Main Post 12.7

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

First Project: Preliminary Task

As you can notice that there is too much headroom in my first piece of group work.

  

Second Project: 9th Grade

When filming, I made sure that there was enough headroom, not too much and not cutting the top of the main characters head. 

In our previous group preliminary task, we realised that there was plenty of headroom when we were meant to do a ¾ shot of both of the characters exchanging their dialogue. So this time we ensured that there was a correct amount of headroom when the characters get ready to leave the classroom.

Also in our first project we found that the whole footage was filmed on a tripod, so this time to give a different effect we thought it would look good to do some 'hand held' filming, and this also makes the audience feel that they are involved with the film and know whats happening.

I thought that the second project that we had done was a successful result and although there weren't any dialogue in the shot, the expressions made by the characters e.g. when the popular kids gave a look of disgust to the nerdy kid when she had toilet tissue roll stuck to her feet, and the music playing in the background did actually make the footage look more professional and American comedy genre films tend to have music playing in the background.  

Main Post 12.6

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

1) Adobe Premier:

As a group, we used this software to edit our opening sequence, although I had used this software before in my previous group project, I did find it quite confusing however after doing it more and with the help of teachers and the members of my group, it started to make more sense and became more easier to understand.

2) Internet Explorer:

I used the internet explorer to find and research the history of genre, and to see how much profit/money a comedy genre film had made. I also used the internet to find pictures, and watch some videos about comedy.

3) YouTube:

After we had finished doing our focus group, the actual opening sequence and the audience feedback, the footage then got uploaded onto YouTube by the teacher and then we had to export the video onto our blog. We also used YouTube to research opening sequence's to help with our comedy genre film.

4) Microsoft PowerPoint:

Since the blog only accepted JPEG files I had to use the software Microsoft PowerPoint because this was the only way that I could actually change the pictures in to a JPEG file.

5) Samsung Camera:

We used the samsung camera to take shots of the location we used for our opening sequence, we needed the photos for our pre-production and list all the hazards that could happen in each location that we used. 

6) Scanner: 

Some of the work that we had done was hand written/drawn, so we had to scan it in, save it as a PDF file and then export it on to the blog.

7) Google: Google was a very important website as I got most of the pictures from there, especially for the moodboard that I had produced. We also used Google to research information about the genre 'comedy'.

8) Word: 

The software 'Word' was most useful when I produced the post production and pre-production documentation. This was because I had a lot of writing to do and to make sure that there was no mistakes and grammatical error, this was also the right software to produce a table.

9) Cassette:

The cassette was very important because without that, we wouldn't have been able to record our film, the tape did reach to the end once and that therefore did not capture one of our scenes, however we did just get another cassette and recorded the shot again.

10) Video Camera + Tripod:

We used the tripod throughout our video as we needed most of the scenes to be steady and not unstable. We used the video camera to capture all our footage, it was very useful as we could look back at the footage after we had done the scene shots.

11) Blogger.com:

I used this website to publish all the work that I had done, including all the pictures, videos we made and any additional written work. I have never used this before so it was quite confusing at first however once I started using it regularly I got used to it and didn’t really encounter any problems with it.

12) Unsigned Band Web:

We used this website to find music that was not copy-righted, this website was very useful as it had the list of genre type music and what would suit for our piece of work. 

Main Post 12.5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our media product can be seen by a young audience, it would receive a 'U' BBFC rating as its suitable for all ages however our main focus is from an age between 8-18. The film as a whole is suitable for all ages because this footage does not contain any upsetting or inappropriate images. Although it shows the main character being bullied all the time, the things that happen to her won’t make you feel sorry for her, instead it will bring out humour and laughter e.g. Mr Bean. Nevertheless there is a happy ending to the whole film itself.
We addressed our target audiecne with the setting of a school; the mise-en-scene, this was obvious to the audience because they can tell by the mise-en-scene, the location and the diagetic sound of a school bell.

Whilst doing the audience feedback, we gathered a range of people, 3 of whom were our friends, 2 male ages 16 and 17 and one female age 17, and another 2 young boys, both aged 14. We asked them a few questions, some from the questionnaire that we had done. ‘How they thought the opening sequence went’, ‘would you go and watch it with a friend’. We thought it would be best to get different age groups so that we can get a realistic feedback.

   

Main Post 12.4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

After doing a lot of research, incuding the questionnaire that we have found showed that the genre comedy is mainly aimed at a younger audience, both male and female and an age range between 8-18. The reason why young people would want to watch a school based teenage film is becasue its relating to them and they could understand it easily, also after getting the questionnaire results, we found that they would rather go to the cinema with their friends rather than someone older or younger so they can view the film and also talk about it.

Here is a typical young teenager, her name is Emily, she attends school and knows how a normal school life is. Emily likes to have a laugh, going cinema, hanging around with friends, going shopping and she is a very outgoing person. Emily would suit watching this film as she likes to have fun and enjoys going cinema so '9th Grade' would be a perfect film for her to watch with her friends.

Main Post 12.3

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

There are many ways in which to distribute our film
The kind of media institution that would distribute our product would be a highy well known company, and that would be the SONY company, as they normally globally distribute their films, spreading it world wide, if not atleast to the USA. Some of the films that Sony have worked with are 'Bridget Jones' Diary and Drillbit Taylor. Drillbit taylor was an Americanised school based film, this film had given us the idea as our 9th Grade characters were based on the Drillbit Taylor characters. Therefore the company Sony would best suit to distribute our film.

