Final production- Who Am I?

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Throughout my planning I used media technologies. This is because I had to use toolbars such as Google to work out how conventional films created their Film Treatments and Story Boards. When looking at how to construct a conventional pre-production task I was able to use other media technologies. When using Google to search for storyboards, and once I found out how they were set out, I used my camera to film my story board to show evidence that I had completed it. I also used Microsoft word to create my shooting script, and when I had finished creating this I uploaded it on to my blog through Microsoft word.

I also used Flip Cams to gather audience research of my selected genre of film and my original story line, the flip cams gave me an idea of what it is like to film in that kind of pressurising environment. This allowed me to grasp the techniques of how to film under a scripted and planned atmosphere.  Also I had not used flip cams before, therefore the new media technologies contributed to my final production. There were many advantages when using the Flip Cams, for example the fact that they are a good quality and still very easy to upload on to the Mac computers with the built in USB's.


In my research stages, the uses of media technologies were vital. This is because I used YouTube and Google as a means of inspiration when researching into the Niche market. I realised that I had to look at other films to establish my genre and style, therefore without YouTube in particular I would not have been able to have done this.













In particular, I created a YouTube account as a means to upload videos that I had filmed, such as the storyboard and the audience feedback. This allowed me to get views and also allowed to upload the links straight to my blog, which made adding videos to my blog more accessible.













The use of Blogger was an easy and accessible way of uploading all stages of my work, this form of new media technology differs from just writing my stages up on to a PowerPoint. Therefore when updating my blog I was able to upload video footage and photographs straight from the internet. Throughout my research, I used my blog often which enabled me to attach a form of video that I wished to analyse and then write particular things about it.













In the construction of my production I was able to use new technologies that I had not come across before. These technologies were Final Cut Pro, After Effects and Mac computers. The use of Final Cut Pro in the construction of my text was the backbone to my production. This is because I was able to construct the basic editing skills. During the editing it was challenging to use new technologies because it was a complicated process in using a program that I had not approached before. But to resolve these issues I used another new technology; YouTube. To overcome my problems I used this to watch tutorials of Final Cut Pro and also After Effects, these tutorials helped me to grasp the basics of the softwares. The Mac computers were definately a insight into new technologies. This is because they were fast working and enabled computers that could work with the programs which is unlike a normal computer as it would often crash (as experienced in AS when using Adobe InDesign on a normal computer).


There were many advantages to using Final Cut Pro, once I had grasped the concept of editing, for example it allows you to work with several different channels of audio and sounds and it also allows you to mix these together. I used this in the construction of my film, although I did have limited dialogue, when I did use it I always had music in the background. Final Cut Pro allowed me to turn down the music whilst turning up the dialogue.  

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When me and my partner initially uploaded our production onto YouTube we received a comment from a viewer called 'shortfilmcritic1'. This viewer kindly left audience feedback and advice, it seemed that they were experienced in their views and they suggested that me and my partner "add the 'Who Am I?' dialogue and video (where the laptop is split with different people) to the end of our film". We learned from this feedback and we catered to the viewers needs by adding the suggested clip to the end of our film, and we realised that this was a successful idea as it worked well with the story line.

I also used YouTube as a media platform in the construction of my production by researching into mediated views of youth, I added these depictions through BBC news reports and I incorporated these videos to support and compliment the ideas that we was trying to express. Initially, me and my partner were not going to use BBC news reports, but we made changes to our initial ideas because we realised that the ideas that we were trying to portray were not clear. We knew this through our audience feedback, therefore we developed our ideas further and used audience feedback to make sure that the developments that we made catered for our targeted audience. 

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? on Prezi

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

My production follows usual codes and conventions when introducing the film; this is because we use a title sequence which is used in most films. We decided to make a title sequence to introduce our film because it went with the style that we wanted to adopt. At the beginning of our film we use a typewriting effect in the title and title sequence, therefore following a conventional opening complimented the suspense we were trying to depict.

