Evaluation

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

In our film we used a lot of the classic 'chick flick' film conventions, for example our main characters were all girls who are interested in boys, going out and having fun. We didn't use spectacular camera angles that much because we thought that this would make the opening seem more like a trailer and not have the effect that we wanted. We used a range of different music in order to set the mood for the whole film, we started off we silence at the beginning, and then whilst they were getting ready we picked up the pace of the music and then as they were leaving the music was fadin away. This happens in a lot of films but not always in chick flicks and this is something in our film that challenges the normal girly film genre, the fact that the film has an element of unknowing and devastation to it is something that challenges the 'normal' conventions for it's genre.

Every film has costumes and props so in this way our film was sticking to the convention, although on the other hand not many films involve fancy dress costumes, but we thought this was a good way to further enhance the characters personalities by just looking at them. Also with the costumes the first shot of our opening is the gloomy area and the main girl, Ella, with her hood up. Although it's raining this may also present a slightly 'bad' image and suggests the area that the girls are in and the lifestyle they live. We decided to mix this with a dress underneath to show that she still is 'one of the girls'.

The fonts that we included in our product varied throughout the opening. We kept an ongoing theme with a font called 'Didot', which we used for the main title and also mine and Justine's names, but on the other hand we also used a more cartoony, fun, font for the main characters. We also put their names in bright colours to make them clearer on the screen, and imply the fun element that we wanted.
The title of our film is presented on a white background which lasts over three frames. During these frame the title crosses over from the freeze frame of the girls in the camera, to a blank white screen, and then to the girls coming out to the car. Having the title on the blank screen represents the passing of time between the two shots and also makes the title more predominant than if there was a scene in the background. We chose the font 'Didot' for the title and made it bold so it stood out and was definitely clear as the title, but at the same time the curves in the font made it appeal to our target audience; females. The purple as the colour scheme also represents the girls that we are trying to draw in. The font used for our title is fairly stereotypical of 'chick flick' and similar fonts can be seen used in films like 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging' although the boldness of ours gives it a slight edge.

The area that we chose to have as the setting was my friend Bee's house as she lives in a compact area of houses and we wanted to create the impression of an 'average' girls life, and most people live in terraced houses with a front and back garden. The main party of the scene is set in the office room as this is where the girls would be able to play music and get ready with plenty of space, rather than Bee's bedroom which would've been too small. The colour scheme in her house was warm oranges and pinks which makes it feel homely and comfortable and very pleasing to the eye. All of the setting and location are aimed to make the opening feel normal so our audience can relate to it.

For the costumes, we looked for inspiration on the internet deciding what our characters should wear. As girls are pretty conscious about how they look when going to partys, we thought we would keep the fancy dress not too daring so no-one felt self conscious in front of the camera and this would reflect how the characters would really dress. Having four girls wearing stereotypical fancy dress is a factor that is often used in these genres and a lot of the time they use girls dressing up as an excuse to look good rather than have fun, for example in Mean Girls when they are getting ready for the halloween party; instead of dressing scary they dress quite revealingly.

With our camera work we wanted to keep it fairly simple as lots of mixtures of different shots may have been confusing for the viewer and not look smooth flowing. With the editing we trimmed and added transitions to clips such as fade out, blur out etc as these show the passing of time as the girls are getting ready.

The first shot of our opening shows the location and sets up the whole scene, which is a common feature used in lots of films in the same genre. Our main character, Ella, is shown walking up to the house and into the room where she meets all her friends. The rest of the opening shows them getting ready for the party which shows that this party will be relevant to the rest of the film.

Our genre is suggested in the opening by the characters who are the same age as our target audience. During the opening we see the girls getting ready which suggests further the genre of the film. Our genre is not neccessarily shown in the first shot of the film but when we are introduced to all the girls together in the room this comfirms the genre.

In the first shot we are introduced to the main character in the film, and then she meets up with her three best friends, who are other main characters in the film. By having this first shot of Ella the audience can tell that she is who the story will follow and predominantly be about, especially in the first half of the film. We also showed this by the shot of the camera, Ella is right in the middle of the girls instead of on the edge which shows that she is again the main focus. When the girls are doing the finishing touches to their costumes we show them individually on the screen which allows the audience to get to know the characters more and see their personalities.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The setting of the opening gives a feeling of a less well off area, as it is rainy and gloomy, which represents a typical middle class family. Also the first and main character that we see is wearing a hoody, this is a typical stereotype of a teenager and can be seen as slightly 'thuggish', this style is more modern and appeals to our target audience. This stlye can be seen in the tv programme 'Skins' where one of the main characters, Effy, is seen as dark but yet still very glamourous. Our main characters are a bunch of young girls who have a range of personalities, they are interested in boys and looking good which reflects todays youth. By having the girls getting ready and showing them doing their makeup etc, this shows the typical bubbly girly girl which is what we wanted to base our characters on. Within the group, there are different degress of their personalities, which we reflected in the characters fancy dress costumes.

