In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?In our film we have actors who are of a different age to a conventional film of its genre, which is also the same age as our target audience (16-25) we did this because we intentionally decided to challenge this convention as we (being the same age as the actors and target audience) could not see why it would not work within a media text. We then develop this by introducing more modern clothes into the film; the actors are wearing popular clothes for young people today. This represents a growing culture to conform and therefore gang culture in more extreme cases. (This is what the film is based around). We stick with some other stereotypes of a Crime-thriller genre i.e. Typically featureless characters and focus on vehicles and weapons. In addition to this we stuck to the conventions of a fast paced introduction mixed with showing the importance of the current situation. The film introduction is set in a very urban area of the city of oxford, but by just viewing it you cannot tell, but what it does do is challenge the importance of fancy hideouts and extravagant housing within the crime culture.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?Our media product is based around the youth culture and it may be seen to represent them in a negative way. The youths in the piece are perceived to be part of a violent gang which if you believe the media, every person under the age of 20 is. But it does it in a mature way that a mature typical audience of this genre may be used to, the only difference is that they are younger. Overall the film is representing a gang culture among youths which would normally be represented by adults.
What kind of media institution may distribute your product and why?The institution we feel may be the best to distribute is Film4, it is a British organisation for a start which we feel our film represents the British youth more so than that of another culture where this kind of behaviour doesn’t exist as prevalently. As well as Film4 being typically interested in young creative talent which is excellent for us being students at A level stage. A quote from their website (http://www.film4.com/features/article/about-film4-productions) ‘’ The company develops and co-finances film productions and is known for working with the most innovative talent in the UK’’
Who would be the audience for your Media product?Within the group and from doing some research into it, we decided that our target audience would be males mostly within the age boundaries of 15 – 25, and maybe higher. This is due to the age of the actors so that the audience is able to recognise and for it to be relevant to their interests. It is more likely to attract an audience of working/lower class males due to it being more relevant to their social experiences.
How did you attract/address your audience?The audience is not immediately hooked in to our film but after the first 30 seconds the audience gets hooked into the lives of Mikey and Ricky, The 2 main characters. This is due to the fast passed music and screenplay and the careful use of dialog to promote such. In addition to this we have shots of a motorbike being driven by Mikey, this is also likely to attract people and appeal more to them if they also have a motorbike and are within the age boundaries we had set out to appeal to. When we asked a sample of people around this age group ( a mix of boys and girls) they said that they like the increase of tempo after the phone call is made, it helps the viewer to become more engaged in the scene.
What have you learnt about technologies in the process of constructing this product?
Whilst we were constructing this product we encountered various problems within the categories of technology, for instance; the camera we had along with the tripod we were using were large and hard to use, as well as being probably broken and therefore the tripod wobbled when we were trying to use it forcing us to learn to do hand shots better and to improvise. As well as the use of the Apple Macs for the editing software, the school which we attend has specialised Macs for the media students to use to edit their media products in A level. The problem was only apparent when we started using them as we had never used a Mac between us and therefore it was a large learning curve, which was along with the learning of the usage of the editing software separately from the operating system. For instance, when we used iMovie (the editing software) on the Macs we learned how to do transactions, cutting, adding music and sound as well as the freeze frames which we used twice to mention the characters names.
Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have leant in the progression to the full product?We have learnt to use the camera more efficiently, setting up time was decreased by a lot as well as us understanding the way it works and functions. We used the camera by hand a lot more in the prelim task which we found had mixed results, so we decided to use the tripod a lot more during the final piece.
We also learnt how to use the Editing software we were placed with more effectively with more options at our disposal. We decided to use more cuts and better camera angles in our main task as well, taking the wide shot more frequently helped to set the scene more efficiently. We also learnt that we can rely on the software a lot post filming to make the shots seem even better than they were but also that we should have taken more takes due to the selection process becoming better and therefore more quality of work would be used.
