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.