POST #48 - THE FINAL CUT

~ Noah :)

POST #47 - THE FIRST CUT

POST #46 - IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE THE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA?

The evaluation questions have started.

Be scared.

Very scared.

Emily took the first two questions, so here is one of them...

" In order to find the conventions of media products, we watched several comedy films, and we did a lot of research into films in this genre.

Title:

Usually, the title has a pun, or a joke in it. This adds comedy immediately to the film, and shows the genre straight away. Examples of typical titles include- "The hungry games", "Sharknado" and "Dumb and dumber". 

The title for our opening is- "Fast Forward". We decided on this as a title as it is relevant to the piece. The opening is about time travel, and it is apparent that Zak has somehow, been placed in the future. This title develops forms in this genre as it has a pun in the title. This is effective as it immediately introduces the genre of the film to the audience, and they automatically understand that the film is going to be funny, rather than serious. Moreover, we felt the short title would represent the snappy opening. Additionally, the title also ties in with the nineties theme- 'fast forwarding' originated from old VHS players that had the ability to skip forward in the film. This is relevant as these VHS players were incredibly popular during the nineties. 

Primarily, we had decided on a different title. This was "Zak in time". This was good, as it used a pun to introduce the genre. However, it didn't make much sense as he is being sent forward in time. It would be effective if it was introducing the entire film, as the character will be sent back in time later in the entire film. Nonetheless, it wouldn't be relevant in the opening, as he only travels forward, so we decided to change it to "Fast forward". 

Setting/Location:
Normally, a more comedic film will be set in the present day, and will generally be in a bright, open place. These locations will usually be public, and examples include- malls, schools and hotels. For example, "The Duff" and "Paul Blart: Mall cop". Sometimes the location may be unusual, to add comedic effect, but this is rare. 

The setting can be seen in the bottom row of our contact sheet. Our opening is set in Norwich, which is a big, open city. Our location is ordinary, and perhaps a little bland. This is usually ineffective, but in a comedy film, it is a normal approach for a setting. 

This means that our location does adhere to typical comedy settings. This allows for more focus on the character, and not the location. 

Costumes and props:

Normally, in a comedy film, each character will have at least one comedic aspect in their costume. For example, they may have a funny shirt, or hat. A more specific example is- "Shaun of the Dead". The character "Ed" wears a comical shirt that says "I got Wood". This is effective as it portrays the genre of the film through the costume, as well as characterisation. 

In our opening, our character wears clothes that are typically 'nineties'. They are fashionable in the past, but may look rather weird in the present. This may be comedic, as the audience may find the odd clothes, and weird coordination funny. Overall, this mostly portrays the usual conventions of costume in a comedy film, as they are wearing unusual, comedic clothes. 

Camerawork and Editing:

Usually, the camerawork of a comedy film is naturalistic, and normal. The camerawork usually doesn't take risks, and is more natural. The edits are the same, and are usually simple and normal. Edits may be used for a comedic effect (if they were particularly bad, or cheesy). This may add comedic effect, but it can be effective to keep the camerawork, and editing natural. 

In our film, we used largely natural camerawork. There are no 'risky' shots, as we felt this didn't portray our genre fully. Moreover, we have used several small edits, that are not natural. This was effective, however, as it adds comedic effect. There is one edit in particular that is unusual however. This is the skating animation. Seen bottom right in our contact sheet, the skating animation was previously not in our opening. We had the idea to 'mashup' different styles as we felt the prolonged shots of Zak staking was uninspired and a little dull. This is a little unusual in a comedy film as edits are usually kept minimal. However, this kind of technique has been used before, so we are partly developing the pre-existent forms in this genre. 

Title font and style:

Normally, comedic films have a bright, bouncy title. Usually, a large (perhaps curvy) font is used. This is particularly effective, as it brings attention to the title. Because the title is usually a pun, this immediately shows the comedic genre to the audience. The titles are usually bright and colourful, and colours usually include- white (to make the title stand out), red, yellow or green. Normally, the title fonts aren't too 'over the top' (unless it relates to the name of the film, or the content of the film), but each is unique in its own way. 

