2. My Media Product
My Children’s film opening follows the
beginning of Jillian (Pictured) and his
magical adventure through a forest
on his way to Tesco’s, his adventure
is stricken when he discovers the
face of ‘Sharon’ and the magical
brush of joy and sorrow. Being
chased by Ian the Evil Evil an elf man
who very much desires the brush and
eventually Jillian comes face to face
with the top of the evil hierarchy that
is Glenda.
Background Information on Glenda
Glenda 2 was a continuation of the original Glenda (Preliminary Task Piece) which followed
the story of Glenda and her dream of having a beautiful brush.
Glenda herself was designed to be visually unattractive and horrific but yet not
too frightening for the younger audience.
3. In what ways does your
media product use,
develop or challenge
forms and conventions of
real media products?
My children’s opening sequence
uses the same conventions as
that of a real children’s film.
To verify the reality of the film I looked
at various other childrens adventure
based Media products such as the
story of Red Riding Hood and looked
at the wood setting and used Mise en
Scene with Trees and basic wood
environment.
4. Obviously one of the main conventions
of a children's fantasy/adventure film are
characters. The character Jillian
represents the average main character,
kind hearted and simple. In this
production there isn’t any form of
sidekick to the main character because
the idea of the story is that Jillian is a
lone boy on his way out. The two
protagonists of the film opening Ian and
Glenda portray rivalry and evilness but
of course not too evil for young viewers.
5. Another convention I used in the production is music, the audio
consists of mostly music with a small amount of dialogue and
background sound effects from recording. The music was selected
to fit what was happening on screen, one problem I did find is that in
a few places the music does seem to be too different to other tracks
used. The first track used in our production gives a vibe of
adventure in pleasant upbeat environment which is fitting to the
genre, the track then slips into a creepy, scary track which was
originally used in a horror game to signify the mystery of a creepy
house, whereas in this production it adds a lot of mystery and fear
around the ‘Sharon’ mask.
6. Within my opening sequence there were a wide variety of camera shots
used. Examples of different camera shot types used includes;
Establishing Shot – Used at the start of the product after the credits.
Close-up – Used at the end of the production zoomed in on Glenda’s face.
Low Angle – Looking up as Jillian picks up the mask and brush.
High Angle – Over Jillian’s shoulders looking down at the mask.
Point of View – Jillian looking down at the mask.
Panning – When Jillian looks back to see Ian on the floor after the chase
Tilt – Following Jillian and Ian whilst running.
Hand-Held – During the chase sequence.
The camera shots helped to contribute towards the genre because the different angle shots helped us add
mystery to certain objects such as the “Sharon Mask” when first discovered and the hand-held was used to
give the chase sequence more of a realistic point of view, showing the audience that there was indeed a
person chasing Jillian through the forest.
The final close up on Glenda’s face is to give the character of Glenda a fearful vibe about her and for shock
purposes, this helps build the narrative in so setting up the story for the film.
7. Whilst producing this product I used different types
of editing to improve the quality of the opening.
This includes fade ins/outs during scene
changes. Also during a flashback to a scene in
the preliminary task we used earthquake and
crystal lighting effects to give the flashback a
dreamlike and powerful feeling. As well as
adding a fantasy and serial vibe.
8. How does your media product
represent particular social
groups?
My Children’s film opening is directed at children between the ages of 6 - 14 but can be
enjoyed by whole families also. The storyline can be quite hard to understand due to it
only being an opening sequence and because it’s a sequel, but it is still comprehendible
to young children.
The character of Jillian is quite relatable to younger kids as he is carrying a shopping
bag which young children will know about but also the mystery of the mask of Sharon
and the frightening portrayal of Glenda makes the film opening appeal to elder children
(of around 12 years). The somewhat vague plot gives the viewers the ability to think
about what’s going on and try to piece the story together, also the effects and tense but
at times humorous events is a good view for younger viewers.
What attracts your target audience?
Areas of my children’s opening film that attract the target audience of children would be
the humour element to the scenes, such as Ian the Evil Evil during the chase scene
when he falls to the ground. And various other humorous moments. This appeals to
children because humour elements keep younger viewers interested.
9. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and
why?
Institutions such as dream works or Disney
would probably be interested in this film
due to the mysterious fantasy but yet
comedic twist to the plot. And the hugely
developable character that is Glenda
would be a huge hit.
