In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our media project we used a narration/voice over, at the start as a way of introducing the main characters of the film. This technique is traditionally used in films from the teen comedy genre; a good example of this is the voice over used in the 2004 movie Mean Girls.
In Mean Girls, they use the voice over to introduce the main character ‘Cady’ and to tell the audience her background and the story of how she ended up at that school. The tone of Cady’s narration is conversational, but gets emotional towards the end as we see her eating alone in a toilet cubical. From this we can tell that her character is lonely and sad about being at this new school.
The narration used in our film is similar to what was used in Mean Girls, but we have taken it one step further. We use the voice over convention to introduce not only the main character but also the other main characters of the film, as well as telling the audience how that person is related to Edwardo (the main character.) The tone of our voice over is more depressing and more of an account of his life; from this the audience can tell that he has low self-esteem and does not like his life. The mise en scene is very bright which contrasts with the dark dress code of Edwardo. We used very bright locations to give the audience an indication as to what genre the film is. Traditionally, teen comedies are set in very bright locations and the mise en scene of these films is also very bright, we have used this traditional convention to show the audience how much Edwardo sticks out from the other pupils at the school. This gives the audience a clue to one of the reasons why he is picked on. Even though this is never revealed during the film, the enigma created also creates sympathy towards him because we never know how or why the bullying started. We did this so that the audience doesn't get bored with the traditional teen comedy stereotypes and storylines, by us taking this spin on the genre we give the audience something new and also gain a bigger audience.
During the first two minutes of our film we clearly establish Edwardo not to be the stereotypical high school loser, but the more modern day loser of today’s generation. The conventional high school loser wears high-wasted trousers, with braces and checked shirts that show us that they are the school loser, their facial appearance also shows this as they wear classes, and have spots. We decided to focus our film on this stock character, because they generally have more depth then other characters and more humanity which allows the audience to connect with that character more easily and also feel sympathy towards them. Throughout, the two minutes we also met the typical high school stock characters: the Jocks, the Jocks side-kicks, the popular girls, and the popular girl who sticks up for the loser (the heroin of our film Hannah.) We used two different types of Jock in the movie to show the different social status within that social group, even though they both pick on the students at the lower end of the social spectrum both of the Jocks have different characteristics and ways in which they pick on the “losers” of the school. The character of Foxy represents the Jock that uses his ‘side-kicks’ as back up when he fights Edwardo, he uses his side-kicks as a form of intimidation. We can see that one of his side-kicks is very muscular and looks like he is just waiting for a fight to break out. The other is smaller and weedier looking, he spends the entire scene not talking, looking down at the floor and standing behind Foxy. He looks like he doesn’t want a fight to break out nor does he want to be there, it is obvious he is the character who doesn’t want to be violent. In addition ‘the Bully’ character represents the Jock that relies on nerdy/geeky students to give him his homework, do his notes in lesson… etc. He picks on Edwardo because there is no way he is going to fight back or try to stop him doing what he does. By using the two different types of jock in the same film it really boosts the amount of sympathy the audience feel for Edwardo as he is being picked on from all sides. Traditionally in teen comedies the loser only gets picked on by one of the type of jock, by using two it shows just how much of a loser he really is.
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What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
At the start of our media project we did some research to find out what genre of films were the most popular at the box office. We used the website www.boxofficemojo.com to find this information. I found out that teen comedies are one of the top popular types of genre at the box office.
Here is a handful of teen comedies with their worldwide box office grosses and their distribution company:
American Pie (1999): $235,483,004 - Universal Studios
Superbad (2007): $169,871,719 – Sony Pictures
Mean Girls (2004): $129,042,871 – Paramount Pictures
Bring it on (2000): $90,449,929 - Universal Studios
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986): $70,136,369 (Domestic gross was only available) - Paramount
The Breakfast Club (1985): $51,525,171 - Universal Studios
This research showed me that this genre is very popular with audiences and the major distribution companies. I also found out that Teen comedies are very cheap to make compared with other high grossing genres, American Pie the highest worldwide grossing teen comedy of all time only cost $11 million to make, Mean Girls $17 million and Superbad only $20 million. Because of this, this genre of movie is very popular with the top distribution companies, they know if they have a well written and well produced final product they potently have made another box office smash hit. And it is not just an individual production company that can make the most memorable teen comedies any distribution can and again with their cheap cost and high box office ratings production companies rely on this genre of film to keep their business running.
There was obviously no clear distribution company that was better at making these films then the rest, so I had to do some more focused research into each company. Since our film takes an original storyline and gives it a more modern edge I thought that one of the biggest distribution companies would be best suited for our film.
In the end I chose Universal Studios to distribute our media project, Universal seemed like the perfect choice as they own the powerful/ popular American television network NBC. Which distribute some of the top American comedy shows such as: 30 Rock, Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, as well as the worldwide hit Will and Grace. This along with their successful distribution of the highest grossing teen comedy movies made Universal the best distribution company to select. Although it was a though decision to make because our project is closely linked to the Paramount film Mean Girls, as well as that Paramount also own their own comedy channel Comedy Central with is a cable based network. But I decided to go with Universal because they own more mainstream media and are very successful and popular with the American audiences and that is where having a smash hit film matters the most.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
How did you attract/address your audience?
