2. I N W H AT WAY S D O E S YO U R M E D I A P RO D U C T
U S E , D E V E L O P O R C H A L L E N G E F O R M S A N D
C O N V E N T I O N S O F R E A L M E D I A p r o d u c t s ?
For the starting of the coursework, I was working by myself and I didn’t know what to choose so i
started working with Jordan. We first I began looking at two genres to do (Comedy&Drama), this
is because we enjoyed watching comedy movies, but we were interested in drama, but we made
sure we did research on each one. If you look at our blogs, you will see all the research I did on
comedy, on drama films, so I decided to choose it for my coursework. Then after that me and my
partner started working on what our movie is going to be about.
3. DRAMA AS A
GENRE
Why you went for this genre ?
We went for this genre because is very realistic and characters are also there's a lot potential
emotional shots. There also are a lot of complex sub genre's too such as romantic drama, sport
films, period drama, courtroom drama and crime, just like we choose to study ‘kidulthood’.
What conventions you needed to use
I think that our film is a good example of drama genre because it matches with some films like
Precious, this is because its an emotional film just like our film. We made sure that our script
was just like one of the drama films.
4.
5. This movie inspirited us to do a DRAMA film because the main character went through a lot just like our
character from ‘Time To Go’. Their mums are similar especially as they drink a lot and smoke and really don’t
care about their kids.
We have also been looking at these other films, we believe that its to do with childhood and the relationship
teenagers have with adults.
6. WHAT ARE THE FORMS AND CONVE NTIONS
OF THE GENRE THAT YOU WORKING ON?
Time To Go Genre: Drama
Opening credits
For our opening credits we done a lot of research. We
researched on different drama films such as kidulthood,
and we looked at how long it took for the film to actually
start and we timed the credits too. From when it starts
there are 9 credits before the film actually start.
Mise-en-scene
Scenes with Melinda and Liana, with the props she had
with her, like the costumes, that can the coat that she was
wearing can tell you about her personality. She also had a
bad with her, showing that she's running away from her
house. The mother in the film was holding a bottle of
vodka because she's an alcoholic.
Camera Work
We used close ups to see the character’s face and
especially when Melinda went to her friends house.
Establishing shot was used at the ending of our film
when Melinda was walking off. A lot of handheld was
used in the scene with Melinda and her mother, when
they had an argument.
Editing
We used match on action when we were editing, we used
it because it allows the audience to see a smooth action
despite a cut in a shot. Cross-cutting was used a lot in our
film, this was because we wanted the audience to see
what was really happening. Credits is added in a style that
would fit with drama theme. Soundtrack was added to fit
with scene.
Sound
Soundtrack was added to build and create tension during
the shots. We got our music of YouTube and
downloaded them and cut some bits that we didn’t use.
We used some instrumental and music before p.diddy –
coming home.
Font
The title we used were in a simple font with white writing
which may suggest happiness, because Melinda is going
to live a better life with her dad.
8. MISE-EN-SCENE
This is the coat I was talking about
on the table. Both scene show that
they are opening the door which
shows a similarity
9. This one of the shots that we had to re-shot
again and it’s a close up of the main character.
This is close up of one of the main character in
kidulthood .
10. CLOSE UPS
This is one of the angles we used in the film.
This is from our first film, when Melinda was pressing the bell.
We could not find any
scenes with them ringing
the bell so we changed it
into a knack out the door
because its more better.
11. H OW D O E S YO U R M E D I A P R O D U C T R E P R E S E N T
PA R T I C U L A R S O C I A L G R O U P S ?
She represents the main character that’s in all of the scenes. She's a working class and lives in an estate flat with her
mum, which might be a stereotype for black people. In the first scene she's wearing an uniform and the colour of it is
purple, it represents a mystery from research I made and also Melinda acts like she’s hiding something from her mum
which affects their relationship. The stereotype of teenagers as being aggressive, moody, lazy criminals and hate school,
and it connects with how Melinda acts because she's very rude to her mum, even though she thinks that she's not being
rude, she really is, especially when she was rolling her eyes at her mum. The type of audience that we like Melinda's
character is people that’s the same age as her. This might be because 16 year olds feel like they are always ‘right’. We was
trying to create a character that wasn’t around and even though there's a lot of teenagers who have a story. The technical
skills that we used was mise-en-scene especially with the costume and props that was around them.
