Evaluation Q1) In what ways does your media product use , develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

Conventions:

What is a convention?

A Convention is a type of theme which all teen movies or specific genres movies tend to have . For example , a teen movie , which i have done , has locations such as schools and homes which represents the idea of the specific target audience .

How does convention relate to our opening scene :

 


When looking at my own opening scene , i realised that such thing as camerawork , editing , mise-en-scene and sound also revealed the conventions of a teen movie as it was specific to our sub-genre of Drama swell .

Camerawork:
When looking at my own scene , as a group before filming our opening scene we discussed the shots we thought would be acceptable to show the emotions and different traits me being the main protagonist , Shannon , we used such shots like POV, Close up , Extreme close Up and high and low angles which is used in teen movie convention as they reveal the emotions and attitudes of characters .

Editing

Using editing such as giving the protagonist more screen time is a convention as it reveals the idea of the one character who runs goes through and experiences most of the themes . in this case of our opening scene the theme of bullying .

Also , the use of continuity editing which made the time span of our opening seem fluid allowed us to represent an day to day action.

Mise-en-scene 

The conventions of a teen movie were shown through the use of props such as : 
School bag
Book
Lipstick and Mirror

Also the use of the conventional black and white uniform represents the idea of teenagers , these costumes and props also show binary opposition which is conventional in other teen movies , in this the contrasts between the Protagonist who has the school bags and the bullies who use makeup.

Sound 

Sound in the sub-genre of Drama  is conventional as it matches the tension and action within the film , in this case to keep the idea of a teen and urban landscape using music that the audience were familiar with such an mix between classic and Hiphop instrumental showed the conventions of teenagers who are familiar with the newest trends  .


Comparison between our film and real films :

Comparing our film to a real film Fish Tank which was one of our inspiration , we realised that we followed a conventional orders of titles which is similar to Fish Tank by using the distribution company , production company then the title of the movie , however we decided to use the title of our opening scene later on in the opening scene . Also , the use of close ups and more screen time to the protagonist follows conventions if a teen drama as it reveals the emotions of the characters also , it portrays the narrative and themes of what the rest of the film .
Overall , we think that as a group we followed the convention to a certain extent through our use of cinematography and miss en scene . However , as a group we also challenged the conventions by developing them for a british teen audience .

Evaluation Q2) How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

Representation:





To see if my opening scene showed these representations I decided to film some our target audience of 15-18 year old females about our film and what representations we showed .
Representation of Stereotypes

Evaluation Q3) What kind of media institutions might distribute your media and product and why ?

What kind of institutions might distrubite your media product and why ? from sanaaelhaouzi

Evaluation Q4) Who would be the audience for your media product ?

Audience

When looking at Teen Movies and what audiences that could potentially watch them , I decided to brainstorm what type of people might watch Teen Movies :

Teens 13-18 year olds
Young Adults 18 +
Students
Both Genders


Teen Movie also all have sub-genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the special interests of teenagers such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, conflict with parents or alienation.

When looking more closely into my opening scene which was the sub-genre of Drama , when considering this I realised that the audience even though targeted at 15-18 years girls who are students , it could also be targeted towards Young adults and elderly adults as our opening scene covers issues such as Bullying and control and authority , also although initially thinking that our opening scene would appeal to girls , as I being the protagonist of Shannon , it could also relate to the males as well due to the emotions and simple mise en scene .

When looking at Our Unique Selling Point for our opening scene , we thought it was our simple idea of using Bullying as a theme for our opening scene , this creating the audience to be able to relate to our narrative also relating to the mise en scene by bring an urban look to our opening scene .


To show what type of person we would expect one of our audiences to be :

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/hanaa.elhaouzi.7?fref=ts
Vimeo :  https://vimeo.com/89485184

Evaluation Q5) How did you attract/address your audience ?

Attracting our audience :
When thinking about the aspects of my opening scene which appealed to our target audience , to do this I filmed an interview with a member of my target audience asking about the latest's films they have watched.
After interviewing a person from our target audience , it allowed me to see what made teen movies appealing directly to a person , this made me realise some of the things that made our opening scene appealing such as :

Mise En Scene :
Considering the Mise En Scene of my opening scene , the use of costume such as School uniform which all characters had the same , reinforced the idea of a school environment this relating back to our target audience of 15-18 year olds , Also the use of our props such as school bag , books and letter remind the audience of students and school themes , also the idea of it being for girls in shown through showing girls interests such as looking pretty e,g lipstick and mirror .

