Evaluation Q.1

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

Our media product develop forms and conventions of real media products. We used most of the typical conventions throughout our media product, to make it more understandable to the target audience. We explored convention in different ways; conventions that we explored around with in our products is the setting, time period, character(s) (protagonist), narrative and enigma.  

We used two locations for showing the present and the flashback to give a full picture to the audience of what is going around with the main character’s life and make it realistic. To locate the present setting, we used a well-known city ‘London’ for the reason that, we needed a publicity in our media product to drive the narrative to the story. Hence that homeless or run-away (runners) more likely to travel around in eminent and urban places such as ‘London’. The flash back would not be recognized to the audience, as we used a known couples (grandparents) house related to one of our team member, to convey the relation and companionship in the character’s history life. The wide shot of the ‘bank’s’ and ‘the bridge’ aware the audience immediately about where about the location is. Besides the setting conveying the location, but also it is instantly well known through the diegetic sound of the public. Another conventional that was used shrewdly is exposing the time period about twice in the media product; firstly when the hand writing convey right at the beginning and especially the second time exposed when the character writes in her diary records. The time period is also immediately exposed to the audience by the use of costumes and props (now-a-days outfits).

Enigma is build tension, making the audience wanting to know and understand what is happening.  We used enigma mostly throughout the product, as it makes the audience to question themselves about what is happening in our product. In the product enigma is used strongly at the end when we see only a hand reaching to the character to offer her help. This means, that the character is not revealed completely and the identity is so little that makes it more mysterious. 

Evaluation Q.3

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

For our product might be distributed by more than one Distribution Company’s (such as NetFlix, Warp, IFC films) this is due to the lack of finance as we are a small individual institution. Our media product would appeal better to a media institution like Warp Films rather than Working Title or Disney, for a number of different reasons. My group’s product is an independent film, with a low budget production, therefore may be suited to a media institution such as Warp films.  Warp films tend to take on more independent, compared to Working Title. Warp’s website has a much more user friendly feel, displaying popular films such as '71' and ‘This is England’ as their main attraction. The Working Title website looks a lot more professional, which could suggest their films are more mainstream than Warp’s. Our product is not mainstream, it is a low budget independent film, like 'This is England', so we would be better suited to use Warp as our distributor. Also Working Title target a much older demographic (under 40s), for example films such as ‘Contraband’, who have slightly older actors and actresses. But, Warp releases target a young adults demographic, rating 15 and over which is similar to our target audience.

Evaluation Q.4

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

We implied VALS system to pinpoint our target audience. Using the values system (VALS) to target demographic audience and to cover two critical concepts for understanding audiences (consumers): primary motivation and resources. The combination of motivations and resources determines how a person will express himself or herself in the marketplace as a consumer. When categorizing them, they are mindset as believers and experiences. As believers, believe in basic rights and wrongs to lead a good life and the importance of family and community. This specific believer categorizing as in our product and the story is based on Leo trying to lead a good life and understand the importance of family, which driven her away to look for her grandparents. As Leo believes she can find them without much resources to locate them. To add to that, our production is British film with an evidence of passing the requirements according to BFI. This means we locate our target audience based on British audience. It contains British culture and other elements such as the actors and setting (London) that make the film British, so it would appeal to this audience.

Our media product target audience is both gender of teenagers and young adults. To addressed our target audience, we made the film opening ‘relatable’ to teens by having a teenage protagonist. This is mainly because the main character in the film is of a similar age, therefore the audience is more likely to engage with the character’s situation and feel empathy for her state.  

We also explored other relatable themes such as isolation, depression and family values, which are all very common amongst young adults. We also addressed that it could be relatable to adult’s audience as well as teens. This is especially shown in the Christmas scene in the middle of the production. As this scene explores family, love and childhood. Through the use of red worm colour grading and a very stereotypical upbeat Christmas song, along with many Christmas decorations, jumpers and hats, it creates the perfect Christmas scene and family lifestyle. This is to present to our audience that Leo did once come from a middle class background, as in the scene the characters were presented in a joyful atmosphere by presenting the happiness in each other’s company. The scene also gives the audience an idea of how Leo’s childhood was bright and happy. This means that if our target audience such as adults watches it, they would feel reminiscent of their own family memories and childhood. Therefore, both relating to teenagers and adults as an audience for our media product. Moreover, the film genre is a mystery/thriller, so could also appeal and attract to both gender and young adults who are a fan of this genre.

