This document summarizes a student's media production project on creating a drama film. It discusses choosing the drama genre after researching comedy and drama. It then covers the key conventions used in the drama film including opening credits, mise-en-scene, camera work, editing, sound, fonts. It also addresses representing social groups through the characters, targeting distribution to companies like Universal, conducting research on the target audience of 15-25 year olds who enjoy drama films, learning technologies like camera shots and editing software, and improvements made from the preliminary task to the final product.
2. Question1:
In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
• For the starting of the coursework, I was working by
myself and I didn’t know what to choose so i started
working with Jordan. But first I was looking at two
genres to do (comedy&Drama), this is because I
enjoyed watching comedy movies, but I was interested
in drama, but I made sure I did my research on each
one. If you look at my blog, you will see all the research
I did on comedy. I found out a lot of things on drama
films, so I decided to choose it for my coursework.
Then after that me and my partner started working on
what our movie is going to be about.
3. Drama as a genre
Why you went for this genre
We went for this genre because is very realistic and characters
are also there's a lot of emotional shots. Also because they are a
lot of different sub genre's too such as romantic drama, sport
films, period drama, courtroom drama and crime, just like we
choose to study ‘kidulthood’.
What conventions you needed to use
I think that our film is a good example of our genre because it
matches with some films like precious, this is because its an
emotional film just like our film. We made sure that our script
was just like one of the drama films.
4.
5. This movie inspirited us to make a DRAMA film because the main
character went through a lot just like our character from ‘Time
To Go’. Their mums are similar especially they drink a lot and
smokes and really don’t care about their kids.
6. What are the forms and conventions of the genre that
you working on?
Time To Go Genre: Drama
Opening credits
For our opening credits we done a lot of research. We researched
on different drama films such as kidult, and we looked at how
long it took for the film to actually start and we timed the credits
too.
Mise-en-scene
Scenes with Melinda and Liana, with the props she had with her,
like the costumes, that can the coat that she was wearing can tell
you about her personality. She also had a bad with her, showing
that she's running away from her house. The mother in the film
was holding a bottle of vodka because she's an alcoholic.
Camera Work
We used close ups to see the character’s face and especially
when Melinda went to her friends house. Establishing shot was
used at the ending of our film when Melinda was walking off.
Loose frame was used in the scene with Melinda and her mother,
when they had an argument.
Editing
We used Action match when we was editing, we used it because
it allows the audience to see a smooth action despite a cut in a
shot. Cross-cutting was used a lot in our film, this was because
we wanted the audience to see what was really happening.
Credits was added in a style that would fit with drama theme.
Soundtrack was added to fit with scene.
Sound
Soundtrack was added to build and create tension during the
shots.
Font
The title we used were in a simple font with white writing which
may suggest happiness, because Melinda is going to live a better
life with her dad.
7. Opening credits
This is an opening credits, that I was talking about on the slide before this
one.
10. Question2:
How does your media product represent particular
social groups?
Melinda
16
Female
Students
Working class
She represents the main character that’s in all of the scenes. She's a working class and lives in an estate flat
with her mum, which might be a stereotype for black people. In the first scene she's wearing an uniform and
the colour of it is purple, it represents a mystery from research I made and also Melinda acts like she’s hiding
something from her mum which affects their relationship. The stereotype of teenagers as being aggressive,
moody, lazy criminals and hate school, and it connects with how Melinda acts because she's very rude to her
mum, even though she thinks that she's not being rude, she really is, especially when she was rolling her eyes
at her mum. The type of audience that we like Melinda's character is people that’s the same age as her. This
might be because 16 year olds feel like they are always ‘right’. We was trying to create a character that wasn’t
around and even though there's a lot of teenagers who have a story. The technical skills that we used was mise-
en-scene especially with the costume and props that was around them.
11. Second Character
Liana
16
Female
Students
Working class
She represents the main characters best friend. She's working class too but she lives in a flat and has a better
life at home then Melinda and Melinda always goes to liana for food and shelter when her mum kicks her out
of the house, liana is the type of teenager who might change the stereotype of teenagers because she cares for
her friends and she's a nice girl. Young black people are none for being exotic, strange, tribal, criminal and poor.
12. Third Character
Mum
36
Female
Single-mother
In the film she is a working class mother who is on benefit and who lives in a deprived area in hackney.
