Question 7

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

Looking back my Preliminary task there so much that i have learnt in summary this was the task we had to do: a character walking through a door and from there the story could be anything. We had a little school love scene were by there was 2 characters a female and male actor. Variety of shots must be used e.g. shot/reverse shot, long shot, mid shot, close-up shot, and 180 degrees.
For the Main task we had to make a 2 minute opening sequence no longer than 2 minutes and this had to include titles, various shot use , good story line and also attract the audience we are targeting.

I feel that the movement from the Preliminary task to Main task has taught me many new techniques /skills and have developed and progressed highly.

The preliminary brief and overall task was kept very easy our group knew what to do and how to go on about it. We only had a limited amount of camera training to make a proper successful task but it was well within our range of knowledge. Focusing on the continuity and camera techniques such as shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule was the main goal and was of importance.

The main task brief seemed much more detailed to me as i knew that it was going to be a lot more work and effort which ment dedicating more of my own time on it and also more team work because it was a bigger task compared to the preliminary task. Not only was the media product going to be longer, but there were going to be more camera angles, techniques. New camera techniques were introduced to us and they were more advanced. Also because we started afresh with new group things were just more difficult because i was more attached to the group from the Preliminary task.

A storyboard

Shooting schedule

Dialogue script for our final idea.

But for the main task we also had to create:

Additional redrafted storyboards

Photo storyboards

Props lists
Casts lists
Prepare rehearsal dates
These were all the things we had to use for the production , were it came to planning we drew up a storyboard which helped us know what exactly we was going to do.
In the premilimary task we was on a basic level of learning media studies and using the camera set now that we have advanced. All these equipments we used made the filming of full product better.
Like the storyboard was made so that each member was on the same ground and understood what was going on.
The shooting sheduele made us understand and keep track of the timing of shots this was especially important to me because I was camera man so I had to get all of this right to make this main task product complete and successfull.
Dialogue script made clear of everything that was going to be said in the opening sequence there was much dialogue used because its only the opening sequence so we didnt want to give too much away.

Looking at the production
In the Preliminary task we didnt have much time to do everything because it was a simple exercise for out Main task as for me i was the camera man / operator so i had more in hand but i understood my role as camera operator achieved the shots that's we wanted. Due to time restraints of the preliminary task, i felt that the main task ran much more smoothly as i was more familiar with the equipment,i knew which shots would work and which wouldn't, and we were able to take our time in making the film look as professional as possible. We did have some complications at times but we worked as a team and figured things out and thats what i progressed from the Preliminary task as well. Developing of team working was one major thing i learnt more commitment and harder work put into the product so it came down to time keeping and making sure things were doing properly.Time management was extremely important in the Main Task  for organisation and efficiency within the group and also having a shooting schedule helps you keep on track with your shots.
In the preliminary task we had to keep the film very simple and short. The storyline was basic as the main aim was to make it flow and too keep the continuity. The editing process made this possible through our basic knowledge of digitising,assemble edits,copy and pasting.razoring ,little transations and re-ordering but this all developed once we got to Main task.

When it came down to the Feedback & Evaluation was the final stage of both projects and both were important in helping me realise my progress from the preliminary task to the main. Receiving feedback throughout the whole project is really important to keep improving it and finding out if it attracts the audience particularly in the main task.However, for the preliminary task, we didn't have to consider the target audience or any character profiles as it was constructed for media students’ learning experience to see how we handle our first media production.

Overall i have learnt that team work is the most important thing and working with different people is a good thing moving from Preliminary task to Main task and learnt all different techniques.

Question 4

Our Main target audience is the youth/teenagers

Main Audience Profile: Male/Female aged 15-21 any ethnicity but understands

English street

language a bit it’s necessary so that they will understand the whole film. Enjoy urban life and the urban music. Understand the Urban life of today and what happens daily around us. Can relate to issue like this happening.

We felt that this film was more appropriate to this group because they would be more able to relate with the film in the way that they would be also living in the urban area.

Everywhere we go we find urban style living and it’s mostly found amongst the age group of 15-21. But we looked at the specific gender and thought that it would me most likely that males would watch it because its lead role its played by a female and that would attract males. If the poster was to be produced we would have a bigger male audience of that age.  This could also be like a campaign way of showing bullying consequences and knife crime not used on other people but used to self harm as well.

 

Our USP is that she a girl and no one would expect a girl to be doing things like things. It’s normal for a girl to stress, depressed and sometimes bullied but we made the film more advanced than our audience would expect.

