Evaluation Q7

Who would the audience be for your media product?

The target audience for our film would be dominantly females with a few males also being targeted. The age range of our target audience are people in their teens to early twenties. Their interests would include shopping, possibly being in a relationship and someone who is generally quite close with their friends and family. Ethnicity isn't really important to our target audience as the film is not based on any ethnic minorities , as long as they can understand English they'll be fine. The reason for having a small percentage of males in our demographic is because of the way the two min protagonists behave; and the fact that they are male rather than female could be enticing for them. The main reasons for choosing the female demographic however is due to the fact that our film follows all the codes and conventions of a ROMCOM which are made to be aimed at female audiences. The females would also be expecting a protagonist who is quite attractive as it would be another incentive for them to watch the film. They would also be expecting quite a roller coaster storyline as they would follow the protagonist through his lowest points to eventually a happy ending of the film, so they would feel all the emotions a ROMCOM should evoke throughout the film. 

Evaluation Q6

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

One of the main ways in which our media product challenges the conventions of a ROMCOM is that we opted used to 2 male protagonists whereas usually there would be 1 male and 1 female. We challenged the stereotype that the two main protagonists fall in love which made for a more interesting story as it was something that isn't usually done. Most ROMCOMS tend to have someone narrate over some footage describing the character and talking about themselves, we wanted to get straight to the point so we showed the characters playing football and just relaxing and have them introduce themselves with a quick conversation. We also use different kinds of music since usually ROMCOMS have soft smooth music whereas we use upbeat grime song in one scene as we felt it would better immerse the audience in that scene as it was quite fast paced.

Evaluation Q5

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

            For the preliminary task we made the decision to film in a classroom as it would make the story seem more authentic as the story was actually set in a school. We had to book the classroom in advance to ensure we had it ready for filming and that it wouldn’t be taken by someone else. As it was all in one classroom, it made it a lot more convenient when filming, as we wouldn’t have to constantly move the camera around a lot. We didn’t encounter any problems with this decision; in fact it turned out to be a benefit as it meant that we wouldn’t have to worry about other locations being taken/used. We made a schedule as to what shots to film when which shots to film when as things like lighting and people in the area would affect could have affected our filming. We didn’t encounter any problems with this as we ended up filming the shots at the time we wanted to. In the main task we had to do a lot more shots within our storyboard as a pose to the prelim task which only required a few shots, we learnt from our mistakes we made in the prelim task and applied these to the storyboard for our main task to ensure our film didn’t have the mistakes made previously, and it would be harder to make sure of this as there were a lot more shots to film so we had to keep a consistency in the quality of shot across the whole film. In the main task we had to schedule what shots we would film at a certain time as the weather was always changing so we had to make sure we had the main shots we needed were filmed early on in case of any weather change.  The solution we came up with to counter any weather like rain or wind (which would affect sound). We made sure we filmed any outdoor shots in the morning whilst the weather was still holding up, and any indoor shots we could film at a later time as we wouldn’t have to worry about weather. From this I learnt that a lot more work goes into pre-production than the audience may see, and that everything must be thought about before going off to film.



As you can see in the storyboard above, we rectified the errors made and incorporated them into the storyboard.



            During production on the prelim task we were still relatively new to the camera, so operating it at first wasn’t as easy as it was on the main task because we didn’t know which shots would look best or how we should position the camera on a tripod, we didn’t encounter many problems with the camera itself, the only problems we did encounter were that we were recording when the camera was not being used. Also when filming we didn’t even think about the continuity of the shots as we just filmed the shots and assumed when editing the clips together that they would look good, however we should have looked at the continuity of the shots when filming to see if they would all match up. In the prelim task we had quite a wide variety of shots as we made sure that we used the majority of shots that we felt were appropriate, one of the problems faced when using all of these camera angles was that it was quite a hassle to constantly move the camera and tripod around a small, classroom, so maybe we should have taken into consideration whether manoeuvrability of the camera would be compromised in such a confined space. A solution to this however was that we moved a few desks around which created a lot more space but also allowed us to film from an angle we wouldn’t have originally. In the final task, we made sure that the locations we intended on using would be easily accessible for the camera, but also that they were not heavily congested with people who could possibly ruin the shot, a solution we found to this was filming at a quiet time, for example when we wanted to film a shot in the common room, we knew for a fact that it would always be busy, but we knew that a lot of people had a free period on a Wednesday which would mean that it would be extremely quiet and easy for us to film, we did however have to get the permission of a member of staff to ensure that filming there was ok, which it was. Luckily for us as well, it was also quiet which meant we could film without having to worry about anyone interrupting the shot. With the weather always changing the day we were filming, we made sure that the first shots we filmed were the ones that took place outside, so we started with the children entering the school first, and then filmed all the scenes near the bench which made sure that if we needed to we could re film those shots and still have the first shots already filmed. When filming the main task we knew that as there were a lot more shots, we should make sure that we kept continuity throughout the shots, which would make for a much more flowing film, we did this by continuously filling out a continuity sheet handed to which allowed the camera operator to adjust accordingly, however I think there could have been a wider variety of shots overall, but because we had so many shots to film, time constraints didn’t allow us to film with the wide amount of shots we wanted, however one shot we were quite happy with was the going crazy scene as it felt like you were moving with them through the corridor, however this effect was given from the tracks which we moved the camera along. I think we learnt that from the prelim task that continuity is the most important thing because if the film won’t flow it won’t look good, so we made sure that all shots matched the criteria on our continuity sheet.

