11 Nov 2010
Preliminary task...
This is my final edited version of the footage Harvey and I shot for our preliminary task.
Evaluation of Preliminary Task...
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My piece was created to be an extract from a TV drama series. A convention of TV drama series are close ups to show characters' thoughts. In hindsight, we should have included a close up of the boss' face when he was thinking lustful thoughts about his new employee. This would have conveyed more easily to the audience that he was a very shifty character and should not be trusted. Also, adding this one shot in would have enhanced our story line to the viewers.
Some conventions of TV crime dramas are: having two opposing sides (good Vs bad), power is dominated by males, predictable plot lines (reused time and time again) and sometimes comedy elements to lighten the mood. So therefore I believe that my peice would have conformed to the 'typical plot line' of revenge, having the two opposing sets of characters and male dominace in terms of power. However if I were to produce this full-length programme, then I would have chosen to include a small amount of humour. For example a policeman may make a joke to another, however this would not be at the crime scene (or in a serious situation) because I felt this would be inappropriate and could raise issues of fair/true representation of police officers and how seriously they take their jobs.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I believe that in my piece, men are represented as more powerful than women because the boss, of the company feature in my piece, is male. The woman isn't represented as particularly weak; it's just in comparison to the male, she appears to have less power. In addition to this, in the final scene, the woman looks quite nervous and slightly intimidated by the boss. In comparison to this nervous and afraid woman; the man remains powerful and bold throughout. I believe that (in terms of class) the boss would be an A category and the woman would be a C1.This again gives the boss a higher status and more power over the woman.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I believe that the BBC may want to distribute my product. I think this because if you look at the history of the BBC's drama programmes they screen; mine would fit in with this 'typical' stereotype. My research into the BBC's history of TV drama's from http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/network/genres/drama.shtml shows that all the BBC channels show dramas and often become very successful shows - with high viewing figures. They even have BBC4 which shows singles or two-parters which would be a good way to test whether our product would be successful or not. Most of the dramas on the BBC channels follow a typical structure of equilibrium - disequilibrium - equilibrium. Our storyline also follows this. The boss hires the woman employee; she starts work and likes the new job. (eq.) The boss then asks the woman out, she turns him down and he turns violent. He stalks the woman and attacks her after she's been seen out on a date with another employee from his company. (diseq.) The woman is found. When she regains consciousness, tells the police what happened. They then find evidence to convict the boss. The woman is then able to return to her job. (eq.)
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Target audiences for conventional TV dramas tend to be 18-45 year old male or females (sometimes dependant on content). However the time when the programme is shown may highly affect the target audience. For example if the programme was on during the 9-5 bracket of the weekday, then the target audience is likely to be retired/unemployed/carers because everyone else would typically be at work. However if the programme was shown in the evening (e.g. ) then the target audience could quite easily be 18-45 year olds. I believe that the target audience for our piece should be 18-45 year olds (post-watershed).
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We aimed to have a target audience of 18-45 year olds by having a storyline which could include some post-watershed content. For example if the boss asked the employee out on a date and she turned him down; then he would turn quite nasty and violent. If the programme was on after (the watershed) then we could show the boss displaying these traits rather than just implying them (pre-watershed). I believe our piece would suit post-watershed because the violent nature of it would add to the drama. (The violence would not be totally graphic/horrifying, because this would not suit the needs of all the range of the target audience, but enough to enhance the drama of the piece.) We aimed to engage our audience and 'hook them in' to watch the full length drama by leaving the story so it was at a cliffhanger in our extract.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt that with the equipment we had, certain shots are difficult to complete (and don't look as professional as I has wished). For example we attempted to do a track shot with just a hand held camera. The quality of the shot was shaky and in hindsight we probably should have used a simpler shot.
Because of my past experiences with media, the only real new piece of technology I dealt with was the editing programme. In my previous pieces, we have always used the editing programme iMovie or Final Cut Pro for Mac. However for this task I used Windows Movie Maker. This whole experience was a learning curve for me as I rarely ever use Microsoft software. I feel that I relatively quickly got to grips with the editing software as I only desired simple techniques to be used in my piece.
My piece was created to be an extract from a TV drama series. A convention of TV drama series are close ups to show characters' thoughts. In hindsight, we should have included a close up of the boss' face when he was thinking lustful thoughts about his new employee. This would have conveyed more easily to the audience that he was a very shifty character and should not be trusted. Also, adding this one shot in would have enhanced our story line to the viewers.