We decided that our Secondary target audience is Adults

We saw from an adult’s (Parents) point of view that it would be eye opening to release what the child could be going through. And also to understand what the inside of the urban life is like for teens because not all parents know that some of their children live a double life. Luxury living at home but outside e.g. school there living a horrible lifestyle.

Secondary Audience profile: Mothers/Father aged 30-55 in this case also any ethnicity they wouldn’t have to really have to understand the urban language used.

Understands the whole storyline and why things like this happen.

Parents with children, divorced couple with children

The kind of movies we would think our main audience would have seen is films as freedom writers, 1 day , adulthood or even the music video called Stole by Kelly Rowland because it follows the whole story line of our film. Outlaw, Bullet boy. All these fall into category with our film and I feel that the audience we mainly targeted in the right one for our film.

Question 5

Question 5.  How did you attract / address you audience

Once we had our groups sorted we started thinking of what to make the opening sequence based on and what genre. After long discussions we came on to do a school drama. We choose this genre because looking back at what other groups did in the past they didn’t have anything like this so we decided we wanted a genre that wasn’t used by many and it worked out successfully. Focusing on this particular genre, we had to have in mind the typical conventions of the genre that we had to include in our film. One convention we focussed on is her just waking up on a casual morning doing the things any teenager does in the morning.

This made the genre realistic because this is what happens a lot in this type of genre e.g. high school musical.

We were influenced by High School Musical and also we included it because it’s our daily life style and that’s what would have attracted our audience which is teens and young adults.

Having a build up and keeping the audience in suspense throughout the film was a priority for us.

There are things our audience would have expected from our genre but we twisted it around about so that it wasn’t so predictable like GLEE, High School Musical, Sister Act 2, Freedom writers.  These are all films that are based around the school drama and have teenagers involved.

The elements we used in the whole sequence made the whole point of our sequence successful but from researching the school drama thriller genre we noticed that not only did the audience appreciate the mystery and twists of the films, but they also expect and want to see some unexpected shots and not them casual long shots, so we delivered that to them.

• In the opening shot we see the house from the street and the camera pans through out the front road to the house and from there it stops and zooms into the house this gives the audience a clue that the first scene is set in the house and it makes the audience feel more excited to know what is going on in that house. When it zooms into the bedroom it gives the audience more ideas of what’s going to happen next.

• When the scene is established and the camera pans around the room it gives the audience a kind of idea of what person lives in that room and.

The sound track playing through it makes the audience more curious until we show the actress wake up and that’s when the audience feels more comfortable because they know what kind of person lives in the bedroom and can build some kind of character she is.

• The props in her bedroom give the audience more ideas of what kind of character Nikki is and when she wakes up to get dressed she doesn’t clean any of her mess in her room. The audience feels more attracted to the film wanting to know why her bedroom is messy when she is a female character. They will then figure out that there is something wrong with her but we do not reveal to much in that scene.

• She wakes up and gets dressed straight away at the moment of her pulling on her hoody it makes the audience have idea of what kind of female she is because a girly girl wouldn’t have worn a hoody in the case of going school so the audience then kind of judge on what she is wearing and that’s what we wanted to establish because that addresses to many teenagers of today.

• The soundtrack is played through out the all whole opening sequence, were she wakes up and gets dressed makes the audience see everything she doing as a casual morning especially with the soundtrack. The audience could really relate to this part of the opening sequence because everyone wakes up in the morning and gets ready for school, college or work.

• When she brushing her teeth in the bathroom we see a over shoulder view of her brushing her teeth and this makes the audience feel like they are the actress themselves because the audience can see exactly what the actress is doing.

• The camera pans down the stairs while’s Nikki walks downstairs and this shot helps the audience to follow her daily routine of waking up. Her paste of walking down the stairs gives the audience a clue that there is something wrong with her because if she was all happy she would have come down skipping or in a fast paste so it sets a mood.

• As she walks into the kitchen we show the props in the background of bottles which belong to her mother and this give the audience a straight idea of what kind of mother she is. Its also addressable to the audience because some have parents who have a drinking disorder and they do things that they don’t mean.

• When she opens the fridge and takes out the milk the shot we see is from behind the actress and it makes the audience view her from behind so the audience then sees every move she takes and feel more involved.

• To the shot were she takes out the knife and a close up shot of her crying  

Makes the audience wonder what’s going on but also it makes the audience feel sympathy for her. It’s a way many teens live they hide and when there alone there is tears.

