How did you attract /address your audience?

This video of annotations show how the props and music attracts the audience. It also shows how the characters are represented and how the things they do may be relatable to the audience watching. During this film there are similar conventions used. For example, the setting! School is a popular setting used in teen angst films such as Wild child, Mean girls and 17 Again. For the 'Popular girl' appearence is important to them. You can see this from the 'Plastics' in the film Mean girls.

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

This is a voice over outlining our production company name and logo and the role of such companies.This voice over discusses that we would like to choose Momentum Pictures for our film and it is explained in detail our reasons why.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Poppy Moore is a main character in the teen angst film, Wild Child. She is portrayed as pretty, popular, stylish and cool! We tried to create our character based on this description. At first, Poppy is viewed as spoilt as she has every thing  she wants which is similar to the character I play. Poppy's parents are not together, she lives with her dad and step mum, which is similar to our film as the two characters parents have had a divorce in our film. Poppy enjoys working on her appearance and cares about the way she looks. For example, during Wild Child, she tries to change the way her school uniform looks and adds her own accessories. The teen angst we created is not as extreme as this, however, the character I play spends time picking out outfits and applying makeup which is a female stereotypical characteristic which some of our audience may apply to.

Poppy also doesn't seem to have many friends at first because she can be seen as mean and manipulative. The difference is, Caitlin has loads of friends because she is popular but looses hers near the end because they are not her true friends. Both characters are blonde, which is stereotypical shown in the majority of teen angsts like Angus Tongs, Regina George in Mean girls and picture this. The blonde female character is usually shown as the antagonist during this genre.

Danni's character is more like a protagonist. This is because she is nice, quiet and shy! She is shown as quite isolated and vulnerable during our opening. This character is the person who makes friends with the new kid because she is unhappy about being alone. The relationship between Charlotte and the new kid, Peter, begins to bloom throughout the process of this film. We got this idea from the character Cady Heron from Mean girls. Cady is presented as innocent and quiet which is the personality we were looking for Danni's character. Both, Cady and Danni are clueless about fashion compared to the other main female character. Danni has brunette hair which is shown as the more plain character during teen angst films. Danni and Cady are similar as they both have people who are mean to them such as the character I played and in Mean girls, the plastics are quite rude to Cady.

Sean is the person who plays the character Kyle. He is the mean but popular male role in our film opening. he is portrayed as spoilt because he always has to look the best with branded clothing such as Nike and Adidas to show he is wealthy. The character Chad from the film LOL has a similar personality to Kyle. This is because he is mean and very manipulative towards the other characters. He is viewed as popular and people are scared of him. However there were differences such as the way he dresses. Chad does not wear cool clothing. We got the idea of Kyle dressing well from another character which is a guy called Elton from Clueless. This is because he wears loads of stylish outfits which are branded and he looks very cool throughout the film.

'The new kid' Peter is played by Danny. He is the new boy at school who doesn't know his way around and gets lost. however he is not shy around other students as he asks Charlotte where his next class is. Peter is a stereotypical character. This is because he is a tall British male who would attract the female audience. This character is based on a male character called Freddie from Wild Child. Both characters have similar characteristics such as they both have a genuine personality, not shy talking to people however, they are not over confident. The characters are seen to be eye candy for the audience as well as the characters involved.

Explain how you used each technique and also what were you hoping to achieve for your audicene?

I felt like I have progressed dearly from the preliminary task to my full product. I now understand how to perform the 180 degree shot which is used for shot reverse shot. In order to get this shot perfect, you need to film everything from one side which is what we done in our film opening, Karma. This is shown in the scene at the end with the male and female character. Then using the 180 degree rule, you move the camera round to the other side and start shooting the scene again from that point. This is when editing comes in and helps.

I was able to explore the different heights the tripod can go which can help grab great camera shots! During the preliminary task, we did not have time to thing and discover this. However, during the shooting for the teen angst, we had more time which enabled us to take high angle shots and a bird’s eye view! These shots are used in a variety of teen angst films such as Wild Child and Angus Thongs.

