Question time...7

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

I feel that we have come a long way from our preliminary task. We learnt a lot of essential skills from doing the preliminary, but we learnt far more doing the opening sequence. It was more of a challenge having to create a 3 minute film rather than 20 seconds, we needed to create a 3 minute narrative this time so therefore needed to have more ideas. Fortunately we were all feeling creative during the process, as we had lots of ideas in the planning stages and throughout working on it we came up with even more.

Improvements from the preliminary:
In the preliminary we didn’t use any music, so when creating our media product this time we ensured we used music, which helped to create the appropriate atmosphere, and allowed us to manipulate the viewers’ emotions.
Also n the preliminary we didn’t use a tripod leading to some shots being shaky, however in our opening sequence we ensured we use a tripod, to get a stiller and better quality shots. This added to the quality of our film.
We used a wider range of shots in our opening sequence than we did in the preliminary and used them appropriately to fit in with the storyline.

I think we found the editing harder when creating the opening sequence to the preliminary because we had much more to edit, and it was hard to make sure it all ran smoothly. We also experienced problems with the software where we had to do some of it again because it hadn't saved properly.
As we filmed over several days, we had to ensure we kept continuity, we took pictures of what the characters were wearing to ensure we looked the same each time, and we also tried to ensure if shooting the shot from different angles we would make sure we repeated the same actions in the same way, with the same objects in the correct hands etc.
Also...I must admit...I disliked it when we got rid of shots that we liked either because they didn't work with the sequence or there wasn't enough time to include it in the sequence. But that's just me being clingy.

Overall I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating our media product. It has been hard work and difficult at times, but very enjoyable, fun and rewarding. I've loved working with my group. I've learnt plenty about the film industry and what is required just to make a 3 minute opening sequence. Also I have learnt new skills through doing this, which is very pleasing! I'm looking forward to doing Media next year :D

Question time...6

6. What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

We have used a wide range of technologies whilst creating our product. Here are the technologies and what I learnt from each stage.

Planning:

Dvd player: I watched Mrs Henderson Presents opening video commentary. I chose to watch this because not only is it one of my favourite films, but it is backed by 'BBC Films' which is one of the companies we could ask to help fund our film. I learnt that dvd commentaries can give you insight into the decisions the Director make and why they make them.

I also used a dvd player to watch and then review an exisiting opening film sequence, Dirty Harry. Reviewing an existing opening to a film, helped understand the process of creating an opening sequence.

Digital camera: This was used for taking pictures of the location, I learnt how still pictures help to represent what you want to film.

Websites/Search engines: I used the internet to help in the research stage of our film. I used search engines such as 'yahoo', 'google' and 'wikipedia' to find out vital information. I used charity websites to find out information on Sophie's problems. I also looked at 'NorthAllerton College' which provided me with brilliant, detailed paragraphs on camera work.

Construction:

Camera for filming: I learnt about how to use the camera and the tripod and now have a greater knowledge of what a camera can do and how to use it more effectively. I learnt about zoom, different angled shots, angles, movements and autofocus.

Microphone: We used a microphone to record the voiceovers and music, it was difficult to control volume using this, but by the end of the process we had learnt how to use them more effectively.

Editing software on the computer: We used 'vegas editing' software for the editing of our film. I have come a long way from the beginning of the year in terms of editing and now understand how to use it better and have grasped the basics when editing films on it. I learnt about transitions and how to edit the sound and cut clips to the correct length and when to bring different clips in. I now think I would be able to produce more films on there in the future.

Evaluation:

Facebook: We used this social networking site and uploaded the video onto it to use for people to watch and review. This helped me understand how film industries can use technology to gain feedback on their film.

Also learnt how to use blogspot to blog...and hopefully I haven't blogged too badly...*fingers crossed*.

Furthermore learnt how you can never trust computers...they really aren't all that reliable...in fact all technology is unreliable.

Question time...5

5. How did you attract or address your target audience?
How, why and is it effective?

Although we gained mainly positive feedback, we did acquire some criticisms too.
Here is a questionnaire we used to gain audience feedback. It proved an effective way to gain results we wanted. We gave 20 people our questionnaire. 10 people through facebook and 10 people offline took it. We used 5 closed questions and an open questions. Here it is:

1. Could you clearly identify that Sophie was the main character in the film?
a. Easily
b. Quite easily
c. With difficulty
d. No I didn’t realise

95% of the people could 'easily' identify that Sophie was our main character, and the remaining 5% could 'quite easily' identify her as the main character.

2. What genre do you think our film is?
a. Thriller
b. Mystery
c. Melodrama
d. Horror
e. Romance

The people we questioned did not find it as easy to identify the genre of our film. I believe this is because melodramas aren't as easy to recognise and as well known as other genres.

3. Could you understand the opening sequence clearly?

a. Yes

b. No

c. Some of it

90% of people we asked could understand our opening sequence clearly. 10% said it wasn't clear, if we were to make further adjustments we would try and see how we could make it clearer for the audience.

