Main Task - Audience Profile

This is my audience profile for our media product. 

This is Lucy, she is a 17 year old student who is studying English Literature, Media Studies, French and Photography. She is from a middle class family who works as a sales assistant in a local clothing boutique and is taking lessons for her driving test. Since she has a job she takes the public bus into the city so that she can socialise with her friends and go to the cinema to watch films. Lucy's favourite films to watch are dramas, foreign films and documentaries, such as Amy, Boyhood and The Circle but she also likes to watch more popular films like The Avengers, The Hunger Games series and the Harry Potter series. Her favourite films tend to have an intelligent story lines that inform the viewer about political and social issues. She particularly liked Star Wars: The Force Awakens for having a strong female lead and that they addressed the way women are portrayed in film as being weak and are in need of being continuously saved.

The audience  profile is important because we can understand the genre and type of films that our audience has and how we can address and attract them. We decided that our audience would mainly be teenagers who enjoy drama films which they may relate to and therefore its important to make our opening suspenseful and emotive.

IMDb

IMDb

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is a database of information regarding films, television programs and video games, including cast, production crew, fictional characters, biographies, plot summaries, trivia and reviews. 

IMDb is a very useful source for finding out about how films and television programs were produced, distributed and exhibited. This website has helped me learn about the case studies that we are researching e.g Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Grimsby, by doing this I have a more extensive knowledge about both films and will help me in future with my essays.

Main Task - Genre

For our Main Task we decided that we should film our opening sequence  to do a British drama I decided to look online to see what the most popular British dramas, some of the most popular are:

Trainspotting
This film is directed by Danny Boyle and is based on Irvine Walsh's novel, it tracks the adventures of several young men in Edinburgh who are trying to get out of unemployment, aimless relationships and drug addiction.
The film's production company is Channel 4 or now known as Film4 this is a British film company. It is distributed by Miramax, Fox Searchlight Pictures and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. The film also stars several actors and actresses who are from the United Kingdom.









This is England
The protagonist, Shaun, who lost his father in the Falklands War, earns the respect of skinheads when he stands up to their teasing. He becomes part of their gang however trouble arises when Combo, an ex-convict returns. The gang divides and Shaun sides with Combo. The director is Shane Meadows and is distributed by StudioCanal UK and IFC Films and the production company is Warp Films.













12 Years a Slave
The film 12 Years a Slave is directed by Steve McQueen and follows the life of Solomon Northup, who is a free black man from upstate New York before the Civil War, is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. Subject to horrid conditions for 12 years, a chance meeting with an abolitionist from Canada changes Solomon's life forever. The production company is Plan B Entertainment and Summit Entertainment with it distributed by Channel 4, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Summit Entertainment, Icon Productions and Entertainment One. 








Typical qualities of a drama is that it is a narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than comedic focusing on in-depth development of realistic characters who must deal with realistic emotional struggles. Dramatic themes tend to be people dealing with problems like alcoholism, child abuse, coming of age, drug addiction, emotion, hope, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, sexuality, poverty, class divisions and characters in conflict with themselves, others or society. Dramas sometimes have a tragedy and concern the survival of a crisis, like the death of a family member.

Some of these qualities are part of our Main Task so I would consider our task to fall under the drama genre with a British production company.

Main Task - Moodboard

This is our moodboard, it shows how we want our film to look and what we have taken inspiration from.

Main Task - Initial Ideas and Planning

Here is the initial plan for our film, we discussed these ideas as a group and then decided on what we are going to do for our final media product. 

Main Task

The specifications for the Main Task are to create an opening sequence for a film which has to be under 2 minutes.

For this task I am working with Imogen Millard again along with Katie Puddifoot. We have decided to split the roles into Imogen filming, Katie working on the sound and I am editing the opening sequence including titles.

Lighting Workshop

On the 11/11/15, we had a lighting workshop where we looked at different types of lighting and how they affect the scene and tension.

By doing this workshop, it has improved my knowledge of creating tension, also learning about how high-key and low-key lighting effects the shot as well as this I learned how to set up lights.

We explored how different colored changed the mood of the
scene

We learned how to use the different filters on the lights

We then experiemented with using these
coloured lights on the face

We also learnt about using reflectors and white
lights

We experimented with shadows and silhouettes 

Using white lights under the face to create a
spooky atmosphere

We looked at how we could illuminate only a
side of someone's face, this is great at 
creating mystery and tension.

Lighting behind, this creates a silhouette
- perfect for horror films or an action film.

Codes and Conventions

What are codes?
Codes are systems of signs, which create meaning. Codes can be divided into two categories – technical and symbolic.

Technical codes are all the ways in which equipment is used to tell the story in a media text, for example the camera work in a film.

Symbolic codes show what is beneath the surface of what we see. For example, a character's actions show you how the character is feeling.

Some codes fit both categories – music for example, is both technical and symbolic.

What are conventions?
Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something. There are general conventions in any medium, such as the use of interviewee quotes in a print article, but conventions are also genre specific.

For example, the technical code of lighting is used in some way in all film genres. It is a convention of the horror genre that side and back lighting is used to create mystery and suspense – an integral part of any horror movie.

Preliminary Exercise - Handle with Caution

Here is mine and Imogen Millard's preliminary exercise for Media Studies AS, Handle with Caution. The editing program we used was Adobe Premier Elements CS4 and used a camera similar to the  Panosonic LUMIX Digital Camera DMC-SZ10 to film.

It was important to experiment and film this media product because we now know how to use certain features on Adobe Premier Elements CS4, how to set up shots and the tripods; this will help us in future with our main task.