Evaluation of my Film

Kevin Okoro

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The beginning of our opening sequence was filmed in a traditional form. We started with a long shot as our establishing shot because we wanted to let our audience know what the scene looked like which also avoids confusion. The camera shots then progressed to other shots like close-ups. Our story line was also some what conventional so I decided to make the shots sharper and edgy as appose to be using continuity editing, this was to attract my audience but being original with my shots.

In the beginning, our character is being followed, so me as the director and camera man decided to play with the pacing which again can be conventional for this thriller type of film.

The Mise en scene is also somewhat traditional. Nothing particular or specifically unusual

happening. The surrounding and location is very ordinary and every day , as we shot in Central London.

The opening credits of my film are in bold silver writing on a plain black background, I

chose that because I wanted to cannotate to the viewer that the film is of a serious nature.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There is only one central character in my opening sequence. We chose to pick one of our own team members to play the part. This way it was easier to do in terms of contacting them, and we also avoided having to rely on an actual actor. Who your characters. Ethnicity . In the two minute sequence, she gains a sense of sympathy for what has happened. This isn’t built up deliberately, the view unconsciously feels sympathy for the character due to her “misfortune”.`

The main protagonist of my film is an young, urban looking Asian girl. We made this decision because we wanted to step out of the normality of the central character or “damsel in distress” always being a white girl. She is a very normal looking pretty girl. She is presented as the victim, the viewer instantly knows that she is being followed directly from the start of the film.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

How did you attract/address your audience?

We are aiming our film at both men and women between the ages of 15 and 25. Our main character is young , urban and from ethnic minority backgrounds.

So we recognised this and manipulated it so this film will address not only all young people from white origin but people from urban areas and ethnic minorities as well.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product?

I have learnt a lot of new things to do with the technology I used during this project. When we drew our story boards up, we had to use a scanner in order to get them up on our blogs. So I learnt how to use the scanner in order to do this.

I also gained skills on how to use the camera recorder we used to shoot our

film. I developed my skills on how to manipulate the film into more complex shots and me understanding what goes where. I now have a better understanding of the rules for filming e.g. Rule of Thirds, 180 degree rule etc.

Looking back at your Preliminary Task, What do you feel you have

learnt in the progression to the full product? Looking back at my preliminary task , I have become a considerably better at

knowing what happens in the process of the film. In my preliminary task, my team and I were put into a difficult situation

whereby we never actually officially knew what was going on ad what was supposed to be happening. So that then resulted in our finish work not being as good as I would have wanted it to be.

I have generally been more organised for the main task. In terms of the amount of research I did and the amount of time I had to do it in. I have become better at managing what is going on and all the planning.

The Outline of the whole project On the whole, this project has been enjoyable in many aspects. I enjoyed filming more

than the aspect of the research of films and opening sequences. But getting to shoot an opening sequence was the experience that was needed in order for me to understand properly how the film making progress happens. We had some problems but the amount of planning that was needed leading up to shooting helped me and my group get back on track with the work.

However, there were problems that we encountered along the way to shooting the actual film. The first problem that was presented was the lack of commitment that was made by our group members. Although we are all getting our work marked individually, their absence caused us to fall behind on the rest of the project. We weren't able to pick actors to play in our film so this resulted in us using one of our own but that turned out for the better in terms of relying on the actors and how motivated they actually were.

If I could change anything throughout the whole project I would have chosen different students to work with. I had to take control and come up with most of the ideas, I filmed it and directed it, so the amount of work in the actual filming process that my group mates did in comparison to me was minimal. I would also have started working properly from the beginning of the project, giving myself more time to put the finishing touches and edits on my work.