Megan Johnson OCR Media Studies Foundation Portfolio H140
Wednesday 23 January 2013
Wednesday 16 January 2013
Evaluation - Question 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
When researching our target audience, we asked people about
their likes and dislikes in order to make sure we included the right things in
our opening to attract our target audience. Things most said they liked was TV
programs such as Hollyoaks, Eastenders and Coronation Street, clothing brands
such as Addidas and Paul’s Boutique, and films such as Green Street and
Football Factory. These likes and dislikes gave us an indication of what would
appeal to our target audience in our opening.
Although the characters in the opening did not wear brands
such as Addidas and Paul’s Boutique, they did wear brands such as Fred Perry
and Helly Hansen which are also synonymous with working class teenagers aged
15-25.
In my opinion, the key elements which did best at attracting
the audience’s attention in our opening was the narration because it addresses
the audience directly, and also the way in which it was edited because the jump
cuts create an edgy atmosphere which keeps the audience involved.
Thursday 10 January 2013
Evaluation - Question 4
Who would be the audience for your media project and why?
Statistics on the UK Film Council show that our chosen genre
of Drama has been rated as fourth most popular, and 19% of the 1,978 who voted
said that Drama films was their favourite genre of film. Because of the genre's
popularity, our group agreed that it would be an appropriate genre to choose
for our film opening.
From the statistics we have found, it has been shown that
the average person who enjoys watching a Drama film is a female parent, aged over 35 years old belonging to social class AB.
However because of our sub-genre of Crime, we have agreed that a more suitable
target audience would be the younger generation of people aged between 15-25 years old from working class families.
This is because these people are more likely to be familiar with the situations
in the film and the chance of them relating to the film will be much greater
than those aged over 35 years old in class AB.
According to www.bbfc.co.uk,
because our film would include some of the following then it would therefore be
classified as a 15;
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Strong violence
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Frequent strong language (eg 'f***').
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Portrayals of sexual activity
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Strong verbal references to sex
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Sexual nudity
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Brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal
references to sexual violence
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Discriminatory language or behaviour
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Drug taking
An example of somebody from our target audience would be;
Target Audience Member Profile
Name: Lauren
Knowles
Age: 16
Favourite Genre: Crime
Age: 16
Favourite Genre: Crime
Likes and dislikes
What brands do you like to wear? Vans, Jack Wills.
What is your favourite food? Cake, curry, Chinese.
What is your favourite sport? Basketball.
What are your hobbies? Swimming.
What TV programs do you like to watch? Made in Chelsea, Hollyoaks, Coronation Street.
What are your favourite movies? Harry Potter, Kidulthood, Cinderella story, Despicable me, Green Street.
What are your favourite crime movies? Green Street, Bad Boys, Kidulthood.
What do you like about crime movies? There is a lot of action and they keep you focused because of their fast pace.
What brands do you like to wear? Vans, Jack Wills.
What is your favourite food? Cake, curry, Chinese.
What is your favourite sport? Basketball.
What are your hobbies? Swimming.
What TV programs do you like to watch? Made in Chelsea, Hollyoaks, Coronation Street.
What are your favourite movies? Harry Potter, Kidulthood, Cinderella story, Despicable me, Green Street.
What are your favourite crime movies? Green Street, Bad Boys, Kidulthood.
What do you like about crime movies? There is a lot of action and they keep you focused because of their fast pace.
Wednesday 9 January 2013
Sunday 6 January 2013
Evaluation - Question 1
In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or
Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?
The genre of our film opening is Crime/Drama, targeting
particularly at an audience aged 15-25 belonging to social class DE. Other films
from this genre include; Kidulthood, Adulthood, Green Street and Football
factory. Here is the film opening for Green Street;
The conventions of these film openings include;
Quickly paced with lots of jump-cuts.
We decided that it was essential to meet
this convention to emphasize the character’s panic and adrenaline in the
opening, specifically in the fight scene. The quickly paced jump-cuts create
the illusion that the characters’ eyes are constantly on the move – paranoid about
where their next impact will be coming from.
Tension building, menacing soundtrack.
This convention was met but also challenged
in our film opening; due to our film being based on the life of a girl with a
split-personality we decided to put emphasis on this by using two very
different types of background music – for the first scene of the opening the
music is reflective and mellow and played on the piano and then for the second,
the music begins to build tension and sounds alike that which you would
stereotypically find in a Crime/Drama film. This firstly confuses the audience but
then performs for its main purpose of highlighting the contrast in her two
personalities.
Props which signify rebellion.
In the Kidulthood trailer there are
infinite amounts of props which signify rebellion, these include; cigarettes,
alcohol, drugs, knives and guns. Props which we used to add focus to the
roguish aspect of the film were just cigarettes and alcohol. We did this
because although the film is based on violence, we wanted to ensure that the
culture of the country in which the film was set was accentuated – and stereotypically,
British people tend not to fight with weapons like they do in for example in
the USA.
Still from Kidulthood
A mid-shot of the group of main characters,
generally male.
The gender of the main characters was one of
the conventions of a Crime/Drama film which we wanted to challenge most.
Typically, the main characters of films from our chosen genre are male –
probably because of their association with being more tough and dominant than
females – however, as a group we thought that in order to make our film more noticeable,
we should use female actors instead.
Our Characters
Casual, sporty clothing.
In all of the Crime/Drama films we have
studied for research for our opening, all key characters have worn casual, sports
clothing or makes such as McKenzie, Fred Perry or Helly Hansen. We also noticed
that the majority of females in these films wear heavy make-up, lots of tacky
jewellery and have their hair scraped back into a pony-tail. Because of this, to
show the culture of the characters in our opening we also had our actors wear
similar costumes. The only time we challenged these conventions was in the
first scene – when the main character is portraying her more aristocratic side
of life. At this time we had her wear stylish horse riding attire and a lack of
make-up to signify purity.
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Urban setting.
The setting for films such as Kidulthood,
Adulthood, Green Street and Football Factory, the setting tends to be urban or
in grim, vandalised surroundings – often at night time. For the majority of our
opening we met this convention, however, the first scene was set in a horse
riding arena with the purpose of contrasting the main character’s split
personality.
Kidulthood
Football Factory
Green Street
Close ups and emphasis on anything which may
signify rebellion.
In the trailer for Green Street there are shots
of many actions and props which signify rebellion such as violence and kicking
litter. The props in the opening tend not to be focused on in each shot in
order to make them appear more casual. In our opening, however, we use the
cigarette as a physical representation of our main character’s more unruly
lifestyle and is specifically focused on in moments of her transmission between
both personalities. A time when this convention is met again is during the
fight scene where there are close-ups of individual attacks in order to create
an edgy atmosphere in this scene.
In conclusion, I am of the opinion that we included just the
right amount of conventions to establish the genre of Crime/Drama yet challenged
just enough to gain attention from our intended target audience of those aged
15-25 belonging to social class DE.
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