Storybored for final piece...

as media londons burning

In which ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?’

The product we have created challenges forms and conventions in three ways:

Narrative and flow- The conventional film will usually fit into the ‘hero’s journey’ Monomyth theory. This theory suggests that there is a circular plan which fits into conventional films.  It suggests that all films start with a hero being called on an adventure and along the way he is given help or is shown the way by a mentor. This slowly moves on to a revelation by the hero, this could be a death or rebirth which affects the hero. He carries on with the journey and is transformed in some way which leads to an atonement. This is the end of the journey as the hero returns. This journey can be seen to fit in with the majority of films, but does not fit in with our film. The piece I have created does not follow the Monomyth theory, or conventional story lines. Studying this theory and how this might tie a in with a real life drama, we have found that there is no place for this in our film. The reason for this is because the ‘Hero’s journey’ does not happen in real life. Our film shows the desperate need for money and power, and with this there is no fairy tale ending.

Camera work- the camera angles we have chosen break the conventional rules. We have tried our best to come up with creative shots that show the same quality as any other film. With this we had to be careful not to lose connection with our audience. We wanted them to see everything that was happening in the film but see it in a different way. I believe strongly in this. Just a little change in a camera angle or a change in the way the camera moves, which breaks with conventional filming can separate your film from the thousands of others watched by the audience. I also believe it can strongly reflect on the environment that we were trying to get across. A high angled tracking shot on a plastic bag in the wind (for example) will connect in the audience mind and they will instantly know they are looking at an urban setting. We found it hard to keep to our beliefs and move away from conventional camera work, we dipped back into them at certain points, but I am happy with the work and feel that we have moved away from convention.

Location- Our location is unique in the sense that our film is based on events happening in London but for filming it’s not in London. This may seem like an odd point to make but I believe it is crucial for an underlining point about urban environments. This point is that all ubran places look the same, not only is this good for us because it allows us to film close by, but it also reflects on the life style people live in. The dull lives these people live can be shown all round England. Our film shows this due to the environment we film in. It says that this life style we show is not just happening in London but can be shown all around England. This is not a direct message, but more of an hidden statement. Our film is a call out to not living this life style, it shows the truth in a 1^st world country, and 1^st class poverty. 

 

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

The product we have created reflects a stereotypical image about youths today, which suggests they are, rude and commit crimes. Picking out the youths and saying they belong to this social group of ‘gangsters’ I believe is wrong. We need to back this up with why they are like this. Our product shows us why in today’s society we have created a generation of these youths and the answer to this question is poverty in the UK.  This is 1^st world poverty, and is happening all round us, it’s just hard to see because we have another stereotypical view about what poverty is. My example of first world poverty would be when a family have to make a choice between high quality food or heating in their house.  This sort of life style does not suit the average family now, as a nation we have become more greed. Who can blame us? The media spoon feeds us their idea of living, and this is a big house with cars and this TV and that radio. Being exposed to this media has harmed us and leads us to believe this is the way we should be living our lives. We as a nation are fighting to live this life style and what do we need for this to happen? Money. Youths are exposed to this media more than anyone, for they have been born into the age of smart phones and the internet, so naturally (like all of us) are in this fight to gain as much money as they can. How is this done? Crime, drugs and violence. The product we have created shows all of these different factors 1^st world poverty, media influence and modern day youths.  So to answer the question, yes we do show social groups, but we explain why they act like this. This is no revolution in film, real life dramas have been doing this for years, they have shown social groups but not why they are like this.

 

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

PictureHouse- Picturehouse cinemas offer a wide range of small budget, indie films which don’t reach box offices and do not get shown in big corporate cinemas (e.g Odeon). Picturehouse have small cinemas up and down the country, ranging from London to York.  With very little advertising they rely on loyal customers and the quality of the films they show. Picturehouse offer small roomed cinemas with little seating (fewer than ten seats). This provides the best sound for the audience and more comfort, due to the lack of people in the room. PictureHouse also offer memberships for all the loyal customers, so they can rely on them coming back. Their membership scheme ties in very strongly with an 16 to 25 student audience, with the ‘slackers’ membership card, which allows these students to go and see specific films for free. Picturehouse cinemas would be the perfect place to show our film because of these 3 things: 

Style –The films they show would fit in with our style of film, low budget, individual and does not follow main stream films.  They choose edgey and controversial films, this is the same with what our film offers. Our film reflects modern ideas on resent events which affect our nation.This is what Picturehouse want. 