4. What do you think our target age group is?

a. Children
b. Teenagers

c. Adults

d. Elderly

Most people guest right and believed it to be a film for teenagers. Nobody thought it was aimed at the elderly. The minority of people believed our audience was children. A few thought the audience was adults, but we were also trying to appeal to them as well so this is expected.

5. Would you watch the whole film?

a. Yes
b. No
c. Maybe

The majority of people they would like to see the whole film, and everyone else said they would consider watching the rest of the film if it was to be made.

6. How could we improve our opening sequence?
"At one point the autofocus seems to make the image go blurry"
"Too many voiceovers"
"Some of the transitions weren’t as smooth as they could have been"
"The quality of the camera isn't very good"
"Voiceovers a little bit too quiet"

Question time...4

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

I feel females would be the main audience for our film. Melodramas typically appeal to a feminine audience. Although males may also enjoy the film, I think we would try and attract young women to come and see the film. Although we would also try not to exclude the male gender. Also some teenagers would be able to relate with 14 year old Sophie as she is a similar age to them and may be dealing with some issues they are facing in their lives. Females statistically are more likely to suffer with depression, however many males also battle with the illness, moreover although we have represented a young girl dealing with depression, depression can occur at any age, and often people can experience depressive relapses throughout their life. I think our film can educate on what it's like for a person to deal with depression, self harm, eating disorders and domestic violence. There is always more awareness that needs to be created on these issues.
I feel having chosen to do a melodrama, we have not chosen a typical genre of film, as melodramas are more uncommon than many genres of film on screen today. So hopefully that would create some interest and get some regularly cinema goers wanting to watch it as it is something different.

We looked at the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) guidelines to consider what rating we would give our film. We decided that it should be a 15. The BBFC guidelines state that the following guidelines constitute as a rated 15 film:

• Imitable behaviour
  Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and
  self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be
  copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.


• Theme
  No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is
  appropriate for 15 year olds.


• Drugs
  Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not
  promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily
  accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example,
  aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.


• Violence
  Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction
  of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to
  be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also
  unlikely to be acceptable.
  There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence
  but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and
  have a strong contextual justification.


• Language
  There may be frequent use of strong language (for example,
  ‘fuck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be
  acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated
  use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.


• Nudity
  Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without
  strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a
  non-sexual or educational context.


• Sex
  Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail.
  There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour,
  but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable
  unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is
  sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.


• Discrimination
  The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory
  language or behaviour.


• Horror
  Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.
  

We have put our film into this category, because we feel if we were to continue our film this is what guidlines we would need to work to. This means people watching the film shouldn't be under 15 years of age, which aims our film at a mature audience.

Question time...3

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

We would distribute our media product to companies such as 'Film 4 Productions', which is owned by channel 4, because we have a made a low budget, British, independent film. We didn't have much money to make the film, which is evident in the quality of the camera and some of the shots, sound and the editing. Hopefully if we were backed by 'Film 4' we would be able to sort out any problems.
We included ‘In association with Film 4’ in our opening sequence. Unlike the American blocker buster, Hollywood movies, which have huge budgets; British independent films focus on producing grittier storylines, rather than focusing on the special effects. The money involved in making these films isn’t as much, so directors look to create a different type of film.
In the past film 4 has backed a wide range of films such as 'Slumdog Millionaire', 'Enduring Love', 'A room with a view', 'Beautiful Thing', and 'Lovely bones' without which, these films probably wouldn't have got the funding to be made.
However, we could also distribute our film to 'BBC Films' which are another production company which funds the kind of film we made. These have backed films such as 'An Education', 'The Duchess', 'Bullet Boy', 'Millions' and 'Mrs Henderson Presents'.

Question time...2

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

What social groups and how it represents it

We tried to represent the social groups in our film sensitively. We did a lot of research into all of the social groups we are representing, so we could portray them authentically. We are representing a 14 year old teenager girl who suffers from depression and is also facing many other problems in her life such as an eating disorder, domestic violence and self harm. Although I'm 3 years older than that of a 14 year old, I look young for my age, so this along with wearing suitable clothes a little make up helped me play this age authentically. Furthermore I have done lots of acting in the past both stage and film, take theatre studies for a-level and I'm represented by an acting agency, so this experience also allowed me to play Sophie effectively as I knew how I could become Sophie and feel the emotions she would be dealing with. Sophie is classed as a vulnerable person in society, not only being a teenager and female, she is suffering from a mental illness and would require help and therapy to battle against her illness.

In our film, I think we’ve stereotypically portrayed woman as being the weak and emotional ones. Whilst the male is portrayed as aggressive and intimidating. Women usually are the victims in domestic violence issues, and the men tend to be the ones to intimidate them.

The Father is in a shirt and smart black trouser, suggesting he is the breadwinner of the family, and likes to be in control. The mother is dressed in casual clothes suggesting she hasn’t been out anywhere in the day, she is a housewife. Both of the parents are middle aged. Sophie wears long sleeve tops/jumpers to hide the fact that she self-harms. She doesn’t try hard with her appearance.