          

As you can see in the video above, we tried to incorporate the techniques seen above into our film On the prelim task, the post production work was fairly simple as all we had to do was order the shots up and make sure they flowed, however because the software was relatively new to us, we didn’t know how to use a lot of the tools within the programme. One thing we made sure to do after every change we made was to save our work as it meant we wouldn’t lose our work if the computer crashed, we also saved various copies of the work so we always had something to go back to if we couldn’t save the file we were on, which a few times was useful as the computer did freeze up. During post production my knowledge of Adobe Premiere grew as I started to feel more comfortable with it from all the time spent editing, I also learnt some new things from basics like cutting to extending the audio over multiple clips. I think one thing we could have done differently was make the film flow a bit more as there were a few jump shots that didn’t seem very natural, there were a few technical issues with the film but those couldn’t be rectified as they were made when filming. When editing the main task we used the feedback from the prelim task and made sure that there were a lot less jump shots to make sure the film was a lot smoother throughout. On the main task we had to have some sound with our clips, so we had to blend the sound in with the clips we had filmed, which took quite a bit of time because during the prelim task we didn’t have to worry about any sound except for the speech coming from the characters. When it came to picking music I think the right choices were made, for the majority of the film we needed a song that would be like a background tune to accompany the speech, we chose a comedic style tune which matched well with the film as it was after all, a ROMCOM.

When we had to add the second song for the two friends going crazy, we had to make sure it blended well with the other track and that it was a smooth transition, because this was pretty much the first time we were editing the audio together, it was a little complicated as we didn’t get the exact effect we wanted, however after trying countless times, we eventually got the result we wanted. Since there was a lot more time to edit for the main task, we could take our time on each section to make sure it wasn’t rushed and that the clips were of a high quality. We also took into consideration the feedback that was given from the prelim task and applied that to this task, so there weren’t any jump shots. Another thing which was quite time consuming was adding titles, some titles were quite easy as we just placed them over the footage and faded them in and out, some titles however were a little more complex as we had to track them and make them disappear differently using different transitions and things like masks. I think the only problem with having these kinds of titles are that it was very time consuming and maybe took some time away from editing other parts of the film. I think the key lessons learnt here are that we made the right choice by saving our work various times at different stages, because at some points when we wanted to preview something the computer would freeze, so that meant we had something to go back to, also I think I learnt a lot more about the editing software which means when I work on future tasks it will be a lot easier. 

Evaluation Q4

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our opening sequence follows the codes and conventions of a ROMCOM film however it does not follow all of them. It follows conventions such as having soft romantic music playing and usually 2 or 3 protagonists, however we challenged the norm and used 2 male protagonists as a pose to usually having 1 male and 1 female. We followed these 2 conventions the most in order to keep our audience engaged as soon as they start watching the film.As well as using a soft romantic song, we also used a grim/dubstep song in one of our scenes as we felt that it would help with the context in which the scene was being portrayed.The titles we used were simple but still quite effective as we didn't want the audience to be distracted by large and brash titles. This was quite effective as it meant that we could place titles in areas before action started happening and not simply have a panning shot with a pointless title.  As you can see the two main characters are best friends (hence the title), however they soon end up on the verge of separation when a girl threatens to come between their friendship.There are two main themes in our opening sequence, the first being friendship. We tried to get this one across the most as it is the most prevalent throughout and you can see that from the very beginning of the film. Our target audience can relate to this as they may also have a best friend who they don't want to split from and be friends forever, but separation is inevitable. Our second theme is betrayal. This theme is most visible at the end when one of the friends runs off from hanging out with his "buddy" and instead deciding to chase after the girl, we felt that this could be relatable to people who have friends that may not spend as much time with them because of a girl coming between them.The main target audience for a ROMCOM consists of young females and elderly females, with the age range being people between 15-35 years old; also males aged 16-30.  The reasoning for this is because the target can vary, if the film is swayed towards comedy and is more of a comedy orientated film, males would most likely be the target audience as most of the humour in these films are immature and something that will appeal to males as a pose to females, however films which are swayed more towards romance and are romance orientated the target audience would be females, the age can vary depending on the film, for example, something which has sexual references and content of a mature nature will be targeted at older women, usually housewives aged 32-40. These people are usually working in a job in which they have a decent salary; the younger females are probably most likely to be students. The males are probably still in school or higher education; I think this because at this age most male’s immaturity is quite high.

Evaluation Q3

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

The range of hardware we used was fairly small; we only used the camera, which was a canon XHA1 a tripod for the camera, and some tracks on which we could move the camera along. The software we used for editing was Adobe Premiere; for the assembly edit, Adobe After Effects for colour correction and titles and Sony Vegas for the sound.

When editing we used various techniques , for example we used various different methods of titling, from basic fading, to more complex things such as masking the titles in and out of the shot.

In this shot the titling was quite basic as we only did a simple fade in and out.

The titling in this shot was easy to begin with as we simply just placed the text onto the bench. 

In this shot we used the tracks to get a smooth forward moving transition as if you were moving with the two friends. 

Once they started to sit down we had to mask out the text frame by frame to give the effect that the text was actually on the bench and disappearing as they sat on it. 

When filming us also made sure we filmed each shot a few times in case some shots didn’t turn out as expected, but also because we could choose different parts from the clips and put them together to make the shot seem flawless.