bca2media-group2: May 2010

1. in what way does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of media products?

We have produced a short film which is a drama based genre called Uncherished. It is a drama about a 15year old girl called Stacey Leigh who was a loving caring girl with lots of friends then showing the audience how drugs and abuse turned her life upside down were she turned to drugs and lost her friends , became homeless, lost everything. As are film was a short film we had to do the beginning middle and end in 5 minutes. this is sometimes hard as things that are 5 minutes long are trailers and they leave you with a cliff hanger but with this drama we had to do a full story which was a challenge without leaving a cliff hanger but I think our story is very effective as at the end it shows you what’s happened to Stacey Leigh and you aren’t left wondering.

In our film we have used the 3 conventions to give meaning and determine the response of the viewer. The first one being camera technique and shots. a scene in the film were Stacey Leigh is in the bedroom and her stepdad Baz comes in and it’s a point of view shot of Stacey Leigh, as Baz stands over Stacey Leigh the camera slowly moves it way up to Baz's face when he then starts shouting at her. This is a good shot as the audiences are in suspense in what’s going to happen as the camera slowly makes its way up.

The second convention we used was the clothes that the actors where wearing and the colours of the clothes. Firstly we put Baz in baggy clothes that looked slouchy and mucky as we were portraying him as lazy and not very wealthy. We then put a black coat on the drug dealer to give a sense of mystery. Finally Stacey-Leigh, the main character her main outfit was a baggy khaki coat with a hood dark jeans and black laced boots. We wanted to keep it subtle and simple and not too obvious. The coats colour looks dull and dreary which we wanted as this is what effect we wanted to give.

Finally the third convention is music. Music doesn’t play a big part in our film which is a bad point to talk about as it is one of the things we would do differently by putting more music in the scenes to create the mood better. The music we do have is at the beginning of the film which Stacey Leigh is doing a voice over, over it. The music is quite slow and depressing which gives the effect we wanted to our film.

2 How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our 5 minute drama consists of 2 main characters a male and a female, the female being the teenager and the male being the step dad both white British. The gender is presented in a stereotypical way as the male adult dominates the teenager but then on the other hand it isn’t very stereotypical as Baz abused Stacey Leigh and that isn’t a very stereotypical thing to do.
Stacey Leigh is shown to not have alot of money by what shes wears and how she speaks.

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

Our film could be distributed by Film4 or Channel 4 as our film isn’t a high budget film and wasn’t filmed with an expensive camera, therefore couldn’t be produced by a major Hollywood studio. Film4 and channel 4 also normally distribute drama's such as ours, an example of a drama that’s film4/channel 4 have don’t similar to ours is called " The Unloved" like i mentioned previously and also a film called "About a girl".

Our film would be mainly on TV as it is only a short film and wouldnt make the cinema as it is not a very high budget film and not advertised as well as American films are that make it to the cinema.

Our film offers oppertunites for merchandising for example at the beggining of the film it shows a barcadi bottle which is advertising bacardi to the viewer, it also shows a can of John Smiths Smooth beer car, again advertising beer.

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

The audience for our media product is firstly 15 and over as we gave it a rating of 15. Young adults to Middle aged people, suggested age group 15 to 40. For people who enjoy dramas. Both genders would watch this drama as it’s not gender specific to either or. It has a fair bit of strong language and scenes of drug taking thats why we rated it as a 15.

A film similar to ours is aChannel 4 film called "the Unloved" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3vwXWoSpVY&has_verified=1.
This film is about a girl who gets abused by her father so gets put into a home
and shows how she grows and provides a childs view of whats its like in a care home. It is similar to our film as firstly at the beginning of the film it is a voice over the film which is what we did at the beggining of the film to let the viewer know what its all about. Another comparison is that in this film the father is shouting at the little girl asking were his money is and she doesnt know which is the same as were Baz in our film, comes up the stairs and demands money of Stacey Leigh but she doesnt have it. It also shows a clip of the girl sat in the car with her head against the window which is a scene we have in our fim although e filmed from the insde of the car because are equipment isnt as high tech as theres. to summerise the film "The Unloved" is about a scared loney girl that has lost everything and has no one to turn to which in this case is the same as Stacey Leigh in our film.

In addition to this, in our audience feedback on our social networking sites we got a comment saying it reminded them of the series on channel 4 called skins. This suggest that it is appealing to a younger audience.

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

In our film there a particular points in our film that stand out and could terrify a certain age or gender, for example when Baz the stepdad walks in the room and Stacey-Leigh is curled up on the floor and the camera is on point of view shot and moves up the body of Baz where he then rags her by her hair and starts shouting. This can be intimidating a scary for the younger age range to see violence and also for girls to watch as it’s the girl that is being abused.

In our film we used a rage of different camera angles to attract the audience and put them in their shoes, for example in the scene were Stacey Leigh is sniffing drugs we did medium shot jumps cuts when she is standing up after taking the drugs, this shows the passing of time as she gets up. This makes it flow and look effective and also we have seen it being used in a film called "Seven" so we incorporated it into our film as the film "Seven" gave it a good effect. in addition to this, after the jump cuts we used a point of view shot of Stacey Leigh stumbling out of the bath room and sliding herself down the wall onto the floor to give the audience a feel for how it would be in her shoes, to add to this we also put a effect on when we was editing called earthquake which made it go shaky and fuzzy. This puts the audience in the position of Stacey Leigh very well here as it is showing how she is seeing things at that moment in time.

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

I feel I have learnt quite a lot doing this task. We started by doing a brief of exactly what we’re doing show that at the end of our film we could make sure we had met all the criteria we had set. We also did a treatment of a film indicating the title, audience, duration, channel, certificate and film plot etc. We made a shot list of all the shots we were going to put in the film so then when we were filming we could refer back to the shit list instead of trying to remember, this helped us in the production of are film as it ran smoothly as we new exactly what shots were meant to be where. We also did a story board in draft and then in best. This also helped us to produce the film as it mapped out how the film would be and we could look at it and decided which bits needed changing or not that’s why we did a draft and a best.
I feel more confident using the equipment now. The JVC DV camcorder is easy to use once you get used to it, it is better use of camera as it is better quality.
I think our film is very successful at fulfilling the task, we have met all the criteria and the comments on are film was mainly positive, only point I could pick up on is the music as a mentioned before as there could have been more in the film to create the mood more.

Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Critically Evaluating Video Production (by Rebecca Henstock)

Sunday, 2 May 2010

Radio Trailer Research (By Olivia Davies)

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