Evaluation for Media Practical Production

The main task for our practical production was to film a clip (of approximately 2 minutes) to the opening of a film, in which we could, chose the genre and storyline. For our piecewe thought it would be best to develop our ideas for our piece by observing other films that had a similar story line to ours and whose characters dealt with similar situations. And for this we decided that Kidulthood was most appropriate as it presents teenagers dealing with their different emotional dilemmas, which is the key theme in our film. However Kidulthood also deals with a lot of violence among teenagers and we wanted to distance ourselves away from this as our main theme is to show isolation and struggles a person goes through on their own. As well as the basic plot, we had to think of the film in terms of shots, camera angles and transitions. For this we looked at a selection of drama films including The Bourne Supremacy, which uses fast/slow motion as we used this in the beginning clip of our film. Many of them also used voice over’s and so we thought that adding that in would make it more effective and more suitable to fit into that genre. Our production shows quite a realistic view on teenager’s lives and that it’s not a happy experience for everyone. We wanted to move away from the stereotypical view of teenagers being happy and full of life as this sometimes isn’t the case. It represents the group of teenager’s in society that are at an ultimate low in life and are struggling to cope with their problems. However it could also portray an image of young people over dramatising their situation and making it appear worse than it actually is.
When thinking about what kind of media institution might distribute our product I would put ours in the Niche category. These are also known as independent smaller releases that deal with more unconventional and abstract films. This is appropriate for our film as the opening is quite artistic (fast motion effect) and you don’t tend to find it in a lot of big mainstream films. It would not be placed amongst all the big Hollywood films as most people don’t go to the cinema to be saddened but to feel happy and be able to laugh. In theory it only targets a small number of people in society. For example a person watching the film who has no idea what the character is going through would not be able to relate to it and therefore would not enjoy it. As this film deals with a very sensitive topic many viewers may find it very difficult and distressing to watch.
As a group we decided that our target audience would be from teenager’s (both girls and boys) of about 14 and onwards as there are many young people that have to deal with difficult situations even if it is not the same as the character in our film. I expect the older generation to take an interest in it to as they may have experienced something like this when they were growing up and might find it interesting to watch. We used a variety of different techniques to make our film appeal to our target audience so that it looked unique and not like every other film. The long shot of Lucy shows isolation and how she feels she is completely on her own, this causes the audience to empathize with her. The use of the fast motion shows Lucy standing on her own while everybody rushing past her to give the audience and the character a sense of confusion and bemusement. It then moves onto a mid-shot of the 2 actors Chloe and Jonny. Here, we see that when Lucy is confronted her emotions completely change and she becomes very angry and agitated. This also makes the audience empathize with her as they may start to realise the severity of the situation. By using the mid-shot effect the audience get a clear picture of the facial and body expressions of the characters, which helps to understand them a bit more. Moving on into the bathroom we have a shot of Lucy looking in the mirror and her reflection and this is really effective as it illustrates the fact that the only person she has is her reflection, which again shows isolation and remoteness. When she begins to rummage through the cupboard for the pills we decided to have an over the shoulder shot for this part as if the audience are seeing things from Lucy’s perspective to give a clearer perception of what she has to deal with.
From the process of constructing this product I have learnt a lot about what aspects take up more time and effort than others. I found that the filming itself didn’t take as much time as I thought but the preparation and editing for it did. For example, trying to find a suitable location for the beginning clip was a problem as we needed a place that had a constant flow of people walking past. However this was always going to be a problem as we thought that some members of the public would mess about and not take it seriously. However when we started filming everyone was very considerate and co-operated really well with us. The opening clip was very time consuming because on the final product it was in fast motion, so we had to film for at least 10 minutes for it to last for a significant amount of time. We had to think a lot about what camera angles were best suited for a particular shot and in some cases we had to re-do these several times, which again was time consuming. Once the filming was completed we then had to move onto the editing and this took up the majority of our time as we had to cut out the all the relevant shots and put all the correct ones together as well as trying to add in transitions and appropriate music to go with the flow of the film.
I feel that I have learnt a lot since our preliminary task a couple of months ago. Compared to the product we have produced, our preliminary task was of poor quality and perhaps we didn’t put enough effort into it. Knowing how to use the camera appropriately is essential in order to get the shots that you want and you have to be prepared to re-do these several times. I have now realised that making a film isn’t as easy as it seems and it takes a lot of time and commitment to produce something of a really high quality that will attract your target audience.

