Audience Feedback

After uploading the video onto YouTube I got people that match our target audience to comment on it with what they thought after watching. 

Evaluation

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of media products?
We have tried to incorporate generic conventions of a comedy film. One convention of a comedy film is that a lot of the humour has got to come from the main character, just take films such as Bean, Step Brothers and hangover for example. In our film, the main charcter is a bit of a waster that doesn't do anything with his life apart from go out with his mates trying to have a good time. We have tried to emphasise the character's traits in the opening of our film, we have done this by showing him in bed surrounded by beer bottles.

When Jim wakes up and makes his way downstairs he straight away lays down on the sofa and starts watching t.v and later starts playing a games console. This also emphasises his laziness as he as only just got out of bed and he is already laying back down. We took influence from Step brothers for this idea.




We have also emphasised this by making Jim's brother, Craig, total opposite of Jim. The film cuts from Jim, in bed, to Craig who is getting ready for college. Both brothers in our film are total opposites but in the film Step brothers they are very alike, we have tried to challenge and develop the generic conventions here.
In my opinion, the conventions that we have used are very similar to conventions in other comedy films and you can definitely tell that we have taken influence from films such as Step brothers, School of rock and Superbad.



We got the idea of having two brothers in our film from Step brothers. Both brothers in our film are totally different and this creates an element of humour. We took influence from Superbad for the scene in the solicitors office where the solicitor is reading the 'lads mag'. In our film something good happens to someone who is pretending to be someone else like Jack Black's character in School of rock.



The music we used is upbeat and has a light hearted feel to it. This also follows the generic conventions of a comedy film.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our film represents working class teenagers that haven't got a job and don't go to college. There are a lot of teenagers that have finished college and don't go to work, in our film we have exaggerated the stereotype that students are always going out drinking and they don't do anything in their lives. I would say that the main character has been represented in a stereotypical way. I think that teenagers would be more likely to go and watch this film as it is representing their social group.



3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think our film would suit a distribution company like Warp films. It is a British comedy film and Warp have been successful in distributing British comedies such as Four lions.



The main reason why i think it should be distributed by a low budget institution is it doesn't have a big enough target audience. I think the film could be released in to cinema and it would be suitable to release on DVD. Our film would not have the same opportunities for merchandising as a big hollywood film such as Batman or Harry Potter but i think there is the odd thing that would sell. The poster above Jim's bed could be sold as merchandising as this gives the audience the opportunity to style their bedroom like Jim's.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience of our film would be 15-30 year olds as the characters in the film are of the same age. Males would be attracted more to the film as the characters are mainly male although females would still be likely to watch the film. Our film is similar to step brothers so we would expect a similar audience. The style of comedy in step brothers is immature and this may be the reason why it doesn't attract the older audience. We did some research in to the audience of our film before we started filming. Here it is, below.

The people we interviewed were all aged between 17-19 which is the audience for our film. We got a wide range of results but one that came up more than once was that they liked slapstick comedies. This is an immature style of comedy which is the same as the film Step brothers, which we took influence from. I think that our film should be classified a 15 because the storyline would not be suitable for anyone under the age of 15.
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Our film would be classified as a 15 because anyone below this age would struggle to follow the storyline. Our film is about a 17 and a 19 year old so we would expect teenage audiences because they can relate to the lives, personalities and traits of the characters as they may know someone like the characters or they may be like the characters themselves. I think this would appeal to the audience. Most of the shots in the film have been shot at eye level so you can see the expressions on the faces of the characters. At one point in the opening sequence the camera is looking over the shoulder of the solicitor as he reads an adults magazine. With the camera in this position you can see what the solicitor is seeing although it is not a point of view shot.

The audience can now see what the solicitor is reading, this tells the audience that he is not very professional in his job, it also makes the audience think that Jim will get away with pretending to be Craig to claim the money.

6. What have you learnt about technologyfrom the process of constructing the product?
I have always been a big film fan but i had no previous knowledge on how to use a camera or even set up a tripod. Once i got used to using this equipment i found it simple enough. Before we went out and started filming we had some lessons in class on how to set up white balance so you got a natural light. We also went over a few rules such as 180 degree line.
We encounted a few problems that we managed to resolve. We had a few problems with the lighting in some shots that we managed to sort out by just refilming and adjusting the light.
When it came to editing our film we used final cut express. We edited our film on a few occaisions using this programme, one thing we did was apply the dip to colour dissolve effect after the title sequence. This faded the colour between the titles and the film. One of the scenes in our film is a telephone call between the solicitor and Jim. We applied the high pass filter which made the voices sound like they were coming down the phone when they were not been shown in shot, i was impressed at how well this turned out. Another thing we had to change about the audio was the volume of peoples voices as they were inconsistent. This was easily done, i was very impressed by Final cut express.
We also used Mozilla Firefox for research, youtube to upload our video and blogger to present our work.

