Evaluation
The coursework that we had been working and filming on was to create a two minute opening sequence to a movie, to do this we had to research on a lot of different media products and institutes to find out what makes a successful two minute opening. The research was primarily based on what kind of materials we could use for our opening product. This research was later processed in to the foundations of our opening sequence, some of the research had included:
• Watching clips: we had watched many different openings to assess which kind of footage we would be offering.
• Music research: we also researched on what type of style (genre) and track we were going to play in our 2 minute opening scene as music can help develop a dramatic effect in opening scenes and give an idea of what the sequence may be about.
• Storyboard/ideas/script: we as a group had to storyboard as well as come up with ideas and a script to finalize this idea.
There were also other research we had carried out, the output results were our final media product.
The 2 minute opening sequence that we had developed uses actual real media products as our genre was drama and drama heavily revolves around realistic themes. The ways that our media product uses real media products is by playing with the emotions and ideologies of the audience by using a music track that relates to our opening sequence for e.g. in a thriller movie you would expect a music which changes in tempo to play with the minds of the audience. Another way that our media product uses real media product is by catching the audiences interest by showing them or giving them a taster of what the opening scene as well as the movie will be about, the reason that catching the audiences attention is important is so that the audience do not give negative feedback as well as viewing the movie to the end. This means the way that we had caught the audience’s attention was by showing them an establishing shot right in the beginning of the 2 minute sequence. The reason that this will catch the audience’s attention is because the movie will be played mainly in London as well as set in London it self which means audiences may want to know the issues as well as scenarios as what may be going on.
The way that our media product develops in to a real media product is because it follows the codes and conventions of an actual media product for e.g. an actual media product would introduce its main characters in the beginning and develop on them throughout the movie not exposing too much in the start of the movie. We had followed this convention by introducing 2 main characters not exposing too much but developing on the convention by exposing a little bit of their nature as we only have 2 minutes and more to catch the audience’s attention. This is shown in our work when Jason (name not introduced for suspense) says “if Hakim finds out, you know he’s gonna kill us” this suggests that the nature of the characters run deep as the word kill is a strong word which also can show what the characters are involved in.
Our media product also challenges the forms and conventions of drama as the beginning is shown as serious as well as exposing some of the storyline and plot. The reason that this challenges the form and conventions of real drama media products is because drama movies develop their characters through out the movie by using the convention equilibrium-disequilibrium-equilibrium, whilst our product uses disequilibrium-equilibrium-disequilibrium with the seriousness of the drama and other conventions used as well. This also challenges forms and conventions since our product goes straight in to action and seriousness whilst real drama products takes time developing the situation and then adding the character/s in to that situation. Our media product also challenges forms and conventions since some of the footage shown in our drama is not part of the drama conventions yet has all the other conventions that a drama would have for e.g. P.O.V shots are not a main convention in drama, it is usually shown in third person whilst our media product has recurring P.O.V shots.
The 2 minute opening sequence that we had filmed and edited represents many different types of social groups but urban youth in particular. The reason that it represents the urban youths is because there are many different issues that revolve around the urban areas such as gun crime, knife crime, drug dealing etc. Also it represents the options that urban youths have when they get kicked out of college as many citizens of different classes are oblivious of what goes on in the urban area as well as the small and limited options and opportunities this social group has which forces them to do things to survive. Our media product also represents teenagers that get involved with dangerous conflicts as well as situations that most grown men wouldn’t be able to handle. It also represents how it is hard to turn around their lives with limited options and opportunity as well as other factors such family, friends, contacts etc.
The media institute which would distribute our media product is Revolver since Revolver is based around London as well as producing similar drama content such as KiDULTHOOD, BULLETBOY etc. We have also produced research on different types of institutes so that we can know or find out which would be the best suitable institute to distribute our media product. Although no research had been done on Revolver, primarily on the big institutes such as Columbia, Paramount etc. we had decided from internal knowledge that the best media institute to distribute our product would be Revolver as Revolver are more in to touch with our target audience than any other media institute. Our target audience are urban youths, teenagers aged between 14-19 as well as adults so that the adults aged between 25-35 know about the situation that revolves around the urban youths. Also another reason that we had gone for revolver is because it is successful when distributing independent movies seeing as our opening sequence as well as our whole product is indie.
The way that we had attracted/addressed our audience is through marketing such as using our posters to let our target audience know about the movie. Although we used one method of marketing (poster) which may not get the result we may of wanted we had worked around that by deciding to also use viral marketing by uploading our two minute opening sequence on to YouTube. We had also worked around this issue by exposing the poster in a location where a lot of our target audience may reside. This helps us also to use another form of marketing which is word of mouth, this means the more we can expose to our target audience the more they will talk about the opening scene making more awareness towards our audience.
Whilst producing our media product I have witness as well as taken in how different platforms of media can come together to create a media product, for e.g. the technologies we use to film our product, the software’s to edit the filming as well as to create posters to market the product. Throughout the process I have learnt that there is much more to just filming and editing to product a first hand media product. Though it was a challenge such as learning how to use the equipment as well as new software’s on the iMac we were still determined to produce a piece of work that was more than up to standards. Being a windows user I found the iMac to be harder as well as confusing to use, despite these facts I was able to overcome this factor and was able to produce work that had nearly matched my skills in windows.
Looking back at my preliminary I feel that I have improved in my camera work as I had also done some camera work during our production. I also feel that I am more opened minded to different types of ideas to introduce in to my work. These ideas I feel have helped me to produce the quality of work that I have worked on. During the production process I have learnt how to use camera angles most effectively as well as using it in the timing for e.g. using a worms eye view to show power on a character etc. I have also learnt and harnessed my editing skills on the imac’s software iMovie, though it was a challenge getting used to the software in how to edit, crop, add effects etc I have found that the iMovie is a very useful as well as a powerful tool to use for an independent movie as it could be used as a low budgeted tool for indie films.
Evaluation by: Sohel Uddin Ahmed
Candidate number: 1204
Centre number: 12350
As level media studies
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