FINAL VIDEO

Password: student


43. Shazad Edwards, Stephane Bolompa, Nicole Kunaka from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Evaluation Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions of a film opening

A Convention is a type of theme which all teen movies or specific genre movies tend to have.

Film openings tend to be 2-5minutes long, dependant on the type of film, e.g.major blockbusters or independent. 

They usually introduce key characters i.e. protagonist, antagonist, sidekick etc as well as introducing the the pre plot or beginning of a narrative by establishing the platform or scene. 

Explanation of title sequence

There are some standards to title sequences but some minor variations do exist typically when giving more prominence to a more famous person.

Distribution - The company is different from the production company; e.g. 'Distribution Company Name Presents' - Distribution companies are responsible for the marketing of films thus are recognised in the opening credits.

Our distribution company's ident resembles the conventional moving idents seen in blockbusters.

Name of production - Company/companies (always respect the people with the money); e.g. 'A Big Name Production' - opening credits usually name the most significant people/companies that were involved in the production as they contributed the most money towards the film.

Our production company ident similarly resembles those seen in blockbusters, such as Marvel's ident which features in films such as Spiderman. 

Director - (This is optional); e.g. 'A Ridley Scott' - the directors name is usually there as an acknowledgement of their work towards the film. For example, it would state, 'Written and directed by Martin Scorsese'

We challenged the conventions of a title sequence by having our writer's name over moving footage in the film opening

 

Evaluation Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I used my colleague's (Sana Elhaouzi) prezi account as I do not have one thus  she is tagged on the prezi although I created it myself.

Evaluation Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our film is an Independent British movie, thus being low budget in comparison to blockbusters; this is why we felt the idents we made, which resemble Revolver Entertainment's, would be best suited to distributing our film.

Evaluation - Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Using Camtasia in order to commentate over the conventions that we explored in order to use them in our film opening.

Evaluation - Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures. 

When looking at the characters in our film opening 'On Road' we had to make it appeal to the correct target audience by ensuring the characters acted familiar to the teenagers in today's society. Teenagers in today's society are stereotyped as being on the streets, causing trouble and getting up to no good. We took this into consideration and tried to make our characters to act similar to these suggested stereotypes so they can understand and connect more with the protagonist. Our main characters are portrayed differently:

1. Darnell Williams - Darnell is the main character as the story is told from his point of view. He is a ambitious boy who's chasing his dream and does this even with all the things holding him back. Because he lives on a gritty estate that automatically stereotypes him to one of those gang affiliated boys, also because of this appearance and how he dresses. 

2. Skirmz - Skirmz now is stereotyped because of the way he is dressed and his appearance. He is mainly seen on the estate with give him the look that he is gang affiliated. This is also due to the different sort of acts he gets up to on the estate. 

When looking at whether we represented the characters in a negative or positive way, we had to think about how we wanted the characters to be seen. For example, Skirmz was seen in a negative way because of what he is known for and for his acts in trying to stop Darnell to accomplish his dream. Whereas, Darnell is seen in a positive way, because of his drive for success.

Evaluation Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A Convention is a type of theme which all teen movies or specific genre movies tend to have. An example of this is that, we went with the idea of a boys chasing his dreams, so with the  location such as the Studio helps show this. Also, with the urban estate and house settings it helps to represent the idea of the target audience we set it towards.

When looking at camerawork, editing, mise-en-scene and sound, these showed the conventions of a teen film and particularly to our sub-genre of The Coming of Age. 

For example:

Camerawork:

Different type of camera shots was vitally important when filming the main protagonist, Darnell,  in our film opening. We used shots like close ups, POV, tracking shots, mid-shots, high angle shots to show the emotion and the attitudes of the character. These shots are usually used in teen films to reveal the same sorts of emotion on the character.

Editing:

The use of continuity editing, giving the main protagonist the most camera time means that by giving him all the screen time we follow he's experience and what he's going through, as we get a understanding of what the Coming of Age really is. 

Mise-En-Scene:

We used certain props to show the convention such as:

Headphones

Job application sheets

Hoodies 

Bandanna 

Sound:

Sounds such as Hip Hop and Rap fits in with the urban city landscape we were in, as the audience are familiarise with the different sounds. It also fits in with the theme of The Coming of Age, particularly with ours as his dreams is to be a rapper.

Comparison between our film and a real film

Because are film is towards a British audience we had to adapt and make some changes that would suite that particular group of people. On the other hand, I believe we followed the conventions through the use of Mise-En-Scene, Sound, Editing and Cinematography.