A media institution such as Cinemas and
TV channels such as Film4 and Sky
Movies would be interested to increase the
variety of the channels/cinema seating's
audiences.
The opening sequence has similar
features to that of popular series
such as Harry Potter, magical and
mysterious items with villains and
evil doers.
10. Glenda 1 Glenda 2
To make the film appropriate for children we had to take into account scenes of
sexual/violent nature and reduce them. Such as between Glenda had a large cleavage
to imply that she is of large frame, this was not used in Glenda 2 because it would seem
inappropriate for kids. Also violence has been reduced such as when Sharon was hit by
the chair in the flashback, the chair didn’t actually hit Sharon making it less violent.
11. When the idea of Glenda was first created she wasn’t originally going to be
part of our children’s film opening, however after the good applause received
after the original Glenda production we decided to continue her story into
Glenda 2. Because of this I decided to make Glenda into a stronger more
villainous character.
I think Glenda comes across as a good character for a child’s film as she is
not pleasant but at the same time she is not going to give them nightmares.
To improve on this it would be a lot easier to focus more on children if we had
access to more actors and a wider variety of locations.
12. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
These are the technologies I have learned to use
whilst producing this project;
-Using Final Cut Express
-Controlling A Video Camera
-Embedding Videos and uploading to YouTube
-Using GarageBand to edit soundtracks.
13. Using Final Cut Express
We used Final Cut Express
to edit our Video footage
down to what we wanted
and to add special
effects. This program is
pretty simple to
understand and I have
had experience of using
Final Cut Pro before so
tasks such as rendering
and cropping weren’t a
huge problem.
14. Video Camera Control
In our project we recorded our footage using a Video
Camera, myself and Lynsey all used the camera
throughout our production, Lynsey recorded the still
shots whilst I recorded the Hand-Held shots. This was
my first time using a Video Camera like this so it was
quite difficult and we did loose a little bit of footage
because of accidental button pushing.
15. GarageBand
In our children’s film opening we
used music as our main
soundtrack, and we had to
use GarageBand to edit the
soundtracks together and to
shorten each track so that
we had the sound we
needed. I had only ever used
GarageBand to make new
sounds so editing ready
made sounds was new to
me.
16. Title of Glenda
In our children’s film, there were two titles used, the main title “Glenda
2” seen at the end, and the subtitle of “Jillian’s Jumping Journey of
Joy”.
We made each title within Final Cut Express to save time and because
it was familiar to us.
17. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel
you have learnt in the progression from it to the full
product?
Since doing the preliminary task I have learned a
lot more about using tools such as GarageBand
and working with different shot types which would
generally improve the quality of our production.
Also because I had a larger knowledge of
GarageBand we could edit together the soundtrack
for the production.
The original head used for Glenda had been
destroyed so we had to create a brand new one,
the box was a lot smaller the second time around
and clearly does not look the same as the first.
Also we discovered a wider choice of editing
software so that we could improve visual quality.
18. The final piece has progressed compared
to the original production, one of these
improvements includes a large amount of
editing to make the scenes flow. Also the
original piece’s soundtrack consisted of
footsteps, 4 words of dialog and clear signs
of laughing in the background.
However the preliminary was a lot simpler
to understand than the children’s opening.
The preliminary helped us develop our
children’s opening a lot because it
gave us a base story to work with as
well as establishing a few characters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXyqL3nsdyY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DLKtcwXe1c&feature=related
Youtube links to both Glenda Videos.
19. Problems with the final piece
The final piece had a couple of
errors that were unfortunately
irremovable, one of these errors
is when Jillian turns to see Ian on
the floor, you can see Lynsey
standing by Ian, we worked
around this by adding Lynsey as
“The Pixie Fairy” who is a
character that will appear in much
more depth later on in the film.
There are also a couple of bad
edits such as when Ian falls we
have two shots of the falling
which I felt didn’t really fit
together.
I also personally felt that the soundtrack
of The Benny Hill Theme was slightly
inappropriate to the chase itself but there
was a lack of chase music available.
20. Conclusion
The final piece lasted for 2 minutes 7
seconds which is slightly over the
time limit but it isn’t a huge problem.
The opening credits take up most of
this time anyway.
