This document contains an evaluation of a student film opening project. It discusses how the opening uses film conventions like building tension. It represents teenagers realistically and addresses relevant social issues like knife crime. The students learned skills like camerawork, editing in Final Cut Express, and constructing an engaging narrative across different media. They improved at integrating titles, sound, and credits into their project from their preliminary task to the final opening.

1. Evaluating Our Film Opening Hayley Bell, Leanne Mok and Scarlett Colson

2. Evaluation Activity 1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? We decided to add our film opening in the middle of our opening as it builds the tension We decided to introduce the cast and the distribution and production companies as we have because we think the writing is bold and is clear to read. These screenshots show different stages of our film opening representing different aspects of media. When looking at the beginning of the opening, you think it is a comedy/romance film where when you carry on watching, it twists to a horror film. The last screenshot, shows the special effect we used to show the audience that Jamie was reaching for a knife to kill Scarlett.

3. Evaluation Activity 2 How does your media product represent particular social groups? Our horror film represents teenagers in a relationship, and how it is not all as what is expected. We represented our main character Scarlett, by dressing her in normal casual clothes, showing that she is a typical normal teenage girl. We also, had a clip of her texting as it shows the relationship between teenagers and technology.

4. Evaluation Activity 3 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Media institution which may distribute our media product may be ones which specialises in horror movies, for example BrainDamageFilms or FearFilm. This would be because the films that they distribute are only horror films. BrainDamageFilms are a company which distribute films world wide in different formats, such as DVD, Internet, rental and retail. Film distributors which specialise in a particular film genre tend not to be so successful because they do not get as much work as all around film genre distributors, such as Universal Pictures or 20th Century Fox, these are also well known film distribution companies, so they will get more work than the less well known distributors. Companies such as BrainDamageFilms and FearFilm might distribute our film because it is the sort of film which will make them a lot of money as it is a well made film which has an interesting storyline, and so will attract the audience. The film is aimed at teenagers and so the distribution companies will make a lot of money from it because it is the sort of film that teenagers like to watch because they can compare themselves to them because they are of a similar age group. More popular film distributors such as Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox are probably less likely to distribute our media product because it is not made by well known directors and it has a very low budget, so they would not make much money from it, however, if they were to distribute our product, it would be for the reasons of it being the sort of film that teenagers like to watch, and so they would make a lot of money from it.

5. The typical certificate for my film opening would be a ’15.’ The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) states that: The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. Promotion of drugs which are easy to obtain are unlikely to be allowed. Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised. Nudity in a sexual content must be restricted however nudity in a non-sexual content does not. As long as the film is appropriate for 15 year olds, no certain themes are prohibited. A target audience is teenagers, so there are different types of social groups within teenagers, for example, some people listen to nothing but rock and some listen to nothing but rap. But a typical member of my target audience would be 15 years or older. In this picture, there is probably a variety of different interests. The girl on the far right of the picture looks quite sporty with three quarter jeans and trainers, and the girl in the middle has just a normal top on but by her body language it shows that she is the top of the group, as she is standing in a quite powerful pose. This group of teenagers might be into the latest fashion and go into all the clothes shops and buying all the latest clothes, or they might not be interested in the latest fashions. They might be interested in teenage programs, such as One Tree Hill, Scrubs, 90210 and maybe even Eastenders. They could listen to any kind of music, but by looking at the picture, they look like they are interested in the pop/indie genre of music. Evaluation Activity 4 Who would be the audience for your media product? http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

6. We addressed and attracted our audience by using 16/17 year old teenagers to play the characters, as we believe that people of that age who actually are teenagers instead of using people who are not teenagers and have to act like them. We also used relationships within our horror film opening, to make it relate to teenage life. In the last clips of our opening, we had a clip of Jamie picking up a knife and walking down the street with it, this addresses and highlights the problems with knife crime in this century. Evaluation Activity 5 How did you attract/address your audience?

7. Evaluation Activity 6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this project? I have learnt quite a bit about technology from the process of constructing this product because there was a lot more to it than I thought that there would be. To construct this product, the technology that we used was: a video camera, iMovie and Final Cut Express on the Macs. When we firs began the horror movie opening, we had a rough idea of how to work the camera, but as we became more familiar with it, we found it easier to use, especially using steady zooms instead of jerky ones, and how to frame the shots to make it more interesting than everything in the middle, to do this, we learnt the rule of thirds as a guide of how to position the props and the main subject. We also learnt about depth of focus, so that the viewer concentrates on the main subject instead of looking what is in the background. We found that using Final Cut Express was the hardest, most time consuming part of it because none of us had used it before and we wasn’t sure of how to go about it. We started to play around with it and then as we progressed into our opening, we found out more and more to it, such as how to take a still image to make a zoom more steady, how to add titles on top of the movie whilst it is playing, and how to add music over the top of it to build up tension.

8. Evaluation Activity 7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? During our process of making our preliminary task and our full product, we have learnt many things, which will help us in later life. We have learnt, how to import media into Final Cut Express 4, and how to use a camera properly, and we also learnt about all the different shots we could use to make our filming more professional. We learnt how to edit our footage together on Final Cut Express 4, using different effects and transitions, to make our media product look more interesting and more professional. We also learnt how to upload slideshows using SlideShare, where we can upload the slideshow onto our blogs. We also learnt how to use a blog properly. During the final editing of our preliminary task and our opening of our horror film, we learnt how to add credits, sounds and voiceovers.