Wednesday 5 May 2010

Our media project attracts a wide audience, it attracts children as they are known for their love of fiction films such as Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland and Shrek. This is the ideal audience because their innocence and age allows them to believe the story and they learn the morals that are portrayed in them such as “good things come to those who wait” in Cinderella along with our film “Being Annie” and “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” taught through Beauty and the Beast and The Hunch Back of Notre dame. Our film also attracts young teenage girls because they may relate to our central character Annie in feeling depressed and stressed in school however by using Brad Cruise targets teenage girls as he is used as a symbol of sex appeal like many stars of today such as Chad Michael Murray, Orlando Bloom, Channing Tatum and Zac Effron. Other than attracting teenage girls the film also attracts upper and lower class binding them together as an audience as these social classes are shown through Brad and Annie and Ms Tiara and Aunt Velma in addition our film targets everyone as everyone has a dream and this film shows that however big a dream is anyone can accomplish it.

Children – It is based on a fairytale which is highly recognized by a lot of children and it is very popular. Those fans and recognizers of the fairytale would want to see the film which is based on it as they would already have a large child fan base.
Parents – Would also be an audience for this film because they would take their children to see this film
Teenagers – Would be an audience for this film because it deals with issues, problems and other situations which teenagers are very likely to go through, for example the crush on the celebrity idol – Brad Cruise
General Audience – The film is about dreams and achieving them so it is something that all of the audience all around can relate towards
What kind of media institution might distribute your media project and why?

Although our film could potentially have the makings of a Disney/ DreamWorks type film as our film is a low budget one, we are more likely to find an independent institution to distribute our film as they are interested in the scripts of young people and there new ideas. In addition, directors of Hollywood block busters are now becoming more interested in the scripts of students and young film makers as they focus on more independent and individual stories that get involved in a characters mindset.


We are more likely to find an institution like Metrodome and Icon Movies as they are independent companies.
Picture taken from Icon Movies website.

We could also distribute our video on youtube, the advantages of this is that youtube is free, people will be given a chance to comment and rate your videos which you could use to improve your next movie idea.



Plus YouTube is one of the most sucessful softwares over the world wide web which can be accessed all over the world, yes you could get your video placed on icon but your are more likely to more intrest rousing from your video on youtube and your distrubution would be faster.
How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

Before we casted and began to create the film of “Being Annie” we held cast auditions by putting up posters around school, talking to students who were interested in drama and getting any suggestions of committed media students who would be interested in taking part in a media project. We thought this would be a good idea as they as media and drama students would understand how serious our project was to us, for the drama students it would simply be the fact that they themselves as committed drama students would want to in our film represent themselves as being professional in this role of Annie as well as keeping themselves professional in their drama careers. Similarly, the media students would understand the value of being a media student and the stress and importance that cast plays within the film. On auditioning the students we gave them a monologue and also decided to ask them a series of questions the aim of this was to see them acting as well as them in their natural state. As a result we wanted to see how girls naturally acted like the shy and timid Annie therefore suiting the role. After deliberating as a team we chose Lilly Samson who although she was not the best actor stage wise he looks and personality resembled what we thought Annie would be like.

With in our story, Annie takes the form of a lower class girl who is trapped by her Aunt Velma’s wicked clasp which prevents Annie from any social mobility. Aunt Velma herself is of a lower class and we would like to portray that she dotes this out on her niece Annie all the time, causing Annie to fell unwanted and unloved. There are also characters of a higher social class such as the hero of the story Brad Cruise who if we see the characters on a ladder of social mobility is placed at the top and Annie at the background. Although we do not see Brad Cruise in our opening sequence he is of a higher social group to Annie as he goes up in a rather wealthy family and has started his own musical career, like many other films this sticks to the codes and conventions of a fairytale where two people of a different social class fall in love, which is frowned upon my the public however, together they over come the stereotype and the two character have a long and fulfilled life together.

Social classes are present in our opening sequence this is shown through out set in which Annie lives in a rather minimal set, which is shown through the bedroom we created. Her social class is also shown through the fact that she is left isolated in her room with no one for comfort, if she was of a higher more popular social group she would be possibly surrounded by friends or on the phone and her dress sense, style of talk, body language would be different. Where as, in “Being Annie” her facial expression is melancholy, her body language is negative and as for her speech there is none that shows the she does not find comfort in public speaking.

Wednesday 31 March 2010

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

Preliminary Brief: Film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character. A couple of lines of dialogue must then exchanged between characters & match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule should be demonstrated.

Main Task: The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes (all video and audio material must be original, produced by candidates, with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source)

In our Preliminary Task our aim was to film a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character. A couple of lines of dialogue were then exchanged between characters the 180-degree rule should have been demonstrated and match on action, shot/reverse shot. Some problems we encountered during this task were that we did not take enough shots with in our filming time and when we had to edit we did not a wide variety of shots to use making our final edit limited. In addition we did not hold cast auditions we relied on friends rather than who would be the best actors and one of our actors did not turn up making us have to search for a new cast member last minute. We made our script following an outline one given by our teacher.

In our main task of making an opening sequence of a modern fairytale we held auditions for our cast. We prepared our cast with a small description of their character and a script. We asked all cast to perform a monologue on a tragic death to see whether they suited the role of Annie. Our group then deliberated and then chose our cast and produced a photo board in a fake set. We set rehearsal days after school and we gave out a consent form allowing out cast to sign it making sure they would attend. From doing our preliminary task I learnt that groups needed more organisations that is why we were more organised during our main task.

In our Preliminary Brief task we did not use any sound equipment we only used sound that was recorded on the camera this made the sound of a low volume and quality. In our main task we used a Rycote windshield system allows better clearly sound this made it easier during editing.
In our Preliminary task we did not record second takes so when editing we did not have enough good takes. In the main task we took plenty extra shots which made editing easier.