First attempt at the evaluation

Brief description

Our task to complete was to research and produce a title sequence based on a specific genre in which includes typical and none typical codes and conventions for a new film. The genre we challenged ourselves with was ‘superheroes’; we decided on this genre as it was unique and no one else had come across this type of genre within the class. Our title sequence consisted of the characters, played by my group and I, getting ready in the mornings while in separate houses and then meeting up to show us as we join together to form a new superhero group, despite starting out as individuals. Throughout our title sequence we decided it was best to hide our identities as we did not want to reveal too much until the very end. Within our title sequence the characters; Bubble girl, Air girl, Giggle girl and Fire girl all had done certain routines that fitted their characters. For example, we had Fire girl whose name appeared in burnt toast, this gave the effect that the characters powers were of course Fire. We had Giggle girl laughing into a mirror because she smudged her eyeliner and then her name was written onto the same mirror. Also Air girls name appeared within the bathroom steam from the bath, we felt this was suitable to her name as her name was displayed into the steam. Lastly we had Bubble girl blowing a bubble before leaving the house and her name appeared and then bounced off the screen to match her name. We chose to name our title sequence ‘ The Fantastagirls ‘ because it seemed more aimed to the audience of girls of a younger age, and this is what we wanted to achieve.

 

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

Our media product challenged the ‘superhero’ stereotype by changing it to a female role instead of the typical male hero. We felt that by doing this we could knock the typical stereotype, despite this being for young girls. Due to research and planning before hand, we all decided that our superheroes needed more of a superhero look; therefore we designed our own t-shirts that had our character names designed in unique writing. During our final shot of the ‘ Fantastagirls ‘ together we had a low angle shot to show the superheroes as superior to ordinary people. As we have seen in films such as Sky High and The Incredibles, we found that their front covers of DVD’s and film posters that they are also captured from a low angle. We wanted to keep our music upbeat, but also still aimed at girls, as this was our target audience, I felt like our music was in time with the cuts of our shots that we filmed of us getting ready. As superheroes are stereotypically always on the move and helping people out we have sped up our shots and this gives the audience a feel that the individuals are off to ‘save the day ‘.

Our scenes we decided to film in, consisted of our houses, bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens as that was what we was trying to give away, the fact that we all lived ordinary lives before going out an fighting crimes. We tried to keep the settings as natural as possible as our film was based on normal teenagers that found they had these powers and decided to join together to be more powerful. We decided to film in the Abbey ruins as they were quiet and obviously superheroes keep a low profile and hide their identities.

We have had a lot of problems along the way, regarding our filming and our plot. This was our second idea as we found our first did not meet the correct forms and conventions of our genre and that we didn’t challenge them as well as what we could have, regarding our abilities to do so. After a long discussion with the rest of the group and our teacher we came to the decision to base our title sequence around the ‘ Fantastagirls’ and we are now very pleased we did so, because now the clips and the finished product resemble that of real media products such as the films spoken about briefly before.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents the social groups of young girls, as this is our target audience. The social groups that watch our title sequence will pick up on the things our characters do, for instance, getting ready in the mornings, making their own breakfast and being able to do things for their selves. We would like our characters to be a type of role model towards our target audience. Since the characters used in our title sequence are known TV stars of their age groups. As a girl myself I always looked up to certain actors and girls of a similar age and I think from my own experience girls would look up to these type of females and maybe ‘ copy ‘ their actions that are portrayed within our sequence.

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

During other discussions we felt it was best for Walt Disney to distribute our product based on their films and TV shows that have been brought out in the past. Walt Disney produced films that we researched into such as ‘ Sky High’ and since that film has had viewings from young audiences we felt that would be best, not only that, the film is also based on young superheroes. We liked the idea of having our target audience wanting to watch our media product because of our characters as they like to watch their favourite TV stars in other Disney shows. This is why we felt that Walt Disney would be the best media institution to distribute our product.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 At first our audience for our media product would be young girls aged 10-18. We decided on this because anyone younger than 10 could become exposed to certain crimes, that they maybe too young to understand. We decided girls would be the best gender to aim our media product at, as we have females playing the roles of the characters. We wanted to break the stereotype of superheroes and I believe girls could put their own view across and for young girls they would be able to say that it isn’t just a male role for superheroes.  However after our feedback that was given said that our target audience age was too high, we then lowered our ages to meet the target audience of our other films that we researched into, such as ‘ Sky High’ and ‘ The Incredibles’. We also felt we could aim our media product towards families and a lot of children tend to like watching films, similar to ours, with their families. There was also Pester Power mentioned within discussions because we felt that during research that the children often pested their parents to buy certain clothes or toys with their favourite TV show on or the characters and by them doing this the parents then had a feel on what to then buy children. We felt that if we were to aim it also to families that the children would ‘pester’ their parents into buying them either the film or other items related to the media product.   

 

How did you attract/address your audience?

We addressed our audience through the title sequence as we felt they could almost put their selves in the superheroes shoes as we displayed the characters as normal people until the very end. The targeted audience could almost look up to these characters. The characters we used to play these roles were those of the ages of our target audience , for example the TV programs aired on Disney and Nickelodeon, had the same characters we decided to use to play our characters. We decided this because we felt that the target audience would want to watch our film ( if we was to film the whole thing) due to the characters shown within our title sequence.  Also we found that the target audience enjoyed other films such as The Avengers and The Incredibles, so we based similar thoughts on those types of films.

 

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the editing of our title sequence, that was edited on final cut pro, I found out a lot of things I didn’t know before, however, I did find it very frustrating at first regarding trying to remember how to put our own font into the title sequence, despite over coming this problem that I had I could probably do with looking more into it so I could make it clearer for myself. Also within final cut pro we found the clip of Giggle girl turning up the radio very difficult as we had to try and turn the backing track up in time with me turning the radio up, we decided it was best to play around with different settings and try to lower certain tones and increase others, while doing this and experimenting we managed to get this sorted. I learnt that to get the clips and music in time with each other I had to change the speed of either the music or the clips and although I had a lot of fun while doing this it was also very stressful trying to get it in time with each other, this was one of the things that our feedback included from our class, that some of our clips have been out of time, so we edited more of our clips into the title sequence and have now completed what we aimed to do and hopefully this is now up to the correct standard of our class feedback but also with our target audience in mind.

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

As an individual I feel I have learnt skills to do with photo shop that maybe I wasn’t strong enough on at GCSE and also final cut pro has been the main program used within our title sequence. I feel that I have learned new skills that I wasn’t fully aware that could be used. However, my group and I had to overcome a lot of difficulties regarding the time split between us, and the roles within the group, we found it difficult to find days where we all had the time and that did cause a few problems, despite that we did overcome them and managed to work around the problems caused. Also we have re shot footage at different locations countless of times. We decided half way through that we didn’t like our original plan and that we should come to a group decision to make changes, also this caused problems because we all wanted our ideas heard and some didn’t like what the others did. I feel my group and I have come a long way and I am extremely pleased that we have managed to put our difference aside to complete the media product. We listened to the feedback given and also took our time to evaluate and take on board what had been said. To me this has been a lesson that has been learnt and if I was to re do this media product again I would leave myself more time to complete things. I have also learnt from the process of my preliminary task that I should involve myself more and get my views listened too as some of the time the others agreed, despite being assigned roles I felt that I would have liked to have put more input to some of our other tasks and put my ideas out there. My role was the makeup and locations and I felt this was best for me because I like to design things and be able to find the right locations for certain clips. We all had some input to each other’s roles within the group and by the end I think we all decided just to go along and help each other out as we needed to complete this within a short amount of time.