I have also learnt that if you are doing a tracking shot, we have to be careful and slow with the floor. As smooth as it looks, the tiniest bump can mean you have to re do that scene again because the camera shakes. We ended up taking a dozen takes for one scene where Danni (character of Charlotte) walks down the corridor. We used a speed X4 to help make the scene flow well with the other shots and help it look more stable.

We needed to re take one scene on very short notice. We had to retake the scene where I walk through the door past Danni. This was because we realised by looking carefully someone was in the reflection of the window. This was unprofessional. When we re-filmed this scene, we realised I was wearing light blue jeans which is what I was not wearing the whole way through the film. In this case, we had to crop the bottom part so our framing is on point.

When filming down the corridors, we had to make sure anyone who was not needed, was not in our shot. The boarders and school work were acceptable because the film was set in a school setting. However, during the preliminary task, we had no time to make the setting look like a pet’s office.

In the mise en scene section, we were able to plan the costumes each character was going to wear, the lighting we wanted, props we needed and the setting we wanted to film in. During the preliminary task, we did not have time to plan. We walked in class and got told very little detail and then had a place allocated to us. This meant whatever we were wearing that day is what people would have to film in during the task. We did not have time to get or think of props we had to use what was in front of us such as tables, chairs and doors. Having time spent on planning for our film meant we were able to portray our genre and stereotypes of a teen angst. From the preliminary task to the teen angst film created, we can see that it has improved a lot. You can see this from the planning of costumes I created at the beginning of the feature film opening. The props we used were an eye mask, to show it is a film aimed at females as well as accessories such as hair brushes and makeup such as mascara which are all feminine items. During the preliminary task, we did not have an audience and we could not present the characters in a certain way. During our film, we portrayed the girls as caring for themselves as they care about their appearance because they take long to get ready. It shows of the two different social groups such as popularity and isolation or also know as the 'un popular'.

The mode of address in the preliminary task was improvised. We did not have a script to work from and the actors had to thoroughly think of something to say. When planning for the film opening, we had time to sit down as a group and think of common words or phrases teenagers use which we were able to include during our film. This way it will fit in for our audience.

During editing, we were not able to explore the types of transitions to use. During the film opening, we dedicated a lot of time for editing our opening. We were able to correct the 180 degree rule we had filmed. We were able to use transitions such as fade on the scenes and titles. We were able to explore the effects such as slow motion or fast paced. We looked through these for the scenes it applied for and were able to see which one fits best! I have learnt how to use the programme we edited on well however I would like to know more in detail to make my editing experience more advanced!

During the film opening, I was able to look around on the screen to see where titles fit best such as on dressing tables and walls. We were able to explore different fonts such as Vintage with a variety of colours. I did not know how many fonts or colours you were allowed to choose from before.

Overall, I have a lot more knowledge on filming and editing than when I did when we did the preliminary task! I had no idea how to put a piece of footage into slow motion or fast paced. I am able to cut scenes where needed and position titles in suitable areas.

Karma- Final

This is our final film we produced as a group. After creating drafts, we improved by cutting long scenes to make it short and snappy as well as improving the titles making the colours appropriate and the titles the same. We improved added our production company logo to show it is professional. We added a sound effect whilst it zooms in to give off a creative effect. We used a transition for it whilst it zooms out. In the draft, there was no sound on the alarm clock, however in our final piece we uploaded a recording of an alarm on our iPhone to upload onto the mac.

This was the font we used in our draft. We thought it fitted well in this location however we explored the different types and decided to change it into a more exciting and vivid font. We changed the location of this font to the scene where Danni sits up in bed. This fitted appropriately against the red curtains.

We changed the title 'starring' from a plain white font to a grey cartoon 'vintage' font because it fitted the audience showing that it is aimed for young viewers. The font fitted in with background and worked well the whole way through.

This is the title we decided to choose as our final. We used this font for all the titles apart from Karma. We changed the colours throughout.