So she is always drunk and miserable which effects her daughter’s life. This is a negative representation
because its stereotyping that working class mothers are always drunk. She's a stereotype of 20-30 year
olds because she's always drunk and never awake. But there's a story behind why she's like that, is
because her husband left her and Melinda at the age of 10 and she blames her self for it.
13. Question3:
What kind of institution might distribute your media
product & why?
We done are research on Universal and Columbia. This is because the films
that is been made are really intrusting, especially ‘Grown Ups’, that’s the
movie I researched on, this is because we enjoy watching funny films, but
then we decided to do drama because is more eye opening.
We also done research on how the opening of productions have changed into
something different, the link at the bottom shows the video of what I am
talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E98iTbFqRuM
I did some research on Columbia because they produce a lot of movies such
as Skyfall and Hope Springs.
http://youtu.be/b5XAVws0UsE
15. In our film we made our own logo because its
being more creative with our film and also to get
a better grade from my teacher. We went on
http://www.flixpress.com/ to make a logo.
16. Question4:
Who would be the audience for your
media product?
On our blog we
wrote about
what age group
would be able
to watch our
film.
12a will be able
to watch this
film because
they will
understand the
story.
This website helped us to figure out what we want for our film.
17. Describe your target audience?
We decided to aim our target audience at a mixed gender aged
between 15-25; its for people who enjoy watching drama films.
Link to your genre?
Are target genre is DRAMA. By watching and researching drama films
we were able to use similar techniques (Shot reverse shot) and camera
shots (point of view, establishing shots, close ups) in our film to create
a more successful film.
Evidence for this?
We carried out a questionnaire to find out specifically what our target
audience wanted. We also showed a few people a selection of drama
films and asked them what their favourite was.
18. Psychographic Overview
• Girl
• Goes to Bridge Academy
• Spends most of her time
on social network
• Lives near her dads
Demographic Overview
• Student
• Age 15-18
• Bursary £500 per year
Two views of the same user.
19. Question 5: how did you
attract/address your audience?
What research did you do to find what your target audience wanted?
We did a questionnaire asking them their age, gender and favourite drama
films and also what sub-genre they prefer to watch.
What decisions and revision did you make about form and content based on
these findings?
We watched other dramas such as kidulthood and Adulthood, in these films
the opening credits helps us to make our credits. Our questionnaire allowed
us to know what drama our target audience likes and we knew what are film
should be based on.
Were you successful in attracting your audience?
After finishing our film we showed it to a selection of our target audience and got
them to talk about it and we also filmed them talking about what they thought about
our film. We got a lot of feedback from our target audience and from the feedback we
know what to do for our final finishing of the film. However, they thought that some
shots needed some work.
21. Question 6: what have you learnt
about technologies from process of
constructing this product?
Using the camera Using the editing software
We learnt all the camera shots (close up, wide shots,
point of view shots etc.)
We learnt some of the shortcuts to allow us to speed up
the editing process.
Camera techniques How to add and cut sound clips to get them in time with
the rest of the movie.
Camera Angles How to overly texts and titles onto the movie to give
information like credits.
Using the tripod to steady the camera; keeping the
camera straight on uneven ground and for panning.
How to cut and trim the clips with the correct timings,
so that it runs smoothly.
Shooting lots of versions of the scene to help the
continuity in the post production.
Using transition effects to soften a switch from one
location to another so it does not look so subtle.
23. Question 7:
looking back at your prelim task, what have
you learnt in the progression from that to
the final product?
24. Preliminary task
• Looking back at our first preliminary we have improved a lot.
• We used our ipad to film.
• Different camera angles and shots.
• We learned how to use pre and post production skills like; storyboarding
our ideas and creating scripts for our characters.
• We also needed to learn technical skills and how to use certain
equipment.
• Using the tripod for the first time.
Evaluation
• It was really difficult for us to do, because we didn’t know what was what
in the film.
26. Main task
• Most of our skills have improved from when we started.
• We studied more on camera shots and what affects they might give to the
audience.
• We also learned about mise-en-scene.
Evaluation
• I think that we successfully improved on the areas that we needed help
on.
• We made sure that are scenes were on time with everything.
• We also used music in the background which is what we was missing in
our preliminary.
• In the future we used a wider range of camera skills.
• We also would try and learn how to get more interesting effects to make it
more exciting for the viewer.
27. If we could do it all again, what would
you do differently?
If we was going to do this all over again we would do things early because its
important to get things done on time so that you don’t have to be behind in
some things like complete our evaluation and coursework.