Final Draft Film Opening Busted

Changes To First Draft

Changes we have made since publishing our first draft

This is our second draft of our teen angst opening. We have made many changes since the first draft as a group since receiving feedback from our class, for example we have added in a voiceover of the main character to make the audience understand the film plot better. We made the decision to include a voiceover as we got inspiration from other teen angst films such as mean girls and easy a who also include a voiceover. We have also changed one of the music tracks as we felt like it didn't flow as well as we would of liked it too so we had added a more upbeat non digetic song which fits better with the target audience as it is modern party music. We have also added more pink bold titles to add more of a girly feel to our opening to help connote the teen angst genre which will help to further attract our target audience.

We also have added in several more party scenes to help add more depth into our film and make it more appealing to our specific target audience. The party scene that we added in connotes the genre further as teenagers can relate to parties and drinking alcohol which we thought would make it more appealing to our target audience. Since our first draft we have also played around and adjusted the music levels to help the voiceover flow a lot better which we think has improved our film opening dramatically.

First Draft- Feedback

As a class we watched my groups opening sequence to gain feedback so we can find ways of improving and making our opening film better. We got a lot of constructive critism from the rest of our class which we used to our advantage and improved on the areas that needed to be improved.

The positive feedback we received included positive compliments about our use of monochrome during our opening sequence, we used this to add affect by making the audience know the atmosphere is shady and awkward. We also received compliments about our camera angles and our use of editing tools such as fade to black and cross cutting to help the scenes run smoothly together. We also received feedback about our use of music as the rest of the class thought it fit smoothly together.

However we received negative feedback about the shot of out production company logo as the class believed it would be more effective if we made it larger and zoom in to make it really stand out to the target audience.

First Draft- Busted

https://youtu.be/gK-YI7x9H8M

Evaluation Task 7

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

I have learnt many different things since doing my Preliminary task and feel I have improved and progressed while learning a wide range of things during the production of our final product.

When we was producing our Preliminary task I learnt what shot reverse shot was as it was an important technique we had to use. This helped me to understand what this was and how to use it effectively. Since filming our preliminary task I have learnt how to use this shot more effectively and in our final product was able to use an over the shoulder shot when using shot reverse shot so that it was more clear that the two people were in a conversation and we were not cutting between scenes. We were also able to apply this technique to a genre of film as our Preliminary task was not of a specific genre. We were also able to use mid-shots to emphasise the importance of this conversation as it is the first time the male and female lead roles meet. I also made progress in the different camera shots and angles I learnt to use, this is shown as in the Preliminary task we used basic shots and did not move the camera often, especially when inside the room. However in my final product the camera was moved much more which is evident in the getting ready scene as we used a range of different shots. In our Preliminary task we paid attention to what was in the immediate back ground of our shots and some of our shots had other things such as recycling bins in them. However we were much more observant of this when it came to our final product and we tried to make sure that the framing of our product did not contain anything that it should not have as this would of ruined the final product.

I also think our planning has improved since we filmed our preliminary task, this is evident in the costumes the characters where using in the opening. As our preliminary task had no genre the costumes were not vital as the people in the film were ordinary people so we did not think this was necessary , however costumes were much more essential in our final product as we needed to find a way to portray these characters so that it was easier to tell which characters had which personality's and characteristics therefore we  had to make sure that the costumes fit the stereotypical conventions of a teen angst film and the characters involved. Our main character Chanel had more dark, provocative clothing compared to Holly who wore innocent clothing that covered her up. Our final draft of our opening also used titles which is something we did not consider in our preliminary task. This was something new we learnt so we were able to experiment with different types of fonts and colors. Using this in our final product is effective as it made it a lot more realistic like other teen angst films and it helps the audience to be able to quickly identify genre.

