Lauren Remington - Evaluation

The title sequence we have done is in the theme of a ‘teen drama’ hence our target audience of 15-19. Movies such as Mean Girls, Juno, and Thirteen helped us to get an idea of what a ‘teen drama’ consists of, i.e. characters, settings, storylines and music, one of our biggest inspirations was the Television Drama, Skins, Using ideas such as alcohol, sex, drugs, college and just general teen life in the 21st century.

Throughout our 2 minute sequence we tried to use a range of different ways to portray teenage life such as our setting, using bedrooms, parent’s houses and college as our main focal point. Our music was chosen specifically as ‘indie rock’ is a popular type of music within teenage groups. We also used a variety of characters to give different aspects of a group and to be able to relate to our target audience, characters such as Cher, a troubled tear away and obvious leader ruling not only the girls, but manipulating the boys. Then there’s Sara and Lola the typical sidekicks to the leader, playing a part but not a big on, there purpose was mainly to highlight Cher’s power over people and influence, another Character is Matt, the character all the boys want to be and all the girls want to be with. There is also Chris a laid back music student, whose life is music, in particular rock music, this being said he is still a key piece to the group, Thomas the college dropout, a lazy but loveable character. All these characters were specifically chosen to compliment each other and give a well rounded view of typical clicks.
When filming this sequence it was apparent from the start that this type of genre, if made wouldn’t be made into a big Hollywood blockbuster, this would be a small film company, probably British, the time of Film Company that may make something of this nature could be like ‘warp’ or film4.

The first 2 minutes are to introduce our characters and make the audience familiar with them, in the hope that this would keep the audience interested and carry on watching, by not using anything scary, no action or anything particularly shocking, we hope that this would interest the audience into seeing what would happen. By introducing our characters in certain ways it gave an initial outline as to what each character would bring and by using a range making it more relatable.

When making this sequence I picked up a range of skills such as how to set up filming equipment, how to use a camera in the correct manner and learnt that filming isn’t that easy as me had a few minor problems such as our locations i.e. a busy main road a street, making it difficult to be able to use a shot and make it fit. It was also difficult to get who we needed where we needed them, and a lot of time was wasted in chasing people up, and organising times and places. The hardest bit for me was editing, as I have never used editing software before the concept was alien to me, and a lot of time and patience was needed to get the sequence to run as smoothly as possible.

A key feature we did use in editing was fading in and out, as it seemed a good way to give off the effect we were hoping for whilst making it run smoothly, also the soundtrack was difficult to find as it was difficult to find the song we wanted to fit our purpose, so by choosing and upbeat, young ‘indie rock’ song it seemed to fit the bill quite well.
Obviously from the start of the sequence to now, I feel my ability has improved vastly, from not being familiar with a camera, editing, or filming to making a 2 minute successful sequence that in my opinion works well, and portrays exactly what was intended. There were good days and bad days, lack of communication and experience affected us, but through determination and effort we were able to work as a team and pull it out of the bag.

Snatch research

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vWxU7tclsw

We decided to look at Snatch as it is a popular film among our target audience. We decided after looking at the opening sequence that the method of freeze framing characters and telling the audience their name, was a good way of introuducing them. We incorporated this idea into our own film idea.

Final Finished & Edited Film - Unrivaled

This is our final film. Filmed and edited by Courtney Harrison, Becky Yeardley and Lauren Remmington. We have tried to use a number of shots and also some interesting edits to capture the audience with our film. We have used some upbeat indie rock music to represent teenagers and their party life style and we have also tried to gage a teenage environment by the sets and props we have chose to use.

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.

Film Research - mean girls

By looking at mean girls this enabled us to choose our different types of clicks within our characters, for example:

Cher - The Plastics (Regina George)
Lola -The Plastics (Gretchen Wieners)
Sara -The Plastics (Karen Smith)
Matt - Popular Boy/Jock (Aaron Samuels)
Chris - Quite Popular/Music Student
Lewis - College Drop Out



We got the ideas of having different clicks of people together from the film mean girls, however we linked our characters into one big group.

Location Shots

Where Cher is when on the phone to Lola.

The corner cher walks round before seeing Matt.

Where Matt is stood.

Where Lola is on her own when Cher rings her.

Shot list

Shot 1
Establishing shot of Cher opening her front door.
Shot 2
Medium shot of her facial expression and of her shouting back at her father.
Shot 3
Long shot of Cher slamming the front door
Shot 4
Close up of Cher taking a bottle of vodka from her bag
Shot 5
Medium shot of her drinking the vodka
Shot 6
Shot freeze. Shows Cher's name
Shot 7
Establishing shot of her away from the door that pans and follows her.
Shot 8
Establishing shot, new setting. Cher walking around a corner. Also in the shot, would be Matt. Talking to a group of girls
Shot 9
Close up of Matt's face as he see's Cher coming around
Shot 10
Shot freeze, shows Matt's name
Shot 10
Follow Matt, as he crosses the road. To join Cher.
Shot 11
Establashing shot, new setting. Lola, sat down alone in a library.
Shot 12
Move to a medium close up of the same thing
Shot 13
Freeze shot, Lola's name comes up.
Shot 14
Same shot as shot 12. Lola's phone rings.
Shot 15
Close up insert of Lola's mobile phone ringing, with the name 'Cher' on screen.
Shot 16
Medium shot of Lola answering the phone and talking
Shot 17
Long shot of Lola getting up from her seat, picking up her things.
Shot 18
Long shot of Lola leaving the library
Shot 19
Medium shot of Sara's reflection in a mirror as she is applying make-up
Shot 20
Freeze shot, Sara's name appears
Shot 21
Insert shot of radio
Shot 22
Medium shot of Sara leaning towards the radio
Shot 23
Close up of Sara's hand on volume button of the radio.
Shot 24
Establishing shot of music room, Chris on drums.
Shot 25
Medium shot of Chris on the drums.
Shot 26
Shot freeze, Chris's name appears
Shot 27
Close up of drumsticks hitting the drums
Shot 28
Cuts to a shot of playstation controller.
Shot 29
Zooms out medium shot of Thomas sat down on the playstation. Phone rings.
Shot 30
Close up of phone ringing, text message from Cher, saying "house party 2nite, my place. every1 invited. BE THERE"
Shot 31
Medium shot of Cher, smoking outside college. With her phone in her hand.
Shot 32
Close up of her phone screen. The text message Thomas received is on the screen, sending to all the characters names.
Shot 33
Long shot of Cher throwing her cigarette and walking into college.
Shot 34
Close up of the cigarette.