Actors:
As a group of all girls , this became an advantage to our opening scene as it aloud our target audience to reinforcement of our opening scene been geared towards females , by having females characters this creates a closer attachment with the audience this might be more likely for them to continue to watch the rest of the film.

Storyline :
Our narrative appealed to our target audience as it followed themes such as Bullying which students and those who are aged between 15-18 years may have directly received themselves or is something that they are aware of. Also , we felt the issue of Bullying was a common problem but a simple idea in which people could really feel and see the emotions behind the narrative.

Genre :
The sub-genre of Drama allowed our target audience of young teens to educated themselves about the issues and what bullying can do , also this could lead to them educating others .

Location :
Using a flat and a school also helps the teens to relate as its locations they are familiar with and use regularly , making them more comfortable to the narrative .

Sound:
Using a hip-hop instrumental gave the feel of an urban landscape and coming of age feel , this meaning our target audience were more familiar of what kind of atmosphere we wanted to portray .

Film Name:
Using "New Girl" made it simple for the target audience to get a clear idea of what the themes are going to be about.

Production Company:
Our production company "Urban Motions" gives a modern and young feel to our film , also the literal mention of "urban" shows the young teens that it will represent the present day and urban landscapes.


Rough Cut Feedback 
After getting feedback from our rough cut , we realised that more close ups were needed to show the emotions of the characters , also some of our target audience said they would like to see more extreme close up to reveal the emotions and that it would help emphasis the empathy towards .


How are we reaching our audience ?

Facebook
So far as for promoting our film i decided to make a Facebook page promoting our film , as the use of Facebook page can reach a number of people as teens and even young adults are mostly around new technology and use the internet the most, this meaning we can reach our target audience quickly , also the use of media convergence also helps the idea of that Facebook can be used on different sources such as phones tablets and computers.

Vimeo :
On Vimeo is where our opening scene is uploaded on too , this is also a create way to get our target audience to view our opening scene as it can also be viewed on different forms of technology which is a great way of cross media convergence .

I always asks a few of our target audience what they felt about our opening scene :

Evaluation Q6) What have you learnt about technology from the process of constructing this product ?

Evaluation Q7) What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product

What i have learnt ? by Slidely Slideshow


Overall , i believe that our final production went extremely well as we kept our skills from the beginning of our preliminary and also learnt and developed new skills along the way , the production also ran smoothly due to our group doing a lot of collaborate and teamwork but also the independent work we did individual kept the blog and the editing for our final production in the production schedule .

Reflective Post

Looking at our opening scenes and the different shots we toke , I made a brainstorm on how I felt our filming and editing was going so far and what could have been improved


What went well :

The narrative and introduction of the character we revealed well in our variety of shots
The Editing was good as our shots were filmed quiet well

What could be improved :
The amount of times we shot a shot , as you never know if something will work in your sequence or not .
Improvement was to add more close ups , which we now have more of.
Try to speed up editing as it give more time for feedback and improvements .

Finished !

The End of our editing !

Finally , we have finished editing our opening scene ! Here is Li doing the honours of crossing off our group of the completion !

Editing - Sound Effects

SOUND EFFECTS

The search for the right sound effects to match our opening was indeed a struggle, luckily I had created a lot of foley sound while on set which had come into my advantage as the sounds I couldn't find happened to be the ones I had recorded myself while out on location.

The part of adding the sound effects in that I struggled with the most was getting the footsteps in at the exact point and stopping it when needed, but other than that doing the sound effects had gone really smoothly for me.

The part of adding the sound effects in that I struggled with the most was getting the footsteps in at the exact point and stopping it when needed, but other than that doing the sound effects had gone really smoothly for me.

I think at the end of the day the sound effects I found/used did the job correctly.

   

Day Three- Filming

Day Three Filming :

For Day Three filming we decided as a group to focus on the parts which would show the background information to our opening scene ; this being our flashbacks of the our main character Shannon , played by Sanaa who was in the past also bullied as she was in the film .


To show this , we filmed varies extreme close ups , close ups and medium shots which will reveal the bullying that Sanaa goes through , such as filming Sanaa being hit , kicked , her hair being pulled , also embedding her feelings through using different angles such as high and low angles .