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

Big companies like Walt Disney, and Time Warner have been around in the industry for years and are extremely well established. This means that they are a reliable source and if they were to distribute our media product this would be a better outcome than a low level production company. By having a big name behind our film would get more audiences and give us more recognition, which would be a good opportunity and enable to share our product with more people. On the other hand, trying to get big coorporations to distribute our media would be very difficult as they don't seem to interact with amateur productions because they are less likely to make as much money. This is why a more local and low profile production company such as Abacus Productions in Norfolk may be better as they specialise in independant film makers.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

Natalie, Ellie, Lisa, Katie and Nicky are 17 year old girls. Ellie and Natalie are nearly 18 and all of them are in their final year of college. They spend most of the hours of the day in each others presents, at both college and outside. In the group there are a mixture of personalities, Lisa is a very intelligent girl and very wise when it comes to boy issues and drinking. She still shares the common trait of having a good time with the rest of the girls, yet she is definitely the most sensible out of the five. Next there is Nicky, who is a bubbly and chatty skinny blonde haired girl. She isn't your normal ditsy blonde but can sometimes play up to this stereotype; especially around the boys. Ellie and Natalie are both brunettes. They are your ordinary type of girl and don't wear amazing clothes to college, but if there's a party to go to they scrub up pretty well. They like listening to a mixture of RnB and pop mostly and always make sure that the radio station is tuned into Kiss or Radio 1. When the girls get together every month for a classic film night, they always enjoy a comedy or a 'rom-com' because they can have a giggle and relate to the situations that are happening. This is why i believe these girls would be the main audience for our film as this is what we have tried to incorporate within our film, with maybe a bit of an edgy on the side for the more 'rock chick' of the group like Katie as she is not so into the 'lovey dovey' stuff.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

We addressed our audience by trying to make our opening seem younger. For example the script was mainly about boys and passing your driving test, which appeals to the younger generation as these are the things that they are currently dealing with. These concepts wouldn't appeal so much to the older generation. During our opening we tried to use a range of camera angles and shots in order to keep the viewer interested. We wanted to make sure that the script involved something they could relate to which is why we decided on boys especially. The editing on our film gives it an extra attraction as the slow mo and fast forward sections mix up the filming and also correlate with the buzz of getting ready to go out, which our audience can relate to. During the scene the viewer meets the main character, Ella, and the scene follows her through arriving at the house and getting ready with her girls. At the end of the scene they all pile into her new car and are very excited, this hopefully makes the audience want to watch out and find out what will happen at this party and how the story will progress. From the title of the film 'One Night' you know that something is most likely to happen at this party which will effect the rest of the film, and this will intrigue the audience to make them watch further. The title 'One Night' will make the audience ask what is going to happen later on in the night? How will this effect the girls?

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

One of the first things that we learnt about was the basic camerawork skills. Before this i had no idea how to approach a camera let alone make my own opening. By practicing and doing our preliminary tasks helped me to develop my skills using the camera, and setting up a variety of different shots. This involved using a tripod and a dollie at times to make shots more stable. I also learnt how to change to camera settings in order to get the best possible take. The other main piece of technology that i used when producing our opening was iMovie. This was where we put all the pieces together ready to edit and make our final product. When using iMovie i learnt how to add transitions and credits into the piece and also on top add special effects to make the whole piece look more professional. The special effects were added to pieces of the opening that we considered to be significant. We added a mixture of slow motion shots and fast forward to the parts when the girls were getting ready in the 'mirror' as we thought this created a sense of a buzz that the girls would get going to a party. Other types of media that i used were online, and mainly consisted of Google and Blogger. I used Google to help with the majority of my research for tasks and information. Before constructing my piece i had never used a blog in my life so this opened up lots of new ways i could express the journey. Learning how to embed videos etc into youtube so i can then use import them into my blog was another useful skill that i learned along the way. There were also other online websites that helped a lot throughout the process. Facebook allowed us to stay in contact with each other easily and also enabled us to get audience feedback through polls etc. The website 'dafont' also helped with the making of our production company logo as it offered loads of amazing and interesting fonts. I didn't use photoshop much during the production of our piece, but we did make our production company logo on it and i had learnt new skills on it earlier in the course. This was a very suitable piece of software to use especially for our production company logo and also was easy to use as we had a workshop on the basics along with other knowledge that i already had of it.

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

The main thing that our preliminary task helped us with is the techniques involved when using the camera and iMovie as the actual content was nothing to do with our piece and would've made no sense. By making the preliminary task it helped with setting up scenes in our final piece as we knew where to place up the camera and were more experienced on how to work it. It was beneficial in the editing sense as it helped us to see how the cuts fit together to make a smooth scene and how editing can make the difference to a piece. This has become evident in our final piece as when we had all the rough cuts they didn't fit together very well until we had edited them and trimmed them down properly.