This document summarizes a student's media production project. It discusses how the opening sequence introduces the main character Jimmy and uses music to show his two worlds of imagination and reality. Costume and setting were used to build the fantasy genre. Shots like establishing shots, close-ups and zooms were used. Music and diegetic sounds advanced the story. The project aims to represent school-aged children and families who enjoy fantasy. Some stereotypes like the "geeky" main character are used but the bullying behavior is meant to be shown as unacceptable. Large animation studios like Pixar, Dreamworks or Warner Bros might be interested in distributing the film for its young audience.

1. Jimmy and his wild mind.
Harriet’s evaluation.

2. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
Children’s film opening sequences can be quite similar to those of adult films but can be easily distinguished
if you take into account the conventions. Mostly every film opening sequence includes opening credits.
These inform the audience of the media institution, and title sequence. This is done alongside the genre
of the film, and in such a way as to give the audience an insight to the film, probably before it even
begins. Usually the characters are established, and introduced to the audience along with the setting and
the period of time.
We used the ‘Juno’ opening sequence as inspiration. We liked the fact that it was introducing us to the main
character from the first second. We also got to know a lot about the character before the end of the
opening sequence, before dialogue had even started. The rotoscope makes it unique, and the colours and
the music are well organised within the film, as they all go well with the themes; indie. Also, the
transitions are smoothly done in a creative way and the use of focus on main objects (such as the sunny
D carton). The music and the colours in this editing technique, are well organised and both go well with
the themes of the film- scruffy and polished to imperfection, as well
as a bit of deception and spontaneity. However, the important
features in the mise-en-scene are a different tone of colour, to make
it stand out. We wanted to use the same sort of features as this in our
product, having a long introduction of simply making the audience
aware of the character through their actions. I think that, given the
time and equipment, the rotoscope could have been engrained in our
product too, attracting the ‘children’s’ audience more.

3. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
In our opening sequence, we began by introducing the main character (Jimmy). There is a soundtrack placed
over the main introduction of the character, a cheerful, upbeat, well-known song, which can give the
impression that the character is a very jolly, happy person. However, we used this in a strange way, to
try and show that ‘Jimmy’ has ‘two worlds’; his imagination and the real world. Although this song is
played throughout the opening sequence, its purpose is to divide the two worlds. This is where the genre
was displayed, but it isn’t until the end of the sequence that this is made obvious, through the mise-en-
scene. We based our genre on the fact that we would be able to achieve a large target audience, as
fantasy is a very popular genre in all mediums. Lastly, we ended the opening after the characters first
speech, which followed by the title sequence.
Overall, I think that we used many forms conventions in the correct way, however they could have been
developed to improve the opening and engage the audience more.

4. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
We weren’t given a choice about the setting of our media product, but we used the surroundings to build on
our genre. For instance, we used the trees to show his passion, and weirdness for naturalistic objects. We
also used the door to show his transition between his two ‘worlds’. We were limited to our props, but I
think that we made the best out of what we had- the stick which he ran along the fence, and the plastic
forks which we used to show the position of our character within his society (without harm!). Costume
was also used well, picking out the main character from the crowd, drawing attention to him, as well as
stereotyping to run alongside our genre. We couldn’t really use artificial lighting, especially as we were
mainly set outside, in the middle of the day, therefore we used natural lighting, which doesn’t contribute
much to the genre itself, but keeps it more ‘naturalistic’.
We thought that the best opening shot would be an establishing shot, as this easily shows the relationships
between figures in the mise-en-scene, and indicates where and when the rest of the scene takes place (in
our case, a school, which is the suitable location for our sequence). After the audience start to get the
impression of the character, we included a few close-ups, so they could build on their impressions
further. We used the two-shot to show the relationship between the main character and the burger. A
reaction shot was used to show the reaction from the character when he first hears the burger talk. Also,
a zoom was included to draw the audience’s attention to the burger. We also included some high and
low angle shots, to make the character feel superior/vulnerable at certain points in certain situations.

5. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
Over most of our opening sequence, we used a soundtrack, which was ‘Walking on Sunshine’ by ‘Katrina
and the Waves’. We chose this as it is a very up-beat, cheery song, which went well alongside the
‘happy’ side of the characters mind, when he’s in his world as he is at the start. There is also the use of
diegetic sound, such as the shouting from fellow students, to emphasise the relationships between the
main character and his classmates. The dialogue we used towards the end of the opening sequence was
stereotyping the main character, in a high-pitched, un-manly voice, and the burger talking, looking
realistic with a touch of humour, added the the fact of the ‘fantasy’ genre- as it is impossible to happen
in the real world.
When editing our product, we had to cut, and move clips and add transitions to create a smooth-running film.
As well as this, we had to edit the sound, and attach music such as what we did. We tried our hardest to
use visual effects with the burger, to make it look as if it was talking, like a human being. This, is called
anthropomorphism (adding human characteristics to an object). This is used in few films, especially in
the fantasy genre, such as Beauty and the Beast, with talking teacups and candlesticks. However, there
are more films that include talking animals, than films which include talking objects. I don’t view this as
a bad thing, though, as it makes our film unique and more individual! And, in addition, develops our
genre.

