Courtney - Media Evaluation

Our film is a ‘teen drama’; we decided to do this as it would appeal to our target audience of 15-19 year olds. We have looked at the movie mean girls and this gave us the idea of having different types of character clicks linked into one group. Also we looked at the TV programme skins this also gave us the idea of having themes of teenagers, college, partying, alcohol, drugs and sex. In our film we have used teenage characters so this shows it is a teen drama. Also our setting shows that it is based around teen agers as we have used a college set and a teenager’s bedroom. The music on our film is ‘indie rock’ so it suggests some of the music teenagers listen to, also it is upbeat so it suggests the kind of party lifestyle a lot of teenagers seem to live and especially the characters within our film.

Within our film we have used 3 girls and 3 boys, all teenagers. We have tried to portray these characters are all different types of people. Cher is like the leader of the girls, and in some sense the leader of the boys, so she is not a stereotypical girl as she shows a girl having power to rule boys so she is subverting a stereotypical female. Lola and Sara are more just like Cher’s sidekicks and these don’t seem to be leaders, so they are more like stereotypical females. Matt is like the leader of the boys, everyone wants to be like him as he is ‘cool’, he is like a stereotypical ‘jack the lad’ he’s cool, popular and gets all the girls. Chris is a music student at college rather ‘mosher’ like and is into all heavy rock bands; however at the same time he still belongs in the popular click at college. Thomas, even though a college dropout is still part of the gang, he is just lazy, maybe like a stereotypical boy. The group as a whole is rather stereotypical to a college or a school, seen as they are the popular group who everyone wants to be like. As our target audience is teenagers, and mainly girls we have tried to show a range of different characters so that the people watching can link and relate to these characters. So our audience who are girly girls we have Sara, for our more dominant girls we have Cher, for our more quiet geek like girls we have Lola, for our popular boys we have Matt, for our music students we have Chris and for the boys that don’t really do much we have Thomas. So we have linked a variety of teenagers to relate to our audience.

Our film would probably be released by a small English film company such as ‘Warp’, as it is not a big Hollywood blockbuster. It may be shown on the TV now and again, maybe on channels like film 4 and it would be shown at night after 9 as it is not suitable for younger children. There would probably not be any franchises or merchandising for our film as it is just a small production in which will be released by a small company, also there would be nothing suitable for merchandising in which would link to our film.

Our target audience for the film is 15-19 year old girls and boys, o we have tried to relate our film to teenagers and how some like the party life style as well as coping with college. A similar film to ours would be mean girls and by doing audience research a lot of people stated they like that film. Also we asked our audience if they like the TV programme skins as our film is similar to that and most of our audience said yes to liking it. We have decided to give our film a classification on 15 as it involves alcohol, drugs and some sexual contact and we thought it would be appropriate for 15 year olds.

In the opening 2 minutes of our film we basically just introduce our characters, we have used different sets and props in which relate to each character. We decided to do this in hope that people would want to keep watching and find out more about our characters and get to the main storyline. There is no scary action in our first 2 minutes and nothing inappropriate, so our audience will just be intrigued to see what happens within the main film. We have shown all different types of characters, boys and girls in hope that this will link to a lot of different teenagers and show what they are like.

By doing this 2 minute film I have learn't how to set up the filming equipment (camera and tripod) properly and safely and I’ve learn't how to use a camera correctly. We had a few little problems when filming, one being, as we filmed on a main busy street outside of college we struggled a clear pathway to film, we just had to keep trying and doing all different shots until we got it right, even though it took a long time we eventually got there. Also getting our characters to be able to film at certain times was hard as we had to work around everyone, but in the end we got it all sorted and done to the standard we wanted. As I have never used the editing soft ware before, doing this film has gave me the chance to find out what it’s all about and basically use it. The main effects we have used in our film are fading out and fading in, this has helped us to create the effect of ‘passage of time’ and it has also made our editing a lot smoother. During our editing process we struggled to find a sound track, however eventually we found one to fit our theme, it is an ‘indie rock’ track which is quite upbeat, to represent the party life style of teenagers.

Since doing the preliminary task I feel like my work with different equipment and resources has improved, also so have Becky and Laurens. We have become more confident with setting up the tripod and camera and also learnt more of how to use the camera. I have learn't things in which need to be took into consideration such as the 180° line and white balance. Also I have learn't how to do a range of shots and use the camera correctly. Through the planning stages of our film my group struggled to find our main idea of what we was going to base our film on, however we eventually all came to an agreement of doing a teen drama. For my research within the group I looked at mean girls and they way our characters could link to the characters from mean girls, this gave us an idea of how our characters could act. Also I looked at a clip of a skins house party, this was just to see how later on in our film for the partying scenes this would be what it is like. By doing the basic story outline and by doing the treatments for our film it gave us a clearer idea of what we wanted within the first 2 minutes of our film, we didn’t want too much to show off the whole film however just a basic introduction of our characters and this is what we have tried to show within our 2 minute clip. Also by creating a shot list gave us an even better idea of what we wanted.
Over all I think our film has turned out to be quite good as it has worked out just as we wanted it to, however the only problem we have faced by doing this project is our research and our blog work, as our time management hasn’t been the best. We originally decided we was all going to do different things to put on the blogger but as we have took a lot of time filming and editing we have not done as much research and blog work as we could have, so if we was to do the project again this would be the thing we need to improve on.