evaluation, Yeah?

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


The genre that we based our film around was 'teen comedy', which in itself has many conventions. In our film, we use a narration over ther top of the action in the film, this is typical of a teen comedy which, for example was used in the 2004 film Mean Girls , as it often provides clarity or extra information for the viewer, and we developed this in our own piece, as we told the story as if the person was looking back on it, rather than talking as if the persons thoughts about the situation as it were happening, were being said aloud. Also, in teen films, the conventional mise en scene usually includes places such as pubs, clubs and schools. The latter one was the setting for our media peice, however we developed this by keeping it as the main setting for the opening of our media piece. Our film is comparable to Superbad, another teen comedy, because the main characters, are both the biggest losers of their school, much like Edwardo. Another convention in teen comedies, is either lonerism, or coming to a new place. This again is comparable to Mean Girls, because the main character has moved from Africa, and has no friends but hangs around with the rejects of the school.This is comparable to ours because although this place is not new to Edwardo, he is outcast because of his background, and is the type of person Cady begins to hang around with in the early parts of the film


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film is a prime answer for this question. We have the 'jocks' eg the bully who threatens to beat up Edwardo, representing them as a hostile and unapproachable human being, who only cares about how they look, rather than how others feel. Also, on the very other end of the scale, we have the 'goth' type person, Edwardo, he is represented as a loner of the school and someone who has no friends, and least of all no social skills, who avoids lessons because he feels unable to go with the bullying.. This, again, is typical of American comedies, they usually have 'cliques' e.g, the plastics (again, much like the 2004 film Mean girls), the rejects and the jocks (usually shown as being thick, or very angry people), are rigidly stereotyped. Also, we used the voiceover in our film, to tell the story, but for a comedic effect. It shows that Edwardo is not as bad as everyone makes out, like being a goth is bad, and is just sadly misunderstood. This kind of narration, is typical for teenage comedies, as it has happened in films such as Mean girls, and less recently, Ferris Buelers Day Off. Ferris Bueler's day off is much like ours, because the voiceover is used to tell the story, but also to make the audience laugh, and let you in on Ferris' personality. Much like we do in ours, we show that Edwardo is actually a good person, rather than how he is shown on screen. It is also the character's personal thoughts on the situation. Also, much like other comedies in the teen genre, we use typical camera angles. Midshots, closeups, and over the shoulder shots. This is because, unlike other genres we are trying to tell a simple story as simple as possible, this also ties in with the editing, using cuts rather than flashy effects like fades etc. Also, in many shots, the outcasted Edwardo is shown to be cowering away in the side of a frame, away from the bullies, rather than in the center of the frame, and so is represented as not wanting to be associated with people, and this fits into his loner stereotype.

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


When we first started our media peice, we decided that we should do some research into the type of genre that makes the most money in the box office (via www.boxofficemojo.com) and it became apparent that the biggest earning genre was comedy, or more specifically, teen comedy. So, we decided to go back to that website and see which distribution companys earn the most from teen comedys.


Here is a handful of teen comedies with their total worldwide box office grosses and their distribution company:

American Pie (1999): $235,483,004 - Universal Studios
Superbad (2007): $169,871,719 – Sony Pictures
Mean Girls (2004): $129,042,871 – Paramount Pictures
Bring it on (2000): $90,449,929 - Universal Studios
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986): $70,136,369 (domestic gross) - Paramount
The Breakfast Club (1985): $51,525,171 - Universal Studios


As you can see from the list, Universal Studios earn the most money from teen comedies E.G American Pie, It also shows that this genre is most popular, rather than Horrors which have a trend of not earning back the money they spend on making it, and not grossing very much. However, the biggest earner behind Paramount was Universal, grossing £129,000,000 with Mean Girls which left us in a dilemma, because we had to choose between Universal and Paramount. However, as Universal has the most experience and the most memorable film names, and in the history, has earnt more than Paramount, we have decided that because of this research, to choose Universal Studios to distribute our film. Because of their long running trend of grossing lots more than other companys, and the films previously distributed also share similiartys to our piece. Also, because of the famous tv shows they have distributed onto tv networks such as: 30 Rock, The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and Saturday Night Live and not forgetting, the world wide success, Will and Grace.