Audience- The audience that Picturehouse cinemas target (16 to 30) is same the audience in which we have targeted with our films. If shown in Picturehouses across England, it would be watched by the people who understand good film and will understand some of the issues raised in the film. I do not believe we would get the same audience awareness if we were to show this in a mainstream corporate cinema.   

 Advertisement-   The slackers club scheme would fit in perfectly with our film as it would bring the attention to our film which we need but cant because lack of money fund the advertisement. This awareness would create the best advertisement in the world, this is word of mouth.  If our product was to fit into Picturehouse scheme, it could be a Slacker’s club free film which would mean more people coming to see it because it would be for no cost at all. This would also create TV advertiment because of Picturehouse slackers club has a strong link with the channel E4 which shows the trailer of slackers club free film of the mouth, which would be our film.

Microwave- Microwave is a small independent company which offers loans and supports low budget films. It offers advice on where to go for sales agents for distribution and another of other things.  Microwave films has supported films like ‘ill Manors’ which follows the same time era and style as our film.  Mircowave would be a perfect company to look at for our film to start up, this is due to the location. Mircrowave is based in London, this would make it easy for them to come and see us and for us to go and see them.  They could offer ideas in which parts of London would be suitable to film in. They also offer small loans which would help our film, as we have little equipment or props. I think the strongest thing they would offer is their advisement, they have contacts which would target our audience and make awareness of our film through this audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

Target audience-With our film we needed to target an audience which would be influenced by the film and understand it on the same level as us. But with careful consideration to the age certificate on our film, which would be 18 due to the violence in the film. I would age our target audience between 15 to 25 years old. Also I would say that the target audience would be a mostly working class, for this is the people we show in our film and this audience we want to touch with are film too. My secondary target audience would be between 13 to 30 years old and from working class to middle class. Giving a wider secondary audience for is film.

Target audience location and why-My film is based on the people in London and about this event affecting them, so this is where I will target my audience’s location. From people who have been involved in the riots to the people whose whole lives were affected in the riots. My film will act as a mirror to the youths in London who were involved in this riot, giving them the chance to see how and why they acted like this, I want this film to be lesson to these youths involved in the riot. For the peoples whose live were effect, I want this to be a reminder of what they went through at this time, all the emotions they felt, like fear, sadness and pain. I want to come back to them when watching this film. This may seem harsh, but I believe that when coming away from a film you should feel emotions, for films are there to spark emotions. More than this, the events that happened to these people still go on across the world, crime and pain is everywhere. This film is a wakeup call to our ‘western minds’ so we can consider the worldwide situation.

 How did you attract/address your audience?

The slackers club scheme would fit in perfectly with our film as it would bring the attention to our film which we need but cant because lack of money fund the advertisement. This awareness would create the best advertisement in the world, this is word of mouth.  If our product was to fit into Picturehouse scheme, it could be a Slacker’s club free film which would mean more people coming to see it because it would be for no cost at all. This would also create TV advertiment because of Picturehouse slackers club has a strong link with the channel E4 which shows the trailer of slackers club free film of the mouth, which would be our film

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Looking back on creating my piece I think there is a number of different things I could have concerning technology at the time. One of the main things was the quality of the technology we had. I believe this could of been improved greatly, as we had a problem when filming on set, this was the tripod. The tripod was broken in a certain place, meaning it would slant over if not held correctly. Looking back at our sequence, this is clear to see. But i believe a positive has come out of it! I slanted effect gives the films a slight change in camera work. This automatically separates it from most films in the same genre. The camera we used was perfect for film our piece, form it was small but with good quality. It needed to be small for we were going to a number of different places to film and it would have made these trips harder with a bigger and heavier camera to carry around. The small camera allows us to get into places to film which a bigger camera could not. This is shown in one do the last scenes when the boy is walking down the path. The camera is down very low between two railings, a bigger camera could not do this.

