Question 7

For the last time... Hey, y'all!

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

Pheebs, OUT! ;)

Question 6

'Sup!

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project?

HD Camcorder:

The camcorder was a key piece of technology needed in the production of our film. We had to refilm our footage as the SD card we'd recorded it all on had been corrupted, however, we were given a HD camcorder, which gave us clearer and brighter picture quality and sound. The HD camera also had a range of settings regarding brightening the picture, or changing the background, which allowed us to test and adjust the options to suit our film. I think the brighter and clearer image quality of the camcorder was particularly useful as a generic convention of our genre, romantic comedy, is that the atmosphere at the beginning of the film is bright and cheerful. We were able to create this as a result of the HD camcorder.

The camcorder was also a really easy piece of technology to be able to use, which was especially useful due to our amateur experience. The general tools needed were the on/off and replay button which were easy enough utilise, however we fiddled about with a number of settings and discovered techniques such as depth of field, which I learnt allowed us to blur the background but keep the foreground in focus, which we used in the close-up make-up shots. I also learned how to film panning shot, as well as improve my framing of shots, and use of a range of camera shots and angles e.g. mid-shot, close-up and pan shot. The camcorder is also small and compact which allowed us to film shots in more confined space and move the device around more readily.

Lights and screen:

Lights were also an important technology we used in our film. Our film is a romantic comedy, which requires a brightly-lit, cheerful atmosphere, making the role of the lights fairly crucial in our production. We rarely used the plain white light as it came out clinical and pale. As a result, we unrolled the circular screen, slipped on the gold reflective sheet, and reflected the beam from the light off of the screen to the area we were filming, generating a summery natural glow instead which suited our genre.

I learnt how to set-up the professional lights, how build the stand, as well as install the bulb and sheet. As well as learning how to operate the light, I learnt how to reflect light using the sheet, and create different types of shade of light which proved very useful in recreating the summery, cheerful atmosphere needed for our romantic comedy opening sequence.

Apple Mac:

The Apple Macs, introduced to us at the start of the course, played a key role in the creating of our opening sequence. Being a Mac-virgin up until this year, I was anxious about using the computer as I'd never used one before and believed it to be a lot more difficult to function than my reliable Dell laptop at home. However, after spending a month getting used to the different ways in which Macs operated, I learnt how to use the desktop, Safari and other programs, "copy and paste" and "screen shot", beginning to feel really at home using a Mac.

Apple Macs are a lot more advanced than Dell, and offer up a wide range of programs specifically designed for film making such as iMovie and Final Cut Pro, and creating your own music, like Garage Band, all of which I became familiar with and learnt to use with ease. They were ideal for our project, and helped improve the quality of the film as well as the ease with which we edited and documented the process.

Final Cut Pro:

Final Cut Pro was the programme we used to edit our entire footage. It was very advanced, and we had to spend sometime adapting and getting comfortable with using the technology, but it was ideal to produce our film. It allowed us to be creative with our shots; I learnt how to cut and trim the footage, as well as use the blade tool which allowed me to separate clips completely, and delete unnecessary footage. There were a wide range of special effects allowing us to adjust the brightness of the image or change the colour scheme e.g. Sepia or black and white, however we didn't use these.

There were also a bunch of title options, which allowed us to design our pink, swirly feminine credits, inspired by those in "Legally Blonde". I learned how to make the titles fade in and disappear, as well as appear over-the-action on screen. I also learnt how to adjust the duration, design my own titles e.g. what colour, style and positioning, and how to add effects to there entrance, e.g. 'blur', 'ease-in' and 'flash'. Window Movie Maker would've been very limited in that respect, offering only basic fonts and colours to design the titles.

