Caz's (Carolyne's) Evaluation

Hassan's Evaluation

Introduction

My project is an opening to a romantic teen comedy movie called “C@ll Me”. In my group I was working with Louise and Caroline. My contributions to the project were filming, editing, acting, script-writing, drawing the storyboard and research.

Q1 An opening sequence of a movie needs to make the audience watching want to stay on and watch the rest of the film. It also needs to introduce the main characters. Opening sequences of movies make people want to keep watching by creating enigmas that would make them want to keep watching to see how things turn out. Our opening sequence fulfilled these features as it introduces the two main characters, creates an enigma which is that the two main protagonists have an internet relationship but do not like each other in person which will make viewers want to keep watching. Conventions in these types of movies include teens, relationships, schools or colleges and so on. This opening sequence fulfils all the conventions I’ve just mentioned. The reason we have not moved away from these typical codes and conventions are because without them it wouldn’t really be a teen comedy romance.

Q2 The type of people represented in the movie is young people. The costumes are typical of what teenagers would wear; jeans, hoodies, trainers. They are both at college which is also typical for people of their age. Also they text and communicate over the internet a lot which is also typical for people of their age nowadays. The main settings are their bedrooms and college which is again fairly typical. The characters are following their stereotypes. This for the boy would be the jock and the girl a geek. Gender is also represented fairly traditionally by them doing things which are a little bit different before they start college like the girl having a healthy breakfast and the boy quickly getting a chocolate bar. Also on the way to college the boy drives with driving and cars being something that stereotypically interests men more than women. The reason we have adhered to stereotypes is that there wasn’t much need to steer away from them as traditionally jocks and geeks conflict and don’t get on. This is paramount to the storyline as they actually have feelings for each other without knowing it’s them which create enigmas. Therefore we felt the stereotypes didn’t need to be challenged.

Q3 I think an institution such as Universal Pictures would be suitable for our movie. The back movies of all genres and have in the past backed romantic comedies from the UK such as Love Actually and About a Boy. I think our project would have a crossover appeal to American audiences as it has a sort of Hollywood formula in it being a teen comedy romance. However it does have a very British “look” which some audiences from America may find interesting or may dislike. I think despite its British style it would still get backing from a big Hollywood institution and would be a success in Britain as well as a possible success in America.

Q4 The audience for the movie may have an educational background of any kind as it’s not that much of an intellectually challenging film that an undereducated person wouldn’t be able to enjoy the movie. The likely age group for the movie is 16-34. Both genders would come to see the movie however there would probably be more girls as it is a romantic comedy. It would also attract couples as it is to do with relationships. The economic status would be anyone from A – E as most people have free money that they can spend to come to the cinema. As the male lead in the movie is Asian it could draw a bigger audience from Asian backgrounds than such films often do. However it does not just appeal only to Asian people but people of every race. The audience for this movie is very large and diverse which would bring large numbers to watch this movie. Films need a target audience so they can pinpoint where to spend money on promoting themselves. I think our target audience is a good target as many of this audience regularly go to the cinemas to watch movies.

Q5 We managed to attract and address our audience in various different ways. We set up an equilibrium by making you think the main characters are a couple before causing a disruption when you find out that they don’t know each other in person and when they do meet there is a conflict when they bump into each other. This creates an enigma for the rest of the film where people would want to know what happens next. It also shows that the main characters which are in an internet relationship are binary opposites in real life which would attract viewers. I think we did well to create the sense of time that we did. We showed that it was a morning before college as they are both shown getting ready and setting off before being in college where there is an establishing shot of them walking past the college sign. We used fast pace continuity editing throughout. A young, multi-ethnic cast would be likely to bring in an audience which is also young and multi-ethnic.

