Fraser's Evaluation

http://youtu.be/gTUmmzy-G6E

EVALUATION

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

Are media product 'Playtime' challenges or develops dominant ideologies portrayed in similar existing media products. The narrative is constructed to challenge the representation of teenage girls. As in existing media products such as Skins, Coming of Age etc have a negative image of teenage girls as they are either drinking, taking drugs etc. In playtime the two victims are teenage girls and when Becky sees the injured teen in the park she attends to her straight away to see if she needs help.
Playtime challanges the representation of teenage girls but develops the negative stereotype given to black people as the offender is of black origin.

Playtime like a working title film challanges the priniclpes of modern day film as tried to attract an audience with a stunning narrative rather than spend millions of pounds on visual effects.

Finally when producing are media product we used the same rules and shots existing media products use. For example: when we played back our filming on i-movie we noticed we had broken the 180 degree rule which meant we had to reshoot. We used close-ups to show facial expressions, long shots to set the scene etc. When coming to edit our media product using i-movie we also used a range of transitions which similar productions use to murge their different shots e.g  cut,wipe etc.

Tom

Choosing our production company

We sat down as a group to think through names that we could use as our production company name. These are the following ideas we came up with:

1) Scar Productions
2) Forbidding Productions
3) Tapwork Productions
4) Flamework Productions 

We then discussed and concluded that we should use 'Flamework Productions'. This is because it's the most unique for our British film. The word 'Flame' also has negative connotations of agression, hate, death and mysery, all of which will reflect the story of our film. We then used LiveType to create a moving sequence. This are screenshots of what it looks like:

The begginging of the sequence

 We used flames over the font so it relates nicely to the work 'Flame'.

How the sequence ends

The fire dies out and reveals the production company's name. We also used red writing that goes along with the connotations of death, evil and hate.









By Sophie

Props included in our opening sequence:

 

The Gun used by the unknown villain

 We decided to use this gun to emphasise the violent nature of the villain. We also wanted to end the opening sequence with a dramatic finish in order for enigma to be present. This therefore draws the attention of the audience in to make them watch on, for their questions and puzzles to be answered.

The bed Rebecca wakes up in

We used this bed to start the opening sequence. We made the room appear really tidy in order to give the impression that shes a lonely girl that doesn't go out much. Typical teenagers have really messy rooms, so we wanted to show the audience that this girl deviates from the perceptions of teenagers.








Mobile phone used to call her friend


This mobile phone is used by Rebecca to call her friend. We decided to use this phone as most people in Britain now own either an iPhone or a BlackBerry, and we wanted her to appear as if shes trying to fit in with a social group by going along with the norm, as she already finds it difficult to fit in at school.










Bag used by Rebecca


We chose to include a bag within our opening sequence as Rebecca walks because we wanted to make it clear to the audience that she was on a journey heading somewhere. We also wanted to keep the realism alive as much as we possibly could, and most people who are on a journey take a bag with them.








By Sophie

Background to our characters

 Rebecca:

This is the main character for our opening sequence. Rebecca (Becky) is a very quiet and lonely girl, who struggles dearly to stick up for herself. This is mainly due to her deprived upbringing and childhood. Her father was never there and her mum struggled, being an alcoholic. She doesn't have many friends, finding it very difficult to connect and fit in with others from her school. The main reason why she was targeted by this unknown villain is because of her vulnerable personality and weakness. Her personality make people fear what is going to happen to her.

'Injured girl'

The audience are unaware of who this character is, but this character is similar to Rebecca in terms of her situation. This girl has be badly beaten by this violent dangerous villain, so severely that she is near to death. The audience are left unaware of how this girl has got into this situation, but could guess that she also has a very weak personality to be targeted by this 'unknown' character. It therefore suggest that the villain targets weak young teenage girls.

The Unknown Villain

In the opening sequence the audience never get to see what this character looks like. Therefore, we as the audience are unaware whether it is a human or some sort of creature. This character has the most dominant power over everyone else in the film, and the story follows this villain and his violent mysterious ways.

By Sophie

My Evaluation (Sophie Herridge)

I had some difficulties uploading my evaluation video onto the blog, so instead, I uploaded it onto to YouTube which you can watch using the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk4cjwux_PI



By Sophie

My research into Media Institutions

Film4 Productions is a British film production and distribution company that is owned by Channel 4. It’s responsible for producing a wide range of films all of different genres and is well known for backing a lot of films that are made within the UK, and is commended for its films as of the past 25 years of British cinema history. From this, it attracts some of the world’s most stimulating national and international innovative talent.

Film 4 Productions main aims and objectives are to welcome new talent. On their website they state, ‘Film4 develops and co-finances films and is known for working with the most innovative talent in the UK’. One of their older, much loved films is, ‘My Beautiful Launderette’ (1985). This film started off as a low budget British film (of about £650,000). This film ended up making a gross profit of about £1,550,000. Film4 Productions take a huge interest in new and fresh talent, and is proud of its original talent. Not only do Film4 Productions produce films but they also present them on the free view channel ‘Film 4’, so fresh talents can be pushed and motivated, and perhaps even for cinema release. An example of a film that started off as an extremely low budget film is ‘Wish You Were Here’ (1987) that ended up with a gross profit of about £2,100,000.

To conclude this, Film4 Productions would be an ideal production company for our type of film because they would welcome our fresh talent, as well as creating a type of platform for us so we would be able to escalate with our film. Also, many low budget British films have turned up to Film4 Productions with not that much of a budget, but end coming out the other side with over a £1 million profit!

By Sophie Herridge