• The long shot of her putting on her bag and saying bye to her mum gives the audience more clues on what things are like in that house. The long shot gives the audience a position of someone that is standing at the kitchen doorstep and is directly looking at her.

The fonts we used for our titles were very suitable for the teenagers because we looked at other films and figured how we could make it similar to theirs to catch out audience attention. Also we didn’t make it to childish because we noticed the difference between high school musical and a Disney film. Therefore the font we went for really did relate to our audience not to childish and too old fashioned.

With the research I did before hand on soundtracks I found out that school drama has more of a jumpy and happily instrumental to it however we wanted to challenge the genre so changed that idea so that the audience are surprised and want more on what we have in store. We allowed the audience not to feel too depressed at the start of the film so we kept it casual because the rest of the film was going to be very depressing but we didn’t want to give that away in the opening sequence.

The plot of our sequence was a way we related to our audience and that’s when we addressed it to the teenage audience. We made the narrative not to predictable other wise our audience would switch off real quick because teens are more likely too switch off after kids. We collected feedback from a random group of teens in our sixth form and they agreed that our sequence is relatable and it doesn’t make the audience switch off quick.

Different shots we applied to our opening sequence to make our film more interesting and successfully it worked out using shots like close up shots and mid shot that caught everything into the screen. Looking at High school musical it used a lot of mid shots and long shots.  I feel that we attracted and addressed the audience pretty good and looking at the feedback we did a great job on making it successful.

Question 2

In our film we included and focused on various social groups like bullies, abusive parents, lonely teenagers and teenagers with no future. We wanted it to fit on with how some teenager’s life and we as a group put our thoughts together to create the character Nikki.

Nikki is a girl who lives the life of pure loneliness but no one knows about it because she hides it.

She is living with no purpose however she is a bright child but she doesn’t know what she’s doing with her life because of the past events that had happened to her. 

The Character in Kidult hood (…….) she gets bullied in school for no particular reasons and gets beaten up in class by girls. This is what leads her committing suicide because no one cares about her. Family finds a while after reading the letter and seeing their daughter hanged herself in her room. Also comparing to this character in a music video called Stole by Kelly Rowland she plays the same role as our character.

In the music video the character gets bullied in school by many people and that’s exactly what happens to Nikki further in the film as well. At a point he can’t take it anymore so he decides to go the toilets and shoots himself. A girl, who is alluded to have known the boy, walks by and hears the shooting, goes into the bathroom, finds his body and calls the police. Rowland explains that after his death many of his classmates mentioned either never talking to the boy or treating him like an outsider.]

• She is Black Jamaican
• Young, Aged 15 and attends 6^th Form
• Beautiful and has amazing talents
• Occupation: She attends Barking Abbey 6^th Form and has a little part time job
• Sexuality : Confused lesbian

A lonely girl in her own world she doesn’t like anyone in her family and her neighbourhood is a place were no one communicates with each other so her making any friends wouldn’t be possible because every one minds there own businees. Reasoning for no one really caring about her leads to her having feelings for the only friend she has.

Her best friend. Sam

Everyday for Nikki it’s the same routine of going school bunking a few lessons them come home and stay in her bedroom and listen to music.

She is very intelligent but depression and loneliness has brought her down the drain.

Hatred is pumping through her veins , there is no one she enjoys seeing except for her friend Sam.

The memories of her seeing her brother die at a young tender age and her father leaving her mother has broke down all her feelings and her future. This is also one of the reasons why it leads to tragic ending. We made Nikki have a contrast to the world and the way she was feeling and how we did that was the background of her bedroom and kitchen looked very luxury this makes the audience think that everything is alright with this Character. And that’s the trick we have added in because she living the kind of double life were at home everything is nice and calm for her but crazy things running through her head whiles in 6^th form everything is like seriously miserable for her and she doesn’t know how to handle things.

We added in the kind of slow music with the beat but we should have done it more on a faster tempo because it’s a teen living in the urban area and is influenced by these kinds of urban things.

The social group of teenagers with no future is the main one we had that’s the reason for choosing Deborah Oyelade to play this characters role is because she fits perfectly with what we pictured Nikki to look like, Abigail wasn’t the essential idea of Nikki for matters of size and attitude. We had Deborah bring in her own thoughts of the character that relates to her and that worked so we went for this decision of choosing her. Also she in our group so making sure she was there when we needed her as a group was easy. Deborah is also the type you would see and think she would never carry a knife around with her and that what we build up to make Nikki.

Even the setting of the location we put her in relates to the social group we chose because many wake up in the morning doing the things Nikki does and also many have messy rooms. Overall I think our film opening sequence represents particular social groups effectively and therefore appeals to people, especially those who belong to these social groups.