The use of gratification we intended our production to provide to our target audience are such as, escapism and entertainment. We as audience use the media to provide us pleasure in our daily life. Media helps to consume the text to be vicariously and use it for escapism to experience outer world life (Leo’s life story), meaning to escape from reality. The escapism in our production is the exciting case of Leo to find her grandparents against her abusive uncle.

However, it is highly unlikely that all audience use media for escapism. Affecting the audience the way they consume text the way they would respond. For example in our production Leo’s solution was to run away from her abusive uncle and find her grandparents. This can encourage young audience of solving their solution from being abusive or other issues in the family by running away.

Our film opening is focussed on a teenage girl called Leo. In our film opening we have included a lot of wide shots of Leo walking through large crowds of people. These shots are used to represent how isolated Leo is, being quite a young girl alone in such a busy place. We have also included several close ups of Leo’s face, to highlight how sad she feels; an emotion which is typically associated with ‘depressed’ teenagers. London was chosen as our main location as the grey buildings along with our colour grading helped to create the dark and isolated feel we wanted in our opening. In postproduction, to further fit in with the cold, isolated and grumpy stereotype of this character, we colour graded our piece to being very blue in the ‘present day’ side of it and very red in the ‘past scene’. This would portray to the audience our teenage character’s isolation and strong emotional feelings of running away, juxtaposed with the warm happy-feeling family Christmas scene midway through the film opening. To add to that, the narrative gives an idea or teachings to adults how to treat younger generation and to keep them satisfied so that they do not feel of need to be driven away or make them feel isolated in any way.

In addition, we tried different ways to address audience in terms of genre, narrative and stylistic features such as the main character prop. We dressed our main character in today’s teenagers fashion that might wear when going out on a cold journey. As well as this, we made sure that Leo had similar characteristics of typical rebellious, excluded and angsty teenager. Leo wore blue skinny jeans, a black baggy t-shirt, blue hoody with a black leather jacket, along with a loose fitted beanie and dark-eyed makeup (This style of eye makeup connotes a mysterious/sadness/wounded emotions of the character), which portrays her depression feelings and conforms to the expected appearance of a grumpy teen, therefore causing the audience feel sympathy for her situation. We decided this casual outfit and dark colours would be perfect to portray a teenage girl, as it is a typical stereotype that teenagers wear comfortable during a cold journey. The outfit also connotes this rebellious feel which conforms to stereotypes of a teenager being a ran-away and unable to cope with life’s situations. 

Summary:
The main target audience for our product 'Running On The Cracks' is British audience according to BFI  it passes the test to be announced a typically British film. The product contains many elements of evidence to be a British film, such as it contains British setting, culture, actors and directors. The audience for our media product would be for both gender in their late teenage to younger adults. Our product is targeted to 16 - 25 year old demographic, this is mainly because the main character in the film is of a similar age, therefore the audience is more likely to engage with the character’s situation. Some of films I have researched that have a young main character, are more popular with the younger audience, for example, in 'Animal Kingdom' or ’21 jump street’ is young adult between the age of 16 - 25, so people of a similar age rated the film the highest out of all the demographics.

Evaluation Q.5

5. How did you attract/ address you audience?

Addressing and attracting your audience is a spirited part of a successful film. We ensured we addressed our audience through different factors, such as relevant locations and characters, camera angles and aspects of mise-en-scene to attract and address our target audience.
Our main priority was to attract the 16 - 25 demographic, we did this in a number of ways. First we chose a suitable location. We used an urban location such as ‘London’ so that our target audience could relate better to the surroundings than they would if we were to use a random location full of people such as in ‘Maidenhead’, or a location of most audience have never heard of before. Secondly we used older teenage/ young adults of similar age to our target audience as the main character, in an attempt to allow our target audience to engage in the characters situation, and feel empathy for her state.

Evaluation Q.6

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

Technology is constantly changing and improving, and is an important aspects of cinematography. Before taking Media Studies for A Level, I had some little knowledge of editing and the use of camera angles within cinematography, but it was very limited. When joining the course I had miniature understanding of what the connotations of different angles were. For example I knew about the high angle, but didn't know it was used to show vulnerability, similarly, I knew about the low angle, but didn't know it was used to show dominance and to connote power in the character it was portrayed on. Once I had a better understanding of camera angles from research of the thriller genre, I was able to include various camera angles such as tilt shots connoting alienation, and panning and tracking shots. 

