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

Within the genre of comedy, there are many elements that occur regularly, for example, the music is generally upbeat, and light-hearted. However, this can be changed to mock another genre, for example, to change the musical score to that of a more serious tone, when the action is that of something silly the genre action or thriller is belittled, making humour.

There are also a lot of close-ups, because the actors (particularly in the sub-genre slapstick comedy) pull funny and over-exaggerated facial expressions. Also, it is conventional for actors to stick to this genre, and rarely do other “more serious” films in other genres such as Ben Stiller or Will Ferrell or Jack Black, they rarely star in films outside of comedy. 

Within my film opening, I used the convention of upbeat music to keep the tone of the film light-hearted and comical, emphasizing that the film opening is the opening to a comedy. Another convention that I used in my film opening was the film focused on individual stars, namely the 2 robbers. Many comedy films put much more focus on their leading characters and their stars than other genres down to the fact that many stand-up comedians transitioned from stand up comedy to starring in films due to increase in popularity.

Comedies humorously exaggerate situations, characters, language and action for comedic effects. I feel I have used this convention within my film opening as the entire situation of burglars breaking into a house at exactly the same time a surprise party victim gets home is kind of ludicrous, and the chances of them entering the same room at the same time like they did in my film opening is extremely unlikely, which is why it works as a comedy.

The genre of comedy can be split up into sub-genres such as Slapstick Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Black/Dark Comedy, Parody/Spoof Comedy and Gross-Out Comedy. Comedy can also be split into what are called “Hybrid Genres” where 2 genres a merged together to create a film, examples are Comedy-horror, Action comedy, Fantasy comedy and Sci-Fi comedy. 


I however feel that my particular film opening falls into the category of Comedy, or possibly British Comedy. This is because I don’t feel that it falls into another type of genre to form it into a sub-genre or hybrid genre. It isn't a romantic film, parody or gross-out film like the sub-genres offer, and I don’t feel that it falls under the genres of horror, action or sci-fi therefore not making it into a Hybrid comedy. I therefore feel that this is the best way to describe my film, as a British comedy because that’s what it is - a comedy, made in Britain, very much like films such as Hot Fuzz and Wild Target.

How does you media product represent particular social groups?

I don’t feel that there are any particular social groups focused on in my media. The entire surprise party I would class as B or C1, meaning that they are Middle Class to Lower Middle Class. This is because they are from what seems like an average family home, nothing out of the ordinary, but a large enough house with wealthy enough possessions to be in the middle class, rather than working class.

I tried to get an age range of actors, particularly for the surprise party. I managed to cast a number of people around my age and a couple old enough to be parent, however I only managed to cast girls (with the exception of Harry – the burglar) as they were the only people available and willing to be in my film opening. I however feel that it still worked as if it was this girl’s birthday it could be organised by her closest friends, mum and her mother’s friend, which is how I hope it came over.

I wrote the Kat into my opening as I felt that I could possibly break the stereotype that only men are burglars. Male robbers and crooks are extremely prevalent in films all over the world and I felt that I could write it differently to try and break that stereotype as there is no reason as to why women can’t be robbers. I did, however go for the stereotypical robber outfits, black jackets, dark trousers and balaclavas, with torches and crowbars.

I also wrote the character Kat so that she was the dominant one in the pair, which I feel breaks another stereotype that men are the dominant ones and women tend to be the passive characters. Kat’s dominance is clearly shown throughout all of my opening, right from the start where she snatches the tools away from Sam and makes him stand elsewhere. Another moment of her dominance is when Sam asks “Kat. What was that?” and she replies quite harshly, “Nothing, no one’s in.” The way she is leading the way throughout the house and pushing Sam out of the house also shows her dominance as a character.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

There are many film distribution companies available all over the world. Out of these, certain ones may be more likely to distribute my film than others. I started off by searching for distribution companies from the UK, with my film being a British comedy. Below are some of the potential distribution companies that I found.

The first I came across was in fact a French-based distribution company called StudioCanal. They acquired UK-based film distribution company Optimum Releasing. This company released British films including Submarine, Son of Rambow and This Is England. This company is obviously a small company, especially when compared to distribution companies like 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios, but I think that it’s also a large enough distribution company that would get my film noticed.

Another distribution company I came across was Momentum Pictures. This is the leading film distribution company in the UK and Ireland, releasing motion pictures such as The King’s Speech, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Young Victoria, all of which won Academy Awards. Therefore, this is must be a decent distributor as they released films good enough to win Oscars.

The motion picture distributor Lionsgate has released many titles to date, from a wide variety of genres. The majority of films distributed by this company have been fairly to very big titles from films such as Precious and the Saw films to smaller films such as The Lucky Ones and Waiting... .

The final film distribution company that I looked at was Freestyle Releasing. This company distributed films such as Me and Orson Welles and Wild Target. This company however, does not put up any prints or advertising for its releases.