We had the actress make her hair all frizzy and had her look ruff reasons for this is that we didn’t want the character to be very girly so that’s when we also brought in the aspect of her wearing the hood.

Question 1

Our film opening sequence follows the forms and conventions of real opening sequences, but it also challenges and develops some of these conventions. Fragmental is based on a girl who is living a life that she can’t handle and everything is hidden behind a smile, she doesn’t know what do with her struggles but we kept the opening sequence simple using some convections of the genres we decided to put in. We made our story line very different compared to Urban drama’s like Step Up, Freedom writers. What we wanted to do is make it less predictable that’s why we added in the part where she takes a knife with her which is certainly unexpected from a female.

Our opening sequence follows the same form of most openings by:

• Introducing the main character
• Introducing the narrative
• Having a visual reference to the film title.
• Setting the atmosphere/background
• Making the audience question on why she taking a Knife with her? Why is she crying? Why is it a female character?
• Introduced the narrative
• Added in the music

The themes in our film are based around: Depression, Violence, Fear, and Low self Esteem, Alone, School life, Childhood, Talented, Abuse, and Hatred.

School Life which plays a major part in Fragmental but we challenge this idea because she bunks most of her lessons so that’s a different kind of school life style

Girl discovers the boy dead in the toilet after hearing the gunshot.

We use forms and conventions of real movies and music clips looking at the music video (Kelly Rowland – Stole) the themes of bullying, ignorance, fear and violence is what we included in our sequence. The music video inspired me a lot and from there I brought it out to the whole of my group.

We didn’t expose her face but the characters body language revealed a lot. Violence drops right in when she pulls out the knife out of the drawer and puts it in her jumper pocket.

We don’t make it obvious that she going to go through all this because we didnt want to give away too much information. The way we make the form of the opening a sequence because it looks very typical and casual but we developed that casualness by making her room messy and the rest of the house look more luxurious so there you can see the contrast of it.

This way of revealing the way character is common in other teenage life dramas such as Kidulthood (2006) in were the main themes was violence and depression. The other major theme the audience may have noticed was sadness .This starts immediately when the camera directs close up to the actress face and she starts to cry. As we start to see her cry the tension of tragedy for her builds up more and more . This theme is continued throughout the film I was inspired by The Pursuit of Happiness (2006) for the theme of sadness and trying to be happy. This film has a lot of ways of showing sadness and the easiest way was to show the Father with tears.

And this is what brought use to have Deborah to cry to express on how she feeling at that moment of time.

Our film challenges the conventions of a typical teenage drama movie with regards to characterisation. The main character is a girl in the eyes of everyone that would seem a bit different because it would usually a boy that would be going through problems like this and handling it in this particular way so we developed and challenged the form and convention to have it all played by a girl and having her put the knife in her pocket. Her wearing a hoody symbolises some kind of hidden girl and that’s she up to something this is the image society has created about teenagers in hoodies.

 In the film (1DAY ) they portray the image of wearing hoodies a lot and there is a scene of them being in a snackbar and old people get scared of them because they have the criminal look. So on her pulling out the knife and putting it in her hoodies pocket it makes the visuals generate questions and this creates enigma as the audience are intrigued as to what will happen next.   We also challenge the forms and conventions by making the character look very rowdy and street wise in the place of wearing the good, frizzy hair, the knife and the JD side bag it’s all kind of props that isn’t usually in teenage dramas for girls.

The soundtrack is depressing, hip-hop and tragic and resembles the waking up, dressing up and brushing teeth just a casual morning. This tone of music is conventional of the drama genre and is used to keep the audience on edge and build up the suspense. In our opening sequence, it leads up to when the main character opens the drawer and the audience see a knife. It was hard to decide at first on what soundtrack to use. We thought whether we should follow the conventions or challenge them but we chose to challenge them and make it a slow pain with a RnB/Hip Hop beat to it and that isn’t what we mostly expect from scenes like this.

For all the things we see the lighting in our location was pretty much good because everything was clear in the room and it did take some time to get it looking like that.

As our opening sequence follows a classic narrative pattern and is a linear sequence, similar to other real film openings, we tried to create a seamless effect with continuity. Various narrative techniques were used in order to achieve this as effectively as possible such as transitions of fades and dissolve during the pan around her room and her getting dressed up. We did all of these in different angle shots and distances so that we could edit this together and communicate the idea of disorientation and make it quite jumpy for the viewer.