Reflecting On Pre-Production Process

So far in our pactical production we have fully completed the pre-production process, which includes the synopsis, pitch, target audience, influences, storyboard, screen-play and film schedule. We began with the synopsis, which went well as all members of the group contributed to ideas and helped construct it together. We then started on the pitch, which was a collection of different ideas we all had for the main scenario of the production. Again, we all collaborated with this and came up with an idea each to go towards this. For our target audience, we decided to construct a survey which contained a series of questions about what aspects people would expect to see in drama films, what their favourite types of drama films were and how they would rate them on a scale of 1-10 as well as more. We handed these out to 15 people and they all gave us really clear and useful information, that helped us figure out what we should include in our production, so overall I think this was a very successful part of the process. After this we started on the influences, where we had to find certain films that had similar plots to ours and explain what they were about and what aspects they included that were similar to ours. We decided to present this on a power point presentation and talked about which aspects we were going to keep and which to dismiss. The main film we chose as our influence was Kidulthood as this includes teenage life struggles and how they manage to cope with it especially the idea of suicide and isolation, which plays a big part in our practical production. This was another very successful part, where we all gave ideas and contributions. After this was completed, we began drafting the screen play putting down all the stage directions and speech for the different characters that would be included in our production, which again was successful. However after having a discussion in our group, we decided that the original idea that we had for the production didn’t work quite well and so we had to alter aspects of it to make it correct again. This didn’t just mean changing the screen play, but changing the synopsis as well, which was a negative point about the process as it held us back for a while. After these points had been adjusted we began with the storyboard and as none of us were good at drawing we asked an outside source to help us with this. This included the different shots and camera angles that were being used in our piece and where abouts we would be filming as well. Overall I think that the timing in our piece could have been finer, as the problems we came across, held us back quite a bit, but that wasn’t too much of our own fault and we managed to deal with it, so I think the majority of it was very successful and we all put an even amount of effort into it.

Screen Play

Screen Play-Anna, Maria, Chloe, Aisleigh
EXT: Lucy standing in the middle of the street holding a bunch of flowers. Takes place during the day time

Crowd Laughing
BOY 1

“you alright Luc?”

“Lucy whats up?”

Lucy gets frustrated and hits him with the bunch of flowers (flowers begin to fall apart)

Lucy pushes past the crowd, while still holding the dismantled flowers and starts to run down the street

FADE OUT

FADE IN
(slamming the house door as it fades back in)

INT: Lucy runs upstairs, while breathing heavily
Lucy runs into the bathroom, slams the door and then locks it
She looks in the mirror, still breathing heavily but begins to calm down
At this point she has tears running down her face and smudged make up everywhere
Stares At Herself
Lucy wipes the tears away from her face, slowly opens the cupboard and runs the tap
She then begins to rummage through the cupboard looking for pills and then finds them and fixates her eyes on them
Lucy then picks up the pot, puts one in her hand and then places it up to her mouth

Black out-'6 months earlier'

END

Target Audience

Our film is based on drama and potentially real life situations. We thought it would be very useful to find out different people’s opinions on drama films and what kind of age range preferred them the most. For our target audience research, we conducted a questionnaire containing a series of questions that would enable us to see different people’s views on drama films. We started off the questionnaire with, how would you rate drama films on a scale of 1-10? We found that out of 15 people interviewed, 10 rated drama films as 6 or above (1 being the least, 10 being the most) and the majority of these people were sixth form students aged between 16 and 17. When asked about aspects and features in a drama film, basically everyone put things like violence, action and family and friend related problems, which is something we need to consider including in our film. Our next question presented a list of films such as Kidulthood/Adulthood, Casablanca, 8 Mile, Brief Encounter, Flight 93, Alpha Dog and The Godfather. These all relate to our project and we asked people to tick which ones they preferred the most. We found that Kidulthood/Adulthood was by far the most popular among teenagers and people from this age group. We thought this because its deals with realistic events and many teenagers can relate to it as things that happen in Kidulthood probably occur in every day life. This also helped in deciding what to use as our influences and inspiration. What would you expect to see in the opening to a drama? This question showed us that majority of people expected things such as the setting, some of the key characters and maybe a small bit of action to hint of what is to come later on in the film. Our next question asked was if they preferred films set in the past or present and most people said they preferred present day films. Our final question asked if they thought it was important to be introduced to the main character straight away and the majority of people thought that it wasn’t. All these answers are vital for how we should approach our films and what aspects should be included in it.

Pitch For Our Film

For our project we can up with a serious of different ideas that we could pitch to enable our film to be the best it could be. All of our ideas are based on real life issues teenagers and young adults face in today’s society.


