Main Post: 12.7 Question 7

What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from your preliminary to the full product?

FIRSTLY 
1) In our preliminary task our film started with a black screen 
with white writing which was clear. However, there was no excitement about this. In our main task our film opens with a soundtrack. We watched our preliminary back in the early stages and realized that it is common

 for a opening sequence to have a soundtrack. Although 'The Tourist' wasn't an opening sequence we still felt that in our main task we should have a soundtrack.The soundtrack added to our opening of 'The Morning After and made it more exciting and upbeat. It also linked to the typical conventions of an opening sequence. 

SECONDLY
 2) In our preliminary the our use of panning wasn't very effective. Our camera man struggled with steadily moving the camera along with the male walking, this showed in our preliminary final outcome. 

We knew this was an aspect we wanted to use in order to appreciate the party atmosphere. Our panning was improved in our final outcome as the camera work was done by Georgia and she was able to smoothly move it allowing it to look more professional and not appear 'jolty'.

THIRDLY 

3) Lastly, another thing we improved from the Preliminary task to the main was the use of Jump cuts. In our preliminary task our use of jump cuts wasn't as effective as it could have been. We used large jump cuts which disturbed the sense of a continuity shot. 

We kept this in mind when working towards our final outcome, we used smaller cuts which allowed a sense of continuity and made the frame look visually interesting. It worked better than in the preliminary task alongside a soundtrack to create the sense of a party atmosphere and a clever editing technique to match!

Main Post: 12.6 Question 6

Below, I have made a mood board of all the different products I used to assist me and my group in working towards our blog and to produce our final outcome. 

What I have learnt:

Prezzi: Through 'Prezzi' I learnt how to create a visually interesting slide show and embed it on to my blogger profile. I feel that this has benefited the appearance of my blog as it creates variation from typing or using power point. 

YouTube: I learnt to use 'YouTube' on blogger to embed video's rather than just links. This improved the appearance of my blog and made it easier for people looking on my blog to watch the videos. 

Blogger: When I first started using blogger I did not feel very confident. After getting used to it and continuing to use it Blogger has benefited me to keep all my work organised and updated as well as tracking towards my final outcome.

Wikipedia: Wikipedia helped me towards my final outcome in researching words or definitions I was unsure of and acting as an aid. 

Google: Google has benefited my in gathering pictures to support comments I have written on my blog and improving the overall appearance. 

Powerpoint: Occasionally I found it easier to use Power Point rather than Word to keep all my information organised on different slides. 

Microsoft Word: Word benefited me as I was able to use different tools on Word such as making tables. 

Main Post: 12.5 Question 5

Ways we attract our audience:

• Through the use of a soundtrack - to appeal to our audience, they would be interested in the music as it is young and fresh

Our audience would be attracted through happy actors. It is an audience pleasure to have escapism, people being happy in a clip would be more appealing than people being sad and moody. 

Particularly male audiences would be interested in activities such as dart boards. They would be able to relate to this and the mise en scen would interest them. 

In order to get audience feedback we asked different members of our media class as well as different people that go to our school. 

We originally said our target audience would be 15-20+ year olds. Therefore it would be appropriate for our rating by the BBFC to be for 15 year olds being the minimal age. 

Main Post: 12.4 Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We set our questionnaires out to 16 and 17 year old male and females in our class to begin with. Due to the overall favour of film genre being Action Comedy it would be common that both female and males enjoy films of this genre. Our target audience would primarily be 15 year old to people in their 20s, we feel our film would appeal to them as in ways it would reflect their lifestyle. For example, people similar age to them having fun with their friends. Our film may allow them to have audience pleasure, they may see aspects of themselves in some of the characters which may make them become engaged in the film and want to keep watching it and even hope for a sequel of the film. 

Typical Members of our Target Audience: 

Would be a similar audience to those who watch programs such as 'Friends', or enjoy films such as 'The Hangover', '21 Jump Street', 'Hot Fuzz'.