All 3 characters are caucasian, so although this only represents one ethnic groups, it doesn't mean different ethnicities can't face the same issues that are shown in our film.

Question time...1

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?
Comparision to other media products

A media product, which is a film, should establish the narration, characters, settings, genre, style, ideology and visual style in the first few minutes of the film. We have aimed to do all of this in our opening sequence. The narration was developed by using research taken from charities websites such as: ‘The Mood Foundation’, ‘Mind’ for depression. ‘Beat’ for eating disorders and ‘Women’s Aid’ and ‘The Hideout’ for domestic violence, and from this expanded our initial ideas and create a plot for our media product. We didn't really base our idea upon an existing film, but as I am a loyal supporter of 'The Mood Foundation' and have raised money for them in the past and really believe in the cause and so was already quite knowledgeable on the condition, the idea originiated from here.

The title 'Welcome to my World' is a common phrase which me use, usually in a sarcastic way. The 'my' being in itallics helps demonstrate the sarcasm. I think the title of the films conveys the idea that the world they are living is rather sinister and dark. It shows how the character doesn't have anyone to turn to, so tries to invite the audience into experience her life with her.

We have three characters in our opening sequence Sophie and her two parents. I think we quickly establish who the main character of our film is. We open with a shot of Sophie writing in a diary. Then we show who her family are, through the kitchen scene. It shows our film is based on her. Sophie is also the character who does the voiceovers which indicates it is her story. Melodramas often have the good vs. evil side when portraying characters. Sophie is the good, where the Father is the evil as he is some of the reason to why Sophie is so depressed. The ideology of the piece is to show that we are on Sophie’s side, we want the audience to care and connect to her. We want the antagonist to be her Father, who is an evil, cruel man who inflicts misery on Sophie and her Mothers life.

We used decided to have our opening sequence set inside which is to represent the enclosure that our main character feels. Filming indoors also mean lots of our footage appears dark and dimly lit which affects the visual style of the piece. We filmed in two different houses, but ensured we would only include on kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom etc. in the film.

Our film is a melodrama, Sophie is suffering with the mental illness, depression, like characters in melodramas she has difficulty expressing her feelings to others. So we hope the music and the voiceovers represent what she is dealing with. She is unable to deal with what she is going through, showing inner conflict, so turns the frustration and pain upon herself, by self harming, drinking alcohol and crying often.

Despite not basing our idea on an exisiting film, similarities in our film can be seen to the film ‘About a boy’ where the boy’s Mother is suffering with depression and tries to take her own life, by overdosing on pills. Sophie also tries to overdose on pills to kill herself in the opening sequence of our film.

Our creation *revised*

Welcome to my world video

Alterations...

After doing our initial opening sequence, and despite the positive feedback we gained, we realised we had some alterations to make...

• Firstly our opening sequence was four minutes long, so we decided that although we liked all of the content, we should cut it down, as we felt it was a bit too long for an opening sequence.
• When cutting the sequence we decided to take out the whole of the first minute, because although we liked it, it wasn't essential footage.
• We redid one of the voiceovers because it was hard to hear, and in fact the one we replaced it with was much better in terms of clarity.
• We put the credits towards the end of the 3 minutes, rather than at the beginning. We also made sure that that we only used the four main credits...staring, directed by, produced by, music by...
• We tried to make the cuts flow better and cut a second or two off a few clips
• We changed the ending of the opening sequence so she didn't die and instead said 'if only it had been that easy' we felt that was a better way to continue the film.

We've created an opening sequence *high 5*

We've created our opening sequence. However we didn't follow the storyboard/script to plan. Nevertheless I feel it was better that way, as we made more interesting creative choices and had new and more practical ideas when filming it...

1. We took out the school scene as we felt they made the piece drag, and didn't add much to the sequence.
2. We changed some of the dialogue at the dinner scene, from the original script, because we improvised when filming it. Then edited it all together.
3. We moved the screaming into the pillow part to straight after the dinner scene.
4. We removed scene with the Father standing in the doorway, because we felt it was too subtle and the viewer probably wouldn't understand what we were trying to imply.
5. We created a different ending of her sitting on the sofa with the tv, but just thinking instead, then taking paracetamol to try and end her suffering.
6. We finished with the mum coming into the room and finding her dead.

We are now going to use audience feedback to try and adapt our opening sequence, to improve it...

La la la...Music and Sound!

I composed a piece of music - which will be the theme tune - with my brother, Chris. Then we recorded the piece of music. It was a duet. So I played the piano, whilst Chris played the brass instrument called the baritone.

We also decided to use the beginning of a Leona Lewis song 'Homeless' as it is a sad, emotional piece of music and seemed to fit very nicely with some of the dialogue.

Furthermore we have also used a voiceover, with Sophie talking. It shows her thoughts, probably from what she has written down in her diary. Nevertheless we had some difficulties when recording with the microphones, as you could hear the affects of using a microphone, so we had to try our best to edit out the microphone noises and turn it down when necessary.