7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Before starting the course we had seen work produced by he previous years; this made me extremely enthusiastic about the task asked of us, but it also made me realise how hard it the whole course would be.

Our first project was to produce our preliminary exercise. After producing the final video, we realised how hard it was to produce a proffesional looking video and made me and the rest of the group realise that we needed to work hard to produce something of the quality we knew we where capable of.

After the preliminary we where told to reproduce the opeing scene to juno; although this was an enjoyable task, it was also very hard because we wanted to produce something simirlar. After watching the video many times, we was then able to look for locations, props and costumes for the video. We where given a close deadline so in some shots we had to rush and also when eduiting the final piece we hadn't given ourselves enough time. After alot of hard work and time consuming editing sessions, we believed the final video we produced for the remake of juno, was of a high quality and alot better than what we thought we could produce.

After the feedback we receivced from Juno, as a group it boosted our confidence for our main task, and we where happy with the knowledge we had developed to start our main task.

For our final piece we had a blank canvas, we could pretty much do anything we wanted as long as it was an opening to a film. We came up with multiple ideas but found it difficult to stick to an idea for more than a week. We then completed some target audience research which helped us narrow down what we were going to do. We were very ambitious to begin with but we realised that it was going to be very difficult to fulfill those ambitions and that if we completed something far simpler it could look far better. After conducting our market research, discussing our ideas between the group and consulting teachers we came to the idea of a rap movie. We then had to seriously organise ourselves as we had found out in the Preliminary Exercise everything needs to be covered. We put a folder of our Research, ideas and planning together to present to our teacher for final approval before we went out to film. There were a few things that needed to be in more detail but he was impressed and surprised with what we had produced. We then had to go and film.

Our first shoot didn’t run as smoothly as we expected and it took longer than we expected to take certain shots and we became concerned that we were overcomplicating things. Then Sol’s brother said that we could film in him flat and in the block which was ideal for what we needed. This brought some life back into the team and kept us inspired for the rest of the filming process.

We went back for editing and produced a rough cut to show for the class. They were impressed with the shots and the editing but said that it didn’t really show the storyline or create an enigma. We then went back to the drawing board and decided to get some shots of Sam in the schools recording studio. We felt this gave a better idea to what the story was about. To create the enigma we had a shot of Sam’s Mansion [Thorpe Hall] as a Point of View shot falling into a blur. This was to create the hook to what happened there. Among some other improvements we thought it would be 100% ready for the audience to see the final piece. We uploaded it to YouTube and received our feedback

I believe from the prliminary not just me but the whole group had gained alot of experience, and this enabled us to produce a much better video for a final task from the prleiminary. It also enabled us to be more realistic with what we were able to create; we knew we couldn't produce something prffessional but we did have a good try at it, and we believe as a group, there are something we would change if we did it again but there are aslo many areas that we are very happy with. We knew we wouldn't be able to produce and include special affects using green screens because we didn't have the equipment reuqired but we believe we have produced a main task that is of a very good quality given the resources we had.

The main problem we faced throughout the course was organisation and time. Throughout the course we focused most of attention on the practical rather than developing our knowledge on what we wanted to recreate. If i could change anything, I would focus more on research and plan exactly what I wanted to create before trying to actually create the main task.

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

From start to finish, the whole group have taught ourselves with the help of others how to use all the software, equiptment and cameras.

We first learnt how to use our blogs. After creating our blogs and desinging the way we wanted them to look, we could then start posting work, research and basically anything that would help in the prject, we could upload onto the blog.

We had our first experience using the cameras and tripods when creating our preliminary exercise. This also led us to learning how to use Adobe Premiere Pro the editing software we would be using to create our final video. The more and more we used the cameras, tripods and editing software, the more familiar we became with how the program worked and the way we could produce a video including affects and transitions to convey meaning to the audience.

After producing our Preliminary Exercise we realised that we needed to adapt how we shot and edited our film as it was not up to the standard we were hoping for.

We also created a YouTube channel which we had never done before. This was quite simple to complete although we had to Name the channel and organise and label it correctly.