I was strongly influenced by stop motion and movement photography. This form of genre was implemented in my work throughout all of the stages of production. We used postmodernism as a platform when constructing the mediated views of youth in our production. The fact that we used postmodernism as a platform depicts the style that we wanted to reflect. We used postmodernism because it was unique and it was a way of making our mark on our work, to show that it was created by youth and not by adults. In particular, movement photography was a style that me and my partner adopted. This unconventional style of production made the construction of my work challenging since it was a style that no one else had done in our class. The process of taking over 6,000 pictures to accommodate our five minute film, depicts how challenging and unconventional our film is. We used this stepping stone as an advantage because we were able to experiment with styles, for example creating a shaky camera effect to add to the postmodernism, this is a style that a normally constructed production could not use.

My product develops these codes and conventions by using other short films that I came across and using intertexuality in my film and I developed on these. The animation style that I wanted to adopt seemed daunting, therefore coming across similar products that have worked in a high standard allowed me to realise that my production could work. Also there was a particular short film, made by a university student, which extremely influenced mine and my partner’s ideas. This is because this film used the Post-Modern genre that I have used in my production, it also used pictures to create movement. But I developed on their ideas, this is because it seemed that the way they constructed and gathered  their photographs up (to create movement) was slow, therefore me and my partner took note of this when creating our film.

On the other hand, my production conflicts with usual codes and conventions as we have limited dialogue in our film. This is unconventional in the film industry because the basis of the story line is depicted through what the characters say, but my production was intentionally trying to depict the story line through facial expressions, the mood of the music, and actions. This was unlike most productions on YouTube and BBC film networks, but the lack of dialogue complimented our abstract effect. Another unconventional attribute of our product was the fact I decided to shoot all of our film with pictures and put them together to create movement in itself is very different to other products that I saw in my research. Although there were a limited amount of short films on YouTube that used the animation style that I had, there were some that followed a conventional story line with a equilibrium and disequilibrium. Whereas with my film purposefully does not follow this conventional manner, this is because there are not many films in the industry that are created by the Youth, and because my film is about the struggle of identity for the collective Youth, we wanted to put our mark on it by making it unconventional and less likely to look as if it was created by a commercial company of adults.

I also believe that my production challenges usual codes and conventions, I came to this conclusion by comparing my production to the narrative theory. For example Todorov's view on there being a conventional structure to a story line. But I believe my production conflicts with this idea because there is a disequilibrium in my film that is not resolved, me and my partner purposely chose not to solve our problem that was featured in our film because we wanted to reflect verisimilitude.

Production of magazine review:

I have currently researched into Niche film magazines, this because I have established that my independent film would not be distributed commercially. Therefore my research went in to independent Niche magazines like the ones below. I have analysed these in order to help me with the production of my own magazine.



This magazine is called 'Littlewhitelies'. This magazine really attracted me because it is abstract and postmodern. This suits the genre of my film perfectly. This is because this magazine abstractly represents Niche films. I also liked the way the front cover is simplistic but it still portrays a bold representation. I believe this certain magazine would portray my short film well.
'LittleWhiteLies' profile:
Cost: £4.00
"LWlies is a bi-monthly, independent movie magazine that features cutting edge writing, illustration and photography to get under the skin of cinema"
I have also researched into the main task which is the film review spread. This magazine successfully distributes reviews of certain films. I will begin to create my magazine in Adobe InDesign which is a software that I am familiar with due to my AS coursework.

Production

The process of filming and editing has been challenging but rewarding. This is because the stop motion idea is difficult when the editing began. Me and my partner have filmed a minutes worth of footage to go towards our final product. We used a high standard camera and we currently using Final Cut on a Mac computer to edit the first minute. This has been a challenging process because we have had to cut the pictures down manually, remembering that we have used around 100 pictures for the minutes worth of footage. We then edited and added effects to our begining footage. This allowed me and my partner to become aware of all of the particular techniques and shortcuts that you can use in Final Cut.

The most challenging thing once we started editing was zooming into the laptop and showing footage. This is because we had to crop the middle of the laptop out and place a new clip in the midlle and use the editing tools to zoom in and out. This was difficult and a time consuming task, but after we got the hang of using Final Cut it became a rewarding task because our production was finally coming together the way that we wished.

