Evaluation for coursework: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Sinse our preliminary task, I understand more about the different effects of different camerawork, such as a character being seen as inferior when using a high angle shot. I am now very confident with the names of a large variety of shots, I can talk about them well, I understand the effects of each, I can identify them and I am comfortable with knowing where each could be used.
I am also much more aware of what to avoid when keeping continuity and how to ensure there aren't any parts where the audience is confused about what is going on in our product.

Evaluation for coursework: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the process of making our final product, I experimented with the editing techniques on the laptop to look for effects I could use that was created an appropriate effect for a particular shot. I used a black and white filter as we previously decided we wanted to use this effect at the beginning of our opening to empahsise the change in time. To further contrast the two times, we used another filter for future shots which added more un natural colour to the scene, this gave ti the effect of seeming comical and magical in relation to spoof films and the fantasy genre.

From looking at exsisting products, we found that only the main chaacters actors and actresses names were presented at the beginning of the film, and depeneding on the genre of the film, they are presented differently. As our product was a hybrid genre, a mixture of fanatasy and street life, we decided to have our credits float in seperately. Our chosen font was necessary as the black and white combined with shaddow has connotations of ghosts which had a similar impression given by the music playing. Both had connotations of mystery and being spooky. This also related to the narrative of our film as it didnt follow contemporary norms, for example, the first scence consisted of speech that talked about technologies such as computers, yet this scene was screened in black and white which suggested that this particular scene was back in time, this is a major contradiction which emphasises reality of people but in an unrealistic world.


Other technologies i used in this project was the internet, we had to research film genres to find out all the typical conventions of each. We used a website called www.imbd.co.uk , we found that if we searched a genre, all the films existing to this genre would appear and we could click on these to find out other information about the individual films, we could also watch clips from the films. This will be useful for future projects as i have now had more experience at researching and gained alot of knowledge about different films and the genres they belong too.
I also learnt how to create and use a blog to store our all our work, consisting of all our planning such as influences , shooting script and research etc. This will also be useful for the future as i now know how to use technology to save and store all my work.

Evaluation for coursework: How did you attract/address your audience?

We used a "hip hop beat" as a soundtrack during the introduction on "Rapunzelisha" and "Dwayne" as this would attract our audience because they will immediately feel the music as it is typical of black and white teenagers in South London to listen to this type of music for entertainment.
We also used dialogue and mise en scene of typical South London teenagers such as the typical clothing, "bling", blocks of flats and estates that they live, the slang language they use etc. This helped address our audience because they can relate to it aswell as find it humourous as it is so stereotypical of this representation but people don't realise it.















When our product was screened, we recieved a very posistive response. We had comments implying that our work was very sucessful which proved to us that we targeted our audience correctly seeing as they enjoyed and understood it.

Evaluation for coursework: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our chracters in our film are typical black teenagers and typical white families living in South London, therefore, our target audience is black and white teenagers living in the same area. This is because the audience can then relate to the attitudes and situations of the characters and understand the vocabulary used in the dialogue. Our product also raises a question of awareness, that black people and white people of today are able to mix in South London so why can't they follow this example in some other areas? Therefore, black and white people need to be able to watch and enjoy this film in order to take action and influence others. Because of this message, our film is also aimed at other teenagers from different locations in London so that they can empathise and understand a different way of life.

Evaluation for coursework: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Small British media institutions such as BBC films or Stealth films might distribute our film as our product has a niche target audience and doesn't have any famous film actors or actresses. Kidulthood is an example of Stealth films, like our product, it used black and white cultures together and has representations of teenage lifesytles in London, this contributes to the reason why they might like to distribute our film, because they target the same groups of audiences such as black and white teenagers and young adults in South London.
Our film is likely to be most popular in most areas of London as many teenagers in this city could relate to the film as they are living in the same lifestyle and getting into the same situations as the characters in these low budget films, therefore, cinemas all over London such as Greenwhich, Surrey Quays and Peckham etc .