Melinda
16
Female
Students
Working class
12. SE COND CHARACTE R
She represents the main characters best friend. She's working class too but she lives in a flat and has a better life at home then
Melinda and Melinda always goes to liana for food and shelter when her mum kicks her out of the house, liana is the type of
teenager who might change the stereotype of teenagers because she cares for her friends and she's a nice girl. Young black
people are none for being exotic, strange, tribal, criminal and poor. We then took this character out of the film because we
believed that there was no point of having her there because Melinda did a scene of saying that she's going to move to her
dads, so they was no point of having her say it to her friend and the acting skills spoiled the genre, liana was meant to be
more sad that her friend was leaving but it didn’t seem that she wasn’t sad to see her friend leave.
Liana
16
Female
Students
Working class
13. THIRD CHARACTE R
In the film she is a working class mother who is on benefit and who lives in a deprived area in hackney. So
she is always drunk and miserable which effects her daughter’s life. This is a negative representation because
its stereotyping that working class mothers are always drunk. She's a stereotype of 20-30 year olds because
she's always drunk and never awake. But there's a story behind why she's like that, is because her husband
left her and Melinda at the age of 10 and she blames her self for it. We have changed our character if you
see our new film, this is because we had technique issues and we could not use the other actor.
Mum
30
Female
Single-mother
14. RIGHT PE OPL E THAT MIGHT L INK TO
OUR CHARACTE RS…
I think that our first character might match someone like ‘Tracy Beaker’, this might because
they both have issues of staying in the same house as someone who don’t understand them
well. They have both been in care, social workers find out about Melinda's Mum drinking
issues and took her away from her mum, but then she stopped drinking just to get Melinda
back, but afterward started of again.
I think that Emma Watson would be a prefect actress for
our film because she's a good actress and she has starred
in drama films in the past.
15. The actress that best fits the mums character is Julia Roberts, this is because she's a great actress and
she's acted in films such as “My Best Friend's Wedding” and I think she would do a good job in acting in
this film because she's acted as a alcoholic in some films and she was really good in them.
16. W H AT K I N D O F I N S T I T U T I O N M I G H T
D I S T R I BU T E YO U R M E D I A P RO D U C T
& W H Y ?
We done are research on Universal and Columbia. This is because the films that is been made are
really intrusting, especially ‘Grown Ups’, that’s the movie I researched on, this is because we enjoy
watching funny films, but then we decided to do drama because is more eye opening.
We also done research on how the opening of productions have changed into something different,
the link at the bottom shows the video of what I am talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E98iTbFqRuM
I did some research on Columbia because they produce a lot of movies such as Skyfall and Hope
Springs.
http://youtu.be/b5XAVws0UsE
18. In our film we made our own logo because its being more creative
with our film. We went on http://www.flixpress.com/ to make a
logo. But we could not get it on to our film even though it was on
YouTube, it was to hard find how to copyright it into the final cut.
19. QUE STION4:
WHO WOUL D BE THE AUDIE NCE FOR
YOUR ME DIA PRODUCT?
On our blog we wrote about what age group would be able to watch our film.
12a will be able to watch this film because they will understand the story.
20. Describe your target audience?
We decided to aim our target audience at a mixed gender aged between 15-25; its for people who
enjoy watching drama films.
Link to your genre?
Are target genre is DRAMA. By watching and researching drama films we were able to use
similar techniques (Shot reverse shot) and camera shots (point of view, establishing shots, close
ups) in our film to create a more successful film.
Evidence for this?
We carried out a questionnaire to find out specifically what our target audience wanted. We also
showed a few people a selection of drama films and asked them what their favourite was.
21. Demographic Overview
Student
Age 15-18
Bursary £500 per year
Rock
Kidulthood
Psychographic Overview
Girl
Goes to Bridge Academy
Spends most of her time
on social network
Lives near her dads
Two views of the same user.
22. QUESTION 5:
HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS
YOUR AUDIENCE?
What research did you do to find what your target audience wanted?
We did a questionnaire asking them their age, gender and favourite drama films and also what sub-genre
they prefer to watch.
What decisions and revision did you make about form and content based on these findings?
We watched other dramas such as kidulthood and Adulthood, in these films the opening credits helps us
to make our credits. Our questionnaire allowed us to know what drama our target audience likes and we
knew what are film should be based on.
Were you successful in attracting your audience?