All of these distribution companies have released films similar to mine, especially Optimum Releasing and Freestyle Releasing with films like Wild Target and Son of Rambow, as these are British films that are also comedies.

I feel that these distributors would be the most likely to release my film as they have themselves released similar films and that shows that they are interested in films like mine. Films such as Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead that I would also say are like mine (with added gore) have both been distributed by Universal Pictures, but I feel that the company would not be that interested in my film as it has a much more independent feel to it, despite being a comedy.

Who would be the audience of your media product?

The audience research that I conducted a while back revealed that a lot of 15-24 year olds favourite genres were comedy, with it being split pretty evenly between males and females.

I would say that my film would be aimed at more of a mainstream audience than anything else. As it isn’t either romantic or action, it wouldn’t be classed as a “big film” or blockbuster, but because it focuses purely on one genre, I feel it would be more for a mainstream audience. This type of audience tends to find films fun to watch, amongst other things but I feel that fun would best fit my film.

The main categories that cinema-goers can identify and use to assist their choice in film are as follows; Romance, Period, Comedy, Crime/Gangster, Horror/Action and Sci-Fi. By making my film one of these main categories, it increases the chances of it being accepted and noticed by audiences. My film also fits over what is thought to be the “cut off point” for mainstream ‘plus’ audiences, with it being American/English, Off-beat but upbeat and having a familiar cast, particularly familiar to audiences in the UK.

I feel that my film would have to audience of C2DE as it is ultimately a simple film, with the narrative going straight from A to Z, with potentially lovable characters and a nice, easy storyline to follow. If I was aiming it at an audience of ABC1, then I would have made it so that the narrative would changed and had a more questioning storyline, in that the audience is left guessing what was happening.

I’m not entirely sure what gender my film would be aimed at, as the genre comedy seemed extremely popular amongst both genders, especially between the ages of 15 and 24. Even though older people said they liked comedy as their favourite genre, it was seemingly most popular amongst the younger people and I would therefore aim the film towards a younger age range. I reckon I would give my film a certificate of 12 as I imagine that the rest of the film would have mild language and possible innuendos to add to the comedic effect of the film.

Films a bit like mine that I would recommend to audiences would be films like Wild Target, which is a British Comedy starring Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt amongst a small ensemble of other recognisable, British stars.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Looking over my audience research that I conducted earlier on, I took note of what people said about what they look for in an opening, particularly if they said they liked comedies the best.

One person answered the question ‘What sort of films do you like?’ with; “Comedy, as stupid as possible would be great.” I definitely feel that I took this on board and it showed in my film opening as the situation the robbers are in is pretty stupid.

The next question I asked was ‘What do you look for in a film opening?’ The main answers we seemed to get was that it had to be ‘gripping’ and that many of the people we asked liked to be introduced to the characters. I feel that I achieved this, especially with the character Kat. I think that I managed to put over to the audience that she was a very dominating character between the pair, and was the one who was obviously in charge out of the two.

We then asked ‘Do you like to be left guessing?’ the vast majority of the people we asked answered Yes, but not for too long. A couple of people mentioned that they like a twist and I think I achieved a small twist within my film opening where the seemingly ordinary breaking and entering is turned upside down when there’s a surprise party in the living room.

The next question was ‘Do you like to be introduced to the character?’ the majority of people said that they do, and that they like to know a bit of background story behind them so that they know the reasons behind their actions. I don’t feel that I captured this in my film opening, but it would definitely be done within the next 5 – 10 minutes of the film if it was to be made into a feature length film.

I feel that in film opening, I built up enough suspense to get the audience intrigued as to what was going to happen. They don’t find out who anyone is, with the exception of one name being dropped, but that doesn’t make too much difference. There wasn’t much that audience members could easily relate to as the situation is overall a bit extreme, but I reckon the vast majority of people would easily recognise a burglar when they saw one. I really hope that my opening got the audience thinking and asking questions like “Who are that?”, “Why are they breaking into this house?”, “Who’s this walking down the street?”, “What’s her significance?” and I hope that the fast pace of these moments build up the suspense.

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

Research: I used the internet a lot to conduct the majority of my research into film openings. The main website that I used and found most helpful was IMDb. IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is one of the leading website with regards to film and television, with all sorts of information on movies, list of actors, production and many other aspects of the film industry.

Blogging: To keep all of my work together and editable, myself and the rest of my media class have been using Google’s Blogger to keep a personal blog of our media project, including research and the process of making our film opening. I have found it really useful as it has more or less organised my work for me, it automatically goes into date and it’s so easy to use. I can make it how I like it so that’s it’s easiest for me to use and revise from, adding pictures where I deem necessary and changing text if I feel it’s incorrect.

Vimeo: To put videos onto my blog so they are viewable on school computers required me to get an account with Vimeo as YouTube videos can’t be watched at school. A Vimeo account is free which was really handy as it meant I didn’t have to pay for something that I may not use again in the future. Although it takes a while to upload videos onto your personal account, when it’s done it’s extremely easy to add the videos from Vimeo onto the blog. However, because it can take about an hour to upload a short video, it can mean that lesson time is significantly lost as I wasn’t able to continue working until the video was uploaded as I needed it to do the work.