Our title mostly sticks to these conventions. It is bright and uses two colours to attract the audience. The colourful font juxtaposes the black background, so is very effective in attracting the audience. The symbol is relevant to the themes and ideas of the opening as this is a well known symbol that means to fast forward on a DVD player or a VHS player. This is effective as it reminds the audience of the time period and gives them context for the opening. 

Story and how it is 'set up':

Normally, in typical comedic films, there may be narration, or a short section of dialogue to introduce the story. It is usually largely based solely around the characters themselves, and not their situation. Comedic films commonly open on an introduction of the character, and open with shots of the main characters. The story is then introduced in the perspective of these characters. 

Our film is quite like these conventions. It opens with shots of the primary location, and then it introduces the characters. However, our opening is a little unusual perhaps, as the opening scenes focus more on his location, rather than who he actually is. We never get a 'proper' introduction, and the audience are unsure of the main characters identity (we never hear his name). This is effective as it leaves the audience with a small cliffhanger. They do not know who the character is, so are left wondering who he is and how he got into this situation. This will make them curious about the contents of the rest of the film, so they will want to watch on. 

Genre and how it is suggested:

Typically, the film opens with immediate comedy. This can come in many forms (it can be visual comedy, or spoken jokes), but is usually introduced immediately, to keep the audience entertained from the beginning. This suggests the genre straight away, as it shows the audience the more light-hearted nature of the film.

Our film uses this convention and immediately opens with visual humour and humourous slang terms. This immediately suggests the genre of the film, and it entertains the audience. This ensures that they will carry on watching. Moreover, our opening uses ordinary conventions in suggesting the comedy genre. However, due to the genre and it's huge variation of sub-genre and plots, our opening is still unique, even though it uses pre-existent conventions. 

How the characters are introduced:

Similarly to how the story is introduced, the characters are usually introduced through narration or dialogue. This usually occurs straight away, and the characters are introduced almost immediately. This is because, in the comedy genre, the characters tend to be the main focal point of the film. Films of this genre tend to revolve around one character, or perhaps a small group of characters. This means that the audience tends to get introduced to the characters straight away. 

Our opening is unusual in this sense. Although the film opens with our main character, the audience are not actually properly introduced to them in the two minutes. This is unusual in comedic films, but I believe we used it to good effect. Leaving the characters name and information out of the opening makes it more intriguing for the audience. They begin to wonder who this mysterious character is, and how they got into the situation they are in. This makes it difficult for the audience to stop watching, as they want to know what will happen next. 

Special effects:

Usually, there aren't many special effects used in comedic films. Similarly to the camerawork, the special effects are natural, and sometimes they aren't used at all. Keeping the action natural is a good technique for comedic films, as the comedy usually derives from the dialogue, not the action. Using special effects may draw from the comedic dialogue. However, some comedic films use special effects to create comedy. They may be intentionally bad special effects, which adds another layer of humour. 

Throughout our opening, we decided against using special effects. We felt this would be difficult to pull off, and it may take away from the humourous dialogue of the opening. If we were to use special effects, we would have made them intentionally bad, to create humour. The use of special effects in this genre is rare, so we are not straying from the norm in this sense. 

Overall, our product mostly developed conventions of real media products. Although we used many forms and conventions, our opening was unique, and different. To do this, we focused more on our action and dialogue, and didn't use any unnecessary techniques that may draw from the dialogue.

This is the contact sheet for our opening. "

POST #45 - HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT CERTAIN SOCIAL GROUPS?