Evaluation for coursework: how does your media product represent particular social groups?

As our main storyline consisted of modern day chracters and is set in the streets of South London, two social groups are represented, teenagers and race. Use of attitude in dialogue suggested that teenagers today are often moody, stubborn and determined to get their own way.
We used black cast as we were trying to develop a story around the life of a stereotypical black teenage girl living in the typical lifestyle. Use of dialogue emphasised the stereotypical speech of young black people such as slang, "choong", this also helped to show the typical attitudes black teenage girls have and how similar they are to many white teenagers living in this area. For example, "Rapunzelisha" refers to a boy called Dwayne as "choong" suggesting she thinks he's attractive, white teenagers in this area use this vocabulary and street language too, white girls like boys too and some are attracted to black boys aswell. This suggests black and white people don't have their individual dress codes or speech anymore, the generation we live in allows us to mix and talk how we wish and dress how we want. By using white characters at the beginning of the story, with neutral attitudes towards "Rapunzelisha", because the mother introduces the story of her to her child, the audience get the impression that black and white people may be segregated sometimes, but we are all people and everyone is accepted in the streets of South London, the area in which this film is set is very diverse. This indicates the message that other areas could follow this positive example.

We also represented social groups such as young children of today. For example, use of dialogue in the first scene included talk of electronics such as computers, "It's been ages sinse you've let me read you a story, you're always on your computer". This emphaised that it is typical of young people to spend alot of their spare time using techonogly. The way in which the mother said this, represented the way a stereotypical white mum in South London would speak. Being less well spoken as someone maybe living in Central London with alot more money, suggests that mums living in this area are less educated and working class.

Evaluation for coursework: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

As a group, me, Jay and Joy looked at existing media products and focused on the conventions of different genres. We were inspired by fantasy, comedy and street life genres, however we decided to challenge them by combining all three.

We found that all the film openings started off with introducing the main characters and setting. For example, Save the last dance started with "Sarah", the main chracter, on a train journey, during this there were flash backs from her past so that the audience understood why she was leaving home and moving to New York. Similar to this, in Shrek, there is a narrative voice over telling a story so that the audience understood why the princess was locked in a tower and put under a spell.

So we noted the typical mise en scene, typical characters and typical soundtracks etc of each genre and decided to use one convention from each. For example; we used the typical characters from a street life genre such as teenage black boys, similar to Kidulthood and the typical soundtracks from a fantasy genre such as Shrek.

We watched a variety fo film openings from each genre as we wanted to ensure that the conventions we were going to use, were stereotypical, therefore the audience would immediately understand the ideas behind it and be a ble to identify the different sub-genres within. Street life film openings we watched were Kidulthood, Adulthood and Save the last dance. As the cast in our product were going to be English, we chose to stick to the chracteristics of the characters used in Kidulthood and Adulthood as putting on an American accent may of created humour where it weren't intended. Plus, our film had a moral to it therfore we wanted it to be taken seriously, too much humour would have made this less effective.

Fantasy film openings we watched were Shrek, Enchanted and A Cinerella story. From these we decided to use the typical narrative, such as "girl likes boy" from A Cinderella story and the opening of the book used in Shrek to begin the main storyline.

Once we thought of our storyline, we watched the beginning of The Wizard of Oz as I thought the idea of black and white converting to colour would be a success at emphasisng the fact time had changed. We aslo used this convention to challenge and develop the genre of our product as usually, when there is a flash back to the past, it would more likely be the past that is in black and white and the present in colour, however we done this the other way round. This also had the effect of making our film product obviously modern as films these days, set in this time or in the future, are made to be a bit more "wild and whacky", shown through use of mise en scene and soundtrack, this is used in the modern version of Romeo and Juliet, a crazy atmosphere is shown through the use of these conventions. However in our product, we created this effect with film filters.