This is also a title we used however it looked like we made no effort, it was boring and had no relation to a teenage girl. We decided to put the production company logo instead as it fitted well along the dressing table. We used the same font as before and used the colour yellow because its is vibrant and stands out.

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

As a group we used multiple technologies to help us create our film.

Blogger:
Blogger is a website I have used to help keep my coursework in one place. I have used Blogger to upload my research for evidence. I learnt many things from using this such as how to upload YouTube videos and pictures onto my blog.

Mac:
We used a Mac computer to upload our drafts and film footage on. We used a programme called Final Cut Pro. this programme is what we used throughout the whole time filming. This programme enabled us to use transitions such as fade and dissolve to improve our footage and help it flow easily. Using Final Cut Pro allowed us as a group to edit our film a lot. We included titles such as 'Directed by' and 'Future Productions present'. We were able to explore different fonts and colours to place our title on our film. We decided to use the font Vintage in multiple colours for our fonts. We used bright colours such as red, pink and blue to associate with young people. Another editing technique we found which was really effective was a speed up on scenes. We were able to select a clip and make it slower or faster. We decided for a couple of scenes we wanted to use this effect. We chose a speed up x4 on a scene outside school to make what we filmed alot quicker and more appropriate. This programme also enabled us to add non-diegetic music to our film such as 'Clear' which we downloaded from www.freeplaymusic.com. You are also able to cut scenes which are too long which is what we decided to do. We cut several scenes to make them flow as some were too long and boring.

Phone:
An iphone was used as iconography. We used the iphone as an alarm clock as it is a modern device many teenagers own. Teenagers usually use their phones in order to wake up for school. I know this from friends and personal experiences. We also used our own iphones to make a group chat. This group chat enabled us to get in contact with everyone at the same time which made it easier than messaging eachother individually. The group chat involved reminding eachother dates when we were filming. It also helped as when someone was off ill, we could update them on the group chat of what was going on. We were able to send pictures of the story boards, shot lists and scripts when we were at different places and see what others thought we needed to include.

Email:
During our planning, we thought of a song which would be a perfect match for our teen angst film! We wanted to use 'Love is easy' by Mcfly! This was because it flowed well and many teenage girls enjoy listening to that type of music! It is easy and catchy to sing along too. We went on Google to find Mcfly's email address or their managers! We emailed the company who works for them to ask if we were able to use their song as we needed permission. However in the end, they did not reply which is why we decided to stick with music on the website music free play!

HD camera:
In order to film, we used a HD camera. This helped us catch all the footage we needed! I was very cautious due to another group task, we ended up taking photos instead of a video however, this time round, we made sure it was on video the whole time. The help of a tripod ensured we had a steady shot. Using this, we explored different heights the tripod could go which helped as shoot a successful High angle and birds eye view in the beginning scenes. This links into our risk assessment as we were not able to climb anything to get the correct height of a shot so the tripod did help us.



Voice recorder:
A voicerecorder was an important device we used. When we were filming, there were some speaking scenes involved however, the camera did not pick up the speech as well as we liked it to. It was very bad quality. Therefore, we decided to mute the spoken parts and used a voice recorder to put over such as Seans scnene when he speaks saying "Yo Caitlin". Using the voice recorder made the speech more clear and proffessional! We did not plan to have a voice over on Danni's scene when she walks down the corridoor on her own. We felt it would make the story line a little easier and make it more interesting if we added a voice over. I recorded Danni saying her lines which took around ten seconds then uploaded it onto the macs and imported it into our film. We also used the voice recorder to record an alarm clock to make the sound better quality. We could not find a suitable one on websites we were given.




Photoshop:

Photo shop helped us create our logo. We drew our ideas from scratch onto paper. We wanted an image which showed strength to show as a company, we would grow. We thought of an anchor or chains at first then Joe came up with an idea of a figure outline of a man like Superman. As a group we all agreed! We opened photoshop which enabled us to create our logo with the image and fonts with different colours. Using phot shop was easy, quick and efficient!


