Media EvaluationBy Ryan Watson

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

We begun by being set a task to make a film opening. We were then asked to research as my film openings as we could. This was so we could find out how long they may be, or what they looked like and how they used titles. Titles in other openings usually took up the majority of the film opening time. These would play under a number of establishing shots, with non-diegetic sound. They would also introduce the main characters and set the film up for the rest of the film. I wanted the film to keep the suspense and not let the audience in, in to what will happen. I felt we made sure that we kept it ‘under raps’ because we showed past scenes. We did this because when we were researching romantic films we realised that the best plays left us wanting more. We did this because we went from 2 weeks before, to present time. This could have made the film complicated, however we felt the plot was simple.

During the research process we realised all romantic films used warmer colours, to represent the warmth, happy and live in the film.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We found that our film represented ‘young love’. We took two stereotypical characters, one a popular boy and the other a ‘nerdy’ girl. We felt this represented a regular college. We also showed how the younger social groups party, and their lifestyles. We chose to focus on stereotypical themes, such as: Partying, falling in love, not doing their home work, these are things the older generation expect the younger generation to do.

We also chose to have a classroom scene, in this we used a stereotypical ‘naughty’ boy. We made him shout out, making the popular boy, seem more popular. These sort of people would have been at the back of the classroom, with the more ‘nerdy’ characters at the front doing their work.

The typical teen romance film will always have a ‘geeky’ girl, who falls in love with the popular boy. The boy then turns into this character who realises the girl. This is a very stereotypical situation. However out ‘geeky’ girl wasn’t a typical ‘ugly’ girl, she was a pretty young girl, who was very smart and confident.

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

As a group we chose ‘Ardleigh Media’. We felt this would be a good institution, as it is a small English company. It is also based in Essex, not to far from where we are based. The other good thing about using a smaller company, meant it was able to be a good film, because it’s a good film. It would be put straight into the world of critics.

As we based the film in England, and that the actors are English we felt it would be good to have an English institution.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We names our media product ‘Study Guide’. We chose this name because it fitted very well with the themes bought up in the film. This meant our audience would be teenagers in school, falling in love. However our target audience will be early teens to mid 20s. However we know that other, older people will watch the film. We've based the film to mid 20s because of the sexual references throughout the film. This is why we rated the film as a 15. Having the target audience quite broad meant that the audience member could relate in some way, this helps because they are able to relate, it also makes them able to understand the film better. During the opening the actors take part in very stereotypical activities, such as kissing, and partying.

We wanted to also aim the film at younger women. We felt the lead female role was somebody who was strong and powerful. It would also show them how easy it is to fall in love. We also knew the storyline in our film, is something they would think about it their colleges etc.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We firstly made a survey, on an app called ‘survey Monkey’. We asked them what they would want to see in a romance. The answers really helped us, as these answers lead on to what our film is now. We got answers from 7 women, this was really good because this was also one of the target audiences. This meant the research we did, would be from the audience we would like to attract.

We made sure our target audience was around our age as that would make it easier for use to relate. We then made sure the actors would be around he same age, as they would be going to parties and getting into relationships.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? We found that using technology throughout the process was a life safer.

Imessage became very useful as this was a quick and easy way to communicate between the group. It is also free. We found it was a lot quicker than email because it was instant like a text would be. We were also able to send picture messages to each other. All you needed was a good and steady internet connection.

We then chose to do a questionnaire, this was for our research, in what the audience wanted. We also found a lot of other questionnaires on line which we were able to answer and gain knowledge in our genre.

We then made a twitter account to promote and advertise the film. This was also a very good tool to ask questions.

Editing the product was down to Mikaela, however throughout the process we have all individually use Imovie. Either on the macs provided at college or at home. I used it at home on an IPad which was very useful.

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

Looking back at our preliminary task, we ‘thought’ we knew a lot about the filming process. The big thing that we wanted to get right was the continuity throughout the opening.

We had to stick to the 180 rule. However when filming this we realised the actors weren't actually filming each other, which meant we did this task wrong. We felt as a group, doing this wrong was something that made us learn the next time we do it. This made sure when it came to the filming for our opening, we’ll be sure to keep to the rules.

Conclusion To sum up, I feel the process of filming our film opening has improved my

skills in filming. As I was set the task as camera man, I had to make sure all angels looked right. It was also down to me, to make sure there was continuity in what we did. I know I improved because when filming after the actor change over the things we had learnt from our preliminary task, we knew wouldn’t happen again.

During the process it has opened my eyes to how a film is made and how hard it is to get things ‘right’. Choosing to set the opening in college meant we had the facilities at our fingertips. It also made it easier to convey they were students.

As camera man, I feel I did a good shot with choosing the camera angles and ‘pulling’ these off. I also had to make sure they were all lit well, and there were no major shadows on peoples faces.

I also felt we worked very well as a group, as we were a group of actors we were able to ask the majority of the parts. As we were friends we were able to do things outside of lesson time very easily.

If I was to be the camera man again, I would try and spend time with the locations manager to get good ideas where we could film.