My final piece

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

When I look back at my preliminary task I notice many mistakes that my group and I made, even in the first second of the film! I notice how my Actor’s (Curtis Cragg) head is cut out just before and after the first cut, this is a bad shot because it doesn’t show any focus for the audience. I also noticed how the shots were very slow and it became boring to watch, even though the footage was only 20 seconds long. However, I believe I have improved with my abilities to get successful shot’s and leave a firm focus on the actor during those shots, if I did not do this it could have resulted in a failed production.

            

'The headless shot'

I have also learnt many editing skills whilst using the Coral software that the school provide, such as; changing the colour of a shot, VFX (such as fades and flash’s) and of course shortening clips so that they are less boring for the audience. I believe that these skills have helped me earn more marks in the filming production because it will make it more interesting for yourself (the examiner) to view!

            

I also think that my team skills have improved drastically! During my group’s preliminary task I did dominate over the other so that the filming was done the way I wanted it to be done, I see now how this was a very insufficient way to filming because it caused the group too work slower. However, for my media production I gave me co-worker (Curtis Cragg) more room to breathe with the ideas of the film, and it has actually improved our final outcome. 

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

3 things I learnt about technologies during the process of filming my media product are; adding additional post production effects, filming some more complex shots (such as an effective establishing shot) and using a camcorder to the best of it and my own ability.

            To go into my detail with the things I have learnt I would say that adding additional post production effects was probably what I learnt the most over the duration of filming and editing. This is because before I was editing this footage I had never thought of adding different effects or colouring to make a successful transaction between scenes, such as using the ‘flashback’ effect for when we see our main character killing someone. Before this production I didn’t even know that effect existed before I found and used it! Other post production techniques I used where audio splitting where I needed to cut out some… ‘Rude’ words on the flash back scene when the hammer was swung (needless to say the landing was less that elegant) but I managed to cut the word out and put another sound in over the top to cover up the usage of a rude word.

            Another thing I learnt was filming more effective shots. This includes an establishing shot, which when viewed seems very easy. But when my group and I tried to film one we ended up filming shots that were too long and the camera moved too fast, one shot lasted almost 25 seconds! But after a quick editing session and some help from a teacher I managed to cut them down to a more reasonable length. I almost learnt how to use a ‘match on action’ effectively and discretely. I found that originally the shots were difficult to get in time and I was noticing them, but I spend some of my free time teaching myself how to cut then shots better and by the end of this session I found that I could cut a match on action and not even notice it.

            The final, and possibly the most important thing, I learnt was how to use one of the school camcorder to an effective ability. Originally shots I was getting where off balance and not catching the action centre screen. But after viewing some other people footage and then viewing our own work my group and I decided that we had to get other footage and cut the older footage out. Thankfully the video came together very successfully and if it wasn’t for learning these lessons it may have been a disaster. 

What element of your media product would attract the target audience?

My group and I have done several things to make our media product appeal to the target audience described in the previous question. I think one of these reasons would be the music we have used for our clip, we used Portishead ‘Machine Gun’ this song would appeal our target audience because it is quite a dark song but with a fast beat in the background. This is the sort of music our main target audience would listen too, we believe this because the film has very fast shots and scene, this could mean if our audience likes to watch something that changes very quickly it could also lead to them liking fast music as well.

            Another reason our target audience might like our media product is because the main character is very relatable too, such as he is also at white male teen. But also it could be because he is being bullied in school and stands up against the bullies this could mean it would appeal to any male teen that is being bullied and feels unable to relate to anyone and uses the media as a form of escapism. However it could also entice other teens that may be bullying others of their own age, this would be because they want to see how the bullies originally got into that situation and are interested by how they get stood up against.

            But our target audience may only be attracted by the fact that our media product has lots of actions and is all a form of escapism from there natural lives, that may not be as exciting as what they see in this media product.

What would be the audience for your media product?

This image shows you the sort of audience I think my media product would be aimed at. It has 3 sections; the basics, what they spend money on, and the sort of media they would consume. I have examples of most media consumptions.









The reason my target audience would be aged 15 to 22 is because the character is ages 17, this means that the older targeted audience may be able to relate to some of the struggles that our character is going through. Also the reason I believe are audience will also include 15 year old males is because they may use it to learn about behaviour and response that is permitted at the older age. They also would learn about the consequences.
The reason I believe my target audience would be interested in violent games is because our film has a very violent storyline and I think that the people who would enjoy watching this sort of film would be the sort that also enjoy playing violent games.

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

The media company I think would distribute my movie is Lionsgate. This is because they have distribute several other successful English films, such as; Daybreakers, Saw 3D, and the new 50/50. These movies were all UK based films that Lionsgate distributed and they went on to becoming very successful.

          I believe Lionsgate would be able to distribute my British film better than a lot of the other distribution companies. The reason I believe this is because they are a British based company so they will know more about the economy and advertising of the UK, more so than an American company. 

The film we have done would be classified as a ‘15’ by the BBFC, meaning that no one under the age of 15 will be allowed to view it whilst in the cinema, this is because of the violence and Language in the film. The BBFC states that in a ‘15’ film you are allowed to show strong violence but are not allowed to dwell on the pain or suffering of a single person. We followed this rules by only showing the infliction of the pain, we did not show the outcome of this pain. We believe that this makes the film a ‘15’. 

How does your media product represent particular social groups

This is a photograph of a spider graph I did to show how our film represents a certain social group. It also goes into the costume and body language of our main character all be it briefly.











The reason we chose a teenage male character is because they have a very negative stereotype, especially those who wear 'hoodies'. This stereotype shows male teenagers to have a very one tracked mind, resulting in them trying to complete one task to any extent. This is also linked to them being violent, because, it suggests that to complete the task they has set their minds on they have to violently bi-pass all the obstacles in the way.

The body language we used is fairly hard to see if you aren't looking for it. There were several small elements such as throwing the clothes onto the bag, that show a messy or nervous characteristic. This could show that he has made a mistake and is worried as to how the problem will be resolved