The music was also easier to adjust and apply particular effects to, for example, we had the soundtrack "Yearbook Long" begin midway through the opening sequence when Naomi pressed 'play' on the iPod speakers, and fade out as the screen faded to black at the end. I learnt how to fade in music and fade it out, and how to adjust certain sections of the clip so they were louder or quieter than others, a technique we didn't use however. I learned how to import and apply small home-amde audio tracks, such as the door slamming and mirror squeaking, and edit their length appropriately, removing any silence or mistake pieces. We inserted them throughout the clip, as well as have a loop of the shower sound running through the company logos and opening couple of seconds.

Garage Band:

Likewise to Final Cut Pro, Garage Band is another programme available on the Apple Mac where we found and downloaded our soundtrack "Yearbook Long" as well what Carolina used to create and edit it.

Sam and Carolina had found the music, a peppy, upbeat tune that strongly resmebled our romantic-comedy genre, however the clip was very short, only 30 seconds long. Although Carolina was incharge of music, we all worked with the program and I learnt how to copy the same loops, trim and merge thems together, to form the 1 minute and a half long soundtrack used in our opening sequence. I also learnt how to download music samples from the Garage Band library, create music clips with the various vocal and instrument samples (although we didn't use this in our production), but also how to adjust the dynamics and tempo of a piece of music.

The background music was a key feature in creating the cheerful, peppy atmosphere of our introduction, as well as emphasised our rom-com genre, and couldn't have been done without the professional system of Garage Band.

YouTube.com

Youtube was used throughout this project as a centre for inspiration, uploading and referral. I'm no stranger to YouTube, however, I found myself using my account a lot more regularly. I leant how to upload various videos, interviews and soundtracks that I could link to my blog, and adjust the private settings to make the material exclusive to my account or just viewers with the link. I learned that I could upload freshly made videos straight from Final Cut Pro and edit the videos quality (e.g. HD), on YouTube as well.

Blogger:

Blogspot.com has become my new best friend over the course of this project.

We were required to create a blog which we would use to document the project, updating regularly in each of the blogs; research and planning, construction and evaluation. Much like keeping a diary, I posted about everything I could, from our target audience research, to our Tunes feedback, to a step-by-step guide of how we filmed and edited our footage. I learnt how to include images in our posts, as well as embed presentations and audio clips using copying and pasting of the embed code into HTML on the post, and links to videos on YouTube. These gave a detailed account of how we made our opening sequence.

I also learnt how helpful blogger was in terms of keeping my work organised and dated, as well as being a reliable source to back-up my work and saving it periodically so that should I not finish in a post in a lesson, I can come back to the same point later on/

Hotmail:

Although I had a hotmail account, I rarely used it before this project. However, I had to start using hotmail more regularly to email myself material I would use at school to use at home when catching up e.g. screenshots, videos.

Our group also used email to communicate and share ideas. In addition, I learnt how to attach images of the work we'd carried out, videos we'd created, documents like scripts and questions to ask our target audience post watching our film and music clips, as well as download the material and upload it to my blog. This kept everyone on the same page, and up-to-date with our progress, as well as meaning everyone had the same material they need for posting in their blogs.

Powerpoint and Google Images:

Powerpoint presentation was a program we used specifically for designing logos. I created the logos either from scratch using the drawing tools, or copied images from Google Images then adapted them by changing the colour, a skill I learned using the image Filter tool in Powerpoint, and adding a decorative title. I learned how to screenshot the logo and import it into Final Cut Pro, where it was inserted at the beginning of the film. I was already familiar with Google Images, and used it to copy and paste relevant photos or screen-grabs of films we could use in our blogs.

Prezi and Slideshare:

Prezi.com and Slideshare.com are both websites I used to tackle the requirement for different forms of media to be used in our evaluations. Prezi was quite a hard program to use and it took me roughly a day to complete the presentation answering question 1, as I was creating the presentation while learning how to use it. As well as learning how to operate the program, I learnt how to upload images and video onto the presentation and how to create the 'path' in which you view the information.

Similarly, I used to Slideshare to create a Powerpoint answer evaluation question 7. A much easier program to use, I just uploaded the Powerpoint document from my computer onto the site, which converted it into a file I could embed in my blog. I learnt how to use the website but also how to embed links into blog posts, a first with me which proved to be a really helpful piece of knowledge to have as I embedded both the Prezi and the podcast too, using HTML in the post.

