Evaluation

In our media product we have used developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media products. From our research we found that often in social realism films that location is a working class environment, this convention is also seen in films such as 'Bullet Boy' and 'Kidulthood'. This often entails mise-en-scene such as run down buildings and un-kept surroundings. We demonstrated this in our product the opening establishing shot is of a council house in the local area which helps to reinforce this convention whilst also establishing the genre.
We also found that social realist films are usually set around a current issue in that area like in 'Billy Elliot' with the miners strike, however we felt that a prominent issue for today's working class society was teenage mothers, of which we included in the form of our central protagonist. Although we decided to go against the stereotype of the teenage mother being an outgoing, confident, and presently active but instead is introvert, academic and sexually inactive, meaning that we developed it from its typical form.

This was included to attract our target audience as it enabled to associate with the characters more easily.
Finally our media product challenged the convention of 'dry humour' in British films in the scene where Linda's reaction to Jens final choice of clothing attempts to create visual humour, facial and physical reaction, which could almost be classed as 'slapstick'. This form of humour could though entertaining to the audience could detract them from the genre.


In our film we have focused on one main social group. The general term for this group is 'youth' but in the media they're perceived as 'hoodies' and 'chav culture' which are both negative generalisations of the youth age group. An example of this can be found in the following newspaper headline:

'Our nation of obsessive teen-haters must wake from its complacency. This Labour government has stayed silent while public attitudes to the effects of poverty on children have hardened' The Guardian, Friday 3 November 2006 (accessed online: 01/04/2009). This headline shows how the media representation on teens is has slowly been absorbed by the audience over time, this links to cultivation theory. This headline is contradicting this representation in a way similar to our film.
Our media product represents the 'youth' social group as being; sexually active, underage drinkers teens to appeal to the age group of 15-19years old.
Although our representation of social groups supports those of in the media, later in the film as the the characters cope with caring for the baby and also relationship issues the characters are represented as far more responsible than that of media representation, which is first signified by Shannon's personality as the opposite to what the audience may have perceived her to be.
In relation to this social group we have both attempted to reinforce and dismiss media representations, this gives the audience a chance to empathise with the characters, what would later in the film after gaining the stereotypical representation of them in opening.
However we didn't use a multicultural ethnic cast because our location Northern working class Britain is traditionally associated with Caucasian as majority.

The kind of media institution that may distribute our product would be 'The UK Film Council' which branches off into 'EM Media' and 'Screen Yorkshire', 'Screen Yorkshire' would be the most likely to fund our film because it usually funds regional films.
It would be most likely to be firstly distributed on the Internet at www.channelfour/film , and shown at film festivals such as 'Leeds young peoples film festival',if its such a film festival our film was to receive awards or become critically acclaimed it would mean that distribution could become more widely spread for example to be shown on E4.
'Film four' have the ability to distribute both online and on television which opens to vital distribution paths if i were to choose an institution such as that.
All of these media company's including Warp-x focus on producing and distributing British film, so would better know how to target my target audience.

There are a number of different groups that could be classed as being part of our broad target audience. we have been able to split these down into smaller groups to see how they directly apply to our media project. The groups that can link into a broad target audience are teenagers, the working class, females and parents.
Our primary target market, the one we encoded the product to target are female teenagers. This is our main target audience due to the social issue in the film being centred around this group. we have been able to target this group by encoding the film with a number of different things ranging from props to characters. We selected this as our primary audience because we felt that because we are in this audience we could work out how best to gauge their attention. By selecting the social issue of teen pregnancies we were able to transmit our target audience. By also incorporating props such as the bottle of Archers we again we using a social issue often covered by the national media of teen binge drinking. Again by doing this we were able to identify with female teenagers. Finally the two main protagonists in the opening two minutes of the film are in this group. Along with the social issues, props and characters we have been able to encode our product to identify the primary target audience.
We also have a few of secondary target audiences. Though the film is not encoded to attract these audiences, we feel that they may still be attracted due to the genre and social issues. These three audiences are the working class and also parents of teenage girls and also male teenagers. These audience will be attracted to the film because it looks at issues that they may deal with in their lives. This film also looks at the relationships between the teen girls and characters within these target audiences. These relationships give the audience groups something to relate to in the film which may help them identify and engage with the film.

We attracted our target audience by using a similar aged cast of characters and tackling similar issues to those which affect the target audience. Such as Shannon and Linda the main characters in our film opening are playing 16 year olds, one of which is a teenage mum. This is one of the simple ways in which we have been able to attract the audience. We have also used a number of different props such as make-up, straighteners and clothes to signify their age group and help the audience to relate more easily as they'll be familiar with these props most of which having their own as they're in fashion, which keeps our film opening up to date.