Me and my partner thought at this time period, it would be useful to receive audience feedback. The video below shows the current audience feedback and changes we thought would be vital to make:

Articles and Theorists

I researched into articles, below are some examples of the kind of portrayals I want to cover in my film.

This helps me to establish what kind of generilisation that the media depicts the youth to oblige to. After establishing these portrayals it allows me to add the emotion and the act to my production. This is because the production is strongly influenced by the way youth is presented in the media.

In further detail I read the book Media and Crime in my spare time, I particuarly looked at the Moral Panic Model and the becoming of teenagers in the 1950s. This relates to my exam work as it investigates into the youth, and it also strongly compliments my media coursework. The Moral Panic Model relates to my production because it suggests that young people are the catalyst to change and fear, which has been presented in the media since the becoming of teenagers. Therefore in my production it will show that the stereotypical portrayal of the youth.

Final poster

Ransom font: The meaning :"Ransom note typefaces are characterized by their unique and eccentric designs, as each letter is different than the next. This is true of real life ransom notes, which attempt to mislead the reader and prevent them from recognizing someone's handwriting." The reason why we chose to use the font is because it does not show personality as through handwriting, it emphasises on the identity crisis, it is also a stylish and postmodern effect.

Production organization

Me and my partner have decided to make a production plan so that we feel confident when filming, and also that we can keep on track with what we have and have not done.

Day	What to do
1	Begin to start filming the start of my film. This consists of the first scene and the first character
2	Carry on filming the first scene
3	Look over the shots and do any more shots just in case some are not up to standard
4	Begin to edit the first scene
5	Add CGI to our editing
6	Begin to compose the second scene
7	Carry on filming the second scene
8	Look over the shots and do any more shots just in case some are not up to standard
9	Begin to edit the second scene
10	Carry on editing the second scene
11	Begin to compose the third scene
12	Carry on composing the third scene
13	Begin to edit the third scene
14	Carry on editing the third scene
15	Look over all of the composition adding all of the improvements
16	Carry on doing overall editing
17	Start to finish the poster that we have started
18	Start planning the radio advert
19	Carry on planning the radio advert
20	Start to begin producing the radio advert
21	Carry on producing radio advert

Shooting script

Shots	Shot description	Audio or dialogue?
1	CU- Close up of first character role	Continual song throughout (no dialogue)
2	CU-Close up of second character role	"
3	CU-Close up of third character role	"
4	MS-Mid shot of first character role	"
5	MS-Mid shot of second character role	"
6	MS-Mid shot of third character role	"
7	LA-Low Angle of first character role	"
8	LA-Low Angle of second character role	"
9	LA-Low Angle of first character role	"
10	ECU-Extreme Close Up of first characters facial expression	"
11	CU-Close up of the laptop that the 'hoody' is holding	"
12	CU-Close up of the screen flashing significant statistics and information about youth crime	"
13	LS-Long shot of the character standing without the laptop	"
14	OVS-Over the shoulder shot of the character then doing graffiti behind them	"
15	MS-Mid shot of the character turning to establish the second character role standing with the laptop	"
16	CU- close up of the character applying makeup	"
17	MS- Mid shot of the laptop flashing in and out of the characters hands.	"
18	LS- Low angle shot of the character feeling smaller	"
19	MS- Mid shot of the character with a magazine in their hands (in front of face)	"
20	MS- Mid shot of the final character holding a Math book in their hands in front of their face	"
21	MS- Mid shot of the book being removed from face	"
23	LS- Long shot of the character working out sums and looking concentrated	"
24	HA- High angle shot of the character touching face	"

Institutions and audiences

Me and my partner thought it would be a good idea to consider, if we were to distribute our film, what kind of institution that we would approach. Because our production takes a artistic approach we researched into the independent art house institutes. This Niche seems to favour art and unique types of films, which is what we consider our product to fit into within the market. We believe our product fits very well into the a independent route because it does not follow a conventional commercial film that is normally distributed in cinemas. We wanted to target the audience of youth, this is important when producing our film. As we must engage and interest the Niche audience.