Framing Of Shots

In the preliminary task I did not worry about what I was including in the foreground and background of each shot. Therefore this lead to some irrelevant and random things being in shot which could ruin the mise en scene of the shot and potentially look messy. However in our film opening we were very conscious about the framing. We therefore had to check that everything you could see in the scene was there for a reason for example to set the scene or mood of that shot. For example in our end party scene we used a close up shot in order to include our props which were the alcohol bottles left over from the party. This helped to connote our genre and therefore attracted the correct target audience. In conclusion I have learnt that irrelevant objects in the frame of a scene can have a huge impact on creating the mood and atmosphere of a film opening.

Camera Shots in our film opening 

In the preliminary task myself and my group didn’t use a wide enough range of camera shots and this therefore lead to lack of interest which left the audience not wanting to see more of our film. However in our film opening we have tried to used a wide range of camera shots such as mid-shots, long-shots and close ups to either help the audience to understand the setting and to help feel involved in the action. For example when Holly is crying at the beginning of the film we use a close up shot which emphasises her emotion of worry to the audience and makes them feel more involved in the film. We also used a close up shot during the getting ready scenes the night of Holly's party. We used close ups as it showed the dramatic makeup the teenagers were wearing. This is stereotypical of our target audience as most teenagers would wear a full face of makeup for a party which teenagers would be able to relate to. In conclusion I have found that using a wide range of camera angles makes the audience feel more involved. During the party scene we used mid shots which focused mainly on the alcohol which connotes underaged teenage drinking which is stereotypical of teenagers. Our target audience would be able to relate to our film opening as they enjoy going to parties so would want to carry on watching. 

Camera Movement

In the preliminary task me and my group didnt use any form of camera movement at all therefore this lowered how good the content of our video was. However in our film opening we made sure to include a wide range of camera movement to help add depth to our opening. Firstly we used a low angle tracking shot of Chanel as she is walking out of the classroom to help show her power and dominance over the other characters. We used this type of tracking movement as it helps toinvolves the audience more due to the fact they are moving with the person who is walking. In conclusion tracking shots can help to make the reader feel more engaged with the film opening.

Mise en scene

In our preliminary task we didn't use mise en scene very effectively at all due to a lack of understanding. This is partly due to we had no time to prepare or plan and we had no costumes or props so it was unrealistic. However in our film opening we used mise en scene very effectively to help gain a wider target audience and connote our genre. In our opening we tried to use as realistic costumes as possible. As for the classroom scenes we had typical casual teenage attire and then there was a huge contrast to the party scene where the characters were dressed in provocative and revealing clothing to further connote the genre of teen angst. Me and my group also used a range of different lightings to help portray different moods within our film. For example when there is tension between the two main characters in the classroom its dim and gloomy to portray the atmosphere further and help the audience understand whats going on. Also our different settings like longhands academy school  helps to connote our genre due to the fact the majority of teenagers go to school and spend most our there time there. In conclusion I think that our use of mise en scene helped to attract the correct target audience and appeal to them more. In our preliminary task, we didnt have much variation in the lighting of our opening. However, in our film opening there is as for the party scene we used dim lighting to set the atmosphere. This lighting makes it more obvious that they are at a party as it is the type of lighting that would be at a real teenage party which helps to further connote the teen angst genre and how they enjoy going to parties.

Editing
As a  group In our preliminary task we used lots of shot reverse shot and match on action. We decided to use less of both of these editing techniques in our film opening as it was't necessary, however we did use shot reverse shot of a conversation as it was most effective during a tense argument between the main characters Holly and Chanel. Match on action was only used once in our opening and this is when Holly's mum is leaving and walking out the door at the end our our film opening. An editing technique that we didnt use in our preliminary task but we incorporated in our film opening is transitions. We used a range of different transitions throughout our whole film opening to add effect and it helped to make some of our shots flow smoothly and flow better into the next scene. We used the dissolve transition when the main characters are getting ready for the party. This transition helps give our teenage audience a better insight into teenage life as it adds excitement and makes the audience want to see more.

