How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by putting in a twist at the end of the intro which conveys that despite the unhappy start, there may be more than meets the eye as it's quite suggestive that the mood could turn from unhappy to happy.

Eventhough we used no dialogue, hopefully audiences will be attracted to the fact that we only used music to put across what was going on.

Our target audience is 17-25 year olds, if not maybe older. We hope that by using a role a bit like what Jennifer Aniston has portrayed in many films, that people will give our film a try and that people who like Jennifer Aniston will hopefully be able to see the similarity and enjoy our film just the same.




We realise that our film will attract more females than it will do males, but at the end of the film it is suggested that a male character may appear as the boss and so maybe this suggestion is what may attract males.

For mise en scene, we used recognisable settings and costumes. For example one of the settings was at my Dad's office and for costumes, it was simply office type clothes i.e shirt and black skirt.
We chose the stereotypical way of doing things as this is what the audience expects and so we didn't want to confuse them.

At the very last scene, we used an ipod where Alex turns it off right at the moment where the music in the film turns off too, which could suggest the music was coming from the ipod. It's also possible that this could be a good asset to promote ipods. Despite previously saying the target audience is 17-25 year olds, it may attract younger audiences as most early to mid teens have an ipod and so it's a possibility they may or may not like our film.

Later on in the film, we would probably use some pop songs in order to attract our audience even more, as everyone likes music and it's more likely that if the audience hears music they know, the more likely they will enjoy our film.

Finally, another way of advertising our film would be to put it on TV on E4 as it shows programmes like Friends, Glee and Skins which is what attracts youths to this channel, and so would make sence for us to advertise our film here.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product??

In our preliminary exercise, we worked again in 2 groups. We had to write a piece of imaginative writing involving a dialogue, and then doing it for real. Despite my group not doing my idea which was about a parent and the principal, I think we did a good job. We did a mini "film" about 2 friends trying to agree on something. I was behind the camera this time while the other 2 people were acting it out. It was good me being the one in charge of the camera because I was the one who could see it all coming together first, and I learnt a few things about using a video camera, like how to start the videoing of it and how to differ the use of lighting on the video cam while we were inside and outside. For the setting, we just used our classroom and the outside of the building. We did several takes and editing on Imovie, but we didn't use any special effects. There were some rules we had to obey, like the 180 rule where the camera had to stay on the same side as the character and not stray to the opposite side, which we did achieve in the end. At first, we kind of forgot about doing the 180 rule for some of the shots, but we redid the scenes where we didn't apply the rule,



and although it was a pain redoing it all, it was worth it. There was a day when one team member was away so it was harder to shoot as we had to pretend the other person was in a conversation, but we just ended up shooting her by herself, so that when the other person returned, all we had to shoot was of what she had to say. There was a problem with the costumes, because someone wore a different outfit than she was wearing the previous day of filming, so we decided to do loads of close ups of just their faces rather than showing off their whole body. This worked because at this point, they were sitting down at a table so not seeing their entire body wasn't as important as if they were standing. As far as angles are concerned, we did quite a lot of shoulder shots (obeying the 180 rule) and some close ups, we also did some medium close ups and 1 or 2 long shots.

I have learnt quite a lot of new things, especially involving Imovie. With Imovie I have learnt how to fiddle around with the special effects and that when applying any kind of effect, you have to wait for it to finish applying it to the clip otherwise they get messed up. Also learnt a few things about working behind a camera - first of all how to turn it on and remember to press the record button! And how to work with a camera on a tripod to get the angles right as you have to move it with the handle on the tripod, you cant rely on your hands so can sometimes be a bit difficult to get used to.

With titles, I learnt mainly where to place them differently ie in the middle, bottom right or top left. We decided that the main title, Moving On? should be placed in the very centre and therefore in bigger font so that it would really pop out when viewing it. In our preliminary task, we didn't really use a lot of titles, but as we got to our final task we realised we had to put more of them in like mentioning the cast.

In terms of music, we had none whatsoever in the preliminary task as it was dialogue all the way through, however, with our final film we did decide that there should be some kind of music all the way through and that's what we did. Despite the music being there, the only thing we muted out was the dialogue and we kept the noises to make it sound more realistic.

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

A company which samples bits of films, for example Working Title, would probably be a good idea because then it will be the perfect length for the audience to decide if they like it enough to possibly go watch it. They could distribute this by putting it on TV, on websites, on radio, in magazines/newspapers, possibly even putting it out on buses so that we have covered most possible ways of distributing our product to our audience by making sure everyone has a chance of getting to know about it. Working Title would be a good company to distribute this film as it's well known and could help with the fact that everyone in the film is unkown to the world of acting.