7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?
When it came down to planning our film, the first thing we needed to decide on was what the genre was going to be. As a group we decided that we was going to do a comedy for two main reasons, one being that we all enjoy comedy films and the other being that it was something different from the other groups. We then needed a storyline, we knew that our film would not be exactly the same as our first idea but at least it would give us a path to follow. We took inspiration from films such as Step brother, The secret of my success and School of rock when deciding on a storyline. Once we had an idea for our story, we put it in to a storyboard. This helped us decide what shots we needed to capture and also what order to edit them in. When it came to filming the storyboard was used a lot, it made the process go a lot smoother.
When planning what shots we were going to include, we, as a group, decided that we were going to include some match on action shots as we wanted our film to stand out from the other group's. I feel that since our preliminary task, we have improved massively. We are now a lot more comfortable with the camera and we are a lot more confident when trying new ideas such as match on action. If you compare our preliminary task with our final film you will see a huge contrast in the quality of lighting, sound, camera work, mise en scene etc.
I feel that our finished film has fulfilled the task well enough. As a group we would have liked to have more time so we could film more shots as a few of the shots don't flow as well as we would have hoped but overall i am really pleased with our final film.

Evaluation

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

The film Step Brothers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sczh_KjjFNU) has largely influenced our own filming style, like our film it is also a comedy based on the relationship between the two main characters, who are brothers.

We all liked the type of comedy that was used in this film, it isn’t slapstick but it is still playful and quite outrageous and we found that it was the characters personalities that gave the film the majority of its humorous qualities, so, we wanted to re-create this as much as possible in our own film. There is a scene in Step Brothers where one of the brothers is seen waking up and putting on an old t shirt, we used this in our own film where we see Jim picking up an old t shirt from his bedroom floor that we can assume has been there several days. 

Another scene that is similar is when one of the brothers is playing computer games very intensely until he is interrupted, Jim does the same in our film. 

The lazier of the two brothers, Jim, is shown entering the bathroom we then cut to a close up shot of flowing water which is assumed to be Jim urinating until the camera zooms out to reveal that the water is being poured from a kettle. 

Like Step Brothers our film is based on the relationship of two brothers however the brothers in our film are complete opposites and we wanted to emphasize this as much as possible throughout. We also got ideas for our music choice from the film Step Brothers, both pieces of music are of an indie-rock genre which represents and helps to introduce the personalities of the main character, Jim. The main storyline of our film is similar to that in The Secret to my Success where one of the characters also pretends to be someone they aren’t in order to reap undeserved benefits. 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Although our characters are slightly exaggerated for the enhancement of humour and entertainment I think that they are typical of their social groups. For example, Jim is a white, working class, teenage male, who is unemployed and lives off his parents. He is represented as being lazy and is it obvious that he spends all of his time not being very productive and either lying around the house or out partying. This is a common stereotype for teenagers of this generation and because our main target audience is males aged 15-30 I think that this will increase the humorous factors because they will either know someone similar to Jim or have been like Jim themselves and so can easily relate. Men are defiantly more dominant in this film which would again help to appeal to a majority male audience as in one scene the solicitor is shown reading a men’s magazine whilst mainly focusing on females breasts. This character is similar to David Brent in the television comedy series, The Office, played by Ricky Gervais. Much like our character, David Brent isnt very interested in his job and he casually rebels.

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

Optimum Releasing were founded in 1999 and are based in London. They release over 200 films a year and have become one of the biggest distributors of independant film and world cinema in the UK since Tartan Films closed in 2008. Our film is very British and low profile featuring no famous actors or impressive special effects so I believe that a distribution company such as Optimum Releasing would be better suited for a film of this budget. 

Also, when I have previously researched Optimum Releasing as a distribution company they generally focus of low budged comedy films like ours such as This is England and Four Lions.