Filming: To film my 2 minute opening, I used my personal SLR camera; as Nikon D3100. At this point, I had only had a few months and hadn’t actually got round to teaching myself how to use the video feature available. I had had a test with it, but I hadn’t actually filmed anything with it. I started off by using it to film my house of cards falling down. When I found out it worked fine, with a decent built in microphone, I decided I could use it for my main project, meaning I didn’t have to borrow one off of the school. My camera provided an HD quality video, meaning that the quality of the video is much better than if I was to borrow one of the school’s tape cameras. I am really glad I used my camera as it made the picture really clear, particularly the shots outside and in the dark, and although a couple of shots are slightly out of focus, the shot looking over the character Sam’s shoulder with Kat holding the torch were surprisingly clear, despite it being pitch black outside.

I also used an old tripod given to me by a family friend. It was quite heavy compared to other tripods I have used in the past, but it was still extremely usable and did the job perfectly. I feel that if I had used a slightly newer tripod, I would have been able move the camera a bit more, as the tripod I used only allowed me to turn the camera 360 degrees, horizontally, whereas other tripods allow the camera to be tilted vertically as well. However, the shot I got using the tripod worked really well in my film opening, so using the tripod that I did was fine.

Music: My brother did the music, but I supervised and told him if I wanted something changed. The software he used was used to record the music was Logic Pro. Because I didn’t use it myself, I don’t know how easy it was to use as my brother uses it on a regular basis for his university course. I did however edit it a little bit by myself in GarageBand when he wasn’t around, and I found it relatively easy to use, especially once I got the hang of how to use it. If music from my brother wasn’t available, then I would have used a copyright free piece of music that it would have found on sights such as SoundCloud, but luckily he was around and willing to help.

Editing: Finally, the last piece of technology that I used to create my film opening was iMovie, available on the iMacs at school. I had never used the software before until I started AS level Media Studies, but because we had practised using it earlier in the year and I had to use it for my Preliminary task, I was able to use it quite easily. The hardest part I found was trying to get the music to fit with what was happening in the scene. Also, the transitions were quite hard as they made the shots either side of them a bit shorter, which is not what I wanted. It took a lot of fiddling around to get the transitions and music in the right places, but it eventually all came together.

The great thing about iMovie was that it allowed me to edit the speed and direction of videos I had shot. In particular, the house of cards. There is no way I could have made the cards do what they did in the production logo, the actual video I shot was the reverse of it. iMovie allowed me to reverse the video and the slow it down or speed it up how I wished to create the desired effect.

Looking back at the Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

 Our preliminary task was a very simple arrangement of a character walking through a door to then have a conversation with another character. The main task was not the content of the scene, but making sure there was no continuity between shots, and making sure we got a feel for how filming works in practise for our final projects.

I learnt straight away that the amount of planning and research going into my film opening was a lot greater than what went into the preliminary task. For the preliminary task we sat, as a group of 3, around a computer for about 30 – 40 minutes and decided what our script would be as we had already been told the shots we’d be using. To make it a bit more interesting, each group was given a genre to play around with, and we were given western. This didn’t have an effect on the overall shots taken, but it helped us to write up a script as we had something to work with .

The only editing used in the editing was the cutting of shots and takes that weren’t necessary and putting them in the right order, whereas in my opening there was much more editing with things like transitions, music, credits and changing the speed of some shots.

In the preliminary, we had to do multiple takes where the actors laughed or got their lines wrong, but in my film opening I had a much larger number of takes and from a wider variety of shots. Out of probably an hour’s worth of footage, I only had 1:48 worth of film opening, including transitions.

The preliminary only used sound that we had captured on the camera microphone, but my film opening had the addition of music. This was something new that wasn’t used within the preliminary task.

I also was much more aware of the mise-en-scene with my film opening than with the preliminary task as it has a much larger role and we only had 40 minutes of lesson time to film the preliminary task, so we had to make do with using the cafe and actors who were in a free period. Whereas in my film opening, I had the burglars dressed the part, in black costume with one wearing a balaclava with the appropriate props, and that the partygoers had party hats and/or party poppers. I also got a birthday banner and party food to make it seem more authentic.

Some things I learnt from my preliminary task is that you don’t always need to dialogue to portray a character’s emotions as sometimes facial expression can say it all. This helped when it came to writing my script for my opening as it meant I didn’t have to try and cram loads of words and explanations into the 2 minutes as their facial expressions would say it all. The same goes for my character’s positions in the frame and their body language. This all helps to put over to the audience how the character is feeling.

I feel that I have definitely progressed from when I did my preliminary task and that my skills in both filming and editing have significantly improved. I feel that the preliminary task was a good starting point to get me used to how things work, and worked well as a preliminary task, as it should and it helped me to be ready to create a film opening that I can be proud of.