"Age:
Usually, the media portrays teenagers in a more negative light. Although many more 'teen-orientated' television shows and films have been created (such as 'Skins' and 'Misfits'), these shows may not present teenagers in a positive light. They are usually full of drama, and have deep themes and hardships that make the audience question the characters motives and choices. Although this seems ordinary to some teenagers, it is quite a dramatization of the life of a majority of teenagers in Britain, and many people of this age may not feel represented by this stereotype. Moreover, to an older generation, these portrayals of teenagers are rather negative, as they are shown smoking and drinking, and generally negatively impacting society. 
This is quite a common convention in film, as many films portray teenagers in a way that strikes true with real teenagers, but may be looked down upon by the older generation. This mirrors real life, as many members of the older generation feel out of touch with the younger generation, so may disapprove of their decisions and their life. This idea is shown throughout our opening:

The opening is rather subjective, and it doesn't show teenagers in a good or bad light. Our character only has a few lines: "That was the most heinous nightmare. Who is Alan Hamlin? Wait, where am I? More like when am I? Bogus". In our target audience, this may seem normal or funny. It may be a little annoying to an older generation, as they probably don't recognise this slang, and may find it unusual and irritating. Because of this, the representation of this social group totally depends on the audience. This is common in existing films of this genre. 

Gender:
Our opening only has male actors, and therefore only represents male social groups. However, typically, in television and film, male social groups are portrayed in a very stereotypical way. Men are usually presented in a typically masculine way. For example, in 'Misfits' (which is a portrayal of modern day teenagers), there are three male characters. Each character is quite 'strong', and typically 'masculine'. They typically find themselves in bad situations and take it upon themselves to save everyone, and to be the strong person. This is the stereotypical view that most media productions portray. This is common in film. 

However, in our opening we focus solely on male characters. Overall, our representation differs from this norm as it presents male characters less masculine and it uses less stereotypes than usual. However, there are still a few scenes that perhaps show this stereotyping, as the main character is seen gaming, and skateboarding, which are very typically 'masculine'. Moreover, our characters don't interact with anyone else, so it is difficult to interpret how they represent male social groups. Overall, I think that our representation of males is a more realistic representation than in many films and games. 

All in all, our representation of teenage males is ordinary. We have decided to keep the characters as ordinary as possible, as this will allow for people to relate to the characters more. I fully believe we represent teenage males in a more realistic way than if we were to mimic pre-existing films. "

POST #44 - WHAT MEDIA INSTITUTIONS MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

POST #43 - WHO WOULD BE THE TARGET AUDIENCE?

EMILY -
"This is a link to the Prezi I made.

Age:

All in all, I believe that the audience would be from around 12-19, with perhaps a small audience in their 20-30's. 

I think that primarily, the film would be targeted around a younger audience. This is because although it revolves around a kid from the nineties, it has a lot of quirks and trends from present day, and our character is forced to navigate through a modern day Britain, full of Pokemon Go, and strange looking cars. This makes the setting immediately recognizable to the younger audience, and a few of the jokes will be more humorous to a younger audience because of this. The film can be advertised on 'teenage channels', such as the Disney channel, or perhaps CBBC. 

This target audience is clearly shown in our casting, as we have used actors that are around 13-17. 

However, on the other hand, there may be a slight interest from a slightly older audience (people in their 20-30's). This is because these are the people who were children in the nineties, so they will instantly know how it felt to be a teenager in this era. It will perhaps bring back memories of their childhood, which will make them want to see the film.  Also, the main character will be relate-able to them, as they can imagine what it was like in the nineties, compared to present day.

Age Rating:

Because of this, our film is rated a 'PG'. I was going to originally going to rate it as an 12. However, after researching into the 'bbfc', and their guidelines on age rating, I realised that our film was closer to a PG film, than a 12.

For example, on their website they state- "Mild bad language only. Aggressive or very frequent use of mild bad language may result in a work being passed at a higher category.". 

In our opening, there is one use of 'bad language' (our character says the word 'bogus'). However, this is a milder use of language, and may not even be recognised as bad by many viewers. 

Although our target audience is 12+, I believe that a rating of PG would be quite effective, as it would create a larger pool of potential viewers

Gender:

Originally, I thought that our target audience would be unisex. However, after actually creating the opening, I believe that our audience is more aimed at teenage boys. This is partly because every actor in our opening is a boy (including the main character). This may make it a little hard for girls to relate to the opening, as they aren't really being represented in the film. Because of this, our film appears to be more relate-able to teenage boys.

