, we wanted to make Alice look cunning and Fiona look innocent. 

The poster directly asks the audience the rhetorical question ‘How far would you go to fit in?’ the pronoun ‘you’ makes it personal to every individual, therefore grabbing their attention and advertising our film effectively.

The colours used in the poster gives the impression of a horror/thriller, however our film is a teen drama, therefore making the film more pleasurable for our audience when they realise they’ve perceived the film wrongly. (Steve Neale’s Theory)

Our radio trailer was created in both final and garage band. In it is a mix of a musical sound track, important voice snippets for the film such as ‘here Fiona I’ve saved you some’ and ‘don’t be a spoilt sport’ and an effective female voiceover. 
 

When we researched into radio trailers we noticed that they all included a voiceover and snippets from the film, we wanted to make it sound as real as possible, so we featured these. 

Just like our poster, the radio trailer asks the same rhetorical question ‘How far would you go to fit in?’ the question is more effective in the radio trailer though, as the audience are directly asked the question rather than having to read it. This plants the seed of doubt, is it actually worth trying to fit in, and being pushed under by peer pressure, which was our initial aim. 

The mix of audio and voiceover is effective as the audio from the film gives the audience an idea of the storyline, whilst the voiceover talks directly to them, enticing the in. 

Overall, the combination of our ancillary text work well together in advertising our main product. 

The multiple use of the rhetorical question is the main link between the poster and the radio trailer.

Ultimately, the synergy between the three texts work brilliantly together, in creating one complete product, in both entertaining and educating our target audience.

Evaluation, Question 3- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwXGHjtHtx0&list=UURcc1eir-pHd_7Bqa032c7w&index=8&feature=plcp - Audience Research Video Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-aIVsNhAZk&feature=relmfu - Audience Screening Feedback

These are the main 10 points of the film we wanted our audience to notice.

Evaluation, Question 4- How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

RESEARCH & PLANNING

When we first got the brief to create a five minute film, we had to think of a good story line to fit which would fit in titles, beginning, middle, end and credits. I used the internet to research previous short films to give us inspiration; After researching existing production I thought that the theme of peer pressure should be covered throughout our film, because I thought it would be good to publicise a common issue at the moment, I researched possible genres for our film and then our group came up with the storyline of ‘misguided’ where a stereotypical geek got the ticket to fit in with the popular people she felt like she should go along with everything that they wanted, which lead to harsh consequences.

I used websites such as https://www.google.co.uk/, http://www.filmsshort.com/, and http://www.youtube.com/, BBC films to help me do this.  Google was my main search engine for anything i needed to know or any specific searches, such as existing short films.

We used microsoft word and paint when planning our project, we created storyboards, mindmaps, floor plans etc in order to get the best idea of what our film would look like before we started researching into whether it would work well or not. we did this so we were prepared to either get going with creating the film, or so we had lots of ideas just incase it wasn't the best one, so we didn't have to start from scartch.

we used facebook and twitter to distribute our draft video, in order to get suitable responses from our potential audience, so that we could finalise our film, with the audience in mind.  we used facebook as a means of getting a wider demographic responce, rather than just showing it to people in college.

The internet has also allowed me to create a blog which has posts on all three stages (construction, planning, and research) of production on it, illustrated through a variety of media types; videos, pictures, essays, web links etc.

when we wrote up the idea, we wanted to collect some audience research to see if the film would be a hit, to do this we thought of a series of question to ask a variety of students in college,we used HD1000 cameras to video peoples responses, and I used final cut express to edit the questions and responses together to make it look presentable when I put it on Blogger, when I was putting it together I learnt how to wire frame still frames to resize images in order to make the overall video look better.

wire frame was used in order for the little box's of stills would extend to full screen in the middle, for the video clips to play,i did this for the audience research video to look more effective. 

we used celtx software to develop a script, in order to learn and follow in filming our main product.

FILMING

After we collected our audience feedback, we started filming for our project. When filming the piece we had to involve a lot of new media technologies, we filmed the piece with HD1000 cameras, using HD settings, we learnt how to make sure all HD settings were on correctly and how to make sure everything was white balanced and focused; this was something we had to re-learn from last year, 
because after our first filming session we realised that we used auto focus throughout the whole of it, which made the film bouncy and unfocused(http://www.videomaker.com/article/7710/- http://www.friendsofhdvideo.com/hdv-tips/sony-hdr-fx7-hdr-fx7e-tutorial/) due to this we had to work around a situation which meant that we had to re-film the piece and also had to re-cast it; we went back to film it and made sure that all the settings were correct this time and we filmed to the best of our ability; putting in extra shots that we thought of just in case they would look good when in process of editing. We also used, laptops and zoom recorders in making our film. Due to our film involving a party we had to record the music separately to the dialogue to make sure that the voices were loud enough to hear over the music; this was something we had to make fit when we came to editing it. 