Who would be the audience for your media product?and How did you attract/address your audience?
For our media piece, we decided that we would target a specific audience, and we decided on teenagers (14-18) and we had to make allowances for this. For example, little or no swearing or any expletives. We also created characters that we felt the audience can relate to or feel for this lends itself to Bloomer and Cat's theory that they watch films so that they can relate to them. For example, Edwardo, the loser being bullied, or the bullies themselves. So the people watching it can identify some part of themselves in the characters. Also, we decided this age group because we were hoping to attract the same audience as those who went and watched Superbad and Mean Girls. Because if we targeted any younger age, they would be the 'Disney Generation' almost, and Disney have a long running trend of almost sugar coating their films, no violence, etc, and because we wanted a sense of realism, showing the effects of bullying, however hard hitting that may be, to the audience. So we decided on 14-18 year olds as our final choice.

We attracted them by using locations immediatly familliar to them, high school. We believe this is a familiar setting to them, and they also can identify themselves in them, because the audience would more than likely fit into one of the high school stereotypes, be it Jock, Goth, Chav, Loner.

In conclusion, we tried to make our piece as realist to real life as possible, catering for the audience with stereotypes, setting, and genre.














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

Whilst we were filming, I believe I learnt how to work alot of different and intricate technologies. As I didn't take part in filming, and concentrated on acting, most of the learning for me came from editing. The program we used was Adobe Premiere Elements and I learnt many things, the first of which was how to fit the editing with and emotion. For example, if it was a sad scene a fade would be used, or if it was a fast paced scene, a quick cut would be used to not leave the audience waiting to find out what had happened. Also, I learnt how to edit scenes correctly, such as fastening, or slowing down audio, pausing a scene by slowing it down to 1%, maing the audio louder by changing the dB rate. Furthermore, I also learnt how to add a voiceover onto the editing suite, after recording it, by dragging it and adding it into the line called 'audio 2. I also learnt how to add titles on top of the video, and make them fly in from various sides of the screen, in different colours. Finally, I believe using Adobe Premiere Elements quickened the editing process, as it was very user friendly, and very easy to use, unlike other editing programs out there. It also makes the final piece of film look very professional.




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

Whilst filming the preliminary task, we focused on implementing the camera angles far more than the actual storyline, or acting or anything like that, which led to rushing of editing,bad continuity, rushing to re-film, and it not being as good as it could have been. This time around we focused on each area individually, where the angles should be, how the acting should be, and what feeling/mood each scene we had, also we tried our best to have good continuity for example, in one scene I was wearing a pressure bandage on my arm, which wasn't present in anything we had filmed before, so we decided to cover it up with my coat, and place the camera at angles where you couldn't see my arm. I feel that perfecting each area, and spending time on each and every thing, was reflected in the audiences comments on our Media piece.



Auidence Respondance


We gave the viewers of our piece a questionaire with a certain amount of questions, asking questions from 'did you find the opening effective' to 'did you find that the editing of this film fitted the genre'


None of the comments written were negative, and all were positive. Some of the comments said that they could get get the general gist of the story but they couldn't get the final idea, which is why they would carry on watching it, to find out what would happen. Also, they commented on that fact that they thought our script was funny, and also helped explain the story, much like the narration added extra clarity, and helped them understand the story. They also thought that although the film was funny, it also showed you the effects of bullying on children. Furthermore, on the editing side of things they thought that the use use of such things as the 'yesterday...' and alot of fades, helped them, and it was effective because the editing wasn't sloppy, and each time they scene cut to another one, the transistion was smooth.