Yourlisten.com:

I used yourlisten.com to upload my podcast answering evaluation question 5 to the internet. I learnt how to record the audio clips on my iPhone, never having use the Voice Memo and before, and from there, emailed the file to myself. Once recieved, I had to find out how to download the document to my PC, using a range of Yahoo self-help posts, and then upload the clip onto the server, having also never used YourListen.com before. I then embedded the link in my blog post.

I learned a lot from using all these technologies and feel confidant about using them on a regular basis, as well as more able to tackle media projects like films or music videos.

Pheebs, OUT! ;)

Question 5

Heya!

How did you attract/address you target audience?

We first interviewed our target audience, Hester and Inez. Aspects that they found appealing were that the film was a conventional romantic-comedy, picking-up on the similarities to other films in that genre such as "Legally Blonde" with "the small little dog", "use of the colour pink" and "high-heeled shoes". They also made comparisons to "Wild Child", explaining how they'd gotten an impression of the protagonist being quite 'slutty' from the "Glow Job" and "50 Shades of Grey", much like the impression you get from Poppy at the beginning of "Wild Child". Features of the film they liked were the make-up shots, the reverse shot in the wardrobe and the information the detailed panning shots give the viewer, e.g. photographs of her and friends, her moisturiser and other beauty products. They felt they could identify with the protagonist through the emphasis put on her having friends and being sociable, her make-up routine and dress-sense, as well as owning a dog. They further explained the reasons why they'd want to continue watching the film, saying they'd "like to know who Aiden is" and "how many guys she's got", as well as pointing out that "teen girls love teen films and teen romance".

I think I speak for everyone when I say the boys detailed responses were a shock! Pleasantly surprised, Klaidi and Nial gave very detailed relevant responses to our opening sequence. Facets they found most appealing was the "transition of Naomi", how she is initially protrayed as a "girly girl" in the beginning through the pink-themed bedroom, and small dog, and then is presented as becoming more womanly: the short skirt, leopard-print high-heels and "Glow Job" moisturiser all indicating she's very "grown-up" or "promiscuous". They also suggested that the character is relatable to modern teenage girls, and liked the emphasis we put on her trying to make herself look attractive with close-ups on her painting her nails and applying mascara. They continued by describing why they'd go and see it, saying they were curious to find out "who Naomi really is".

We completed our interviews with some questions directed at a media studies student, Phoebe. Features that appealed to her was the positive, upbeat music suggested that the film would be energetic, interesting and lively, like its soundtrack. She also said that the preparation sequence was very informative and detailed, painting a picture of Naomi which helped the audience get involved and interested in the film. She liked the shots on the shoes and felt the titles really reflected the romantic comedy genre. Similar to the other interviewees, Phoebe said that she was intrigued by Naomi and what she was getting ready for, and would want to continue watching the film to find out.

Pheebs, OUT! ;)

Question 4

Hey!

Who would be the audience for our media product?



Designing our target audience, we already new that they were females aged between 12-21. Studying at a sixth form, there was no sparing of interviewees, however, we chose two girls, Inez and Hester and interviewed them on their tastes, likes and dislikes, regarding various aspects of their lives e.g. interests, magazines and literature, films, music, social networking etc. We created a mindmap of all their answers and painted a detailed picture of who our target audience was.



We also filmed their interviews with us, so that we had an indepth reference point, and used the footage to really get to know and understand our target market, particularly regarding how we could attract them and increase awareness about our film.

Filming and creating a brainstorm about our target market was really useful. By forming a detailed image in our minds about a range of aspects of their characters, we now have the information needed to understand exactly how we can attract them to our film. For example, knowing that they visit the cinema regularly suggests putting trailers of our film in showings of films of romantic-comedy genre will be a popular way in which to get the film publicity and increase awareness. Also, knowing that our target audience usually shop in WHSmiths and corner shops in order to buy their magazines, we know where to place adverts and information about the film were it will be most exposed to our audience.