We used the zoom recorders in order to record the two voiceover within it, the first being the conversation between Alice and Fiona, and the second being Fiona’s thoughts of being asked to the party which plays over her journey in the car; we had a few problems using the zoom recorder where we had to record Robyn’s voice(play’s Fiona) a few times before it was correct, because of her mouth being too close to the microphone that it made bumping noises and also her voice being too quite; we eventually had to double up the recording.

EDITING

Here we used compisite
mode and turned up the
brightness in order for it
to look better without
making it look out of place

I learnt a lot when doing the editing part of the construction because I ended up taking a lead role in doing it, using final cut express has helped me with my creativity with both visual and audio effects; we have incorporated elements such as flashbacks to identify the rape scene, we filmed short clips of what happened, and edited them together with quick cuts and put in flashes between them for effect, voice collaborations,cross fades between both audio and video were also used, in order to smooth out the film, so it was easy to follow, making it easier to watch, and also learnt how to place visuals in sync with the beat of the music in the background to make it look much more effective. 

this is the colour correction as the
colour of this shot was originally
too blue and needed some oranges to
make the light much more natural.

Also how to change colour and brightness(some of the filming was really dark, therefore we had to brighten it up when we came to editing it).

EVALUATION & ANCILLARY TEXT

When we came to uploading a draft version of our film to get some audience feedback, the band width of YouTube through college wasn’t big enough therefore I had to upload it from home with took up a considerable amount of time and held us back in getting feedback to improve; however overall I feel that media technologies have definitely helped my creativity in all stages of making our film. We used youtube and facebook in order to get a wider respoce from our target audience.


we had to make a radio trailer and a poster to advertise our film, i have developed my skills from graphic design in using the software photoshop when i went on to develop ideas for our film poster, the limitations of photoshop elements though interrupted my creativity as it didn't have all the features i knew how to use. I developed versions of our poster, by playing around with some features such as feathering, bluring and sharpening; i didn't know how i wanted my poster to look like, so i developed ideas whilst creating it. after, we had a photoshoot, using an SLR digital camera; in order to help us make our poster as good as it can be; when we found the picture we wanted i created a further one on basic editing software, and robyn then created our final poster on the newest version of photoshop.


we had the choice of using garage band or final cut to edit our radio trailer together, we though that using final cut would give us an advantage of making it as good as it can, because we knew how to use it properly, and how to create effective pieces of work. we used sound bridges and fades, and overlapped effective music over the top of a voiceover and sound clips from our film, therefore we combined the two softwares in making our radio trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qccgpr6eajQ - Radio Trailer

In conclusion i believe that media technologies have allowed me to be creative and to make things look professional and to link the ancillary texts easily and efficiantly

Evaluation Part 1

Good continuity is vital when making a film run smoothly and making it look professional. We made sure we didn't change any costumes or props when shooting the same scene on different days and tried to ensure our hair and make-up was done the same. We had to make sure continuity in our film was perfect by making sure we followed the 180 degree rule, as well as this we used match on action in certain shots like when Fiona knocks on the door and is greeted. Also during the getting ready scene we used jump cuts and cross cuts when Fiona is walking down the steps, which shows her getting ready at the same time, after each step she went down we had to ensure that when it cut back to walking down the stairs after a cut of her getting ready it was the correct step as well as making sure it fit the beat of the music, we got inspiration for this idea from the film 'Wild Child' which also see's a transformation from a geek look into a party look. We used a lot of cross cuts throughout the film particularly in the getting ready scene, however we made sure we included some longer shots to improve continuity.

We stereotypically stuck to the genre of our film throughout which was a teen drama. We included elements such as friendships and peer pressure to try and make our of the film which implies the main character has been raped. We have very stereotypical characters in o

ur film, the main two are very different; Fiona who is very geeky and Alice who is a typical popular girl. The props and costumes we used in the film helped us communicate to the audience what they were like, for example at the beginning Fiona has lots

of teddies on her bed and is studying, on the other hand Alice seems very controlling at the party, always has an alcohol drink in her hand as well as that the party is at her house. target audience relate to, as well as dramatic scenes to make our film more exciting such as the end scene.

Stereotypical geek Our geek

We wanted to create a film that had a strong meaning to it and that our target audience could relate to and could send a message to our audience. After brainstorming all of our ideas together we created our story line which involved social groups and fitting in with the crowd which as teenagers ourselves we could relate to so therefore our target audience would. This then lead to peer pleasure by the use of alcohol and drugs, we wanted to put across to our audience that ‘fitting in with the crowd’ is not always the best thing to do, and that alcohol and drugs can lead to bad consequences and therefore our main character gets raped in the scene. I believe that our films meaning works for our film in that teenagers will be able to relate to it very well, and that the shocking story line fits well with the responses we received from our audience feedback as it was mentioned that the shock factor makes a good teen drama. Richard Dyer's theory of utopian solutions fitted with our film very well as it gives great audience pleasure with educating them on peer pressure, drugs and alcohol as well as entertaining them.

Evaluation Part 2

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Evaluation part 3