Q6 I have learnt a lot about using editing software throughout the course of this project as I have never used iMovie before. The editing software as a whole as a whole is quite complete and lets you do just about anything. We used continuity editing therefore we did not make the most of the editing software’s different effects except the title screen when “C@ll Me” waves in to the screen. However we thought as a group it would be best if the title “C@ll Me” is shown with the words clashing as the boy and girl have a somewhat of a personality clash within the film. However we couldn’t do this in iMovie as it did not have the right animation. The internet was a very helpful tool as it can let you research up to date items which you couldn’t do in a library as unlike the internet the books aren’t updated every day. Also using the internet we could use websites such as youtube to watch openings of same genre movies to look for inspiration. The use of the blog lets us do things we wouldn’t be able to do using paper recording methods. As it let us update it with information from home and if one group member posted it from their home another could look at the new post straight away and post up their ideas to improve it making it much more of a group effort. The camera was generally straightforward to use however as it was only one megapixel not all the shots are crystal clear. New technology helps making projects like ours much better and easier to make however it doesn’t guarantee a good project.

Q7 There has been vast improvement in my group’s video making when comparing the preliminary task to the main one. Transitions are a lot better as in the preliminary every single shot was faded in whereas now we realised just because we can use transitional effects doesn’t mean we have to. Therefore we used continuity editing which made it much more flowing. The main task was a lot smoother then the prelim as that was kind of static and bumpy. We used more of a variety and improved camera angles. We used a title which we did not use in the preliminary task which makes it better.

Conclusion

I think our product is, on the whole quite good. It sets up a great enigma, whilst introducing the characters. When you realise they go to the same college but do not like each other it is quite fascinating. I think sometimes the camera jerks a bit which is a weakness. I feel the movie is not too bad compared to other British and Hollywood movies, especially when you look at how much money they spend on their movies and compare it to our movie where we spent nothing.

Louise Whittaker Evaluation

Evaluation of my media product

 

The opening sequence that I created with my group is named ‘C@ll Me’. The genre we chose for the opening sequence is teenage romance, as there were two girls including me and one boy in our group we felt that we would enjoy this and also be familiar with the genre. We used typical genre stereotypes as our two main characters, these were; ‘the intelligent, studious type’ and ‘the popular male student’.

 

The social group our product represents is stereotypical teenagers, we chose to stick to these stereotypes because we thought that the audience would be able to relate to them also, this establishes the genre of the film in the first two minutes. The way we have represented these social groups is firstly establishing the setting and background of which each character is from. In the beginning of our opening sequence we used the bedrooms of each character to show the contrasting personalities. The female teenager’s bedroom is neat and tidy, it is yellow in colour which is quite girly, also to show her studious personality we used mise-en-scene such as; books and a laptop. We used the mise-en-scene to emphasise the differences between boys and girls, we used a lot of teddies, cushions and blankets on the bed to show her soft side. In contrast, the male teenagers bedroom was messy, unorganised and quite dull. This was to show the relaxed, laid back quality he possesses.

 

The narrative we used was an msn chat window and text messages between the two teenagers. We felt this was relevant to the social group we were representing. This shows how these are among the main ways of communication between not just teenagers but adults and how it has caught on to older generations too. We also used it to show how traditional methods of communicating have been knocked out by newer technology. This is also how we created the name of the opening sequence, this not only includes the msn chat in the ‘@’ sign but also phone technology.

 

The lighting in our opening sequence was very natural as we wanted the sequence to be realistic and convincing.

 

We introduced variety to the sequence by creating very contrasting personalities for each character. This helps our sequence work because it poses the enigma of why two such different people would be interested and contacting each other.

 

I went on the ‘IMDB’ to investigate what institution or producers would produce and distribute our product. I found that ‘Channel 4 Films’ more commonly known as ‘FilmFour’  would consider producing our media product as their institution is a low budget production company, so they are likely to take on newish, amateur movie makers. The ‘FilmFour’ production company focus mainly on british films and film makers. However I think that our opening sequence has the basic storyline and set up for a Hollywood film, as ours is similar to some produced by US production companies such as; Fox.

 

We researched our target audience, we found that our target audience would be mainly females aged 14-35. The teenage age bracket would appeal to film makers as teenagers with part time jobs or pocket money have more money to spend on the cinema or films as they have no bills or food to pay for, therefore they are more likely to spend money at the cinema or on buying a film. I think our media product would appeal to people of every ethnic background, as our opening sequence could be applied to all people and situations. However, you could argue that it would be mainly white British or American background, as this is typical of other films in the same genre.