Evaluation Task 6

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7

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

Adobe Premiere Pro is the editing programme we used as a group to edit our teen angst film opening. As a group we edited our film and made joint decisions as a team. We learnt how to use many different editing techniques within premiere pro. For example we used the cutting tool to cut down our footage to make sure we only included the relevant part of film. We also used the replay tool within the programme to add a dramatic affect of the hair flip to suit our genre. Using Adobe Premiere Pro we were able to add in special effects such as the monochrome effect to our opening which helped to set the scene and atmosphere. We also were able to add in transitions and text over the top of our footage, which helped majorly to improve our film from the original first draft. Adobe also allowed us to slow down and speed up our footage. We used both the slow down and speed up in our teen angst opening and managed to do it without difficulty which again helped improve the quality of out film.

A programme we used as a group to help us during our filming was PowerPoint Presentation for several reasons. Such as we created a group PowerPoint to present our original idea to our class for feedback. I also used Power Point to enlarge my images before I imported them onto blogger which helped me to organise my images more clearly and it made them a better size as you cannot crop images on blogger which we struggled with during the establishing of our blogs. However we overcome this problem by using Microsoft Powerpoint.

Above is a screenshot of our imessage group chat which we used to communicate with each other to arrange filming locations and timings. This helped us to ensure we met deadlines as it helped us to become aware of when each other where free. Also we could only edit our film opening at school so we used this group chat to know when we could get together and edit in our free periods at school.

We also used YouTube a lot when creating and researching our teen angst film opening. We used this programme to initially upload our prelimary task to present to our class and receive feedback. We then also used it to upload 2 drafts which only received a total of 15 hits. I also used the annotations tool when completing my evaluations to annotate our film to help identify teen angst conventions.

Another social media platform we used is Facebook. We used the events part of it to create Holly's party event so we could film Chanel sitting on her phone receiving the notification which added suspense and mystery into our opening. Teenagers would be able to relate to this as they use Facebook events to plan parties so they would be more interested. This idea is also used in teen angst films such as easy a so we thought it would be essential in our film opening.

To film our film opening we used a Panasonic HD camera, we used this camera to capture all of our footage for our film. I mainly filmed the opening however as I starred as one of the main characters my group also helped out filming for the parts I was starring in the film. As a group we found it easy to use the camera. My main job during the creation of our film was the filming however as I was one of the main characters in the film myself and Ellie Hancock took it in turns filming. We used a tripod when filming to ensure we had no shaky shots to make sure we have optimal performance of our camera.

As we used a voiceover in our production we had to use a voice recorder. To start with we firstly used an apple iPhone to record the voiceover however this did not work as it wasn't good enough quality so we had to get hold of a voice recorder. I had not previously used this so I had to learn all the buttons that I would use and also learn how to play this back to make sure we had a clear recording. In the end our voiceover came out clearly which makes our film opening more effective.

Evaluation Task 5

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 5
How did you attract/address your audience?

I used youtube tools to annotate with text boxes and speech bubbles our first draft to help explain the connotations that we used to help portray our genre of teen angst. Below is a screenshot of my laptop whilst adding in the annotations.

Evaluation Task 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience for our film opening was 14-16 year olds. Although it specially is aimed at 15 year olds as we feel this age group would enjoy our film the most. As a 17 year old who attends St Neots Sixth Form I can mainly relate to this age group and found it easy to make my film appeal to this age group. Below is a photo of somebody who fits the target audience age and I interviewed her to find out the details of my target audience.

This is a 16 year old who attends St Neots Sixth Form. She is female and lives in Little Paxton, St Neots. The film genres that she prefers is horror although she also enjoys watching romantic comedies. She is a typical 15 year old girl who likes to keep up to date with the latest fashion trends. She typically shops at Topshop and New Look as these are fashionable high street shops which teenage girls enjoy. From the interview I also found out that in her spare time she likes to attend parties and she loves going shopping with her friends. She also has a part time job and earns £6 an hour which is an average for our target audience as it will be students who have a small disposable income. Her goals for after sixth form are to go to university or get a full time job. She spends most of her spare cash on clothes or makeup.