Afterproducing the preliminary exercise we then produce our own uinique remake of the openign scene to the film 'Juno'. Although this wasn't necesary in the course, it enabled us to adapt and boost our knowlede of how to created proffesional standard videos.

When recording our main task, we decided that we going to use a HD camera rather than a normal camera. Using the camera was fine and we didn't hit a problem untill trying to export the video. The format of the video when exported would change the video back to standard quality, so we decided that we could just use the standard cameras that are easier to use.

We also wanted to produce an animation for our production group name that we could include in the start of every video we created. After researc and watching video copilots, I was able to develop and create an animation suitable with sound affects. 

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our target audience by uploading our video onto youtube, facebook and also showing friends and family to constantly receive feedback on our video. We have done this throughout the whole project so that we could develop the film to attract the target audience.
We uploaded our final opening scene onto Tom's facebook so that we could receive feedback of our final video. From this we received over 30 comments both critism and postive comments.
We where also able to receive feedback from a student studying media studies at degree level and gave us detailed feedback.

We created a YouTube channel once we had created our Preliminary Video and we then updated it with videos on scenes we’d tried and rough cuts to give potential audiences an idea of what the final product would look like. This gave us a platform to show our video to a large number of people which allowed us to gain feedback however it wasn’t as successful as Facebook.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SharrisonProduction?feature=mhum

Also, in our Media lesson we did a rough cut viewing to the class to get feedback from other students and how to improve on it.

Most comments were entirely positive:

‘Loving Sam’s acting skills! Like the titles and editing on the stairs and the grafitti bit’

‘Really well put together, love it. And love the location ♥’

‘I could never be this productive haaaaa it’s wicked, reminds me of adulthood or some shit’

‘I really like the range of camera shots you use and soundtrack. The editing and transitions from shot to shot is good to :)’

‘Looks like a good intro to a full length film. Really chill, good job :)’

‘This is fantastic, video gold!’

‘Worthy of an Oscar, a viewing on BBC 1, ITV 1, 2 and 4 (not 3) G.O.L.D and LFC TV... Good work!’

But we did also receive some detailed constructive responses:

Since I last saw it I can see you've added some bits with Sam rapping in the studio but it still doesn't lure in the audience with a story line. And it needs a lot of cutting, but some of the effects and CCTV etc are really very good, great creativity with the editing software. Maybe next time you could have looked at other films and seen how they gripped you in the first moments of the film. Some can be a little different but that's usually because the adverts on TV already hooked the audience coming to watch =]

Shot creativity and editing were good though, I think you really did a good job =]

Bits of it are great mate like the CCTV camera shots they're cleverly placed and whoever edited it together did a good job as well as the whoever decided the camera shots but some scenes are proper out of place like Sam on the phone outside that house or him rapping was a bit of a WTF. It definitely coulda been a Kidulthood style start to a short film but the music would have been better if it was D&B or summin like Magnetic Man or Chase and Status other than that it was good man just didn’t blend as one.

 that house or him rapping that was abit of a WTF. It definitely coulda been like a kidulthood style start to a short film but the music woulda been better if it was like D&B or summin like magnetic man or chase and status other then that it was good man just didn't blend as one

Ø  I disagree with the others and can’t really relate the music to the film, not just in terms of lyrics but it doesn’t really match the style of filming as such, the music is quite fluid, whereas what we are seeing isn’t as such.

Ø  I liked the change to CCTV style footage, mixes it up, so that’s good.

Ø  The style of writing for the credits you have is good

Ø  I didn’t really get a feel of the story –I’d expect more of the plot or at least some info on the characters to get a sense of who they are and where they might have headed, even a small amount, I have no idea what’s going on really.

Ø  A lot of just walking around ... some cuts it works, some it just seems to go on a bit.

Ø  The rewind sequence is good! Good edit there :)

Ø  Initially I wasn’t sure if it was even a film intro or if it was an advert/music video. Just seems different to what I’m used to BUT that could be a good thing! Different is good.

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

Our movies Rollin’ in the Deep is a Teen Gangster Film aimed mainly at teenagers and young adults.
We created a film that would be targeted at us. In other words iuf we didn't produce the opening scene, we would still want to watch the film as we would be the target audience.

