Alannah Perry Question 2

how does your product represent particular social groups? In the opening of our film teenagers are represented firstly as fans of music stars and lovers of music, you see this when they are shouting and dancing waiting for the star. They are also represented as those that get easily caught up in media and music stars- the stalker writes a fan letter and is in the crowd however she acts different to the rest of the crowd, she just watches the music star and does not shout and dance, we did this to try and make the audience believe that as the plot thickens she's not what you think she is- a fan. We decided to represent teenagers as music lovers because when we did our market research we asked people who where 16- 17 what they did in the free time, the biggest number said they listened to music and so we thought that if we decided to make our film involving teenagers and their love of music then it would reflect teenagers realistically however to make it into a thriller we were trying to show how love for music and music Artist's can go to an extreme.

Sophie Munden - Question Seven

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


For our preliminary task we had to use the cameras to film a person entering and existing a door and a conversation, using shot reverse shot. We then had to edit our work so if ran smoothly.
You can see that we managed to edit our product smoothly and we carried on to use these skills in our final product.
However, since the preliminary task, we have learnt how to compensate with lighting and use more effective camera angles. In our first attempt of filming we used little variety of camera angles and it only constituted of mid-shots. We progressed in the making of our opening credit sequence by experimenting with extreme close-ups as well as mid-shots. We also used high and low angle shots to represent character types and their power roles in our product. Furthermore, we learnt not to shoot the scene facing the light source (in our case the daylight) as it created unwanted silhouettes and shadows in our preliminary task.




Before filming the preliminary task, we learnt about the 180 degree rule. This is when you keep the camera on one side of the person or object you are filming so not to disorientate or confuse the audience. We used this skill in our preliminary task and our final product.

Sophie Munden - Question Six

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


Throughout the course of this project we used many technologies, such as:

• Video and still cameras
  


• Tripods

Computers

• Film editing software



• Photoshop



• Microsoft word, PowerPoint



• Internet
  


• Blogger

These technologies have allowed us, as students, and others in the general public to create films to a respectable standard. This development in technology has closed the gap that used to exist between the public and the media institutions.

While creating my product i found technologies very accessible to me and the majority were very user friendly. However, problems such as lighting while using the cameras came up. Due to this problem we had to edit our product in a different way and cut scenes we had originally planned to have in our media product. Because of the editing software, in particular 'Movie HD' that comes free on an Apple Mac we were able to fix problems like this and combine our film work and sound effects.

Websites such as YouTube, and copyright free websites helped us in our research to find music, upload our product and research other media products such as inspirations like Taxi Driver and Cape Fear.

Sophie Munden - Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract our audience we looked back at our research and chose to adapt our storyboard by using popular and modern interests and issues.

From our audience research we found that the majority of people we asked spent their free time using different aspects of the media, this led us to the idea that one of our main characters would be a Hip-Hop/R'n'B artist as we hoped to attract the audience through their interests and hobbies.

In addition to this, the idea of celebrity-stalking is an issue in the world today and therefore we incorporated this theme in our product, by having our main character as an 'obsessed fan' of the artist. The audience can relate to this.
While doing research for our product, i came across articles in the news that highlight the issues of celebrity-stalking in modern society.

"It is becoming obvious that celebrity-stalking is an unwelcome modern phenomenon, with victims in the public eye ranging from Gwyneth Paltrow to Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alastair Campbell."

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/242388/My-hell-at-the-hands-of-a-stalkerMy-hell-at-the-hands-of-a-stalker#ixzz1LHgWX000
The most recent case of this is the stalker of Paris Hilton,

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Hilton-s-stalker-found-guilty/Article1-692388.aspx

Our findings also showed us that the villain was the preferred character type. Because of this we chose to attract our audience by focusing the camera work and sound on the 'obsessed fan' (our villain), trying to create the storyline from her point of view. We did this using close-ups on her face and hands to show her emotions and actions. The voice over adds to this as well, explaining that she is his "number one fan".

This is a popular technique used in psychological thillers, for example the film, Taxi Driver, one of our inspirations while making the opening to our film.

Sophie Munden - Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our media product is aimed at quite a wide variety of teenagers and young adults around the ages of 15 – 25. We chose not to appeal to a specific gender as we wanted a wide audience and our audience research applied equally to both sexes. Therefore, we gave our film a certification of a 15.

Because of this decision we distributed our questionnaires to people between these ages in order to find out their interests and habits to help with constructing our ideas and our final storyboard. We found that the majority of our target audience like listening to Hip-Hop and R’n’B music and therefore spent a vast amount of time enjoying it. We used this in our storyboard by having an Hip-Hop artist as a main character.

As the themes in our product our quite mainstream (music of popular genre, fans etc..) this would attract a mainstream audience, however the camera work and editing of our product, for example the cutting from the girl writing a letter to the star waving to his fans, implies a more indendent product therefore appealing to an indendent audience as well.

Sophie Munden - Question Three

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

Although our product addresses mainstream themes, such as music, artists and their fans, the production values of it show that a more independent institution would distribute it.
Mainstream films are more dependent on big turnovers and dramatic storylines, sound effects, camera work and other special effects. Because of this the costs are high due to showings in cinemas, advertising and generally creating the product.
Our product does not do this as it has a much slower build up in all aspects of the film. There are no special effects and it shows a much more challenging storyline as it continues to cut between scenes of the obsessed fan writing a letter and the artist waving to his fans. A distributer like PolyGram would be fitting to our product as has distributed psychological thillers such as Usual Suspects.
The advertising of our product would be minimal, mainly relying on film reviews in magazines such as Vertigo and Little White Lies, film festivals and world of mouth.

Sophie Munden - Question Two

How does your media product represent different social groups?

In our media product, we present three main social groups, the star, the stalker, and the fans.


In the first picture is the Hip-Hop star, Craze. Using sartorial codes we have shown that he is weathly. He has a clean, neat hair cut, jewlery on his wrists and around his neck. As well as this, he is wearing a white t-shirt which not only makes him look healthy implying his sucess but it simbolises his innocense and implies he is the victim the film. We shot this scene from below (low angle shot) in order to indicate his importance in the story line and his power as he is the 'star'.

Here we have a screen shot of the stalker. In the general media stalkers are represented as unhealthy, both in their appearence and emotional state. We have shown this through her clothes. She is dressed in a faded baggy dress and a faded grey hoody, her hair has not been brushed and she has no make-up on. This all adds up to give a feeling of uncaring. The way in which she is staring at the camera creates a sense of amazement as if she is mesmorized by what she is looking at.

This is a shot from the scene showing the fans of the star Craze dancing. Fans today are poceived as a large group of people who all share the same interest. By having the people in the crowd close together it gives it creates ideas that they are one person rather than seperate characters. Furthermore, we chose to place the guy in the blue jacket in the center as his clothing is a similar style to the artist himself.