Film 4 has been known to have supported working titles, so would be another great way of distrbuting our film as it would appear on TV, and as we know millions of people watch television every day so it would be great to get our film out there in the world.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The film portrays office workers and shows how someone may seem to like their job on the outside, but as we find out in the film, once they are in their own environment in the comfort of their home, they break down. This is played on a kind of career woman often seen in rom - coms, which is often played by the well known actress Jennifer Aniston.

We've demonstrated this by doing a lot of close ups so we can see her true emotion, shots of her looking in the mirror and running make up which suggests she's not happy with her image and just wants to move on with her life. The only happy asset we see, if any, is the ipod at the very end of the film.

We never actually see the boss, but we assume that it's going to be a male as this usually happens in media. In this case, the actress would be over powered as whatever type of media you read/watch/listen to, the stronger gender is normally always male.

In our short intro, we see a male window cleaner cleaning the windows which may suggest that there may be a romantic fling between the window cleaner and the woman. We assume this because in many films we see couples together who are complete opposites. For example, in the film A Cinderella Story, we see an unpopular girl starring Hillary Duff and this super popular guy starring Chad Michael Murry who get together at the end which normally you wouldn't expect.



This is what the boss would probably look like should we see him.



Alex represents this well known actress Renee Zellweger who starred in Bridget Jones, in our film Moving on

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

Our film "Moving On?" is a bit like the Working Title film "Bridget Jones Diary" as it mostly has the same plot: woman hates her job and wants to move on, hence the title of our film.
We decided to use emotion as one of the main assets to convey what the film is really about, in nearly every scene you see rain or a rain drop so you know this film isn't going to be one of those you laugh about. I don't know many films which use the technique of using emotion to put across the plot rather than dialogue, which may challenge other media products as they tend to stick with just dialogue to put their point across.

It may also challenge the audience by not making them laugh within the first two mins of the intro, however there are things to suggest that something funny is going to happen on its way.

In the intro, we only see females no males apart from the window cleaner which makes the audience expect to see a superior male, if any, later on in the film. Whether or not this would happen that's another matter.



Our film shares some of the features of Bridget Jones Diary.







Another example of a rom com is 10 things i hate about you starring Heath Ledger.

Animatic Storyboard

This is our animatic storyboard that we edited and put together.

What have you learnt about technologies from the processes of constructing your media product?

I've learnt some things about constructing technology for this film, including editing. We have been using Imovie to edit our film on. My job is to do the mise-en-scene which involves mainly costume and the setting. For the costume, we were looking for some office clothes and went with the stereotypical clothes like a jacket and black skirt with tights. I have written more about this and about the setting and the costume later on in the blog.

The setting was fairly easy to find as we needed an office to shoot the office scenes, and my dad works in an office, so what better way of using someone's office than his. We needed a flat so that we could do the home scenes, and a member of our group said we could use his and so we did. We also used some streets to shoot our street scenes and everything turned out fine in the end. All of the settings were quite close to our college, which was useful so we didn't have to travel far to get where we wanted to go to.

With the camera work, we used a lot of angles, especially long shots. At first we didn't do enough close ups, but now we've made sure we've included some. Our film involves rain and unfortunately, we haven't been able to shoot it on a rainy day, so if worst comes to the worst we'll have to edit in the rain by using it as a special effect on Imovie. We have had a look at what it looks like, and it's not as good as real rain but it's good enough, we can also adjust the amount it rains, we can increase/decrease it whatever suits our fancy. To do this on Imovie, you open up the special effects bit which is found on the edit file, and once you've found the rain effect you click on it, there should also be a bit where you can increase/decrease the amount of fake rain you want so have a fiddle with that and ta daa! You can control your very own artificial rain. By all means you can try other effects like we did in our movie.

Here we have an example of how we imported our film from the video cam in to the laptop where we began to edit it.

We added a little bit extra to the film which wasn't in the storyboard. We thought it would be good if Alex would turn off an ipod at her "home" and at the same time the music of the whole film would stop too.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our media product would be mid to late teenagers as anyone younger/older than that may find it boring. Teenagers may find it useful because it's based on someone not liking their job which teens can relate to.
The genre of this film is a romantic comedy, so it's more targeted towards females rather than males as they would enjoy it more.

It's based on the film Bridget Jone's Diary as it mostly has the same plot, and we hope that Bridget Jones fans will enjoy our film too.
The soundtrack is going to sound quite slow and dreamy, which again is what would attract more females than it would do with males as they usually prefer something a bit more upbeat with action.

We rated our film a 12 purely because it suits the film. It needn't be a 15 as there isn't enough reasons to justify it, like it has no swearing or violence in it which is generally seen to be more suitable for a 15.


The BBFC website shows films of different ratings and says why these ratings were chosen for the specific, for example if a film is described as "bloody, violence and threat" which just so happens to be describing the film A Nightmare On Elm Street, then it's obvious it's going to be a 18.