This is Daniel. He is 19 years old and is currently studying in sixth form doing his second year of A levels. He lives in Lincoln, and enjoys watching films in his spare time. He hangs around with friends with a similar style to hisself and would class his self as someone who is quite indie. His favourite films he has watched are Kidulthood, Shank, 8 Mile, and Notorious BIG.
Daniel would be an individual that we believe would want to watch our film. The main channels on TV that he watches are Channel 4; E4; MTV; ITV; BBC Three.

The music that Daniel would listen to would be indie music, rock and occasional dub-step. Prefers to Listen to Radio 1 from 7pm onward but mainly uses his iPod.

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

Although our production is low budget it could possibly interest hollywood studies; large film productions have already recreated a rapstars jorney to fame through the film 'Notorious BIG' released by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

The film would most likely seek most interest from small british film companies like Film4 which wouldn't expect our production to gain a great profit. Film4 would enable the film to be released in cinemas, onto the channel, also gain interest audience through the use of advertisement on both the Film4 website and through the channel. As our production is low cost this would be the most likely reason for a relatively small film company distributing our production.

We have call our group 'Sharrison Productions.' A similar production company that we would compare our company to be most simirlar would be a company like Celador Films. 

A production company is responsible for supervising the filming from concept to completion, and they hold the sole legal and financial responsibility of the movie as a whole.

We decided that we wanted to create a animation with the group's production name at the start. We believed this owuld our final video look more proffesional. We used adobe after effects to create the animation, exported the clip, then added a sound affect.

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

Our main task represents young adults and there jorney to the top; we have tried to convey to audieence of how hard it can be to become famous and to be recognised from typical teenager background.

We have shown our own representation of young adults who 'rap' and have therefore ensure the characters costume and appearence follows this. We tried to represent Tom Benson, played by Tom Speechley, as a lower class character, and have represented the character as a stereotypical young 'gangster', or often now depicted as a 'chav'.

In contrast we have represented Sam Carter, played by Sam Guy, in a higher social class, with a more branded appearence, wearing more distinct costumes, and this develops the whole objective of the project, showing the contrast in a 'rap star' at the bottom and also a fully established and famous rapstar.   

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

Our final media product uses develops and challenges conventions of real media products.

Our film is a mixed genre combining teen drama with a gangster genre. After research we realised that low budget british production companies have produced films of similar genres but often many films are very hard to be succesful in the competing market. After establishing the genre for the main project, we knew that our ideas would constantly change and we aimed to develop the genre.

In most films simirlar to our genre, the use of non-digetic music played behind whats happening in the scene, usually using one of the genres below:

• Rap
• Grime
• Dubstep
• hiphop

We decided that we wanted our opening scene to chalange conventions as we decided to use a more mainstream pop song, remixed by an artist into a genre tht we believed was suitable for what we was trying to create. The song we used was a popular song, and we believed many of the target audience would be familiar with it, and the remix by Jamie XX shuffle gave the song a more urban and garage type genre that we bilieve could work. We also concetrated on the nlyrics within the song, so that we could develop our video around the song.

We have then used a convention to create the enigma. In teen gangster films crime and trouble making are prominent, in the last frame we have it shows someone looking at Sam’s mansion from a distance. Then they quietly say ‘Look at that’ and then the shot falls and blurs. This uses the convention as someone is clearly not meant to be there and seems to have been caught this adds the extra enigma to the end of the opening scene.

Target Audience Research

This is the questionairre we handed out before we started creating our main exercise

Sharrison Productions are beginning to plan their new movie and are hoping to gain some guidance from you, the audience. From the following questions we hope to gain a good idea of what you like to watch and what you want us to produce.

1.     How old are you?

0-15                o                   16-24             o          24+          o 

2.     What genre of film do you prefer to watch?

Drama                       o        Comedy        o          Horror         o 

Thriller                       o        Rom Com      o          Sci-Fi           o 

3.     What are your main interests?

Sport                          o        Music             o          Fashion    o 

Computers               o       Cars                o          Films             o 

4.     What is your favourite film?

_______________________________________________

5.     What is your favourite TV show?

___________________________________________________

Question One

This showed that we asked mainly 16-24 year olds, and this was the target audience we were aiming for with the production.

