Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media projects?

Our Film: brief plot outline

Our film 'Adolescents' follows, the main protagonist, Lola's life as she struggles to stay on two feet with her implied excessive drug and alcohol use along with trying to manage her uncontrollable emotions as a result. The audience watches her as she gradually breaks down and how her relationships with family, friends and boys slip between her fingers. However, the audience also gets glimpses into the lives of her close friends and boyfriend, Marlon, although the film focuses on life from Lola's point of view, mainly.

A film opening's purpose is to grab the audience's attention and interest in order for them to want to carry on watching the film. It also informs the audience in terms of production and distribution companies, main characters, genre and an introduction to the plot. 

Form:

         

Genre:

Adolescents is a British Indie teen drama film. In order to connote this we needed to keep in mind the typical conventions followed in real teen indie drama film openings and films and decide which, out of these conventions, works well. The two films we researched for inspiration for conventions were This Is England and Kidulthood. Kidulthood is a teen crime drama set in West-London and This Is England is a crime drama set in England.

• In teenage dramas, the main characters are almost always a friendship group who still attend school or are just finishing school. For example, the three friends Jay, Moony and Trevor in Kidulthood. The use of drugs and alcohol is used when connoting the negative representation of teenagers in a teen drama film; it shows the typical rebellious characteristics of teenagers. Below are two clips; one from the use of alcohol in Kidulthood, and the other showing the use of alcohol in Adolescents.

                                              
                               
We kept our use of alcohol and smoking subtle as this was not the main focus but helped to create realism.

In order to create an accurate and realistic representation of teenagers we looked at how Kidulthood did this.

            

                          In the scene shown above, the two girls shown get invited to a party.

•  Parties are widely associated with teenagers and young adults so this is an effective way to portray their conventional interests. We decided to use this concept and we throw the audience straight into a party scene in our opening shots. (shown below...)

                          

•  Another typical representation of teenagers is to have them on their phone as they are the generation who have grown up always with technology surrounding them. In Kidulthood there are numerous scenes in the opening alone in which characters are holding a mobile phone.

                                                  

So, we also decided two include the usage of mobile phones as shown in the clip below. It gives the impression of how teenagers are desperate to alway be 'connected' with their friends and the latest trends but also how they can be anti-social.


                                    

        

Narrative Structure



                   

Lola is the PROTAGONIST in our film. We have no antagonists but the drugs and alcohol may be considered to be the ANTAGONIST. Lola, being the protagonist, acts as a guide for the audience to follow the storyline coming from her perspective. They feel sympathy for Lola but they are also there when she messes up and ends up pushing away the people who are trying to help her, which can prove frustrating for the audience.

In our sequence we used various narrative techniques including:

• dissolves-this was a practical and effective technique. It allowed us to cut shots down in the editing suite without having to take big chunks of the story away. It also created a sense of time passing and gave a distorted effect to reflect on Lola's unstable state. 
• slow motion-using slow motion helped to make the audience understand what Lola was going through and how her well-being was deteriorating but also kept emphasis on Lola as the main character
• montage-we used fast-paced montage editing for the majority of our sequence to create a party atmosphere and keep the audience at the edge of their seat with the tons of things happening in such a short space of time

Style

The soundtrack used for our sequence is linked below...

          

We chose this track because it had a fast beat without being too overpowering or repetitive. The song also has an eerie feel to it as it builds up and down throughout the sequence which fits well with the different events present in our film opening.

We chose to use no dialogue which is not typical of the film openings we researched such as Kidulthood and Fish Tank, but we wanted our film opening to focus on British culture so choosing a garage song and having no dialogue to deflect from the music, worked perfectly.

Our film opening, although dark, featured a mix of vibrant colours. We were inspired to keep our sequence vibrant after seeing Kidulthood's costume...

                       

Our use of the narrative techniques stated above allowed us to distort reality and fantasy helped by our subtle placing of alcohol bottles. Human Traffic also inspired our use of colour and music to try and portray British culture.

We use tight framing in order to keep the audience submerged in the action and also to create a claustrophobic, uncomfortable feel as if something is not right. This technique also helped create the illusion of more people being at the party.

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main social group we have represented is British teenagers, however our representation could apply to more than just teenagers in Britain. Fish Tank and Kidulthood are both films which include representation of the same social group and this is what helped us decide how we wanted to represent our British teens. The difference between the British teens in both Kidulthood and Fish Tank is that they come from a working class background; our teenagers come from a lower-middle class background.

