Soft Stuff

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e of film openings)

The aspects we would like you to consider are:

The title of the film
Setting/location
Costumes and props
Camerawork and editing
Write about how typical or not of opening sequences your particular design is.
Title font and style
Story and how the opening sets it up
Genre and how the opening suggests it
How characters are introduced
Special effects

How does your opening sequence develop or challenge the conventions of an opening sequence?

Does your use of conventions indicate that other opening sequences have influenced your work?
If so, then be specific with examples.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

What are the social groups represented in terms of gender, age, class, race, etc?

Pick a key character from your opening. Think of one or more characters from other films with some similarity to them (but maybe some differences too!). Write about the similarities and differences in terms of appearance, costume, role in film etc.

So for example if you have a lone cop type character, look for other lone cops to compare him with...

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

Would this be something that could be produced by a major Hollywood studio, if yes then why? Is it similar to existing products?

Would it be a TV movie?

Would it be an arthouse film?

Would it be an internet only release?

Why would it be released? Does it offer opportunities for franchises and/or merchandising?

Where might the money come from for a film such as yours?

What films are similar 'institutionally'?
(Name some films which would be released in a similar way.)

Link your conclusions to a discussion of the mise-en-scene (visual style) of your opening sequence.

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

Consider the age and gender of your target audience.
(Link this to the narrative and style of your film.)

What kinds of taste might your target audience have : Where would they shop? What music would they listen to? What would their favourite TV programmes be? etc.

What other films are similar to yours? Who do they appeal to?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Are there particular points in your film that would appeal to a certain age or gender? If yes then explain them in detail.

You should refer to genre conventions, use of music, similarities with other movies and what you have identified as the Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film.
Link this into your audience profile (I.e. what age and gender they are)

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

Talk about the filming process. Were there problems you faced? How did you resolve these issues?

Did you get to use new equipment that enhances your opening sequence? I.e. the dolly.

Editing software - Final Cut Express. What have you learnt about editing?

Photoshop - What have you learnt about using the software?

Garageband - was it a useful programme for creating a soundtrack? What challenges did you face during this process?

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

Concentrate on editing and camerawork.

Show what you know about shot types, edit terms and techniques.

Discuss the planning stage, storyboarding, and explain how this helped you to produce your opening sequence.

Make sure you mention the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot

Has your use of specific shot types improved? I.e. match on action, point of view?

Do you feel more confident with the equipment?

How successful do you feel your end product is as fulfilling the task?

Childrens Film Music Test

This is the sample music for Group P39

The Soundclip titled "Sleepy Music" was made as a sample track for the groups 09 media project and was made by Alex Stockley Using Garage Band

Childrens film test

this is our first tester film.
once we started it showed us how long it's actually going to take to do a whole intro.
We are taking 24 FPS. making the models and getting them to stand up and move gradually is going to be a challenge.

Now being a fair way into our project with only a few lessons left we have found it is very time consuming having only captured between 15 and 20 seconds of footage. To try to overcome this problem and try to meet the 2 minute length set. What we have come up with is to have the credits shot over the enviorment of the childs room in which our clay creatures are located, this is going to look , hopefully, alot like the opening of the childrens film Toy story which fits in well with both the childrens film genre. Also our short film is almost paying homage to Toy story, with the simular plot of toys coming alive. In our case play doh rather than actual toys.
This is the clip from toystory that inspired us to use simular devices in our opening

The Wrong Sandwich

We wrote the script in full the day before filming, we filmed and managed to get all the clips uploaded, edit and finish all in the next two lessons, we didn’t have any out takes and we managed to get every camera angle in which made the footage easier to edit, The Sandwich cost £1.45 and in the bin it stayed.

Lois - Actor
Lawrence - Actor
Josh - Filming/Editing
Alex - Filming/Editing
Steven - Filming/Editing