Moreover, throughout the film, our main character is seen doing stereo-typical 'male' things. For example, he is seen playing on a games console, with his (male) friend. This is usually seen as a more masculine thing to do. Because of this, the film may be more relate-able, and humorous to boys. 

Genre:

Our genre is comedy. This effectively attracts our target audience as comedic films are very popular in our male, teenage target audience. 

Example of audience member:

A perfect example of an audience member for our film would be:

A 15 year old boy, who has hobbies that include- gaming, skateboarding and nineties music.

He is normal, but perhaps has slightly unusual interests.

He probably has a smaller group of friends, as he shares his interests with them."

POST #42 - HOW DID WE ATTRACT AND ADDRESS OUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

So, me and Emily made a smaller vlog to explain exactly what we did in regards to the question...

Here it issssssss...........

gos

GOSH WE THOUGHT THROUGH THAT AUDIO THING HUH

Well not to worry! I'll be writing up what we said in the video.

ATTRACTING THE AUDIENCE
So, this is pretty much "how did we get people to go see the film?"
First off, there was the advertising we would've had. It would've primarily been trailers and advertisements on TV, including TV spots and maybe an exclusive clip on a show like Good Morning, Britain.
They'd be cut to avoid spoilers and giving away the best jokes, but use material that's good enough to draw an audience and make it clear that the film is designed to be a comedy.
There would also be a campaign with advertisements that are dotted around, but not too much that people would be sick of seeing the adverts everywhere, and put them off of going to see the film.
Posters would ideally be placed in/on:

• Buses and other bus related things - Millenials mostly rely on public transport to get around.
• Cinemas - Obvious, advertising a film in a place dedicated to films.
• Tube stations - Thousands use the tube to commute to work daily. Thus, potential thousands see the posters every day.
• Standees - More fun, interactive way of advertising the film may draw more people.

However, the main target for advertising will be the internet. Since our target audience is the "Millenial" generation, they're infamous for using the internet and, more specifically, social media more than anyone. So, by having a large advertising scheme involving the internet, there's a larger potential audience who would see the adverts.

ADDRESSING THE TARGET AUDIENCE

We managed to address the audience in the opening by... mocking them, essentially. In the filming we cut, we had a few stereotype Millenials doing various activities in a hyperbolic fashion, such as referring to each other as "bae", playing Pokemon Go, and dabbing.

These would be used in the posters, having Zac being surrounded by people doing one of the three things, depending on which poster it'd be, but Zac would remain confused during all three.

We also tried using the type of humour that the target audience likes, and for that we acknowledged what our friends found funny, as well as other people in the Sixth Form. Eventually, we ended up with something that we think addresses the audience fairly well.

POST #41 - WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

"Radio show:
What have you learnt about editing, and how have you developed your editing skills?
Do you have any examples of tasks that have improved your editing?
What did you learn from your preliminary task? 
 

Overall:

• Editing gets easier, if you learn the techniques. We learnt how to import images and sound effects in particular. A specific example of this is in our final video, our main character winks, and a 'ding' sound effect is played over the top of this wink. At first, we didn't know how to import this and play it over the top of the video, but we ultimately worked out how to do this. This tells us that our editing has hugely benefited from the construction of this piece.
• A specific task that helped us improve our construction was making the video log. We filled the vlog with pictures and sound effects, so naturally, this helped us work out how to edit in such items. It also helped us to work out how to import and include video that we didn't film ourselves (for example, Noah's animation, or the Zelda gameplay).
• We learnt a lot from the preliminary task. Specifically, we learnt to make sure the audio always worked, and was audible. We learnt this as there was a lot of interruptions in sound when people tapped the table or made seemingly small noises. 

All in all, we have learnt a lot about technologies from this process. We are now able to edit well, and understand how to film and construct a film opening. "

POST #40 - WHAT PROGRESSION HAS BEEN MADE SINCE THE PRELIMINARY TASK, AND WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM THEM? [EVALUATION QUESTION 7]

So, let's look back on what the preliminary tasks were.
There were the match on action practice...

... the character crossover...

... and the mise-en-scene opening.


So, how have these all lead to the opening of "Fast Forward"?


