This document summarizes the production process for a student media project creating an opening scene for a teen drama or comedy. It describes conducting audience research to determine the genre, developing characters and storylines, filming over four days according to a production schedule, and comparing the project to conventions of popular teen genres to guide their creative choices. Feedback from the target audience of teenage girls was gathered through a questionnaire and was positive overall, with room for improvement.

1. Media Evaluation
By Bobbi Allison
SK7

2. Brief introduction
We had two tasks to complete in media. Our preliminary
task was to get a scene of a door opening. By completing
our preliminary task, it gave us a feel of how to use the
soft wear needed to edit our main task. Our task for media
is to create an opening scene to a teen drama or teen
comedy movie.

3. Production and research
In order for our main task to be attracted to our specific
target audience we decided to do an audience survey to
ask them what genre they prefer between teen drama and
teen comedy and what things would they like to see
portrayed in them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded
&v=o5lG-5zRX6E

4. Production Log
We set out a specific production timeline to help us get the
filming and editing done by the deadline.
Day 1 filming: Day 2 filming: Day 3 filming:
On the first day of filming The second day was all We filmed the scene
we filmed the bedroom for Ellie (our outcast). when both of our
scene when Tashana We filmed her bedroom characters finally meet at
(our fashionista) is and when she is leaving school...attempting to
getting ready for the first her house. build tension ;)
day of college.
Day 4 filming:
On our final day of
filming we filmed the
scene when Tashana is
leaving her house

5. Comparing genres
When looking at other teen drama movies they clearly identify what
stereotypical characters are in the movie.
Legally blonde helped us as the use of showing when the girls get
ready helps us get to know the two different characters
‘The breakfast club’ clearly shows the different stereotypes found
within a school
‘10 things I hate about you’ identifies another way that we can show
the clash of the two characters.
‘The Devils Wear Prada’ when their getting dressed
‘Mean Girls’ how we could introduce the characters through the use of
voiceovers.

6. Conventions
For our task to be a successful teen drama, we
followed the conventions used in teen dramas. To
make it clear WHO are audience is and what genre.
We made sure that it is set in a known environment
(home/school), highlights school issues and maybe
relatable situations/characters with stereotypical
characters. outcast fashionista
When researching the different roles within a teen
drama by looking at other teen movies like ‘Mean
Girls’. It helped us identify the contrast between the
‘fashionistas’ and the ‘outcasts’ which are our two
main characters.
In a typical teen drama movie, girls are usually
stereotyped as a typical damsel in distress, a sex
object and having beauty appeal. We decided to
fashionistas outcast
stick to the convention of both of our main
characters having beauty appeal.

7. Social Groups
A clear social group that is identified in our main task are
two female teenagers. We have chosen to represent these
groups stereotypically so that it clear to our target
audience what type of character they fall under.
We have chosen to represent our fashionista as the
stereotypical popular girl who live an ‘oh-so-fabulous’
life, which consists of having all of the new gadgets, the
boyfriend and the grades. #perfection
Whereas when we are representing the outcast she is
seen as alone, separated from society and does not care
for her education.

8. Comparing social groups
Comparing our characters who belong to
different social groups within our opening
scene - to other social groups within Teen
films.
In other teen dramas, for instance ‘The
Breakfast Club’ shows a clear identification
of the social groups within the film. Each
character fits a conventional character of a
teen drama movie.
rebel outcast jock beauty smart

9. Positive
We didn’t want our characters to be stereotypical by being damsel in distress and as a
sex object – we subverted the stereotypes by making both of our characters being
portrayed as strong and not wearing revealing clothes – as this would be less realistic in
a school.
A positive stereotype has been used for our character of Tashana (the fashionista). She
is shown positively as she is smart, attractive and independent. She can then been seen
as a positive stereotype to young girls who are within our main tasks target audience.
As she is attractive the boys will ‘bend over backwards’ for her, which will also attract
teenage girls to see her as a positive stereotype.
Although Ellie (the outcast) is seen as the outcast/rebel, she is still attending school
which is seen as a positive stereotype which is not usually attached to her character.