• We connoted this in their housing-Flo lives in a house which is relatively big in size so we decided to use this as our filming location for the party. However, the housing in Kidulthood is mainly council estate housing which connotes their poorer, working-class background.

• We did not follow the typical behaviour represented of boys and girls as shown in Kidulthood in our film. In our film, Lola is the violent female who lashes out against a calm and collected Marlon. Whereas in Kidulthood, the males are represented as aggressive with few violent female characters. Our main aim was to create awareness that males are not the only abusive/violent gender and break the gender stereotype that females are always the victim of violence. We also wanted to open people's eyes by telling the story from the abusive person's side which has not been done before in a British Indie teen drama. 

Dress:

By looking at our friends' dress and researching Kidulthood and Fish Tank, we were able to define the typical dress of teenagers living in London. This consisted of casual attire, often sporty and not too colourful. 

In Adolescents...

In Kidulthood...

Props:

The consumption of drugs and alcohol is a widely accepted stereotype of teenagers and young adults, especially those living in urban cities like London. We wanted to put this concept across in our film but without glamourising it or using it distastefully. 

In Adolescents...

In Kidulthood...

Relationships:

'Young love' is often a major theme in teenage dramas as this age is where you are experimenting with new things for the first time as a result of newly discovered freedoms. We therefore wanted to portray some romantic relationships in our film. We only represented heterosexual relationships but this was not on purpose. 

In Adolescents...

In Kidulthood... 

Camera/editing:

We used fast-pace editing for all of our sequence to connote the teenage party atmosphere.

In this scene, we used lots of dissolves which symbolise and set up for Lola's break-down of emotions after realising what she has just done. The dissolves and disjointedness of shots also reflects her unstable state of mind. 

We added this 'double-vision' effect to these shots to show how Lola is consumed by substances and seeing a distorted reality.It also could portray that she is a reckless person.

Evaluation Question 3: what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our film would be distributed by British institutions and preferably ones which have produced/distributed low-budget British Indie films in the past.

Production Company:

We chose Stealth Films Ltd. to produce our film because they are a London based company and have experience in producing low-budget British Indie dramas.

Based on Kidulthood's budget, we believe our film will need roughly the same budget to be produced - £600,000. This will cover not only equipment and props etc. but also our cast and crew's wages.
Kidulthood was filmed in a month roughly, from November 14th 2004-December 16th 2004 so filming in a shorter space of time will also decrease filming/production costs.

Distribution Company:

We chose StudioCanal UK to distribute ur film as they have experience in producing British Indie films and are based in London. They are also one of the top distributors in the UK making them a respectable and reliable choice.

The budget for Comedown (2012) is 2 million, a lot higher than what we would like to spend on our film. However, Studio Canal have lots of experience in distributing British Indie films of a range of budgets, such as Broken (2012)- a British Indie drama.

Marketing our film:



After releasing our trailer and other marketing strategies, we will release our film to cinemas. These cinemas will include the big mainstream brands such as Odeon and Vue, but also the smaller cinemas such as the Art House who specialise in indie small budget films. As our film is made on a low budget, we would screen Adolescents for 4 weeks which is the same limited distribution period as Kidulthood. We would also like to release a DVD for our film. This way we can reach a wide audience of cinema and non-cinema goers.

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

            

Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We used the uses and gratification theory when thinking about how to attract our core audience. This theory focuses on what the audience wants rather than what our film has to offer. Our audience need to be able to:

• identify with the characters out before them either through role models/aspirations or having a relatable lifestyle/gender etc to them. 
• be educated in some way by acquiring more knowledge or understanding after watching the film.
• be entertained by the film's content.
• talk about the film within their social groups.

Below I have created a mind map showing how we will attract our audience using different methods such as the uses and gratifications theory. Please click on the image to view its content clearly.

As well as the ways I have stated above, we will also attract our audience due to the fact our actors are all young; we have no actors over the age of 17.

Here is some feedback we gathered from our audience members and media teachers after seeing our rough edit.

This feedback was very helpful and we actually used all of these constructive criticisms when creating our final edit...

After our final edit, we have received nothing out positive feedback which is great!