We have aimed our media product at the same target audience that teen comedies aim their films at; we went for the older teenagers ranging from 14-18 years old. We chose this because our film is attracting the same audience as films such as Mean Girls, Superbad and American Pie attracted, they focus on the real lives of modern day teenagers and do not try to hold back or try to sugar coat it like some Disney films do. Some good examples of this are the 2004 movie A Cinderella Story and the 2004 movie Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. The audience for those types of high school comedy films is tweens audiences ageing from 11-14 years old, they include cheesy and predictable storylines which create an unreal version of what high school is like and by doing this they alienate the older teenagers. So we stayed away from sugar coating high school life and tried to make our film as realistic as possible. However, we did not include any swearing because we thought that some of our audience may not mature enough to understand the use of swearing and could be mistaken for creating a bad example of the younger members of our audience.
We attracted our audience by setting our film in a school; we used this because it is a familiar setting to them, it also gratifies the Blumler and Katz Personal Identity theory. This was also achieved by the character stereotypes we included: the Goth, the Jock and the popular girls. We used these because our audience would be able to connect with the characters and identify with them and also making the film seem more realistic to them. Overall, we tried to make our teen comedy as realistic as possible in order to let the audience connect strongly with the characters and consequentially want to watch the rest of the film.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During the process of making our product, I learnt how to use many different technologies that are traditionally used during the production process of any film. Probably the most important technology I learnt whilst filming was the ability to distinguish the difference between a funny atmosphere and an intense atmosphere. But this mainly relied upon us getting the camera in the right position at the right time, so learning how to work a camera was essential. So when we came to filming scene four which is when Edwardo gets his bag and coat stolen by the Bully, we needed to get the two actors in the right place in the frame as to keep the continuity good, but to also try and keep the scene light-hearted. We didn’t want the audience to get the wrong impression from the scene and jump to the conclusion that he was going to get beaten up because we had something funnier planned.
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Furthermore, during the editing process the most important technology I learnt to use was the computer editing programme Adobe Premier, it allowed us put all of the footage we had shot into one place so we did not lose any piece of the film and also gave us the chance to use some fancy editing techniques like fades/ cuts etc. Whilst I was using this I learnt how to use some of the aforementioned editing techniques, the more interesting things I learnt how to use were the ability to put titles on the frame, and to have them fly in and out as well as to hold on the screen for two seconds. I also learnt how to freeze a shot mid scene, and to add a voice over to a production. By using Adobe Premier, it took a load of our minds whilst we were finishing the film and editing the film, we didn’t have to worry about losing the tapes with our material on because it was all saved onto the programme. In addition the easily accessible nature of the programme saved us a lot of time during the editing process having it all clearly set out and categorized helped us a lot at the start because we did not know how it worked.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When we were in the process of making our preliminary task, I feel that towards the end we became more concerned about the camera angles and the positioning of the cameras. We did this in order to keep limited what you could see in the background of certain shots in order to keep the continuity of whole project good. And as a consequence I feel that our project suffered, the storyline did not really make sense nor did I feel it flowed well together once it was all put together. We didn’t manage our time very well when we were doing our preliminary task, so we had to rush to get the last few shots and quickly edit the film together. So when it came time to make our full project we decided to manage our time better and make sure every shot had good continuity and was relevant to the rest of the plotline. As a result, we storyboarded, made a shooting schedule, camera map etc. So when it came time to filming the project we took everything one step at a time and made sure everything was perfect with good continuity and also a funny ending. We did not want to make this product under the same circumstances that we made our preliminary task under. We wanted to end up with a funny/ well made 2 minute film.
What did our audience think about our Media Product?
To find out what our target audience thought of our film, I did some audience research in the form of a questionnaire. I asked a group teenagers to watch our media project and to answer seven questions about it.
From this research I found out that our target audience: recognised that the genre was teen comedy/ high school comedy. They thought that the first two minutes set the rest of the film up and made them want to watch the rest. They said that by introducing them to the characters in the form of the voice over it made the film more comedic and easier for the story to move along. Some also said that this convention drew them in and made them want to watch the rest of the film. In addition, they thought that the conventions we added to the film during the editing process including: the music, the 'freeze frame' and even the editing itself enhanced the comedy and worked well in the context of the film and made the final product look very professional. The setting for the movie was appropriate and helped the film fit into the teen comedy genre because that is the main setting for a film of this genre. They thought that the acting was good and helped influence the comedy throughout the 2 minutes. Finally, I found out that people would watch our film for escapism and for personal identity; they would watch it so they could escape their normal lives and enter a familiar place to them because there are those types of people at every school.
I did not receive any negative comments from the group of people who answered the questions, this showed me that our film has done what we wanted and got the reaction we planned to receive from our audience. They tough that it worked well as a comedy film and the audience easily connected with the characters involved. In conclusion, my media project was everything I could have imagined it to be and more, and having our target audience give the film such high praises makes the editing the shooting and all the complications we over came worth it and in a way made the film better then we could have imagined or hoped for.
