Friday 11 April 2014

Main Task : Evaluation

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

(Group Video)

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

(Group Video)

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

(Podcast)

Who would be the audience for your media product?

(Blog Post)

How did you attract/address your audience?

(Podcast)

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

(Group Video)

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

(Blog Post)

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



2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?



3)What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

(Please wait a few seconds until the podcast loads)




4)Who would be the audience for your media product?


Our audience targeted would have been teenagers (13-17). This is because we are around the 16-17-age range and it was easier to delegate a plot line to our age range, as we would know what they would of expected. It is easier to guess what our target audience would be than guessing something that someone older or younger would of wanted.
So we also gave the film a rating of 15 as we saw that content of the film and further content if we had wished to continue filming the film, would be too explicit for younger viewer such as 12.
A female protagonist is shown which was our intention as it highlighted every girl’s scary dream. We have all dreamt about that person that has/was haunting us so we wanted to make it alive by using that theme and emotion into a film. We also put her in a white dress to show the complications/juxtaposition and irony of her and the white dress. As she is wearing an innocent looking dress that classes as pure, her intentions are very much the opposite and challenged the audience.
The audience is very much a typical US story, which shows the mass audience that we could have appealed if we published the whole film sequence.
We used a survey to test our audiences and see what they would want in a film and any films they had recently seen, we distributed online. It showed that the most common age group that would watch a thriller/horror genre film would be 13-25 and therefore that was our chosen audience for our media product.


5)How did you attract/address your audience?

(Please wait a few seconds until the podcast loads)



6)What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?



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


I feel like I have definitely learnt a lot from this process/transition between the preliminary tasks to the real opening sequence. It has allowed me to explore technology and software that wouldn’t of considered touching before and pushed me to try something new.

In pre-production (as we have said before), the location, actors/actresses, clothing and make-up have always been provided for us or we had gone to the simplest measures and take what has been provided by the school. Location was done in the drama studio at school, we used actors/actresses in our group, clothing was what we had one and no one used much make up apart from the fake blood we had made and we had never considered the budget in at all. For our official opening sequence, we had to do recces to check if the location was necessarily ok to film and make sure that the health and safety and risk assessment was filled out so in case of emergency we would know what to do. We researched profiles upon the perfect character image then we searched locally for our actress. Clothing was a dilemma as well as we had to search at charity shops for a white dress but eventually used one that we had. Overall, we had to go great lengths and write every detail upon how we were going to create the film exactly, which in the preliminary task we didn’t consider. It gave me a feel for what conglomerate or independent film companies had to do when creating a film. It is very stressful and distressing to complete deadlines and do constant research with juggling other subjects/homework’s but showed that I needed to put enthusiasm and energy to create something great.

In the production process, we had only done one 2nd unit for the preliminary task for further close-ups etc.… But for the actual opening sequence, we had two 2nd units (4th units if that is possible) that helped to create the film which was a pain but taught me that shot listing and storyboard is ESSENTIAL as that is what you need to make an audience feel empathy like we do in films. In addition, close-ups are essential to a film as when we had filmed for the first time, we only completed a limited amount of close-ups and we didn’t consider putting it down on the shot list. But after trying to edit it, we found that it was very difficult to make a narrative or a flow between each shots and it didn’t purse the edgy film we were looking for. In addition, working with actresses was something that I had never fully done and my friend that helped us out, didn’t want to do constant re-shooting so therefore was harder to complete the shoots. But I learnt that everyone needs an incentive to do something, for Saffron (actress) it was the chocolate but for us it was the final product that we didn’t need a big budgeted amount to create a great opening sequence.

In the post-production process, was a bit easier in terms of editing compared to the post-production task but the constant re-shooting and advice was the set back that I particularly didn’t like but was still apart of the whole process. The preliminary task was very much an editing process that wasn’t emphasized enough and that is why it was very hard to watch even now whereas the official opening sequence helped me to understand how important this part was to allow the audience to give empathy and sympathy to the protagonist. I can now and have developed my skills to create an extremely great opening sequence, which is a key skill as in the future if I will use final cut pro, I can actually create a film. But the advice and critic part that was given by my teachers and peers was the worst part that I did not like because it was hard to know that something that I was so proud of needed more tweaks. Eventually, I learnt that the advice and critic had helped me learn that all film products probably have a few edits that they hated and wanted to change and that any advice that I can collect in the post-production process would be a good as I can make my film better.