 

To attract and address our audience we used the typical genre stereotypes and mise-en-scene that belonged to this social group so that our audience could relate to these characters and settings. The mise-en-scene we used included; school books, bags, phones, computers and messenger windows. We used a setting, which was college that our target audience could relate to, this would make the story more relevant. We posed questions in our narrative which was a text message and a chat window. This would make the audience want to find out if they do meet up or not. Also we gave the audience extra information, they know who both characters are however the characters themselves have never met. We created a scene of collision this created tension within the opening sequence.

 

In the research stage of the project I used the internet to search for related genre opening sequences. The main website I chose to research this section was www.youtube.com, I used this website as it was useful to view the opening sequences. I was able to pause and rewind the videos, to pick out and define specific mise-en-scene, type of characters and behaviours which were common in the opening sequences I viewed. Using ‘youtube’ I never had doubts about reliability as these were clips of common movies which I had seen, however, there were certain clips of movie trailers which were spoofs.

 

Previous to beginning the research period each group set up a blog on www.blogger.com, we did this so we could record our progress during the research stage, making sure we had covered everything. This was also useful as the teacher was able to give feedback on our research. Our blog allowed us to import video’s, images and music to show how we had adapted our idea’s from others. Having our chosen video’s and music on our blog enabled us to go back and check if we had the qualities that they did to make our media product successful.

 

We used sites such as www.IMDB.com, to research marketing, audience and production companies. We found this was a reliable site and was not in any way doubtful. It produced statistics, names and useful information.

 

To create our opening sequence we used IMovie, using transitions, editing, titles and sound effects. The IMovie enabled us to import the filming we had done from the camera, and edit the sections we didn’t want to use. This was incredibly useful as we could edit the clips down to a second. We were also able to cut the sound which was caught from the video camera and use a music track from a site which had copyright free music.

 

I feel that looking back on our preliminary task and then at our completed media product we were able to use our camera angles such as; low angle shots to make the opening sequence visually effective. We learnt how to make the shots fit together and in which order they worked well. I felt that we progressed well with our editing skills. We felt that flicking back and fourth between the different characters and settings, helped to show the basic story and emphasise the contrast. In the preliminary task there was a shot where the character walks away from the camera, but in our opening sequence we felt that by having the character walk towards the camera was more effective, as it makes the audience feel more involved.

 

In our opening sequence we developed characters through setting and mise-en-scene, however in our preliminary task we didn’t build up the character but just simply said the lines, we didn’t use costume or setting to develop the character so in that way we have improved.

 

In conclusion, I felt I have learnt a lot form this task, it shows me how all the different aspects of media come together to make a media product more exciting and enticing. Without each aspect the media product would not be the same. I felt that with more effort we would have been able to make our media product more visually interesting but also accurate. 

Our Opening Sequence Overall

We feel our opening sequence was a success.
The most successful parts were the different camera shots, the storyline and the switch between different locations.

Although we encounted a couple of problems, like making the boy & girl sequence paralell to each other and having no speech in, we still thought it was a success!

We wish we could have made it into a film.
And would like to do it again.
Bye.
(Caz, Louise & Hassan)

Feedback

Our feedback from our audience was very good. The comments were all positive. The audience identified the main plot, the main characters and the basic storyline of our opening sequence. Also they commented saying the pace of the opening sequence was fast enough to realise the storyline and said the music fitted in well with the pace and type of opening sequence.

Overall the feedback was very positive and all said they would watch it if it was turned into a film.

Finished Project

:)

we actually have finished now!

and after much editing and re-organising,

we're extremely happy with our opening sequence. 

we're now awaiting audience feedback and we are about to put our final edit on our blog :)

we've spent the last week touching up clips and cutting them down.

Also choosing our final piece of music and the sound effects to accompany our opening sequence. 

We are proud of our end pice :)

it really communicates what we wanted to :)

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