Our film would be distributed throughout Britain and if successful lead to DVD production and rentals however I don’t think there is much chance of merchandising as there are no new and outrageous themes featured in our film with would usually lead to merchandise production unless it was something basic, such as t-shirts.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Thank you Uncle Norman is aimed at a predominantly male audience between the ages of 15 and 30 but because our film is a comedy it may appeal to an older audience if they enjoy the type of humour. According to BBFC regulations (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/15-2), our film would hold a 15 classification due to its immature nature, we ensured that we kept our film at a 15 and not an 18 certificate because we didn’t want to lose 15-17 year olds as they are an important group of our target audience.

Due to our cast been male dominant which we would continue throughout the film having women playing only small parts and even then being perceived as sex symbols. Our film is similar to Step Brothers, American Pie, Pineapple Express and Superbad all of which centre around the relationship and personalities of men playing leading roles. We interviewed both male and female participants in our audience research, all of which would be a part of our target audience and these films that are similar to ours were all listed as peoples favourite films. 

 

How did you attract/address your audience?

The characters featured in our film are most likely to attract our intended audience due to them being so relatable and part of the same social group as our main characters are both male and aged 19 and 17. As both these characters have such different personalities it is easy to relate to their lifestyles by either being a college student or being unemployed and  being familiar with the personality traits that accompany each of these. The camera is usually at eyelevel with each of the brothers because the whole film is about their lives so this will help the audience to feel connected to them, making it more enjoyable for them. Comedy films are generally filmed using basic shots because it’s the characters or situations that make the theme of the film and so they are shown as realistically as possible. 

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

I had no prior knowledge of how to use any filming equipment and we chose to use the Sony HDV 1000 so this was challenging at first until I had learnt how to operate it properly. 

We learnt how to film and then playback the footage and in time after studying other films we understood what camera angles and shots worked well with different scenes. We also learnt how to correctly set up the tripod, what type of lighting worked well and how to white balance the camera so that we could achieve a more natural colouring and look to our shots.

We only encounted minor problems such as shots that followed on but had different brightness levels due to strong sunlight, but we rectified this by simply re-filming after adjusting the lighting available. We used Final Cut Express to edit our film which although it was complicated it was easier to use after some practice and we were able to use it for any effects that we wished to incorporate into our film.

We used several effects to enhance the quality and look of our film including the Dip to Colour Dissolve effect which we used as a colour fading transition between our titles and the start of our film. 

 We also used the High Pass filter which we configured slightly and applied it to the voices of our characters when we wanted it to sound like their voice was being heard through the phone, I think that this worked very well.

We finally had to adjust the audio volume on some shots to keep consistency and we increased the speed of our titles because our film was well over two minutes and we also wanted it to fit in with the beats of the music that was playing over the top to help the film flow.

 We also used programmes such as blogger to present our work, Mozilla Firefox for research and YouTube to upload our video making it easier to access

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

In the preliminary task we had to use techniques such as match on action and the 180 degree rule, these were difficult to remember and apply at first but after having done them I was much more confident and found them alot easier to do when we begun filming. In order for us to create the best film we possibly could in the time we were given we ensured that we had properly planned out what we wanted to achieve, we firstly decided on what the genre would be and then we compiled our ideas and thought up a plot for our film. We tried to include a realistic comedy feel throughout our film wherever we could, including the setting, mise en scene, music, the personalities, actions and body language of the characters and the script. This then lead us on to what certificate our film would be and what target audience this would attract. We then created a detailed shooting script and storyboard and then began to select filming locations that would be suitable and would fit in to the final look we wanted to create constantly bearing the films target audience in mind as all decisions were to point towards pleasing our audience. As our film is a light hearted comedy we weren’t filming anything over the top so to add interest to our film whilst keeping it as realistic as possible we tried to include more interesting shots by using match on action and different camera angles wherever possible. We ensured specific props were included to add to the individual characters, for example, we see Craig putting on his glasses as people who wear glasses are represented as being intelligent.

The first time we see Jim he is waking up surrounded by alcohol bottles and a calendar full of women.

Jims body language also enhances his slob like character as he is seen here laying on the settee.

These are some examples of interesting shots and cuts that we used to help the film flow and keep the audience’s attention. Here we see a phone conversation between Jim and the solicitor. As it cuts between the two men their faces remain in a similar part of the shot

The locations that we chose to use are basic but after we had added some props they fit with the overall feel and theme of the film

Overall I feel that our film has been successful as the final product is what we envisaged and together we have been able to create it in the time that we were given to the best of our abilities.