Some conventions of TV crime dramas are: having two opposing sides (good Vs bad), power is dominated by males, predictable plot lines (reused time and time again) and sometimes comedy elements to lighten the mood. So therefore I believe that my peice would have conformed to the 'typical plot line' of revenge, having the two opposing sets of characters and male dominace in terms of power. However if I were to produce this full-length programme, then I would have chosen to include a small amount of humour. For example a policeman may make a joke to another, however this would not be at the crime scene (or in a serious situation) because I felt this would be inappropriate and could raise issues of fair/true representation of police officers and how seriously they take their jobs.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I believe that in my piece, men are represented as more powerful than women because the boss, of the company feature in my piece, is male. The woman isn't represented as particularly weak; it's just in comparison to the male, she appears to have less power. In addition to this, in the final scene, the woman looks quite nervous and slightly intimidated by the boss. In comparison to this nervous and afraid woman; the man remains powerful and bold throughout. I believe that (in terms of class) the boss would be an A category and the woman would be a C1.This again gives the boss a higher status and more power over the woman.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I believe that the BBC may want to distribute my product. I think this because if you look at the history of the BBC's drama programmes they screen; mine would fit in with this 'typical' stereotype. My research into the BBC's history of TV drama's from http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/network/genres/drama.shtml shows that all the BBC channels show dramas and often become very successful shows - with high viewing figures. They even have BBC4 which shows singles or two-parters which would be a good way to test whether our product would be successful or not. Most of the dramas on the BBC channels follow a typical structure of equilibrium - disequilibrium - equilibrium. Our storyline also follows this. The boss hires the woman employee; she starts work and likes the new job. (eq.) The boss then asks the woman out, she turns him down and he turns violent. He stalks the woman and attacks her after she's been seen out on a date with another employee from his company. (diseq.) The woman is found. When she regains consciousness, tells the police what happened. They then find evidence to convict the boss. The woman is then able to return to her job. (eq.)
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Target audiences for conventional TV dramas tend to be 18-45 year old male or females (sometimes dependant on content). However the time when the programme is shown may highly affect the target audience. For example if the programme was on during the 9-5 bracket of the weekday, then the target audience is likely to be retired/unemployed/carers because everyone else would typically be at work. However if the programme was shown in the evening (e.g. ) then the target audience could quite easily be 18-45 year olds. I believe that the target audience for our piece should be 18-45 year olds (post-watershed).
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
We aimed to have a target audience of 18-45 year olds by having a storyline which could include some post-watershed content. For example if the boss asked the employee out on a date and she turned him down; then he would turn quite nasty and violent. If the programme was on after (the watershed) then we could show the boss displaying these traits rather than just implying them (pre-watershed). I believe our piece would suit post-watershed because the violent nature of it would add to the drama. (The violence would not be totally graphic/horrifying, because this would not suit the needs of all the range of the target audience, but enough to enhance the drama of the piece.) We aimed to engage our audience and 'hook them in' to watch the full length drama by leaving the story so it was at a cliffhanger in our extract.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt that with the equipment we had, certain shots are difficult to complete (and don't look as professional as I has wished). For example we attempted to do a track shot with just a hand held camera. The quality of the shot was shaky and in hindsight we probably should have used a simpler shot.
Because of my past experiences with media, the only real new piece of technology I dealt with was the editing programme. In my previous pieces, we have always used the editing programme iMovie or Final Cut Pro for Mac. However for this task I used Windows Movie Maker. This whole experience was a learning curve for me as I rarely ever use Microsoft software. I feel that I relatively quickly got to grips with the editing software as I only desired simple techniques to be used in my piece.
Scouting Book for Boys notes...
My favourite moment in this film was when the two teens were running along the top of caravans (this can be seen in the clip in my prezi). I really liked this because the sunset was behind them at the time and this created a silhouette effect. I think that the light behind the teens represented their innocence, friendship and child-like nature; which was soon to be shattered.
As we are going to produce an extract from a thriller as our main task, watching this film helped me identify some conventions of a thriller. The main one in this film was that we were always being kept in suspense. When everyone thought the girl had gone missing, and arrested her 'boyfriend' we were just waiting for it to all go wrong and david would get found out. Also another really tense scene was when david smashed her leg with a rock. The audience did not see this coming and therefore uprooted their ease in watching the film and put them on edge; you never know what could happen. This is also a common feature of a thriller.
7 Nov 2010
Le Haine notes...
Le Haine notes (2) on Prezi
I have included the film clip in my prezi because the opening sequence until the music has stopped playing really introduces the audience to the nitty-gritty genre and throws them straight in there with it. I found this really effective.
Representation for the unrepresented.
Watching this film also served as early research for our main task of producing an extract from a thriller. This film certainly had thriller elements in it such as; the camera moved quite freely, drawing you into the action more and the audience were always kept in suspense because they never quite knew what the gang were going to do next. These are both conventions of a thriller and watching the film helped me see them being used.
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