Copyright

Actor/Character profile

Me and my partner chose to write a character profile because it allows us to identify what actor we would need. It also allows us to explain the roles that they need to persue, this task was quite challenging because we understood as film makers that actors should fit the profile of their character. We have conventionally chose one character who can diversly change into different characters and still feel the message that they are trying to portray, we also thought that we ought to pick someone who is reliable and easy to work with.

'25 word pitch'

In order to ensure that my production work is simple easy enough to produce I have summarized my production in 25 words:

"Who Am I? Is a post-modern film which touches on versimilitude of youth pressure, through the somewhat negative portrayal of teenagers in media" Kerry King (29 words)

Costumes

I have researched into conventional clothing within the character roles we are using. This is valuable because in order to create a character which fits the stereotype, we know that it is important to use the right propps.

Character 1 (Hoody): This character needs to reflect the dominant stereotype within the youth. These types of people would conventionally wear a hooded jumper. And also wear trainers and baggy jeans. This is how we are going to dress the first character to emphasise the stereotype.

Character 2 (Fashion): This character will reflect the dominant problem that, predominantly teenage girls face. The problem that they have to fit to the changing fashion. And the pressure from models, size zero. Therefore this character will wear fashionable clothing, and makeup.

Character 3 (Exam pressure) This character will be dressed formaly and wear reading glasses to stress the importance of intelligence.

Storyboard

Location shots and lighting

This is me and my partners location, we chose this room with the backdrop because it was highly suitable. Because our production only involves one location it allows us to have the appropriate lighting and space to add our own backdrops.

First draft of Poster and screen shots

This is me and my partners first draft to our poster. The reason we followed a abstract route is because it stresses on the postmodern struggle of identity. We chose to combine three different characters because it compliments our production title called "Who am I?". To create this poster we took three individual photos, the first being the photo featured in the last blog post, I then used photoshop to cut out the laptop screen. We then took two different shots, and combined them together on photoshop. This was a long and challenging process, this is because I had to make sure that both of the characters facial features were aligned together. I then seperated each part of the face with the magic brush. And finally I put the two combined face in the space of the laptop screen to create this abstract poster. We believe that it will target our Niche market because young adults/ teenagers are interested in postmodern and stylish products.


The reason why we have featured three different people in our poster (even though we only feature one person in our film) is because we wanted to represent a collective group of people. Although our film only shows the struggle of one characters identity, we are still portraying the greater struggle for identity in youth generally. Therefore by incoporating three characters emphasises the collective scale of struggle, whilst in the film it portrays the person scale of struggle.

Target audience

After considering different short films, me and my partner believe that our product would suit the present market in terms of targeting a Niche young adult audience. This is because we believe that older teenagers who study their A Levels are interested in abstract/ postmodern conventions. This is because they have built the interests of style over substance, this is shown in our survey that me and my partner produced. This survey depicted that young adults would suit our production best. The results are below:







The results on the left convey that the target audience of 7-11 year olds would prefer a comedy, this suggests that myself and my partner will not be targeting the age group of 7-11 year olds. This is because they are interesting in a genre of film that me and my partner are not suited to produce.












This graph depicts that the age group of 12-15 year olds are also not suited to be the Niche market of our production. This is because the results convey that they are more interested in the genre of comedy and fiction, which are routes that me and my partner would not like to take.






















This graph suggests that the target age of 16-18 years old is a age group that we will target. This is because they would most likely to watch a production that features a Non-fiction and postmodern convention. This confirms that our target audience is young adults. We wanted to conform to a postmodern and non-fiction genre because we believe that the style and the approach will suit our production skills best. This is because we have a low budget and also limited access to the technology. Therefore we have taken these factors into consideration, so we will be following the postmodern genre in order to make our film stylish but effective.

Target audience profile:

Poster pictures

Today me and my partner experimented with taking pictures for our poster. We wanted to use the intertexuality from the first picture below, this is because it portrays the idea that we wish to persue. We used a still camera and took many photographs and picked the ones we believed were at the best quality. We took a plan photograph with a female, she is standing with a laptop covering the view of her face. We then took another picture with her in the same position but without the laptop. We then cut out the laptop screen using the pentool in Adobe Photoshop.

We plan to put the picture behind the one with the lap and add other parts of other peoples face to create a collage and abstract effect. We will being doing this task next. Below is what we have done far.