 

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

The step between preliminary to the final task is a big one, but I feel it is necessary to have. It allows the group of individuates to experience using a camera, props and location for the first time. For me and my group I think it helped understand the sense of time it takes to create a media product, even if it is just small like a preliminary. We found out that when filming for our task that our time scales were wrong, we believed that it would and could be filmed in 2 hours, when in reality (and found out) that really it took a whole today to film this short piece. There were a number of other problems we faced whiled creating this preliminary task, one of them was the weather. We had to keep the same looking weather for the film or it would look wrong, but we found this hard as we did not film it all in the same day. We found it difficult to find the right day for the weather in our already filmed bit of task. This was no one’s fault and is a common problem in the filming world.

Clothing

Clothing is important to any film being made, but to me I believe it plays another key part into understanding the characters we are looking at. This is a list of clothing to understand the character:

Dark high top shoes- This type of shoe is was used to show the audience what type of boy he is. Dark high shoes can be seen to be similar to those once used in the army. This connection has been placed by me to show the hardness and dangerous nature the boy portrays.

 

 

Large Dark hood- The hood allows him to cover his face and identity as he does not want people to see him for who he really is and what he has become, the hood helps him to do this and it also reflects his dark state of mind.

 

 

 

Red hat- only piece of bright clothing warn by the character, this does not show danger or love, but shows hope for the character. It shows that not all is lost with this child and that he can be saved from the life style he’s going into, a life of crime and violence.

 

Slow motion

Slow motion is used throughout the opening sequence. It gives the audience a sense of the time passing and what the character is feeling. On a simple level it allows the audience to take in what is happening in the opening titles and it allows them to have enough time to look at the titles and watch the sequence as well. I believe this factor alone gives it a very strong advantage, but this was not the only reason we used it, as it has a much deeper meaning to the film. Much like the director ‘Rian Johnson’ in the Breaking Bad drama we plan use colour to express the mood or feeling of the characters. Slow motion in our sequence is used to show how the character is feeling, this being, bored, dull and waiting. Not only does this reflect his emotion but shows how his life is. This young boy is bored of life, he is trapped in the dull loop and most of all he is waiting for something to happen. Among many other meanings to this film, this is one too, the youths as a whole are ‘over grown’ as it were, they expect more from life, which life does not offer. They look for excitement to bring new colour to their lives, this excitement comes from drugs, crime and a number of other negative things in the world. Just one little effect in our film (slow motion) has this whole other meaning and reflects why the youths of today behave as they do.

Reasons for no focus group

The reasons I would give for not having a focus group would be my confidence in the other two members of my group. I believe that the ideas we have come up with are strong enough to go without advice from other people. I also believe that the target audience could relate to our film and that I would not need their advice for this. The ideas we have come up with have been very similar to other real life dramas which had a wide target audience. To make sure that my group have a clear idea of what our target audience wanted from our film. I asked a few of my friends what they thought of the idea of the real life drama. The feedback was very positive and I felt this was enough advice from our target audience.

 

Narrative

 The narrative will be based around a young 16 to 18 year old boy who lives in London. Living with next to nothing, due to the family being on benefits, this has results in where he lives and the environment he has grown up in. Not knowing where or who to turn to, due to the stale lifestyle he lives, he mixes up with the wrong crowd. In the end this will be his downfall, and a young bright boy would mess up his life by introducing him to crime. This story line has been agreed between me and my other produces, As it is just an idea at the moment it might change when creating the piece.

Background story A young woman gets pregnant after a drunken night with a man. This sudden change in her life forces her to drop out of her course at university and pushes her to get a job as a cleaner. The small income that comes in from the cleaning job only allows her to rent a small apartment in South London. Once her son is born, she turns to drugs and alcohol because of the life she now lives and the life she could of had. 

As the boy grows up he has very little education due to his mum not paying for pre-school or nursery and skipping school with his friends. He watches his mum (on a daily basis) high or drunk. Little money comes into the family and the young boy turns to other means of getting money, crime.