Psychographics
Our target audiences interests are that they generally like to go and socialise with their friends and I think that a common way of socialising is going to the cinema and they are most likely to watch a teen angst film which is our film opening genre. The music that we use in our film is upbeat non diegetic music which our target audience of teenagers will be able to relate to and they will find it catchy. Teenagers are usually interested in parties and gossip scenes which we have made sure we have included in our opening to make it engaging and interesting for the target audience. Also we hope by using all the different conventions in our film it will make teenagers want to carry on watching the film

Demographics
As a group we decided that our target audience will fit into the income bracket E (unemployed, students, pensioners and casual workers). It is typical for teenagers to go to parties in their spare time which is why we included a party scene in our film opening. The specific target audience we are aiming at is lonely teenage girls who wear dark clothes and are secluded from target audience. The gender we are aiming our film opening to is females in particular although this is a niche audience we believe this group will enjoy our film the most and be more engaged. Also our film is aimed at all races and the geographical location is in the East of England, particularly Cambridgeshire.

Our film has a main character who is the protagonist in the film, she is a stereotypical teenage girl with long dark hair who is made to be a bully at school. All of the actors in our film are 15-17 years old meaning they fit into the target audience and it will attract more of a teenage audience than an adult as the teenagers will be able to directly relate to the film. We also have mainly female characters in our film making it more appealing to teenage girls.

Evaluation task 3

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Script for 'director's commentary' style voiceover

What does a production company do?

A production company helps to create the film and assists in the budgeting, scheduling, casting and more. they are responsible for finding a director for the film and the majority of the acting talent. They are also responsible for anything that may go wrong in the film or if anything is damaged.

The idea of the distributor and who that might be and why.

A distributor is someone who coordinates the distribution of the finished movie to exhibitors as well as the sale of the film, DVD, Blu-Ray and other media on which the movie will be made available. our distributor would be a company such as Artificial Eye as our film is an independent film.

Where the money might have come from for a film such as yours.

The money for our film would have come from investors who are interested in teen angst films or we could get a national lottery grant.

Why the various people are named in the titles? which job titles appear and in what order and how have you reflected this?

All of the titles in the film are set in big, bold, cartoon like fonts to represent the teen angst theme. Titles include 'Produced by Ellie Hancock' 'Filmed by Chelsea Cox' and  'Edited by Becky Black'

What your film is similar to 'institutionally'

Our film institutionally is similar to the independent film 'selfish giant' in the ways of which it is distributed to exhibitors as they are both targeted to niche audiences. Selfish Giant is distributed by Artificial Eye which is an independent film company that would be suited to also distribute our film.

Evaluation Task 2

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?

On the left is an image of Cady Heron from the film mean girls. She is a typical teenage girl character in the film as it starts of she is lonely with no friends and as the film progresses she becomes friends with many different characters in mean girls and becomes popular. On the right is Holly Black she is one of the main character in our film she is the lonely one is school who gets picked on and has no friends.They have similarities for example in costume terms they wear similar outfits. For example casual attire as they both attend a high school which includes a t shirt and leather jacket. Which is stereo typical of a teenager. There are also differences between the two characters for example Cady has a lot more attitude than

On the left is our main character Chantelle who is played by myself Chelsea. She is the typical bitchy character in our film who is the school bully. She is very confident and is known for being mean and sarcastic. On the right is Regina George from mean girls. She is also the typical mean girl bully in high school. We based our main character using Regina George's personaility as it is a very stereotypical character in teen angst films. Chanel and Regina have very similar personalities, both bossy, controlling, confident, and both have sassy attitudes. Both characters care about the latest fashion trends and both characters have a history of belittling geeky shy girls in films to make themselves feel better.

Evaluation Task 1

 EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

First frame:

The first frame in our opening sequence firstly shows our production logo, which we called 'Oscar productions'. As a group we decided to call it this as it relates to the Oscar winning awards given to highly rated films which is related to our target audience and make them want to watch our opening. Our product logo is similar to other teen angst films we hoped this would help to further attract out target audience.