Our location is in a working class area in the North of England, this is a common convention off social-realism films, this is further anchored by the iconic sign of the casts northern accents. This attracts regional areas to the film as they're familiar with the surroundings, as well as a girls bedroom which helps to address the teenage girls audience. We have used simple locations and signs that help the audience to relate to the text which in turn attracts them too it.
We tackled the issue of teenage pregnancy and the stress of coping with juggling baby and social life, for both the mum and those around her. However the teenage mum wasn't stereotypical in her personality, as she wasn't that confident or slack off work. However she is hard working, quieter girl this attracted a wider social audience within female teenagers.

The speech was spoken in a northern accent which is a typical convention of social realist films, also the vocabulary was crafted to identify with the target audience, by using slang terms such as 'erugh no what a minger'.One of the props we used was a babies cot, of which we borrowed from one of our media teachers, as before this all we had was a wash basket stuffed with a pillow which didn't look realistic at all.Although the cot was a vast improvement from our innovative wash basket it still wasn't quite suitable for our genre in that a common convention of social realist films is the form that they're often set in underprivileged areas so wouldn't have much money for a new cot so would probably be a handed down cot.

From using technologies through the construction process of my product i have learnt how to use Imovie6. This was done during the construction of my microdrama, preliminary task and film opening in which i found out how to; cut, edit, add sound, transitions and titles. All of these were used in each of the three projects however I was able to progress and develop these skills through each of the projects. An example of this is in the cutting of each of the separate clips. In our microdrama we found that when cutting down clips we were taking a large amount of time and still leaving sections of the clip on that we didn't want. By the time we were reaching the end of the film opening I was able to quickly cut clips to a more precise point saving time and eliminating unwanted footage.

As it was the first time we had used these technologies we made a mistake during filming, we shot the scenes the first time 4:3 however the second time we shot in 16:9 giving the impression of a wide screen, due to time we were unable to re-film any of these, however next would obviously film it all the same way probably being in 16:9.

I also learnt how to use a SONY camcorder; where by i demonstrated my practical skills in cinematography. i have shot a number of different framing's, angles and movements. Through the three projects i have been able to develop my skill in each of these three areas. I have learnt how to use the camcorder to more precision whilst also developing my own skill and innovation away from the screenplay in both angles and framing's. The main areas I have improved with the camcorder is in zooms, pans and tilts. When shooting both the microdrama and preliminary task I found that I always made these shots quite jerky which would distract the audience. In our final production i had become more competent with the technology and found that i was able to shoot each of these to appear steady and smooth.
For our film opening i made a head-cam using a bicycle helmet and securing the camcorder to the top of it, it was then worn by myself as i played the character of Shannon for the shot using the head-cam whilst picking up a magazine and building blocks amongst other things, tidying them away.

This helped the audience to feel empathy with the character as it gave them a first person perspective of Shannon's life. This was also an unusual shot compared to the rest of the shots used in the film which gave us another opportunity to further engage the audience.

The disadvantages of using a head-cam were that it was hard to keep the camera secured tightly to the helmet compromising its movement, also the movement s had to be emphasised to increase the apparent effect to the audience.However the advantages were that it allowed us to include an unusual shot in the film which helped us to engage the audience. It also meant that i had free movement of both hands making it easy to create the effect. It also meant that we did not have juggle two people during the shot, with one person shooting and one using their arms as Shannon.

Since producing the preliminary task there are a number of different areas in which I feel I have progressed and improved in. These include areas in editing, directing and cinematography. Ive learnt how to construct shot sequences more smoothly by achieving invisible editing. In the preliminary task we used a large range of transitions. This made it look disjointed, unprofessional and also distracted the audience. In our final production however we were able to choose transitions to make the film run smoothly and appear professional. Although we only used simple cuts, this was chosen for a reason, this being that it fitted with the conventions of the genre. Though i have improved my editing in some ways i feel there are places where i could further improve, such as half through the conversation between Shannon and Linda where a jump cut occurs.I was able to direct my casts speech and movement quite easily as they both take drama so were both great actresses, when compared to the preliminary task where the actors were other media students so untrained in acting.In the preliminary task i found it hard to converse my thoughts directly on the actors speech and movement to the actors themselves, which made it difficult for the audience to understand the plot of our film.The dialogue was also quite incoherent at times, which we improved on in our film opening by experimenting with numerous takes of the same shot varying the volume of the actresses voices each time, we also had a rehearsal which included the actresses reading out the lines in a loud clear voice.In our preliminary task our shots weren't very subjective in that the camera wasn't focused enough on the characters and their reactions but taken too far back so that neither emotion or speech could be seen nor heard clearly, making it difficult for the audience to follow.However in our film opening we discussed and planned cinematography thoroughly beforehand so that our filming process was efficient and backed up for most eventualities. We were also able to achieve objective filming more clearly in our film opening by using shot reaction shots combined with invisible editing and a head-cam, which provides the audience with a first person perspective of the film , encouraging empathy to be felt with the characters, in particular the central protagonist (Shannon). When Linda passes the phone to Shannon you can see that there is no text on the phone. If we were to produce this again this is one of the things along with the jump cut that we would improve. Though i feel i have improve vastly throughout the tasks, this shows that there are still areas i can develop in during my next production, particually paying attention to small details such as this.