In conclusion, from the preliminary task to the opening sequence, I have and had to learn so many ideas and techniques that I may have not been comfortable with but still helped me to understand what they would have to do in the future and if I wanted to join and have a career in the film industry, it would be a good idea that I absorb the advice and techniques now.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Danah Boyd and the Audience Of Tomorrow

Dana boyd crop.jpg


Danah Boyd is a social media scholar, youth researcher and works at Microsoft Research, New York Media Culture & Communication and the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

I believe she is one of the most influential women in technology.
In 2007, she spoke about the future is terms of many things including, youtube, remix and filming (produding, distributing and consumer : translation,).


 Introduction and General Comments

She said that there are 3 stages to how technology affects practise
1) Translation : Transference from film to digital
2) Localization : The use of digital technology
3) Co-option : Visual effects

So far Danah Boyd has been correct about her hypothesis as many films, two of them being Warner Bros. Inception and Warps Films. This Is England.
Inception had been filmed on film which is a opposite to what she has stated but was transferred onto digital computers to be edited therefore showing that some sort of analog was shown in the film process in addition Christopher Nolan did use some effects to make the film feel life like and therefore this stood by what Danah Boyd has said. In addition, after the release of the film, some people REMIXED the film and took clips that were downloadable and recreated the film to their own liking. This correlated with the third statement - Co-option - and this would be impossible without digitalisation.
This Is England has been filmed digitally with a digital camera using memory to store it. Warps Film is an exact example of the 3 stages. As they created the film digitally, used digital technology to edit it and visual effects may of lacked but probably were illegally remixed but still some visual effects were created.


Teens Today

Danah Boyd commented on teenagers and how they need education and we as adults emphasis how important doing homework and getting a good future is vital for them. But for teenagers they think school is a place where they can hang out with friend, homework is a chore and they can figure out what they want to do with their lives later on. (To be honest, she does have a point.)
But she also spoke about media playing a heavy role on their lives. How in the USA (in 2007) malls and 'movie theatre'/cinemas dominate as a desirable place to spend a weekend. But as time has gone on, teens don't go to see movies in cinemas because they are socialising on-line and talking/communication with people in social networking sites such as MySpace (2007 most popular social networking site).
social-sites-by-growth.png

Therefore, films and tv programmes needed to be online so it is more flexible to audiences (mainly teens as they consume the most) and that is an incredibly big way to boost the consumption level from a institution point of view.

Like Youtube has. Danah Boyd also made a point that 'Internet videos has replaced the TV show' like 'America's Funniest Home Videos' and for UK viewers 'Rude(ish) Tube'.
But now it is easier for individual like ourselves to go out and make a film with a low budget and create hundreds or even thousands of profit.

Danah Boyd makes a few excellent point that has now been completely right. I love watching films on-the-go when I am on a train, flying to a different country and they don't have a film that I want to watch. Therefore by allowing me to go onto a film distribution and consumption company like Apple's Itunes and download a film by paying a small fee, I can watch the film whenever I want without any advertisement or any interruptions.


Examples

Inception allowed us to view the film anywhere any time by buying the dvd or blu-ray, watching it on Netflix, Itunes or Lovefilm, watching it in the cinema where it was available to view in 26 different countries at the same time. So no matter where you were, you could view it somehow. This decreased the priacy as there was no way that you couldn't view it as Warner Bros made it certainly clear that you could view it anytime, anywhere.
But This is England, did not do the same but went the traditional route but only putting it on DVD and premièring it on TV. This probably increased the piracy as there was less access to the film. Unfortunately, they didn't have that much of a budget and therefore could not publicise it as well as Inception did.
So only now, Big global institutions are starting to stream online by working with online distribution services.


My Film

The Visitor could be an example of Danah Boyd's speech. If I were to make it all or even this small opening sequence, I used digital technology such as a camera, cables to import the footage from my camera to the computer, using digital software to edit, colour and export it. I used visual effects to colour grade the opening sequence, title and caption it and make visual transitions with a few of the clips. In addition, any of my friends could watch it and the general could watch it whenever they want because its on youtube and therefore flexible for them.