Pre production research: Poster

This poster interested me, it touches on style over substance which is postmodernism. I like this poster and I would like to create something similar. This is because my film will star a range of different characters to emphasise the diversity of youth culture and gangs. This poster is really interesting because it does not feature much writing and there is not much bright colours, I will take this into consideration when producing my poster, this is because my film is on a serious event, therefore bland colours will be most suited.

This poster also touches on the postmodern genre, this conveys a abstract poster. The fact that the whole style dominates over substance suggests that this will be similar to my poster. The font is unique and the pictures are broken up and disfigured which makes the whole film more abstract and catching to the eye. The fact that the whole poster is black and white suggests that it touchs on the neo noire genre and the lack of colour is similar to the last poster.

Marxism Cybernetic Capitalism and feministic mystique & male gaze

In this lesson we touched on the Marxist theory, this suggests that the way the media presents society is almost like a needle. The hypodermic needle theory which implies that mass media has a direct, immediate and powerful effect on their audiences, suggesting that we are a passive audience. This ideology which derives from the 1920’s can be depicted in my production. This is because a Marxist would argue that the media is reflecting a bad impact on our youth, he suggests that the media is brainwashing through computer games and making crimes such as knife crime increase.

The Cypernetic Capitalism
"How much faith should we place in technology's ability to improve our lives?"
Robin & Webster 1999
This principle suggets that the media is a means of controlling society, inparticular the internet. It suggests that the internet is degrading the our lives to what may be a cybernetic control. After researching into this theory it has allowed me to become more aware of the effects of media and also the use of growing technology such as internet in shaping society's knowledgeand impact on the youth culture.

During this lesson we also analyzed Freidan's principles of the feminine mystique and also the male gaze, this helps me to shape my production and also conform to usual film techniques. This creates a professional approach to my post production and also the way that I am going to shape my production to meet usual methods of presentation.

Practise run

In my spare time I have put a piece of movement photography together, although it has not met the standards that I wanted it has helped me realise what to do and what not to when producing my piece of work.

I used a still camerca and took 51 photographs and the outcome was a 24 second clip, this helped me realise how much storage and effort that I must have to create a 5 minute film. I realised that continuity is very important, although this is not reflected in the practise clip I produced, although the problems I encountered can be dettered whilst producing my final piece.

I encountered problems doing the practise clip because I did not have a tripod which made it hard for me to keep the photo's smooth, this will help me in my final piece because I will know to have a tripod handy.

I have attached my practice piece of work below:

Results of survery and influence of other genres

After publishing the survey on my blog (at the top of the page), the results have reflected that people would rather a neo noir/ postmodern/ mystery, which is what me and my group will carry out. It is also important to note that we are targeting a young adult audience as they will connect to the versimilitude reflected in the production.

We also want to use influences like music videos, this is because the style of their production is similar to some of the style I want to use. We wanted to also pick up some of the techniques from pop videos, this is because we want to flash between characters and use the swift editing techniques that incorporated in pop videos, videos like this:

The film treatment

'Who am I?'

An original screenplay by:

Kerry King and Ashleigh Inniss-During

21-09-10

Production company name: A2 media students presents a genre of: Non-Fiction/ Reality

Premise: Featuring one character (this character will change into different propps and clothing to present the different role in society) who will be standing in one location with a blank mise en scene, they will be shot in stop motion/ movement photography. This production is based on style, therefore following a postmodern convention. The purpose of this film is to show the way modern teenagers are portrayed in the media and how they struggle to discover their identitys. It will show one character (changing into different outfits- portraying different personalities) who are holding a blank canvas. The canvas will show information and hints on youth culture and stereotypes. Also statistics and newspaper articles of descriptions of teenagers. The purpose of this film is to question youth cultures struggle for identity, originality and portrayal.

Scene 1: INT The first 'character role' is filmed in a mid shot, the character will then flash to another and this will continue as a range of different teenage characters change in a fast motion. This will reflect abstractness , there faces will show different expressions of confusion. The different 'characters' will be wearing different propps and clothings, this is so that it portrays what type of place that they fit into in society or what genre they fit into when presented in the media. They will be holding papers and laptops with question marks to suggest their struggle for identity.