Website: 
As a group we used a website free play music, to choose and import our music! We were able to search different genres and moods of music. We spent days searching making sure we had the suitable one. We also used another website called free sound. At first we used this website to find an alarm clock but could not find a modern, stereotypical iPhone alarm sound. When we uploaded our company logo onto our film, we wanted a sound effect which is when this website came in handy! We searched for a 'Whiz' sound and found a suitable one which fitted and uploaded it onto our film.

PowerPoint:
We used Microsoft PowerPoint to pitch our ideas for our films. This enabled us to get feedback on what to improve on and to get our ideas across. The PowerPoint includes a brainstorm of our initial ideas including the plot and characters.

Draft of teen angst film: Karma

This is our first draft of our teen angst film. We showed it in front of the class and received feedback. We got told we needed to improve the volume on areas such as Sean's speech and to dip the music so it fades in and out. We also needed to improve our titles. Firstly we had plain white and dull titles. We did not have enough time to explore the different fonts and placements. In order to improve, we focused solumely on the titles and volumes because our range of camera shots were told to be excellent!We made our titles more vibrant in colour by using pink, red and purples and placed them in suitable areas such as on walls, and on the dressing table when one of the characters is getting ready. This is all seen in our final film. We decided to cut a few of our scenes as we felt they went on for too long. Our aim was to make it quick and fun! In our final draft, we cut out the end scene as it did not look like a classroom beings as the new boy asked where his English class was.

Who would be the audience for your media project?

Our specific demographic is a female who is aged 15 and lives in a city or town. We chose this as this person may be able to relate to the social issues. By living in a town or city, it is more likely to have access to a cinema to watch our movie. Also, they will be more exposed to our advertising therefore they are more likely to watch our movie. Our specific demographic will have a minimum income as she is still at school. The specific audience would be British and white as our film is made with white British actors. This will make it easier for the viewer to relate to as they would be able to understand the culture and language. Our audience should have a girly personality which will create a relationship between them and one of the main character Caitlin. Our film is aimed more at a female audience because there are many girls who are into boys and makeup which would mean more people would view it whereas there are no conventions involved such as a fight or cars which are stereotypical conventions boys would enjoy watching.

The psychographics of our audience would be a stereotypical girl who is into socialising and interested in on going fashion. Their attitude could be a mixture between sarcastic, happy and funny! This is because not every body is the same but these are all attitudes performed throughout the film. The character Caitlin is more sarcastic whereas her sister Charlotte is more calm and quiet. Being funny is a must. Life without humor is full! Many teenagers have a good laugh by doing things they shouldn't or simply having a joke with their friends... Being a teenager is supposed to be the best years if your life! Values would be looks. The characters are very cautious about what they look like from their hair, to make up to the branded clothing being worn such as a Nike bag Sean is wearing. Family is another value. During the film, the two sisters parents get a divorce. They both loved their parents which could relate to the viewers as there have been many divorces around Britain. Gossip is a third value. Teenagers tend to gossip in their day to day life which creates drama which is usual for girls to fall out over or argue about. This tends to happen most during school. 

In which ways does your media product use, develp or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Screen shot one is showing the title. We decided to name our film Karma as it is a good representation to a teenage life. We thought many teenagers would relate to this. We chose this font on Final Cut pro as it is bold and it stands out on the plain black background. The title is located in the middle of the screen showing it is important. The two main characters are ablove and below the title. The colours used are grey which fades into a warm pink. this instantly shows the viewer it is a film with a female audience as girls are usually associated with the colour pink.

Screen shot two is a long shot of the school sixth form doors with the school name above. This shows one of the main settings where the film is set. We chose to set it in school because it is a stereotypical convention used in teen angst films. You can see this from the films Wild child, mean girls and Angus thongs and perfect snogging! Having our film set in school shows the characters are roughly the same age as our audience which can mean the things which happen during the film can be relatable to anyone watching. For example, different social groups, stress of school work and most importantly, friendship.

Screen shot three is a mid shot of a character picking out an outfit. This is stereotypical for a teenage girl as they care about their appearance. Clothing represents fashion. Many main characters are into fashion such as Poppy Moore from Wild child. During our title sequence, we used many props such as clothing, sleeping mask and school bags.