Question Two

After asking all of our respondents we knew that drama was the genre we were going to use. This allowed us to create and imagine ideas around drama. We could, from this, analyse other drama films, as well as looking through the code and conventions of other drama films. 

Question Three

These results showed that the target audience are mainly interested in music. After discovering this, we decided we would try collaborating music within our film. We wanted to try use music as the main feature in the film, rather than just using non-diagetic music over the top of something else.

Question Four

The results from this question, showed that most of the respondents enjoyed teen drama films with a large majority British based; 16/50 respondents said that their favourite film was adulthood.

After reading through all the responses we were able to narrow down our ideas of what the film could be to suit the audience best.

Question Five

Most respondents said that they mainly enjoyed British drama; Misfits, Skins and Shameless were the main results throughout the questionnaire.

After this we knew that some aspects of the film may contain the lives of teenagers, and include the social aspect of teenagers

Main Project

Person	Role	On Screen Name
Tom Speechley	Acting as the main character, as he progresses to a rap star.	Tom Benson (Real name) Rap  name/nick name: Mr B.
Sam Guy	The main characters role model Professional rap star, already famous	Sam Carter Rap name/nick name: Sam Sparkz
Sol Ilett	Acting as the record producer for Sam Sparkz	Calvin Banks
Extras: Adam Pickup Liam Tilley Kiel Omesher Find others if needed	The characters will be used throughout the opening scene often walking by the main characters, also acting as the audience when main characters are performing on stage.	Names will not be relevant as they may have little or no speaking parts in the opening scene

Locations:

Location	Purpose
Recording Studio (Ken Stimpson)	We will use this location for the professional rap star, recording a new song. We will ensure the shots make the location not look like its within a school.
Tom Speechley’s house	Use as the first shot, as the character wakes up. We will use the bedroom, toilet and front door, as part of the opening scene.
Streets/Alley way	We will use Tom’s street and an alley way close by to record shots of the character walking, while listening to music and rapping out loud.

We are using Tom’s normal house as his on screen house as he is just a regular person in the film when we start so if we use his normal house, his regular status will come across. Were using the streets and alley ways to portray the tough struggle it is to get where he wants to be by walking through rough areas. We are using the studio to as it is very professional looking and when Sam will be in it, it will show Sam’s high status compared to Tom’s non-existent status on the outside of it.

Costumes:

Character	Costume
Tom Benson	Trousers: Nike Tracksuit bottoms, Grey Top: Zoo York, Black T-Shirt Shoes: Nike High tops Accs: New Era Cap, Skull Candy Head Phones
Sam Carter	Trousers: Topman Carrot Bottom Skinny Chinos (Dark Green) Top: Topman character top/plain black hoody jacket Shoes: Adidas High Tops Accs: Wooly Hat, Blue, Studio headphones
Calvin Banks	Trousers: Topman Carrot Bottom Skinny Chinos (Dark Grey) Top: White T-shirt, Topman chequered shirt Shoes: Vans Authentic (Grey) Accs: Studio Headphones

We used this costume for Tom as the clothes he will be wearing with his accessories are the most stereotypical rap star clothes around what people can wear. He wears all the expected clothes as he is trying to make it so he does everything by the book. Sam however, he wears these clothes and accessories as he has already made it so he can wear more of what he likes and get away with it. It is still that style but more laid back. Calvin is wearing really casual clothes as he is a record producer and usually they wear what they like on a day to day basis so it’s not too smart, just casual.

Props:

Props

Studio Equipment

Alarm Clock

Mirror/Tooth brush/ sink

Front Door

We are using the alarm clock as when it goes off to wake Tom up at the start is will be a good way to start out soundtrack up while Tom is getting ready and going out. As I have already explained the studio is used to show how professional and high status in the music industry Sam is. The rest of the props will not normally be noticed in the film as much as they are pretty standard things like getting ready in the morning and leaving your house to go out. However as they are normal things to do with our editing and recording we will highlight that to show what a normal guy Tom is.