Scene 2: INT This scene will be used to identify the specific problems, showing particular stereotypes and problems. The screen will appear and flash on and off, showing clips of the first character role who will be very much involved in fashion. It will then zoom into the canvas and show a clip of catwalks and fashionable culture, and also article headings of the naivity of young girls in terms of weight It will be filmed in stop motion aswell to emphasise the cutting and edgey effect and atmosphere. This character struggles to fit in with the developing change in fashion and pressure from size 0.

Scene 3: INT The next scene touches on another stereotype, one if the characters will take 360 degree turn to emphasise the postmodernism, and the canavas will flash to a 'hoody', this is to show what dominant stereotype is of youth culture. This is predominant portrayal in the media therefore it will zoom into clips off of the BBC reporting youth crime. They will be holding a laptop in the area of their faces and their faces will be shown through the laptop screen to increase the abstractness.

Scene 4: INT The third character role will be representing those who are pressured by the increasing exam pressure and university figures rising. This role is oppresed and is portrayed with statistics about university availibity and A Level results. It shows struggle through the fact that the media suggests that the youth are increasingly under pressure through exams and uni fees rising.

Research into other films

The above video demonstrates my research into film noir, it is the presentation I created on the Noir film : Kissing me deadly 1955. The research influenced my production, this is because I not only researched into Kissing me deadly, as a class we watched the film Physco. This was extremely helpful in my pre production because I analysed the way they created meaning. Through the sound, mise en scene, camera work and representation of characters. I noticed that the film conventionally followed the Propp theory, this is the view that all of the characters have a stereotypical role e.g. the princess who is in need of a saviour. I also noticed that it is usual for Noir films to have a Femme Fatal which is depicted in the film Mildred Pierce. This helped my production because I gained a general knowledge of how to create meaning, in the case of film Noire: a meaning/feeling of suspense, and my case: meaning through surrealism and Non-fiction.

I also researched into the particular type of film style that I want to use, movement photograpgy. There were a couple of videos that portrayed the type of style that me and my partner want to follow. This is shown in the below film :

I want to use stop motion in our film because I wanted to use a sense of postmodernism, this is because the style will reflect the abstract and meaning presented in my film. To understand the concepts of postmodernism I researched into different types of art including buildings, visual art, still art and poems. This helped me to get my head around the conventions of postmodernism, so that when it comes to my production I can create a realistic portrayal of a postmodern text.

I analysed this still art, this is because it is profoundly revolved around postmodernism. The concept of style over substance. This picture is abstract and the use of colour and use of different information makes this postmodern text interesting.


The way that the abstract aspects are combined together suggest that it does convey a general meaning. This helps me with my production because it depicts that my work does not have to have a clear storyline as post modern texts usually follow a abstract convention.

Response to brief and mood board

10. A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

• a poster for the film
• a radio trailer for the film
• a film magazine review page featuring the film

The above brief is the choice that we chose, and we also chose to do the two first bullet points alongside the five minute film. This is because the poster and magazine is a form of media that, me personally, have not created before, and it would be an experience worth trying. Last year I created a magazine therefore I chose to pick up this option again because I am experienced in it.

We have made rough initial ideas, to contribute to our film, but none are confirmed. We are currently undergoing research into five minute films and the influence of the research will able us to produce many preliminary ideas.

Introduction to film making

During this introductory lesson we established the criteria that each of us had to achieve once our final product would be finished. In this lesson we read through the options that we could possibly take in our A2 coursework. The intial main ideas were between a 5 minute short film or a documentary, in order for me to make that decision I paired with another member of my Media class, Ashleigh. We decided to take the creative route and choose option number 10, which is to create a short 5 minute film. We chose this option because it allowed us to create any type of media product in any style that we wished.

Me and my partner wish to follow a surrealism approach, we want to do this because its visual artistic substance. We liked to follow the element of suprise and we want to follow a unique approach. Our main aim is to present the way teenagers are portrayed in the media, and sometimes their 'bad representations' we also wanted to portray how modern teenagers find it hard to express or discover their identity's.