Screen shot four is a birds eye view. We decided to use this shot to make the opening seem more interesting with a range of different shots. This shot made the viewer see properly that the character is sleeping. This is one of the first scenes during our film. In the film Wild child, it starts with the character Poppy Moore in bed sleeping then her alarm wakes her up. There is a range of shots such as close ups and high angles in the film.

Shot five is a shot showing a title 'starring...' The font used is cartoon like. We got this idea from watching the title sequence of Juno. The title fits well in the setting because it stands out against the red curtain. The cartoon title shows it is also aimed at a young audience. The title is grey which also matches the main title of the film 'Karma'. An ellipsis is used to show more titles will be coming up during the title sequence.

Shot six is used to show the story and how the opening sets it up. You can see this between the two characters bumping into each other. Conversation starts and this is when the title sequence has finished. The scene shows both characters are alone which can show the audience that they could be lonely. The new boy introduces himself by saying "I'm new here" which shows the audience there could be a friendship or a love between the two characters throughout the film.

Shot seven shows the genre and how the opening sets it up. This shot is a mid shot of a main character doing her makeup. This instantly shows it is a teen angst due to the use of makeup. This shot also links into the fact she cares about her appearance. It shows she is getting ready for something but can also show a daily routine many female school girls go through!

Shot eight shows how the characters are introduced. The title used is the same as the 'starring...' title however it has changed to a pink/red colour. This colour blends generously in the room. The font fades in and then fades back out. Each main character which appears on the screen, the title shows their names and character names. This comes after the title 'starring...'

Shot nine is showing special effects. We edited our film on Final cut pro. We wanted to make this scene more interesting and fun by adding a x4 speed on the students walking to school. This shows it is a typical school day which is usual in teen angst such as LOL and Angus thongs and perfect snogging!

Music.

We had many music probabilities such as: Clear, Wake up, I can do it and Loving everything I find. These are all found on www.freeplaymusic.com. However, we found the perfect song for our title sequence which was Love is easy by McFly. However, due to copyrights we had to ask for permission. We researched who we needed to email however we did not get a response. Therefore, we have decided to use clear, as it works better. For example, the beat and pace is good and fits well with the speed of the filming. We then decided to use a second song, Loving everything I find. This song switches from the first one and shows a lighthearted and insinuates a crush brewing. This happens in Wild child when Poppy sees her crush. Its also a feminine song. Which is used in variety of teen angst films, especially in Wild Child when they go shopping 'About you now' by The Sugababes is played.

Group roles.

Each person edited whilst the others finished colouring and finding sound effects such as an alarm clock for the first scene.

we could not find a modern alarm clock sound which fitted the scene. We decided as a group to use the voice recorder to record the sound of an alarm from one of our iPhones then uploaded it on the mac to import in the programme we were using, Final Cut Pro.

Joe

Joe was the director throughout the process. This was because he is good at time keeping which will help the rest of the group on track of deadlines and when to film. Joe also helped pick the music and made sure everyone agreed on it. Joe also helped during editing as he helped create through credits. Each person edited whilst the others finished colouring and finding sound effects such as an alarm clock for the first scene.

Bonny

Myself and Danni decided to be the main actors. This was because we've had practice being on camera before in other tasks. We both felt confident. We are both close friends personally which will show the love side of our relationship really well throughout through film, and we are both comfortable with eachother which made it easier to film. I also helped with the editing by sorting the volume of the audio and non-diegetc music.












 Sean's job was to be in charge of the camera. He filmed most scenes confidently as he understood the risk assessment such as how the camera should be carried to avoid any damage. Sean also played one of the 'cool' boys like most teen boys in ten angst films  such as Kyle and Chad from 'LOL'. Sean and Joe also helped pick the music and made sure everyone agreed on it.

Sean

Danni was the main editor. This was because she is quick at cutting scenes and adding transitions such as a swipe or fade. We wanted to include a split screen during parts of our filming such as when Danni and I were applying mascara to our eyes.
 

Danni