In order to gather information about a typical member of our Target Audience I spoke to two of my friends of opposite sexes who enjoy similar films:

Favorite Films: John Tucker Must Die, 21 Jump Street, Project X, No Strings Attatched, This Means War

Hobbies: Going out, Being with friends. 

"After hearing about your film it really appealed to me as it seemed like the type of film I would be interested in. I like films that are funny like 21 Jump Street and Project X are two of my favorite films."

Favorite Films: Jurassic Park, The Hangover, The Other Guys 

Hobbies: Playing rugby, Paint balling and being with Friends

"I've always been interested in funny films that have action in them. I mostly watch that type of genre as I find it easy to watch. After watching your opening sequence I felt like I wanted to watch more of the film and find out about how the rest of the night went! It looks awesome"

Main Post: 12.3 Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In order to distribute our media product it would be an idea to converge with another company in order to make our film known. For example, 'Working Title' films who are British Film distributors based in London but are owned by Universal Studios. Joining with 'Working Title' would allow for our film to become known by others due to the fact that Universal is such a well known, top end, film company which produces such a large range of Hollywood Blockbusters!

As well as distribution with 'Working Title' we would also consider other factors whilst distributing. For example, we would work with social networking sites such as 'Twitter'. This would allow for our film to become known through a promoted trending topic. We would hope that 'Working Title' and 'Twitter' would benefit us through word of mouth as a lot of people would be able to view our film through Universal. Positive word of mouth would benefit us in the long run. The media institution would not be the only aid, we would also produce our own website of the film which had 'clips' of the making of the movie, games and other ways to interact allowing our audience to become utterly interested and excited for the film. We would also join with companies similar to what James Bond - Skyfall did with Heineken beer and do competitions to raise more money for distribution. 

We would feel confident with Working Title distributing our media product because they are well known and have produced many well known films such as:

• Bridget Jones
• Love Actually
• Four Weddings and a Funeral
• Thunderbirds
• Definitely Maybe
• Johnny English
• Billy Elliott

To name a few! I think that this institution might distribute our product because they are keen on allowing British films to become well known and be successful. 

Main Post: 12.2 Question 2

One of the characters in our film is Danny. Danny can be seen on the left to be wearing a rabbit onesie. Danny takes on the typical role of the joker/class clown figure in our film. We feel an audience would find this character a like-able one as audiences

could emphathise with him and find him humorous. Our media product represents their social groups as Danny can be seen as a 'Lad' who is willing to embarrass himself and make a fool of himself similar to Alan. We would picture the character of Danny to come out with witty 'one-liners' in our film.

The character of Georgia (female on the furthest left) is wearing a black skirt, white top and a necklace. Georgia can be known to take pride in her appearance. She is the girl hosting the party to gain popularity, people like her when they meet her she's just not overly well known!

Georgia can be known to be similar to Lindsay Lohan in the film 'Mean Girls'. This is evident as Linsday Lohan joins a new school and makes friends easily and shortly after gains popularity. They are similar in this sense. Audiences can relate to the character of Georgia in our film as she is intended to be the lead character who is throwing the party. 

Main Post: 12.1 Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In our opening sequence we tried to do all three.

To begin with, the product uses typical forms and conventions of real media products through the structure of the sequence. With the use of typical conventions such as credits, clear style and font which allows writing to be legible, the use of different camera angles and characterization.

Our opening sequence may develop forms and conventions of real media products through a larger range of editing techniques. For example, after watching the opening sequence of 'The Hangover' they commonly used 'shot reverse shot', we used 'jump cuts' and a range of other shots to create a different perspective and make our opening sequence appear more visually interesting.

It may be evident that we challenged forms of conventions of real media products as well. Due to introduction of actors and the different times of day in the few minutes of the opening. We became inspired for the audience to know what the rest of the film would be like from the comedy aspect of 'The Hangover'. 

It would be most appropriate that we tried to use the forms and conventions to the highest level to ensure our opening sequence seemed like a real film.