Pitch idea 1- Party scene
One of our ideas for our project was to show teenage life outside of school with friends and socially going out. Out main character throughout our ideas is Lucy Barker. The idea begins with Lucy getting ready for a party with her friends at her house. They are in her room with music playing in the background, putting on their make-up and having a good time laughing and enjoying themselves. There is then a fade from that scene cutting to them walking into the party greeting other friends. Lucy is a bit tipsy and gets close to a guy who flirts with her all night. Lucy is unaware that when this guy gets her a drink he spikes it and therefore accepts all the drinks he brings her as she thinks she can trust him. After that her vision is blurred and she passes out. The camera will ‘fall’ to the ground as Lucy does. Time passes and she wakes up in the house not feeling right. The following scenes (that we will not be filming) are about Lucy after this event trying to figure out what really happened and if justice is made.

Pitch idea 2- Bullying
Our second idea for our media coursework was to base it on the issue of bullying as this is a key problem many children have to deal with. We are going to have Lucy Barker at school, being approached by a group of intimidating teenage girls who make snide comments about the way she looks and just generally being abusive and nasty to her. This continues on more than one occasion and we see how the character changes from before and during the bullying. Lucy eventually reaches breaking point and results to drastic measures.

Pitch idea 3- Drugs
Our third idea was the concept of drugs and how many teenagers face problems with the issue of drug abuse. We wanted to show how the drugs affected the lives of those who use them and affect other people around them. The involvement of drugs in Lucy Barkers life is taking them through depression of being bullied and her disruptive family life. She feels that taking them is the only way of forgetting everything around her. When Lucy gets into the new crowd her friendship life is changing at the same time her family life is getting worse. The use of the drugs results to Lucy committing suicide. In this idea we linked the concept of bullying and changes to life.









Final pitch
Through our working ideas we came to a fourth pitch which is going to be our final pitch. It contains elements of realism which we extracted from the previous 3 ideas and implemented them into our final pitch; including stress, suicide, loss and bullying. We concluded out final pitch by looking at similar movies whose ideas we have taken a particular interest in.

Pitch 4- suicide
Lucy is a distressed young girl coping with the recent death of her mum. Lucy is locked in her bedroom accompanied by a bottle of pills and a pen and piece of paper on which her once hidden emotions and heartfelt feelings will be spilt. The scene as a whole will be quite distorted with flashbacks of herself and her troubles along the time frame leading up to her suicide. The final built up of Lucy’s death will be of her writing the last goodbyes on the letter and taking the pills which will lead to her eventual death.

Synopsis

A reconstruction of the attempted suicide of Lucy Baker, set in the heart of south east London at the present day. In the UK there are around 400 recorded suicides per year. An estimated 30%-50% is under-reported. Masked with smiles and laughter Lucy lives life day by day; surviving. Oblivious to those around her Lucy is trying to find an escape, an escape from her corrupt past, an escape from her deteriorating soul and an exit from the cruel society that tears her down. Lucy finds herself battling with the tragic events from her past, present and unknown future. Unable to cope with the recent death of her mum and ongoing bullying; she feels isolated and alone. At 15 years old Lucy is emotionally frail and socially unstable. Confused and morally broken she begins to break down from the moment she says goodbye. Each day since the death Lucy gets emotionally unstable. Running seems like the only way of escaping her harsh reality. Frantic, quivering and distressed Lucy can’t help but fiddle with the pills that are so temptingly beside her. “Who would have thought something so small can cause something so immense?” Familiar tears flow constant and Lucy’s fate is undecided. With no one to turn to or heal her pain Lucy results to the only thing that’ll answer her echoing question, “When will it end?” For some people-including Lucy, death seems like the easiest and quickest resolution for unhappiness. This story reflects the unacknowledged seriousness of teenagers in need of help from there pasts and troubles.

Practice Practical Assesment

For our filming practice assessment we were asked to film a short 2 minute piece snippet to the opening of a scene. The criteria specified that we had to show a character entering the room and 2 lines of dialogue between 2 people.
I think my group managed to fulfil most of this, however there were several weakness’ that needed to be improved on. The majority of other groups noticed the same problems in our piece such as the lack of shot reverse shot, which should have been included in our conversation section and therefore we needed to go back and re-do.
However there were also many strengths such as framing a shot, editing and transitions. This was because we framed the feet walking towards the interview room, which was the main feature of our piece. Transitions were used a lot to get from one setting to another e.g. from outside down the lane to entering into the extension block we used a fade out and fade in effect.
This analysis of our practical piece and what other groups thought of it helped me to see what went well and what areas we really needed to improve on. This assessment has been very good practice for my real piece and I now know that I need to follow the criteria very carefully and make sure I am doing what it is asking to gain the best grade that I can get.