Question 7:Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the whole product?

Question 6 : What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Question 5:How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Q4. Who is the audience for my media product? by Samah Raja

Question 3:What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our media product we have focused on the representation of the ages and gender of the characters within the film opening of ‘Sketch’.

The girls within our film opening are teenagers around the age of 15 – 16. This to the audience creates the perception that the teenagers would be vulnerable because of their gender usually where girls and women are seen as the weaker gender. However we tried to both subvert and conform to this gender expectation. We were able to subvert the expectation of teenage girls being weak by ensuring that the killer was seen to be very powerful and dominating in the way that she decides to kill people. On the other hand we were able to conform to the real life expectation that people would have of teen age girls being vulnerable by the killer targeting a bully. The bully may have seen to be powerful but then she gets killed. This is another representation of teenagers that they may try to act powerful however they are weak at heart.

To represent particular social groups we have used a variety of different camera angles and shots. For example we were able to show the vulnerability and how weak the teenage girl that gets killed is within the first part of our opening sequence, this is because of the long shot of the school corridor that twists and a psychedelic way, to create the distorted mind frame of the killer. Not only does it show how vulnerable teenage girls are it also creates a representation of the teenage killer, being dangerous and mentally unstable. We also used an over the shoulder shot of the teenage girl that is the victim of Rue the killer; we used this to create empathy for the girl. This helps to conform to the representation that teenagers are vulnerable and find it difficult to protect themselves.

We also used a range of different sounds that contrasted against one another, for example within the long shot of the schools art corridor we used the sound of giggling children to show how vulnerable the teenagers and other pupils within the school were. This paired with the editing of splice cuts where horrific artistry images are shown subverts the expectation and representation that the children/students at the school should be happy however they are faced with a bigger evil. The children giggling later is contrasted with the screams of the victim that is brutally killed this shows that the innocence that can be associated with young adults is shattered where the teenage killer murders someone. It also can represent how unhappy the teenagers are in contrast to the representation that is associated sometimes with them being happy at school.

A mixture of editing techniques has been used to create a representation of the social groups of females and teenagers. We used fast paced editing with the technique of splice cuts. The fast paced editing of the opening sequence and the killing scene creates a tension and also represents the mental state of the teenage killer, not thinking before she acts out of the usual representation of teenagers. The representation of teenagers is then seen to be dangerous and that they can act out of character at any time making some of the teenagers dangerous to society. This means that with the editing that there are two different types of representations that go alongside the social groups of teenager and girls. Teenagers that can be vulnerable or dangerous and girls that can be malicious killers or innocent and incapable of protecting themselves.

The mise-en-scene within our film opening helps to create a general representation of teenagers and teenage girls. The set and location of the school corridor and the classroom help to create the representation to the audience of the teenagers being students and associate this with being well behaved and concentrated. Rue the killer subverts this expectation of what the audience may be thinking and this is shown by the long shot of the corridor with the twisted camera angles and the saturated filter. The distortion shows her mind frame in comparison to the victim that is seen to be concentrating on her art work to then be killed. The bright saturation and the darkness of the killing seen contrast against each other just like the representations that are associated with the teenage social group that is portrayed within my film opening. For the costume of the characters we decided to keep it very casual with jeans and a hooded top. This is what real life people tend to associate with the teenagers of society. This is associated with the thugs and the teenagers that downgrade the expectations of the society; this is why we dressed the bullies as casually as we did. For the killer (Rue) we dressed her in all black with a black mask, we done this because we wanted to protect her identity. The black colour connotes danger, power and mystery. This represents the overall social group of teenagers to be powerful in their decisions and potentially dangerous to society depending on their mind frame and how they are treated. As for the actors we kept this basic and matched the social group we were trying to portray. We cast teenage girls to play the characters this was to make it easier for the audience to identify the social group that we were trying to portray.

Overall I feel that our media product enables us to correctly represent the social groups of teenagers and teenage girls from a range of perspectives that are identified through a range of camera, editing, mise-en-scene and sound skills. 

Question 1 : In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Final Cut

2nd cut

Action Plan

First Cut Evaluation

Current personal level: 1 Low

What level I would like to achieve: 2 low or medium

Our first cut of our film opening ‘Sketch’ we think that our material that we had produced is appropriate for our target audience because we have used a school setting where our audience would stereotypically be studying at. 

We know this because of our film being aimed at the demographic E. During the development of the titles and credits we drifted with the ideas that we had found in usual codes and conventions in horror film opening sequences. This meant that we had lost some of the continuity of the overall genre of horror that we were trying to establish within our opening. 

Within the sound that we used in our first cut images and footage, we only used dialogue that was spoken by the characters. This is because we ran out of time editing to input any sound effects and this will be something that we will be developing in our final cut, so that we are able to create tension and further establish our work. We also found using the camera difficult when trying to keep it still and in focus; I think that this is due to the lack of practice where we have only practiced the skills in our preliminary task. On our first day of filming we had the idea to film in the day light so that we were able to use our lesson time to film and also so that when it comes to editing the footage we are able play around with the editing software. This was to see how we can use the iMovie software to our advantage to help us create a mise-en-scene / setting that was dark and represents horror. 

During the second day of filming we filmed later in the afternoon this meant that we had some natural lighting from outside the school building that helped to create heavy shadows and also make the genre of our opening sequence apparent. In our final cut of our opening sequence we will be able to ensure that our editing of the whole product is better because as a group we agree that the editing stage of our overall product was rushed and not to the standard that we want it to be, to allow us to get into the level 2 or 3 brackets. On the other hand our editing isn’t to the standard we wanted it to be because of the lack of skills that we each had to show when using iMovie. By editing our first cut this allowed us to develop our skills and make sure that our product is to a better standard and level.

First Cut of our film opening