Second frame:

The second frame in our opening is a close up of the phone of our the main character Holly. In the second shot you can see that she is receiving abusive text messages on her phone from the mean girl of the film, Chanel, who is giving her abuse for throwing a rubbish party which finished early. A teen angst film which relates to this scene of our opening is project X, as in the teen angst project x teenage boys throw a house party because there parents go away and it quickly gets out of hand. We used conventions from this teen angst as we thought it was effective. For example underage drinking and parents coming home angry which connotes the teen angst genre as teenagers would be able to relate getting in arguments with parents and having house parties that get out of hand.

Third frame:

The third frame of our film opening shows a mid shot of Holly crying in the school corridor. She is alone with no friends which portrays her character through out the whole of our film. In the shot she is wearing a dull coloured outfit which connoted her low energy, depressing character. This is similar to mean girls when Cady first starts school as she has no friends as feels judged in the corridor this is a typical convention of teen angst as our target audience will be able to relate to the awkward situation.

Fourth frame:

In the fourth frame there is a high angle shot of the bully in our film called Chanel, She is receiving an invite to Holly's party, which she only invited her to so that she could become friends with the school bully which is stereotypical of scenarios which happen in schools as teenage girls are stereotypically nasty and manipulative.

Fifth frame:

The fifth frame shows a close up shot of Chanels phone receiving the invitation to the party on a event on Facebook. This would create tension and mystery for the audience as they would be wondering if the bully would want to attend the victims party or not. This scene also makes the audience want to carry on watching as they want to find out what happens at the party and they will want to see if the bully attends the party and if theres any drama or not. Our target audience can relate to drama as there is usually alot of drama and tension between teenage girls.

Sixth frame:

The sixth frame shows a low angle shot of Chanel walking through a school classroom whilst looking at the invite on her phone. The low angle shot was used to show her authority within the film and make her look like she has the power of the scene which can make the audience think she is intimidating. In many teen angst films there is usually a bully who manipulates a less powerful character for example regina george in mean girls. We used similar conventions from mean girls such as the bitchy group of girls in school as we thought this added to the frosty atmosphere of the beginning go our opening,

Seventh and Eighth frame:

These two frames show the main characters Holly and Chanel getting ready for Holly's party. In the shots you can see that Holly is wearing stereotypical colours that connote innocence like pinks and red. Whereas on the other hand Holly is wearing all black which would connote the counter typical behaviour of her, as she is seen as a dark character. Getting ready scenes in teen angst films is very stereotypical as it connotes the teenage girl. As all teenage girls enjoy getting ready for parties and wearing makeup and dresses.

Ninth frame:

This last frame shows a close up of the bottles of alcohol from the night of the party. You can see that from this shot there was a lot of people at the party and that Holly's house was trashed without her parents knowing she had the party as they went away. This is stereotypical of teenagers to have a party without their parents consent. There are many other teen angst films which show underage drinking and this is a convention of the teen angst genre as a lot of people associate teenagers with underage drinking.

Planning-Final Music Decisions

Final Music Decisions 
In our film opening we decided to add 'jingles' into our film so we didn't use copyright music. We got these from the school documents and as a group we decided on a particular jingle that would fit the teen angst genre. We decided on a non diegetic upbeat track to play throughout our opening to help the audience clearly identify the genre of our film through the connotations of the music.

We also decided to change our music choices and add a voiceover into our film so the audience could understand the storyline more clearly and to help make the opening more interesting. From my researched I discovered that other films such as mean girls, clueless and easy a. From researching and listening to these voiceovers as a group we made the decision to include a voice over in our opening.

Mean Girls Voice Over:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QTXzM3wPRw

Clueless Voice Over:
Clueless opening: voice over

Easy A Voiceover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecwLPDcGeBY

Planning- Shots List

Shots we are planning on incorporating in our final opening draft:

Establishing Shot: Opening scene of Chanel in the classroom on her phone
Long/Mid shot: Holly crying in the corridor
Close up: Holly and Chanel getting ready doing makeup for party
Panning up: Chanel walking towards camera on her phone
Shot reverse Shot: Between Chanel and Holly
Long Shot: Holly's mum leaving the front door
Extreme close up: Applying lipstick
Longshot: When Holly gets busted by her mum
Mid Shot: Alcohol bottles and strobe light