First off, the editing is much, MUCH better. Back in the "Wedding Cancellation" and "Backstabber", the editing was very choppy, and seemed very amateur, especially with the first of the two examples given. Dialogue randomly cut in the middle of a sentence, and there wasn't a good flow to it. The "Backstabber" opening was slightly better (especially considering it was done in the earliest hours of the morning because the person I was working with was no help at all), but non-digetic sound was inconsistent and repeated in a way that was noticeable. "Ghosts" was edited by both Megan and myself, but it was probably the best editing out of the three tasks above. There really wasn't anything to fault! :)

There were issues that were carried through all three tasks though, such as

• Shaky camera, due to lack of compatible tripods
• Unwanted background noises
• Wind / other people interfering with dialogue recording

Stuff like that.

So, when Emily and I were making the opening of "Fast Forward", how did we try and prevent the issues that the preliminary tasks had? 

First off, we got a tripod! We found a tripod that would actually work with and correctly / sturdily hold our camera! That meant that quite a few of the shots are sturdy, whether they made it into the final cut or not. One specific one I can think of is of Zac (Isaac) skating down a hill, and the camera is completely still when compared to the other shots of him skateboarding.

A lot of the other shots were done with one of us holding the camera, but we made sure to hold it in a way that was comfortable, and that we could hold for a long time without twitching, shaking, etc.

Unwanted background noises was both difficult and easy to solve. At first, we thought we could just get a microphone to record the audio and use one of those fancy poles to hold the microphone, but then we realised... why don't we just film somewhere relatively quiet? There was no forest of trees rustling in the wind (see the second half of "Ghosts"), and we learnt from "Backstabber" that filming somewhere quieter resulted in better sounding dialogue and sound effects.

So, we only really filmed where there was very little to no people around, such as in the scene where Zac gets on the skateboard for the first time in the opening, there was no-one around except Emily, Isaac and me.

The dialogue was a fairly easy work-around. We knew that, while we were able to film in mostly quiet areas, we couldn't find anywhere in Castle Mall that was quiet enough to film in (especially after the evacuation incident). So, when we did have scenes in the Castle Mall, we did a second recording purely for the audio, by having the microphone closer to Isaac's face so that it is the main aspect of the recording.

The editing was also bumped up a notch! I was the one who did all the editing while Emily started off her evaluation questions, which was perfectly fine with me :D

I used some of the techniques I had learnt while making the video diary and my Art Multimedia coursework, including

• How to put in images and edit them to fit the video itself
• How to improve sound effects and when the right time to put them is
• How to speed up audio, change it's pitch, etc.
• How to put in titles, which we used for the time cards and the credits (most of which were made up.)
• Fading video in and out, in both black and white.
• Proper audio mixing for when the audio is the main focus and when it's not

Now, I think that's a pretty good list of things to improve on from the beginning of the academic year :D

I believe that the variety of shots is slightly upped from the preliminary tasks, but the newer interesting shots are used in place of some interesting shots from the preliminary tasks. For example, the most interesting shot (in my opinion) of all the three preliminary tasks above, was from "Backstabber". It was after James's character challenged Charlie's character, and the shot of Charlie pulling the knife out of his pocket, and having it shine and sheen to the camera. That was what I think was the most interesting shot was, and while we don't have anything "worm eye view" like that in Fast Forward, we do have a similar shot of an item coming out in a shot that focuses only on that; the shot in which Zac flips out the skateboard onto the floor.

In a nutshell, we learnt a lot of how to improve the intro from the preliminary tasks. Most of it was on how to make the audio and video higher quality. The editing is much better than before, and the shots, while different to the preliminary shots, are just as, maybe even more, interesting.

POST #39 - SECOND CUT [COURSEWORK]

WOAH WHAT'S THIS

A SECOND CUT

BY GOLLY GOSH I DO BELIEVE IT IS


:0

~ Noah :)

POST #38 - ROUGH CUT [COURSEWORK]

Hello!
So, the rough cut is done, and Emily & I are already working on the feedback we got to make a final cut of the film opening!

Stay tuned for the final cut! ;)

~ Noah :)