Before the years i had very slight understanding of how to use blogs. Now after getting my understanding of blogs it has improved, and I am now capable of inserting a wide range of analysis in different digital ways. The ability to use blogs as our foundation for our coursework, has been a very good experience. 

Types of technologies used to produce the final product

• Using a Mac for storing our final created piece and for the post production which is to edit our final product on the final cut pro.
• We used a digital camera (Nikon camera) for recording our footage to create our final piece.
• We used  our phones throughout the project to keep in contact between the group members, this was crucial as it allowed to pass information about the project that we were not certain with , e.g. filming times and locations. So that the information is to be passed on quickly.
• We used the school's YouTube on the Mac to upload our final product online.
• Google was our primary search device for carrying out our research. We used Google to research for a 'hand writing' suitable font, as the Mac on the final cut pro did not have the specific font that we wanted. After finding the suitable font we then downloaded it into the Mac to be able to use it. Furthermore, I used my Google mail account to sign up for blogger to archive my work.

Evaluation Q.7

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

From looking back at my preliminary task I learnt many aspects of how filming industry routine is, like our pre-production product, even though our team was very small in number, however we all went through the process of having a certain responsible role to complete the product in time. 

For the my preliminary task I was working as a solo individual, which means that I had all the responsibilities and roles to make sure the product is produced and in control. Though, I worked as a solo I had to come up with an idea of the narrative and plot of the product, by mainly focusing on to use shot-reverse-shot and the 180 degree rule as used in the opening of 'Pulp Fiction'. There where factors to think about, such as what I want to present to the audience by being creative and complex.

After planning my story I had to research actors to act the characters in my story and then arrange the shooting dates (I only needed one shooting date but having a second date for plan ‘B’ if the 1^st shooting date cannot take place because someone is not in set) and organize booking for equipment’s. Also, making sure that actors can attend the shooting date. On the shooting day I  set up the equipment's and the layout of the setting in the room with some help of my friends as I did not have access to a classic modern room and only had limited time of shooting. At the stage of post-production (editing) I had to do all the editing by myself with no help. I did not know much about editing as it was my first to produce a moving image, which made me experiment around at this stage till I was satisfied with the final cut.

On the full product I was in a small team, and we created a pre-production pack together. Our task is to create an opening of a book, and there were lack of choices to find the right book that we all will agree to (we found ‘Running on the Cracks’ was suitable for our team). We shared the work load evenly between us to complete the pack and get on with the shooting, making it easier and faster to complete. Through this process I learnt that communication and teamwork is very important in this production to understand the plot of the story ‘what is needed to accomplish the task’. We all decided our responsibilities and roles of hierarchy (being the director/ Assistant director/ Production manager and camera man) throughout the whole product.

There are many things I have learnt throughout my AS level Media Studies, from the first preliminary task and our final opening product. The use of certain aspects of mise-en-scene such as lighting, costume, continuity and props have all be things I and the team have needed to consider, in order to make a successful opening.

When filming my preliminary task the main focus was on the use of shot-reverse-shot used in the opening of 'Pulp Fiction', and the 180 degree rule. At first I found it quite challenging to get these simple aspects right. And looking back on it now, there were little mistakes with match on action, as there was one part where one shot the character was sitting up straight and the following shot the same character was setting in a slouching position. In our final product we used titles in between the shoots that were not match on action which made it fluid, which makes me think how much I have learnt over the months from the preliminary task.

I learnt many progression from the preliminary task to the full product. The key aspect is communication and teamwork. I feel that my knowledge of different genres of film and conventions of them has been broadened and improved so now I am able to apply this knowledge when making films to create different effects on the audience, I feel that my editing skills on the Mac has improved as well, as I can now overlay sound, duck it out if needed, freeze a frame for as a long as I want, and I can organize fades using precision editor for transitions between shots. I also feel that my analysis skills have been improved and now by picking up on certain aspects of the film I can see who the main characters are, what the genre is etc.

Lastly I feel that my camera work skills have improved as I now realise how different shots and angles can alter the effect produced on the audience. From the skills I learnt creating the preliminary task; the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot, we carried on using the 180 degree rule and match on action for the final product. I felt that the shot reverse shot was inapplicable for the final product as we did not have any dialect in our piece.