evaluation of media product

The targeted audience for out final production was represented through the subtle slapstick comedy that was shown throughout the opening title sequence. This comedy relating to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, we believed was advertised to an older teen, 15-30 and 50-60 year old audience. The age certificate of the film being a 15+ due to the drug usage, strong language and frequent sexual references. The representation of sex, not seen in too much depth in the first two minutes, is a stereotype of the 60's era. The massive sex drive that s held with the age coming from; the invention of the contraceptive pill increased the rate of sex and the availability of Speed, LSD, Heroin etc. boosted the 'pleasure' and the sociability and popularity of sex amongst not only two individuals but the increasing multitude of sex groups. Prostitution appeared later to be a big thing in the 70's although in our piece we wanted our Blackwell paying a prostitute after what we assume was sex, to show his over usage of sex, later on in the film however the known prostitute would in fact turn out to be one of Blackwells English students rather than a prostitute plus the reasoning that me and Jack debate constantly whether he is actually stuck in this laid back age or whether he is just living his lifestyle in a modern day world, would make the cultural elements of the 60's irrelevent to the modern day and there would be no historical un-accuracys. The sex and drug references are almost referenced for the younger audience, topics that teenagers would be growing up in and around and subjects which teenagers would more than likely like to be seeing, however represented in a different view and era to what they are used to in the modern day with TV programmes such as 'Skins' and 'The Inbetweeners'. Perhaps the reason for showing this usage of drugs from another era is too show exactly where the drugs originally originated or how badly they really can affect you, and how bad they were then and still are now? Perhaps me and Jack have got morality issues so need to represent that to someone else! I think, according to Uses and Gratifications theory, people would want to watch this piece to escape from modern day realities, such as war and poverty and violence to watch something suprisingly innocent compared to that of modern day occurances. They would want to watch something where the issues were just as bad as today, drug usage and war and a high, but where they were not acknowledged as much or they were dismissed quicker. The media then was less than today, no mobile phone news bulletin, no internet news updates, and hardly any T.V news coverage of worldy affairs. I think we would be doing the same with the sex element and fascination, we would almost be putting the audience off the idea of sleeping with millions of people, the fact that perhaps a lead character would die from an STD, and the general factor of a Teacher sleeping with their students would surely put any teenager off of sex? There was the older audience, the people who actually lived in this time of sexual heaven. We believe that this audience would want to see somebody else's view and take on how the 60's really wasm and also they would want to relive certain parts of this nostaligc era for their own memories and emotions to be triggered. The idea that he is not actually living in the 60's but in a modern day worl where he is still stuck in this time warp would still include a massive amount of 60's and retro elements that would still trigger the audiences memories. There are so many stereotypes held with the 60's and we wanted to capture them to make people recognise it as a period piece. The songs, drug use and sex all are majoy stereotypes that the era created for itself and we used them as these are the elements that people would recognise as the 60's and these are what the older audience would remember from the time, if not in our piece they are slightly over exaggerated and overused.

We have had to focus hugely on the stereotypes of the 60's and the representations that young, and old men and women would have created for themselves through the hectic drug usage and wild sex lives. We wanted to represent the characters in a positive way, the idea of them being sex maniacs obviously did not look bad in mine and Jacks eyes, and the idea of a teacher sleeping with his students obviously did not disturb us in the ways it should have. I think the main reason we did not want to portray the characters in a bad way was because they were not what most people would see as evil or villianous. They were not killing, stealing etc. just living up to the lifestyle that was renonwned for in those times, a stereotype of course. I think we perhaps assumed to much that our audience, the 15+ teenagers would just find the events funny and perhaps too realistic, the sex and drugs something they are all too familiar with, rather than seeing the deeper darker meaning behind it. Beyond the opening of 'The Boat That Rocked', our key research, we noticed that throughout the whole film there was a numerous mention and actual sighting of almost sexual encounters with a mix of different ages. Namely the scene where Nick Frost and Talulah Riley are in bed together. The fact that a maturer looking man is sleeping with a teenage looking girl raises no issues of controversy as it is such a funny situation. I'm not trying to sound like I care about it because my point is, is that nobody cares about the moral behind it, they just find it funny. Awkward and controversial subjects can most easily be tackled by a comedic element in them, why our piece focusing on drugs andd sex is made light hearted by the comedy used around it. Using this comedy to tackle situations usually deemed inappropriate I think we can make comical moments out of the things we recognise a teacher as being, or a teacher in the 60's as being or even further and at what a teacher in the 60's who teaches English and sleeps with his students is like. In other words we could play on the things that represent a certain social group and make it comical and enjoyable. The sex reference in our opening titles was made comical as at the time you do not realise he is her teacher and also that he has no money to pay her so just throws his wallet to her. I think in our two minutes we didn't have a lot of time to focus on the individual characters, we had to just show who the protagonist was and play around with his lifestyle, to show exactly how he lived.