This is a bar chart showing the feedback we received from 10 members of our audience after seeing gor FINAL edit.

Evaluation Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

When constructing our product, we used a range of technologies; mainly hardware and software. The hardware we used during the shoots, and the software we used in post-production.

Hardware

1. Cannon Legria HF G30
2. shotgun microphone
3. artificial lighting kit (3 lights included)
4. spotlight which attached onto the camera
5. tripod

The table I have created below evaluates the use of our software and what I have learnt while using it...

Software

1. Adobe Premiere Pro
2. LiveType

I have created a table below analysing the use of these two softwares...

As well as the technologies I have already talked about, we also used websites such as: Art of the Title which I used to research other opening sequences in order to gain knowledge and inspiration for our own sequence,  Soundcloud and YouTube to search for music and sound effects and Blogger to record all of my research and progress in posts. All of these websites/softwares were very straight-forward to use and very helpful in pre-production when planning our film opening sequence.

Overall, the technologies we used were generally straight-forward, however some tools on Premiere Pro took some time to get the hang of their purpose and how to effectively use them. 

Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Preliminary Task Brief

" Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. "

Production Task Brief

" To produce a 2 minute opening sequence for a fiction film. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music and audio effects from a copyright-free source. It should be clear from your sequence who the target audience is. "

Differences between each brief:

• The prelim could be as long or short as you wanted, however the most effective ones were shorter and more simplistic...The production task had a set time limit
• The prelim has a list of specific techniques you are required to demonstrate...The production brief leaves the techniques up to you to decide what you will use
• The prelim's target audience should not be considered in the sequence-not relevant to the task...In the production task, the TA must be attracted and made clear in your sequence

Pre-Production

In our preliminary task, we focused too much on the story and over-complicated what was going to happen in each scene, making sure we acted everything out perfectly. This was not really necessary as the brief is looking for a more technical continuity sequence that shows off your editing and filming skills as a media student, showing you are aware of the different rules and how to/how not to use them. This approach was time consuming when it shouldn't have been. We also forgot to bring in the shoot board for our prelim on the shoot day, so we had to create a make-shift one in 20 minutes. This method was obviously not very effective and showed a lack of organisation which we learnt from.

In our production task, we made sure to keep the group folder at school, in the media office, so we always had everything we needed in terms of planning. In this task, we did allow ourselves to spend time creating an interesting storyline for our audience but made sure not to indulge ourselves completely in the story, as we needed to show off our technical skills also. We learnt that shoot boards, storyboarding and creating a timeline, props list and other planning documents are essential in creating a sequence that actually makes sense. 

one page from our shootboard

the costume list we created for our actors

a props list we created

Production

In the prelim task we had to include the 3 techniques asked for in production set by the brief. This was quite difficult sometimes because we focused too much on the story and found it hard fitting the production techniques around the story, when we really should have fit the story around the techniques. We broke a few rules in practice but corrected these and made a good sequence. Our framing was very rushed and therefore turned out ineffective.

For the production task, we now had more experience in using all the equipment and knew what rules not to break. We had much more space and flexibility as we were working in one of our houses, not a classroom in school. We were able to do tracks and close-ups which we didn't experiment with in the prelim. We could also use lighting to create the desired atmospheric lighting for our shots. 

Post-Production 

For the prelim task, we didn't have to grade our finished product and we didn't have to included titles or any fancy editing techniques such as dissolves. We had a much shorter time to edit our prelim task so ended up creating a rough edit with shots only cut into their correct position and that was about as advanced as it got! We didn't need to find a soundtrack or background SFX. It helped refresh my memory on how to use Adobe Premiere Pro so that in the production task I was very familiar with the software. 

It was only until we got to the production task that I started discovering new tools to use on our sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro and also how to create titles using LiveType which we did not do in the prelim task. As there was a lot more to do in the production task editing sessions, every member of our team always had something to do or some way to get involved which wasn't always possible in the editing of the prelim task. This meant we could make decisions as a group and every felt like they did an equal part of editing. 

OVERALL, I believe the prelim task was vital in teaching me how to create a successful continuity sequence with all the added advanced techniques of filming and editing.