After finishing our film we showed it to a selection of our target audience and got them to talk about it and we
also filmed them talking about what they thought about our film. We got a lot of feedback from our target
audience and from the feedback we know what to do for our final finishing of the film. However, they thought
that some shots needed some work.
23. This is the questionnaire we gave out to
people and asking them what they like
about drama and what they favourite
movie
is we got a lot of feedback from people
and it gave us an idea of what are film
should be about, but we always had an
idea of what are film was going to be
about.
We then planned this mind map after all the
feedback we got from people which helped
us a lot to think about what people like about
drama films and what we can do from them
to like our film.
25. We recorded our classmate looking at our film and to tell us what he
liked about our film and what was bad about it. The quality of this
film is not perfect but I hope you can hear what he is saying about the
film because he said a lot about the film.
http://youtu.be/YsKMgawPx2g
26. WHAT HAVE YOU L E ARNT ABOUT
TE CHNOL OGIE S FROM PROCE SS OF
CON ST RUCT IN G T HIS PROD UCT ?
Using the camera Using the editing software
We learnt all the camera shots (close up, wide shots, point
of view shots etc.)
We learnt some of the shortcuts to allow us to speed up
the editing process.
Camera techniques How to add and cut sound clips to get them in time with
the rest of the movie.
Camera Angles How to overly texts and titles onto the movie to give
information like credits.
Using the tripod to steady the camera; keeping the camera
straight on uneven ground and for panning.
How to cut and trim the clips with the correct timings, so
that it runs smoothly.
Shooting lots of versions of the scene to help the
continuity in the post production.
Using transition effects to soften a switch from one
location to another so it does not look so subtle.
27. This picture was taking when I was learning how to take shots and it was very
hard to work the camera but at the ending I worked it out and this is the camera
“the canon” that we was meant to use but didn’t use it at the end of us filming.
We then used this camera because
there was no more cannons left but it
was a good quality but the video we recorded
then turned blue when it got on to the computer.
28. We had to film again because the camera angle wasn’t good enough and then we
realised that the camera wasn’t focused at all; so we will need to film it again, I think
it was because I have never used a cannon to film so as a result I didn’t know how
to function the camera. However I wasn’t the only one to do the mistakes because I
had asked my partner to check and she quoted ‘its all good’ but in reality it wasn’t
good.
30. L OOK ING BACK AT YOUR PRE L IM TASK , WHAT
HAVE YOU LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION
FROM THAT TO THE FINAL PRODUCT?
31. PRELIMINARY
TASK
Looking back at our first preliminary we have improved all the mistakes that we made in the past.
We used our ipad to film.
Different camera angles and shots.
We learned how to use pre and post production skills like; storyboarding our ideas and creating scripts for
our characters.
We also needed to learn technical skills and how to use certain equipment.
Using the tripod for the first time.
Evaluation
It was really difficult for us to do, because we didn’t know what was what in the film.
33. MAIN TASK
Most of our skills have improved from when we started.
We studied more on camera shots and what affects they might give to the audience.
We also learned about mise-en-scene.
Evaluation
I think that we successfully improved on the areas that we needed help on.
We made sure that are scenes were on time with everything.
We also used music in the background which is what we was missing in our preliminary.
In the future we used a wider range of camera skills.
We also would try and learn how to get more interesting effects to make it more exciting for the viewer.
The camera in one of the shots wasn’t really good and we might have to film it again.
34. CHANGES
We have made a massive progress with our film because we had to redo a lot of the
scenes, this is because we didn’t get good angles and also it was out of focus.
A lot of the times we felt like giving up but we kept strong and we were always
encouraging each other. We have had bad moments such as the character’s not having the
same hair or clothing or the dates we have organised to film was not suitable for the
actresses. Which meant that the camera women (Oumie) was frustrated.
35. We had to re film at least four times because some of the scene was not focused or
the angles where not good enough. The last time we had to film we had to changes
the mother in the film because she wasn’t available so we had to change to someone
else, however the new actress we got wasn’t better than the old actress but we have
to go along with it. But in the end we realised the acting wasn’t what we need, all we
need is good angles, and focused scenes.
36. IF WE COUL D DO IT AL L AGAIN, WHAT
WOUL D YOU DO DIFFE RE NTLY?
If we was going to do this all over again we would do things early because its important
to get things done on time so that you don’t have to be behind in some things like
complete our evaluation and coursework.