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

Using a small Samsung Mini DV, a handy portable camera with good zoom and quite good picture quality, we filmed the entire piece. Compared to modern technology and the camera used nowadays, with IMAX and even 3D cameras, we are quite behind in the technological aspect. But however the camera used still has given us a good quality final piece. For the majority of the shots we used a tripod, just to make sure we had a steady and accurate shot. The majority of the inside shots, if not all, were filmed on the tripod and only one of the shots outside was filmed using a hand held technique; the tracking shot of Jack running. We managed to use a few technical shots;

Close up

Extreme close ups

Long Shot

Tracking Shot

The post production stage was quite linear to that of a real production companies. A week planning and talking up general story plots, characters etc. Followed by closer more in depth and overall plot, genre, character finalisation. Then came the research into other films of similar genres, and location/costume/music research. The general filming progress was much more simplified than that of the real thing, far less crew for example were used. In general I think we followed the pattern of a realistic production of a film, just with less in depth achievement and of course with far less funding! I think, in reference to 'develop' ours underachieves! I think, with the confusion over whether or not the piece is set in the 60's or not, makes us either very advanced for a 60's film or very far behind if it is in fact a modern set piece! Seriously though, I think ours challenges the generally seen conventions of a comedy film, in the way that our comedy film is actually not that funny, well to another audience it is not perhaps as funny as is it to the creators of it.

I have learnt a lot more about the editing process of production more than any other area of the entire process. Teaching myself from the first time I ever edited a piece of film, I have only learnt about the individual process/es of editing when I have needed or wanted to use them. In this piece we wanted to split the film into two, originally three, segments of film to be watched parellel to each other at the same time. -A diagram for which is somewhere within my evaluation/blog-. It was by accident that I actually found the way to shrink a clip to a smaller size, by accidentally dragging over the clip and moving it off screen. An example of this is indicated in the insert.

I then realised that by

dragging and adding a

clip over top of another

on the timeline you can

have two clips running

together at the same time. Also on this production I have learnt how to mute a selected clip and replace it with a soundtrack an extremely useful tip to have learnt as this was a big part in our piece, the diagetic music into non-diagetic; when Jack leaves the house. An example of the muted clips and soundtrack added over the piece is shown in the

insert here, followed by

an insert showing the

timeline with the two clips

playing at the same time

and the complexity of the

timeline once this process

has been completed. I have also learnt how to add titles over the film, shown here. And

have also been able to

experiment with

adding my own text

over another piece of

text, in other words

turning one sign into

another.

What have you learnt over the process from idea to final product, and what would you change about the way in which you have tackled this task?

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

Media Final Product Evaluation

I think when we begun planning the piece, a lot more attention should have gone into how we would represent the piece as being a comedy in the opening sequence. There are not many parts of the final piece that are funny, well which are not funny to me and Jack. I think we should have planned the whole storyling much more in depth so that we could show the general storyline more in the opening piece than what we actually managed to do. It is hard to tell the genre of the piece from the two minutes that we have filmed and the overall plot is hardly revealed in these two minutes. However looking back at the three films that we researched for the opening title sequence, none of the pieces showed the plot in much depth, although Four Weddings and a Funeral, did portray a comedic genre which the film actually was. I think we have learnt not to underestimate the time that we are given for the principal photography, us both leaving it right until the last possible day that me and Jack could film on, still a week before the editing started, but extremely late for what we both wanted to achieve in the piece. We were limited to the experimentation that we could have with camera angle, composition etc. as we had to film exactly what we had planned previously to make sure we had enough time to film the entire piece.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How did you atttract/address your audience?

Adding titles over a film clip.

Adding my own sign over an existing sign.