Rough Cut

Here is our rough copy

Ident Distribution Blog

Ident Distribution

In order to create an approiate Ident we discussed what we thought would properly illsurate our genre which was Teen Drama , the Ident we have decided as a group to choose is a Ink spillage which will roam around the screen , we felt that is best conveyed our genre as it showed an urban look to our opening , also the fast movements conntate to the reality of the youth of today . As well as this we had to create another Ident that represented our production company which we labeled 'urban motions' we labeled it urban motions because we felt that it would communicate to our viewers the location of our film opening. To do this , we embodied these ideas and used the software Motions to create our Ident . Before using Motions , we watched a tutorial in which we learnt how to navigate our way around using it.

 How to use Motion:


1. Get Project properties correct

Locating properties is simple , Motions opens to an blank black screen in which you can set your Idents on , from this right click on the scrren and then click on Project Properties which allows you to manage your timing spam and also fits your ident to the size required .









2. Choose animation from particle emitters:

 To choose an animation , click on Library , then click Particle Emitters , we will instantly guide you to the different and variety effects which could be used on a Ident .

 3. Sort out its properties(3d):

After placing your choosen Effects for your Ident , you can now using the properties option next to the effect to place where you would want to put it .












 4. Press record
When pressing record , you are recording your ident to be emported to our Opening scene , which is on Final Cut Pro 

How we are going?:

Rough cut of our film opening-Feedback

                              Feedback on our rough cut film opening. 
Throughout the editing process we were able to enquirer about the progress of our film opening from our peers who our film opening is aimed at, as well as our teachers. this we felt was extremely helpful as it allowed us to improve our film opening through final cut pro properly with a better understanding of what we needed to do. Despite the various constructive feedback we received from our target audience, we decided to go to our teacher for her opinion on the work we were doing and this is what she had to say about it:

• we needed to pick up the pace of our editing

• we had too many mid shots as well as long shots and needed to incorporate more close ups of Sanaa  our main character. 

we took on this advice and tried to improve these things as much as we could.  

Editing of Opening Scene

Editing :

Now that we have all our shots and angles imported in Final Cut Pro we can finally start editing our opening scene , here are some videos about our progress :


Blogging Check Up



Making of Ident :



Editing our Opening Scene :

How I felt my acting went

As being the protagonist Shannon , I had to act out the feelings of my character , as I am doing Drama A Level I found this difficult and straightforward


Difficulties : 
 
As for what I found hard , I had to show the emotions of the characters which revealed that Shannon the character had been bullied and was in a mental state of being unhappy , this proved to be difficult as I was actually very happy that day which proved to be quite a problem . Also , the urge to laugh when being filmed was very hard so it toke some time and different number of shots to catch the real essence of my character .

Straightforward:

Due to doing Drama A Level I found getting into the character quite easy and knew how to show the character in terms of physicality and facial expressions

Day Two- Filming

                                           Day Two-Filming

                             Location: Li's House, Alleyway

                             Time:10:00-17:00pm
                          Filmmaker: Li, Ornela, Ebony
                          Characters: Sanaa,Ebony,Li
                           Props used: School Books
                           Clothing: School Uniform

Improvemnets to be made if we could film again: We would make sure that we find a suitable location where less memebers of the as in some scenes we were disrupted by members of the public going around which disrupted our filming during the day.

Scenes throughout the day

                                                     NEW GIRL (Day 2) - slideshow

Day One-Filming

                                                         Day One- Filming 

Location : Ornela's House 

Time: 10.30- 4.00pm  

Filmmakers::Li, Ornela

Character: Sanaa 

Props used: Alarm Clock,Clock,Kettle,Letter

Clothing:School Uniform

These props were used as we wanted to adapt the concept of a typical teenager and the normal surroundings found in a house, each prop played a major part in the film opening especially the letter as this establishes the scene and sets the rest of the scene allowing to know what the opening will be about. 

Alarm Clock: We used the alarm clock when filming as this is a concept in which most people use daily to wake them up so by using the alarm clock it sets the regulation of the day.

Clock: The clock is being used to show the difference in time as the day goes as we see the opening is showing different stages in how the character gets ready to start their new school so by using the clock we can see the timing of the scenes 

Improvements to be made if we could film again: We felt that our filming went smoothly but if we could improve anything we would make sure that we get others involved in the scene to make the scenery look like a typical home of a school girl, 

                                                  

 

 

 

Character Inspirations

Here are the inspirations behind the three main characters.