6. How does your media product represent particular
social groups?
I think that a large group of people would be interested in our product, but particularly children and family
social groups. These people, whether they are young or old, are more likely to connect with our
product if they are familiar with the school atmosphere and routine. If they have experienced growing
up in the modern society, we feel that they are more likely to understand aspects and situations that are
included in our product. The groups should be interested in fantasy, and have a good imagination to
make our product work for them. We have tried our best to make it as easy as possible for the audience
to put themselves in the characters shoes, but without the mindset that is needed to make the film
enjoyable, it will not work, therefore I believe that our work won’t be as good entertainment for some,
as it is for others. The characters, costume and location represent this particular group, along with the
relationships and situations that are overcome in our film.
Our media product does use certain stereotypes, and one is obvious- our main character. Some could view
him as the average ‘geek’, which we can tell by the costume, and also by his actions. He could be
compared to ‘Napoleon Dynamite’. Our product also challenges the ‘student’ stereotype, portraying
them as quite horrible, laughing at him and chucking things at him. As a children’s film, we
don’t want to give the audience the impression that this is suitable behaviour, therefore later on
in the film, we would have made sure that children would see this as unacceptable behaviour,
not tempting them to copy the actions. We would also have to shorten the ‘tree hugging’
section, as this could give bad ideas and does not regulate with the BBFC as our classification.
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7. What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why?
There are many film distributors, but some are a lot more successful than others. There are a few which
focus on children’s films, the most popular being ‘Pixar’, ‘Walt Disney’, ‘Universal’ and ‘Warner
Bros’.
‘Walt Disney’ is a producer, alongside a distributor, so it knows a lot about films. It is a very professional
company, with the subsidiary company ‘Pixar’. ‘Pixar’ is a CGI animation production company,
therefore, although they create all of their movies at the children audience, they won’t be interested in
our product. On the other hand, they could transform our film to an animation, as the burger would
need to be professionally created using CGI.
‘Dreamworks’ is a competitor to ‘Pixar’. They run in the same sort of way and are interested in the same
types of films. ‘Dreamworks’ also uses CGI, to create animations. Therefore, they could also be
interested in our product, as they would like the genre, and the audience it is aimed at.
‘Universal’ creates a wide variety of films and distributes them, like ‘Walt Disney’. Most of their films are
classified as ‘PG’ and above, which makes me think that they may be interested in our product.
‘Warner Bros’ movies all have a sense of comedy in them, and whilst they have the same sort of audience
groups, this could be a good potential media institution for our product. They have quite a few films
with anthropomorphism, though, which may attract them. ‘Scooby Doo’, ‘Space Jam’ and ‘Jack Frost’.

8. Who would be the audience for our media
product?
During the planning of our film, our target audience was young children, starting to settle into the school
routine, ages between 5 and 15, although it would have been suitable for families too. Therefore, we
were going to classify it as a ‘U’.
Whilst filming our product, we realised that some of the material wouldn’t be suitable for a 5 year old, so
we raised our classification to ‘PG’, and after reviewing the product after the editing process, I would
now think that our target audience is the more familiarised, experienced school children, at a minimum
age of 8. To make it more ‘young children friendly’, we could have presented it in a more colourful
and exciting way, and used less ‘grown-up’ actions and more ‘kiddie's actions.
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9. How did you attract/address your audience?
We tried to attract our audience using a small amount of quirky black comedy, through the situations of the
main characters mind, with the talking burger and how he seems ‘weird’ to have such an extravagant
imagination. We thought that this would attract the older generations of our audience. Alongside this,
we knew that the younger generations would easily be able to relate to the scenes and situations, such
as the normal everyday school routine, and being in a large place with lots of people. The soundtrack
alone, I think, attracts a large number of people as it’s very jolly and is likely to put people in a good
mood. As well as this, it is a familiar, popular song.
‘Family Guy’ is a family which don’t quite fit into their community,
just like our character doesn’t fit into his. It uses a lot of black
comedy, and although aimed at an older age group, there are ways in
which it familiarises with our product.
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10. What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
Before doing this project, I had experience in using cameras and filming using recorders, however I had
never opened an editing computer program! Using cameras to film lots of pieces of work as
professionally as we could, built my confidence and developed my camera skills, and I became
familiar with equipment such as the tripod. We used Final Cut Express, which, at first, seemed very
complicated, but now I feel, and can do, a lot more quicker and with more ease. We briefly used
Garage Band, and I feel like I can use it at for basic things, at a satisfactory level.
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11. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you
feel you have learnt in the progression from it to
the full product?
We were just starting to settle into the college when we did our preliminary task. Therefore we were just
starting to know one another, and getting used to the equipment we were going to be using. We can tell
all of this in our preliminary product, as it was definitely not up to the standard of our final children’s
film opening sequence product. The camerawork and sounds, although not at a bad standard, were not
professional in any way. We were under time constraints, though, and not much editing was done
because of this. Our strong point throughout has been continuity, but maybe we should have spent a bit
longer on the sound, and making it more attractive to children, rather than being worried about the
flow of it. The final product was a lot more complicated to film and edit, basically because we had
more clips to sort and arrange, and it was longer. I found that our preliminary task was important for
our full product as it set the basics for our main task and helped us to get used to the equipment and,
especially, camera angles. It gave us an aim, and direction for our children’s film opening sequence.