Pheebs, OUT! ;)

Question 3

Heya!

What kind of media institution would distribute your film and why?

 

When doing my institutional research, I explored four different institutions:  Artificial Eye, Momentum Pictures, Entertainment Film Distributors and Working Title Films. I focused on British Film institutions, with the exception of Working Title which is owned by the American company, Universal.

 

We chose Entertainment Film Distributors for a variety of reasons. A British distributor of independent films in the UK and Ireland for various production companies, they support and distribute independent films mainly. This implies that they specialise in backing newcomers, unknown film makers and low-buget films, ideal for our film project.
The company has distributed a variety of films in different genres, with romantic comedies being one of them. Amongst other, they've distributed Run Fatboy Run, 17 Again, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This indicates that this distribution company would be suitable for our film due to the fact that the company delves into our genre of romantic-comedy based on their wealth of films in that category. The films they produce in the rom-com genre are popular and well-known, inspiring confidence that our film would get wide-spread exposure and circulation.

 

The combination of these factors has put Entertainment Film Distributors ahead of Momentum Pictures and Artificial Eye, as Momentum pictures doesn't do a lot of work with low-budget projects and Artificial Eye specialises in art house and foreign films, neither of which are our genre. Working Title, although a big outlet, doesn't support many independant film makers and doesn't produce as many romantic-comedies, suggesting that despite having a successful history and image, it wouldn't be as appropriate working on our film.

 

As a result, Entertainment Film Distributors, I believe, is the most suitable company to distribute our film.

 

Pheebs, OUT! ;)

Question 2

Hi!

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents the teenage female social group as: reckless, flirtatious, confident and ultra-feminine, through the characterisation of Naomi. Naomi's character is of the same age and gender and this will allow our audience to relate to her. These aspects of that social group were represented in a variety of ways, using a combination of editing, mise en scene, sound and camera shots and angles.

Girly

One of the ways in which we planned to showcase the stereotypical girly-girl aspect of teenage females was through Naomi's costume. Naomi's dress sense and make-up all represent the ultra-femininity; the close-ups of her applying make-up allow detail and a closeness with the audience, making the viewer feel as though they can identify with her actions and personality. Applying make-up is a key part of most female's daily routines and is considered a very feminine activity, enhancing this idea of teenage females being very girly. Her outfits are very feminine; sporting a bodycon skirt and revealing top which shows her bra straps, Naomi's image is very feminine, and combined with her heels, paints her as a very effeminate character.

We used heavy feminine mise en scene throughout the opening sequence to convey the stereotypical "beaty-queen" aspect of teenage females. For example, we decorated the room with PINK as the central colour, using pink-themed furniture such as the bed, with hot pink duvets, pillows and fluffy blankets, as well as books with pink covers and pink accessories dotted around the room. The colour connotes ultra-femininity, and its major presence in the scenery reemphaises the presentation of female teenagers as "girly-girls".

The titles appearing over-the-action throughout the opening two minutes were very feminine. Inspired by the titles in "Legally Blonde", they were PINK, and in a swirly font which oozed girlishness. The hand-writing script also relates the opening sequence to the audience, as the majority of the viewers are still in education, and the dotting of the 'i's in stars or hearts again represents the girly element of Naomi's character and teenage females.

The panning shots also displayed a range of ultra-feminine items to the audience, representing Naomi and teenage females as girly. The selection of Vogue magazines imply an interest in fashion and appearance, a typically girly interest, and the literature such as "50 Shades of Grey" trilogy and "The Imperfect Girlfriend" are romance books, aimed at a female audience, highlighting her very effeminate character and that of teenage females.

Laura Mulvey's theory about girl's getting ready based on what they think men will like is reflected in our opening sequence, featuring Naomi getting ready. The camera acting as the man, Naomi dresses in a short skirt and revealing top with a pink bra, a stereotypically 'slutty' outfit which she believes would attract males, in other words "dressing to impress a man".