However. knowing that the 'Sony Pictures' is very big and well known distributor, therefore realistically there is a low chance of our film getting distributed as the cast and crew are not well known, so we have to start small and see where it goes.
The role of the production company would produce our film by raising funds and holding charity events to produce a new film. The company can also adversities the film by joining with another company, this is called 'convergence', this is when two companies join together to produce/distribute/advertise a film for example internet, to develop promotion and therefore getting a wider audience, so they can preview our film and therefore getting a wider audience.
Overall I believe that the british film distributor 'Momentum Pictures' would be an ideal distributor for our film because it is cheap however although it is not very well known, Momentum's most successful theatrical release includes 'The Kings Speech' so there is a chance of our film getting big and hopefully grossing in a fair amount of money.

 

                                                                                              

Main Post 12.2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

                    

The social group that we represented our main character was as a 'nerdy' character. This is shown by the character clothes, and her big glasses and holding the text books. This sort of characters is mainly based in American movies and that’s why he chose that sort of look. The character also seems to be very lonely as she has no friends, in the footage it shows that she is sitting in the front of the class, whilst all the popular kids (including the bully) sitting in the back, looking at their phones and messing around as the nerdy kid is very serious and all set in doing her work. This is how the teenage Americans are normally represented so our opening sequence is a successful Americanised film.

                

The other social group that we represented was the typical popular American 'bully', we done this by making the bully look rough and big. We used the mise-en-scene by representing the bully as wearing dark clothing, along with a leather jacket, the bully also seems to have a friend with at all time unlike the nerdy kid who has no friends. I thought that our characters did look very American as the mise-en-scene and location did suit the American themed comedy genre. We dressed this character in dark clothes to represent the stereo-typicalness in this, to show that he is hard and no one should 'mess with him'.

'9th Grade' --> 

<--'High School Musical 3'

High School Music is a school based American movie, our 9th grade location suited the whole american school theme because, in one of our location we deliberately done a shot where there are lockers, the reason for this was because most American school movies tend to have lockers surrounding the school building. 

Main Post 12.1

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

Genre
The genre of our opening sequence is ‘Comedy’; it is a school based comedy, the reason why we chose this is because being  a teenager ourselves, we already know what is funny and how people will react to it. In the footage, one of the things that we had done to make the whole film comical is when  the bully ties the characters shoe laces together  without her knowing, resulting in her falling over.

Structure of sequence
After looking at our opening sequence, the structure supports the conventions of real media products as it successfully establishes the whole comedy theme, we even used an actual comedy genre time line to make it as realistic and conventional as possible. Also at the beginning of the footage, we faded it in, which is conventional as most comedy genre films seem to fade in, and then continue from there.

Style/colour of font
The font that we used was a white san serif; we displayed the credits on dark backgrounds. The font was very soft and almost handwritten as it matched the theme of the whole school comedy based film. The font suited the typical comedy conventions as the hand writing presented a cool, young normal, ordinary school.  

Style of presentation

Our film as a whole was presented and aimed to be a typical Americanised school based comedy; therefore we had to do the complete opposite to a normal British school, which meant that the 9^th Graders (Year 8) had to wear non-school uniform. The colour and font we chose was a white sans-serif as it looked childish and very teenage; this connotes the idea of the school being a typical teenage high school.

Narrative enigma

The narrative enigma is conventional and aimed to suit a teenage audience. The whole plot of our opening sequence is about a girl who’s always getting bullied, this straight away raises the following questions: ‘why is the girl getting bullied’ or ‘Is she going to stand up for herself’. These enigmas are conventional as a normal teenage person do go through some of these issues so therefore the audience will understand the whole plot and making the film successful.

Introduction of characters

When introducing the characters we immediately had a long shot of the main character running in to school late, very unorganised and nearly tripping over whilst pulling up her socks the represents the character as being nerdy and clumsy. For the next shot we had the bully tying the main characters shoe laces together, and the audience can straight away see that it’s a normal typical school based comedy.  

Camera
In two of the scenes, the opening sequence had been ‘hand held’, we did this so the audience will feel that they are part of the film and feel like they are following the main character. When watching some comedy genre films we realised that most of the shots were medium close ups and ¾ shots, so we did use them shots so that they could be easily established by the audience.  

Sound

In our opening sequence, we did not have any dialogue however we did add an uncopyrighted song, which plays from the beginning and fades out until the end of the video, the song develops and forms conventions of a real media product as it is a rock music an genre and teenage Americans are particularly being labelled as ‘young cool punk’ teens.

Editing & Special effects

As we were working in the school we didn’t really have any choice but stick to an easy simple opening sequence and most of our footage was already in chronological order so we didn’t had to rearrange. We used a range of stationary to create the title of the film ‘9^th grade’ for this we placed the pens and pencils on a cling film, throwing it towards the camera, we then used the editing by reversing it and forming the title of the film.

Mie-en-scene
The opening sequence represents the main character as a ‘geek’; this is shown by her wearing high socks, big glasses and a minimal amount of make-up. The character is also very clumsy as she falls over and this makes the audience want to laugh at her. The Bully however is shown to be tough as he is wearing a dark leather jacket, un-tucked shirt and black trousers; the bully is represented as being a ‘cool popular’ kid in the class.

12a: Evaluation- Audience Feedback

This is our focus group, we gained feedback from them by telling them a few questions, and some questions that we already had from the questionnaire that we had previously produced. We gained a good response from them as one of them said that it was 'really funny' and the 'music went well with the opening sequence'.

The audience also said that they would carry on watching the film and that they would watch it with a group of friends as 'its a sort of film that you would watch a film with a group of friends'. 

Overall I was happy with the feedback that we got, as they found it funny and would watch the rest of the film, the targeted audience was a successful result. 

Main Post 11- Final Opening Sequence