Our Prelim^

Construction Post 10: Looking back - reflections on our final outcome

I am very proud of how our opening turned out and the people I have shown it to so far have really enjoyed it. I think we were able to give a clear sense of the story-line but succeeded at leaving some elements ambiguous for the audience. Our TA focus group said that our titles give a very professional feel but the strobed effect on them also sticked with the party, edgy atmosphere we wished to create for our British Indie film. Our shots are all very clear apart from one grainy shot which we struggled to improve-the first introducing party shot of everyone dancing.
We have definitely stuck to the brief and not only created a quick, cross-cutting party scene, but also included our continuity sequence of our main character Lola.
Overall, I believe we made a clear representation of the friendship and relationship dynamics amongst our fictional friendship group. In saying this, we could have made Lola and Marlon's relationship even more obvious. We did film more shots of just the two of them and inserted one of these shots, however we could have made it even more obvious for the audience to understand by perhaps having some more intimate shots of them.

Construction Post 9: My Technical Learning Curve(production and post-production)

I have definitely improved my skills greatly during this whole process.

Post-Production:

At the start of editing I had forgotten how to use Adobe Premier Pro but after a couple of sessions I really began to excel with using it. I also found out a lot more techniques and adjustments available on the software which we then put across in our final edit. I had never used LiveType before but I also found this very straightforward and enjoyed picking the most appropriate fonts and styles for our titles. At the start of post-production I could only really cut shots, place them on the timeline with music and roughly grade them. But by the end of the process, I could successfully grade shots to a high standard, cross-cut shots so longer shots did not bore the audience, cut the music in time with certain action, find clips of production company logos on youtube and insert them into our sequence.
When I was editing the very last scene of our sequence, Lola's breakdown, I found it hard to decide when to cut the shot to make the scene have as much of an impact on the audience as possible, without going on for too long. I think where I ended up cutting the shot was very good and doesn't seem as if I've cut her off short, which was a frequent problem in this scene.

Production:

I am now more than able to set up tand use a lighting kit which I was new to at the beginning of the process. I can film using the Cannon Legria HF G30 and watch over shots after they have been filmed. I am able to create a 'flooding' and 'spotlight' effect with the lights.

Construction Post 8: My Personal Contribution to the Edit Sessions

I also feel like I played a useful role in post-production; I worked with Ella and Flo by cutting shots down, re-arranging shots, adding some effects to shots including the dissolve effect and cross-cutting, inserting new shots into our already edited sequence and I also graded some shots.
I also researched title sequences for inspiration for our titles-this is when I found Godzilla's titles and showed them to Flo and Ella and we proceeded to make the titles as similar to their's as possible. This was the inspiration for our titles.
Sometimes one person wouldn't be doing much when the other two were editing on the computer so we decided that every edit session, if more than 2 people were present, one person would be allocated the macbook to research and work on titles.

how we graded our shots

Construction Post 7: My Personal Contribution to the Shoot Session

I feel like I contributed more in the test shoot and back-up shoot than I did in the main shoot session in terms of filming because I was acting in the background of a lot more of the shots in the main shoot.
However, I filmed all the outside shots in our main shoot, a lot of which were used in our final edit. In the back-up shoot session, I filmed the re-shoot of the slap scene which was quite tricky when trying to get the angle right in order to make the slap as realistic as possible. I helped set up and move around lights in all the shoots and we all worked together at the shoot to watch back our footage to decide if we needed more takes or not. I also was in charge of the clapper board for many of the shots which we needed to make sure we were being time effective and it also made renaming and deleting shots easier when it came to post-production.
I enjoyed everything I did in production and I really feel like i developed my camera skills in terms of framing and how to create an effective perspective to make it look like there are more people in the shot.

Construction Post 6: Reflections on Edit Week 2

Our second week of editing

Our edit week 2 schedule

Having got our 3 new rushes from our back-up shoot, we immediately uploaded these to our final edit so as to get that part out of the way. However, this was quite difficult as we had to move around a lot of shots especially in the bathroom scene which had lots of cross dissolves edited on it meaning footage was missing which we had to completely re-start. After these shots were put into place and the order was finished with no glitches, we began to grade our shots by increasing the contrast and decreasing the brightness. For some shots we had to alter the "three wheel colour wheel" because when we showed our TA focus group, they thought they looked too blue or too yellow, for example. We spent a lot of time changing our titles and trialling different effects and wording styles. We managed to successfully meet the deadline and I am happy with how things turned out.