Confident

We wanted to seperate Naomi's character from the generic conventions of romantic-comedy protagonist e.g. girlyness, shy or awkward, innocent. We included the girlishness, however we chose to portray Naomi and her social group, teenage females, as confident.

Naomi's mannerisms represent her as confident throughout the opening sequence. Checking her appearance in the mirror and then pouting suggests she's secure in her appearance, her movement throughout the clip is strong and purposeful, her walk almost a strut. The reverse shot of her walking through the door of her bedroom and closing it behind her adds a fluidity to her journey and implies she's confident in her movements and actions.

Her costume also demonstrated a certain coolness and self-belief. Walking in heels around the house in shoes difficult to travel in suggests she feels secure enough to use them on a day-to-day basis, and the leopard print and red layers dennote self-assurance. Her nudity in front of open curtains and wearing a slinky dressing gown also suggest a sense of security in her appearance and a confidence in exposing herself so readily.

Her short skirt and revealing top further highlight this aspect of Naomi's personality, and the red lipstick is a bright, daring colour which connotes confidence, all representing teenage females as confident and self-assured.

Flirtatious

We presented Naomi and teenage females as flirtatious in a number of ways.

The panning shots included close-ups of beauty products like "Glow Job" moisturiser and "Thick and Fast" mascara, and reading literature such as "50 Shades of Grey" trilogy. Both products include sexual innuendo in their brand titles, implying Naomi is flirty and playful. Similarly, the sexual innuedo of her undressing in front of an open window suggests a flirtatious nature, and her pout in front of the mirror reemphasises her playful personality.

The mise en scene of her photographs with males at various dates highlights her flirty character, suggesting she's popular and friendly with a mixed range of friends. There's an insinuation that she's also had a number of boyfriends, implied through the photographs of her alone with only one guy, which is generally percieved as a picture of couple. Lastly, the text from Aiden, referring to her as "babe" and ending in "xx" suggests he's her boyfriend, and presents Naomi as flirtatious. Both are terms of endearment which suggests they are romantically linked (although not a couple) and give that impression to the viewer, as well as piquing their interest regarding who Aiden may or may not be.

Reckless

Lastly, we portrayed Naomi as reckless. We developed the titles so that although they were inspired by the style of the credits in "Legally Blonde", they'd be individualised to represent two aspects of Naomi's character. The main colour of the titles is pink, representing her girly-girl personality. However, we adapted the style so that the titles were shadowed by a black outline, which would represent the edgy, reckless aspect of Naomi's personality, as black connotes danger and recklessness. This developing of a generic convention adds a sense of originality to our film and the slight twist in the plot showcased through the titles might interest people enough to watch the film.

Naomi's costumer also her recklessness. Leather jackets are usually associated with "biker chicks" or "bad girls", traditionally reckless groups of people and through using similar clothing, we relate those aspects of the stereotype to Naomi's personality. However, the jacket is from H&M, is a feminine style and brown instead of black, downgrading the image of "bad girl" to a lighter reckless quality. The use of the stilettos with leopard print and red layers in the platform highlight her reckless, carefree personality. Leopard print is associated with being wild and outgoing, while the red suggests a confidance and carelessness, all building an image representing Naomi and teenage females of being reckless and carefree.

A combination of each of these techniques generated the reckless, flirty, girly and confidant representation of Naomi, and as a result, the social group of teenage females. The protagonist's character is strongly stereotypical, particuarly regarding what people would expect to see from a main character in a romantic comedy, however we worked to differentiate her from the generic convention of female leads by making her reckless, flirty and a little more self-assured. I think the inclusion of these qualities make Naomi's character more realistic and the audience, I hope, will feel they can identify and relate to Naomi a lot easier as a result.

Pheebs, OUT! ;)

Evaluation: Question 1

Hey!

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



Pheebs, OUT! ;)