10. Negative
We decided not to use as much negative
stereotypes within our opening as we want
our main task to have a positive impact on
our target audience.
Ellie character is mainly seen as lazy who
does not really seem to care about her
education, appearance and so is late to her
lesson and doesn't’t seem to care about her
personal hygiene. This is a negative
stereotype shown within our work.

11. Media institutions
Media institutions such as Universal, MGM and Paramount
Pictures may distribute our film ‘Just opposites’ as they
distributed films who have a similar target audience such
as ‘The Breakfast Club’, ‘Legally Blonde’ and ‘Mean Girls’.

12. Distribution
As the movie has a target audience of teenagers, our
main characters can be related to everywhere. For this
reason we decided to distribute our movie nationally.
When we distribute our film nationally we will make sure
that is it distributed at the same time to prevent piracy as
this would make it less likely for the audience to go to the
cinema and watch it as they’ve seen it online..
‘Just Opposites’ is a type of movie which is relatable to
teenagers as it focuses on an issue that may occur to
people.
When distributing the movie we will use simple forms of
marketing.

13. Where to distribute first
We think showing the film in the cinema would be a good
idea as through the distribution process we would create a
buzz where people would want to actually want to watch
it, which would add to the word of mouth.

14. Audience
We decided that our primary
target audience would be
teenage girls. Our main task
would be a relatable piece that
our target audience can relate to.
We created a psychographic
profile to show what type of
target audience would be
attracted to our type of film.
Using our audience feedback we
identified ways that we could
change our main task to ensure
that attracted our target
audience.

15. Attract audience
To attract our target audience we used different ways to
make our characters relatable to attract our main
audience.
We used mise-en-scene to attract our target audience by
making sure that out two main characters are in
fashionable clothing but still make it clear who stereotype
category they fall under.
Through our voice over we ensured that our characters
used the type of language that our target audience could
relate to and understand.

16. Audience feedback
Target Audience Feedback
THIS IS OUR FEEDBACK FROM OUR TARGET AUDIENCE THAT WE RECIEVED AFTER THEY WATCHED
OUR FINAL CUT OF OUR OPENING SCENE. QUESTIONS 4 AND 7 15 ARE AN AVERAGE OF THE
FEEDBACK ON WHAT SOME PARTICIPANTS SAID.
1. What is your gender? 2. How old are you
We created a target audience
questionnaire for our rough cut
on our main task to help us see
3. What IS your overall reaction to the
opening scene?
4. Why?
what we needed to improve in
Bad Considering that they filmed and
OK
10% Excellent
20%
edited over two days. It was pretty
order for our opening scene to
Jade, female, 14 16 category
20%
attract our target audience.
Good
50%
5. Do you think this opening scene 6. Would you go to the cinema and watch
met the teen drama genre? this movie?
No
0%
Yes
40%
No
Yes 60%
100%
7. From the title of the film, is it what you expected?
Danielle, female, 17 - 18 category
8. Would you recommend this to others?
Depending who, girls yes. But not boys because the storyline would not attract them as much as it
would girls Kadeem, male, 14 - 16 category
9. What did you like about it?
Zahrah, female, 14 16 category
10. What improvements would you make?
At the end of it make it clear to us what would kind of happen further on in the film
Leanne, female,17 18 category

17. Skills gained
Using the Mac computers I have learnt
when filming footage you need to shoot
more footage needed to make the
editing process easier
Throughout the process of our
preliminary and main task I have
gained skills to be able to use garage
band to create sound effects to add to
the tone of the scene.
I now have confidence to use iMovie to edit
footage to help towards the final piece of our
tasks.

18. Learnt from preliminary task
By doing the preliminary task, it helped us identify the
skills that we needed to make our main task successful.
Learnt to use a tripod
Wide range of shots
More features on iMovies

19. Improved footage
We improved our footage by using a soundtrack over our
opening scene. The soundtrack used shows the
personality of both our fashionista and outcast. It makes it
cleasr to the audience that there will be a slight clash
between the two main characters