Our group working on our opening

Construction Post 5: The Back-Up Shoot

The two scenes we were re-shooting was the bathroom scene and the slap scene. They were quick to film and not complicated which was good. Above is a list of the shots we planned to re-take which was very helpful to jog our memories and make sure we didn't miss anything out as this would be our last chance. The shots turned out very well and we were able to slot them into our sequence accordingly. 

Construction Post 4: Reflections on Edit Week 1

Our first edit week 

Our edit week 1 schedule

Above is a picture of our first week's edit schedule which we were advised to create and it proved very helpful in terms of communication amongst the group, Miss Blackborow, Miss Dymioti and Emma. (Our technician). Our teachers were now clear on when we were expected to be working on our sequences so they could make sure someone was available for help, if needed. Editing required a lot of sessions and we tried our best to use every bit of free time we had, including lunchtimes and after school, in the edit suite working on our sequence. During editing, we had to watch all our new rushes, rename them, order the shots and then begin actually editing each clip and adding music etc. It was quite a long, tedious process at times, but overall enjoyable. We were able to notice shots which needed re-filming and scheduled ourselves in for a back-up shoot that following weekend, making sure we let Emma know we would be needing the production kit again. We tried out lots of different video effects for the lola tracking scene (when she spots her boyfriend talking to another girl) and found one, the blur effect, perfect for highlighting how Lola was meant to be feeling. After our TA saying that Lola needed to look more intoxicated, we decided to add effects after filming which further highlighted this. Every edit session we had planned when the whole group was present (usually lunchtimes), one member from the group would also be testing different font styles for our titles on LiveType. We took reference from Godzilla's wording of their titles from their opening sequence.
I think we worked really well together, and once we hd got the most tedious part of watching and renaming shots out of the way, we were able to really involve ourselves as a group in making decisions for the final edit.

Our group working on LiveType and editing

Construction Post 3: Reflections on our Main Shoot Session

I believe our main shoot session went a lot better than our test shoot session. Mainly because we now had the correct lighting to make our shots much better quality, we had a lot more actors so were able to create a more realistic party scene and we had a much clearer idea of what we needed to film and how we would go about it (thanks to the mistakes made in our test shoot footage). We used all of the footage from the main shoot session apart from only 3 shots we had to re-shoot in a back-up shoot session. None of our shots turned out grainy and all the shots were generally well framed. For the main shoot session, we made sure we had music playing in the background of our shots to make our actors feel more comfortable dancing and act how they would usually at a real party. This worked well and we were able to delete the background noise in post-production. Our actors all arrived on time and co-operated very well so we were also very pleased with that.
The only shots we were advised to re-film was the slap scene and the upstairs bathroom scene. Our TA focus group were not keen on the "unrealistic" slap so we decided to change the audiences point of view with the slap so it wasn't so obvious it was fake. Also, because Noah fell into the camera with our first footage of the slap so we wanted to change this.
If we were given the opportunity opportunity to reshoot again, we would make the above changes and also try to make some of our shots more tightly framed, for example the first mirror shot of Ella had a lot of space above her head. But apart from that, I think we created some good footage.

Construction Post 2: Our Post-Production Kit

The post-production kit was the kit we used after we had all our new rushes in order to edit them into a chronological sequence. Each group had their own allocated edit suite where their projects were loaded onto the computer which had two screens to make editing our sequence easier. However, for our titles we were given Macbooks to create these on a program called LiveType. The program used on the computers to edit our shots was called Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5which I found quite straight-forward but very effective to use once you got the hang of it.

one of our titles on LiveType

Construction Post 1: Our Production Kit

We borrowed all our equipment from the school media department; this included...

• a tripod, 
• over-head light for the camera, 
• our canon video camera, a 'shotgun' microphone, 
• headphones and,
• a lighting kit from which we used 2 big spotlights. 

The canon camera we used was a Canon Legria HF G30. On top of this technical equipment, we also used a clapperboard and a clipboard which had all our sots for the day written on it. We had to organise amongst our group who would be transporting equipment to and from school for our shoot. So, with the advantage that her mum was able to, kindly, give her a lift, Flo and her mum took this responsibility. Even so, bot Ella and I still turned up at the planned picking-up and dropping-off equipment times.

This is the equipment release form my mother and I had to sign. Every person in our group had to get this signed in order to be given the equipment we needed.