Final draft

Evaluation Question 7

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

Planning: The difference in planning between the preliminary film and the final product was huge, we spent more time on story boarding and creating meaning in the narrative. We made sure that in the final film we used a range of shots from long shots to close ups to give a preferred reading.

Equipment: For my preliminary film, I used a small flip camera which was not particularly high quality, after seeing the footage from these cameras, our group decided we needed to use a better camera so we used Amelia's camera so we could get much clearer shots and make it more convincing as a real film. 

Camera skills: From the preliminary film I learnt a lot about framing shots; in the preliminary I didn't really think about what was in the frame which meant the protagonist was not always central and therefore was not represented as being important. Whereas we made sure not to frame anything unnecessary in our final product, we framed the protagonist so he was almost always central to the shot so he was represented as important. Also, the filming of the preliminary film was shaky, the camera was moving a lot which made it look unprofessional. We made sure if this happened when filming the final product then we would re-film it. This meant checking footage as soon as we had filmed it, which I did not do when filming the preliminary. 

Editing: When editing the preliminary, I only used basic skills like cutting the footage shorter. Whereas with the final product I learnt how to crop images so they were framed better, change the lighting to give a different preferred reading, edit in different transactions, speed up and slow down shots and use a range of shots go create meaning. 

Sound: I learnt how soundtracks can create meaning and connote different emotions and how some diagetic sounds can be conventional to a specific genre.

Ident and titles: I didn't create an ident for my preliminary film, but during the research stage of the project I learnt that they are not only necessary for films to have them, it also makes a film look professional. The same way titles in film openings are very common and make the film look professional.

Team work: I think as the project has gone on, our group has got better and better at working as a team. With the help of emails and texts we were able to communicate quickly between the three of us and devise work up equally and without arguments. 

Evaluation Question 6

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

Evaluation Question 6 on SlideShare

E q 6 from harrysquire

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

After deciding on who our target audience should be, we had a meeting with a handful of them. They wanted a build up of tension and some dramatic scenes. We built up tension in our opening by having a range of medium shots and close ups of our protagonist which connoted that he was preparing for a big event.
In our opening we followed conventional genre iconography; we had the full race suit, the helmet, the car and the settings were conventional too. This would attract our audience as they recognize it as the genre they are interested in. Our opening sets the film up to have an exciting narrative, the film ends with the protagonist in a hospital bed, bandaged up which implies that there is an incident that so far hasn't been seen, so there is suspense and the audience will be watching the film anticipating something going wrong. This anticipation is something that would appeal to our target audience as they said they liked the build up of tension and knowing that something exciting will happen.
Generally, an audience of a motor sport film is mainly made up of males, so they will relate to the male protagonist. Maybe they view themselves as being similar or want to be like him, this will attract the male audience.
Female members of our audience testing said they liked some emotion in films (emotional pleasures), we have a sad narrative as the protagonist is shown to be in hospital, This will attract especially the female audience.
There are some visceral pleasures as typically, an audience of this genre would like to be tense and left in suspense. I think the opening we have created creates suspense as the audience knows that something bad will happen but they don't know how or when it will happen.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Classification and audiences

Looking at the BBFC classification system, we would expect our film to come under 12A meaning the cinema release is suitable for 12 years and over. We feel as though this would give us the widest audience possible and it is unlikely that strong language or violent scenes would appear in the full movie. If for some reason our film was put in the category of 15 and over, it would probably benefit us to cut out the scene(s) that were stopping it being a 12/12A as we would likely be missing out on a large proportion of our audience. In the first Hunger games movie the original categorization from the BBFC was 15, but because this would mean a massive loss of audience, they cut around 7 seconds which meant it was lowered to be a 12.

Although with the classification, we want to attract the widest audience possible, our target audience is a domestic, national audience. This is due to the budget being low and the narrative very aimed towards the niche, British audience. There is no point spending more than necessary on distribution trying to reach a tentpole audience when this particular genre generally only sells in the UK.

BBFC

The British Board of Film Classification, set up in 1912, categorizes cinema films based on regularly updated, current views on film.

Evaluation: Question 3

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

I feel as though our film should be distributed by film 4; they support UK films reaching out to a domestic, niche audience. Our film is a small budget film that is unlikely to appeal to a worldwide audience

Distributors are not involved in the production of a film. They buy the rights to a film and finance the distribution of it and the marketing. This includes the screening of the film.

Film 4

Film 4 is an institution devised from the television channel 'Channel 4' which develops and finances British films. It was launched November 1 1998. One of the big successes it has had 'The inbetweeners movie'. 

Pathe 

Pathe is one of the oldest distributors, It has had a huge influence of the UK film industry in recent years and although it generally only finances small, independent films it had global success with the release of 'Slumdog Millionaire' and success in the UK with the film 'Pride'.

BBC Film

BBC film was founded in 1990, working with major distributors both nationally and internationally, it produces around 8 films a year. Recent successes are 'x+y' and 'Mr. Holmes'. 

Studio Canal

Studio canal is a French distribution company with the third largest film library in the world. It's recent releases include 'Paddington' and 'Shaun the Sheep movie'.

Funding

To get funding for the film we would apply for the British Film Institute so that we we were illegible for a grant off of the national lottery which is very good at funding the independent UK film industry. Also, our production would come under the tax shelter as over 25% of the filming was done in the UK, and as our film had a total core expenditure of less that £20 million, we can claim payable cash rebate of up to 25% of the total UK expenditure.

Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Gender

We chose to cast a male as our protagonist, we did this as it was a conventional theme throughout this genre. This is because the stereotypes surrounding a male character are that this character will be strong and important. For a large majority of our film opening we tried to follow and represent these stereotypes. We did this by introducing the protagonist with a range of close ups and medium shots to create a preferred reading that this was the most important character.

However, we subverted these archetypal views when the protagonist was in hospital through the high angled shot looking down upon the character to represent him as weak and vulnerable.

Disability

We had a small part of our opening where the protagonist was disabled. We wanted the audience to view the character as weak in contrast to the strong, able bodied representation we originally created. We did this by the high angled shot looking down at the character and though make up and costume to make it convincing that he was injured.

Sound

For a large part of our opening, we had only non-diagetic, ambient music to create a sad tone to our opening. The slow, atmospheric sounds create a preferred reading that there is not much happening, it connotes a slow pace of life which is unconventional of the motor sport genre.

Towards the end of the opening, we had some more conventional diagetic sounds of the car engine. This being the only diagetic sound makes this stand out and connotes that this is an important scene.