I'm in the group called Moving On and my job is to do costume design and setting. I've managed to find part of the setting for this film which will be at my dads office at Anglia Ruskin, and we will be filming there this weekend, the other settings will be on various streets and at Andys flat.

Production Diary Update 18th of january:

On our first day of filming, we did 3 takes of Alex walking out of the Anglia Ruskin doors and then walking up some steps to the street (we had to ask the security for permission), we cut it there then we did 1 take of Alex walking down the pavement. Finally we did 1 take where I was an extra and we were being filmed across the street walking and cut when Alex was about to cross the road. Unfortunatly, our video camera ran out of battery so we couldn't do any more takes.

20th of january:

We went to andys flat and did a few takes of alex walking to the door of the flat, with a close up of her opening the door with her key. We also did a few takes of Alex in the bathroom looking at herself in the mirror while looking sad and of her sitting on the sofa

23rd of january:

We went to my dads office at Anglia Ruskin and did a few takes there, we also reshot the bit where Alex walks out of Anglia Ruskins main entrance and up the steps because the lighting didnt match when we first did it.

27th of january:

We were told to include more close ups in the film, so that is what we did. Final day of filming was at Andys, and we did a close up of Alex's eye following her tear down her cheek and we also did a close up of alex in the bathroom.

2nd of february:

Today we did droplets dripping off the edge of outside the photography building and poured water in to a bowl, but tried to get only 1 drop on it's own which proved to be difficult.

4th of february:

We redid the droplets for 2 reasons: because we did it in the late afternoon previously but when we watched the whole film the lighting was messed up and it didn't look realistic enough. We decided to use a pipette to acheive that one drop effect we needed, which we did. It also rained the previous day and there were still some puddles left which we used to make it seem more realistic. We were given mirror like materials to try to capture a bit of the sky but we gave up because the sky wasn't blue enough to be seen in the film.

8th of march:

Because we couldn't shoot outside of Anglia Ruskin University as we needed to be high up, we went to kelsey kerridge where there's a multi story car park so we were able to get a few scenes of a building opposite to make it look like Anglia Ruskin.

9th of march:

Mainly editing on IMovie

10th of march:

In the lesson, we took frame by frame photos of the storyboard to put on our blogs.
After the lesson, we went to photography and borrowed a digital camera to take stills of the rain drop, we used a pipette to get the drop effect. This proved to be difficult because even when we went right up close to the drops, the camera couldn't pick up the drops of water but we went over to a glass window and managed to get 1 or 2 shots which were good enough to use.

12th of march:

Today, we put ourselves in to 2 teams mainly to get stuff done quicker. Half of us did more work on the droplet in photoshop while the other half of us edited the storyboard and credits on Imovie. We found an effect called "push" which does what it's called, it pushes what you're editing, or in our case the storyboard. We made it so that it pushes the storyboard to the right as you're reading it - this effect mimics panning on a normal video cam. We were carefull not to use too many special effects as this would've attracted the audience for the wrong reason, we want them to read the storyboard and know what's going on rather than being amazed by different special effects.

17th of march:

Today, we did some more editing on Imovie and have just about finished with the credits. Previously we had difficulties with trying to get rid of credits we didn't want anymore/wanted to change, we tried everything including updating on blank titles which worked for some but not for all of them. In the end we solved the issue and we couldn't believe how simple it was. All we had to do was highlight a clip that we wanted to edit for the credits and then press delete and it was gone.

Editing:

We had to edit some of our shots when we imported our film on to the computer because some parts weren't up to scratch so we had to fix that by cutting bits out that werent needed and we also added in fake rain and some effects to make it more believable. We were going to make it black and white but decided against it in the end.

Costumes:

I found two photos on google which looks like the costume we have used in our film, the only thing thats different is that the material of the skirt.

Here we have the typical office look with a smart jacket and a white top - quite simple but works well.

Skirt with tights is quite a classy office outfit and the high heels add more of a sophisticated look which is what we needed for our film.

Narrative

My film is about 4 contestants and they win a camping challenge, they are taken to their destination and finally get to meet the other pair of the team. The supervisor of this challenge greets them and tells them whats in store over the next few days. At first, the 2 teams dont get on, but will they unite together when their camp leader goes missing?

Genre: not clear but has elements of coming of age/mystery
Target audience: early - mid teens
Style: set outside, some close ups/medium close ups, 1 or 2 long shots. Got idea from the films Stand By Me, The Lord Of The Flies and the program Lost and changed the storyline but over all kept the idea of it which got me thinking of making it a camp challenge but with round about the same plot where all off the contestants get stranded on a camping site (rather than on an island like Lost and The Lord Of....).