Evaluation

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

Our inspiration was the director Tim  Burton. He has created a diverse range of films, however they are distinctive because of the conventions he uses and his style. Plots are dark and twisted tales usually involving love, death. Additionally, the main protagonist overcomes a tradgedy or problem of some varitety. We have targeted the conventions of a Tim Burton type horror film by focusing on the mise-en-scene, music and plot. The micro-elements contributed to the authenticity of the film. We have concluded from our feed back that our film could be easily affiliated with the Tim Burton style - many could see the inspiration. Additionally, we have used a common form of title sequence, first showing the production company, then the main actors, the writer and finally the director. 


Micro- element: Mise-en-scene. We have carefully looked at the type of costumes in the Victorian Era, as well as the costume conventions of Tim Burton and gothic horror films. These have been incorporated into the costume in a number of ways, for example, using lots of lace and dark colours for the Snow White character, or having the male character (1) wearing a cravat - a typical fashion of the late 1800s. As budget was limited, we went to charity shops to find most of the clothing, this then gave us a limit on how elaborate the costumes were, however we mangaged to drastically cutomise them to give us the gothic Victorian Era type clothing we required. Make up of the Tim Burton characters  usually makes them look gaunt, we tried to emulate this with dark shadows around the eyes and on the cheekbones in addition to pale skin and dark lips for the Snow White charcter.

 How does your media product represent particular social groups?  

We did not actively attempt to represent social groups, however the main groups included are; Male; Female; Age Range 16 - 25 and Social Class. Take the Snow White chracter for instance, she is female, around 20 years old and of working class. This is shown through her costume mostly: Women in the Victorian Era will not have worn anything but dresses or skirts, i.e - not trousers. Additionally, the clothes (as mentioned previosly) are not typical of  the higher classes in this era, the skirt does not trail along the ground or stick out, the bodice is basic and there are no accecories. Additionally, she was obviously looking for a husband, which was again, typical of women of her age in this era. The men wore smart yet simple shirts and trousers and were slightly older than Snow White, around 22 - 24years old.

Furthermore, the Victorian Era was a very patriachal society, this shows through the male's influence on Snow White's life. Within the relationship, however, the balance of power was fairly equal as they were both in love with eachother. If they were to marry, then presumably the male would be a hunter-gatherer and Snow White would stay in the house and care for the young. Oddly, Snow White commanded power both when she was talking to her brother (but her lover didn't know this and assumed it was another possible suitor) and when she came back from the dead at the end of the opening. One can only guess that she held this power over the male character (1) because he was completley obsessed with her.


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

Tim Burton has worked with many different production companies including Warner Brothers, Dreamworks and 20th Century Fox, as well as smaller companies such as Karol Film Productions and his own company: Tim Burton Productions. We think that our film is most similar to Sleepy Hollow, the studios used were both Mandalay Pictures and American Zoetrope and it was distrubued by Paramount Pictures.  Obviously this comes down to a number of contributing factors; whether it will sell, whether they like it and the plot is interesing ,if it is well made and what it suggests about their company.


 Who would be the audience for your media product?  

Our audience would be American and English people, from the age of around 15. As our film has death and malevolent characters, it would not be suitable for anybody substantially younger than this. However there is the question of the individual and how well they can handle that type of thing, for instance, in one scene of Alice In Wonderland, the main character had to use severed heads as stepping stones to get across the moat of the Red Queens palace. Despite this, the movie was only rated as a PG.  It would also interest a predominantly female audience, as well as male due to the different themes running throughout. It would also attract fans of that genre and possibly some Tim Burton fans.

  How did you attract/address your audience?  


Firstly, the characters are around 20years old, this is an age that many people can realte to or imagine becoming. Additionally, the opening changes pace, in the begining, it creates some mystery, i.e - Who died? How did they die? Creating questions keeps the audinece wanting to find the answer to them. Especially as they are about something that everybody is slightly curious about - Death. It then launches into a romantic flashback, this would attract any females (who are typically interested in romance), then the change of pace (having two deaths before the film even begins) would draw in most people as it is exciting and adds interest. The end of the opening is interesting and eerie as the main character comes back from the dead. The three bangs on the zoom adds impact and the opening creates more questions - What will happen? Did she really die? Is she actually haunting him physically? 


 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 


I have learnt how to use professional programmes such as IMovie and GarageBand. These new skills are ongoing so I could definitely learn more in the future, however my skills have improved. And although the skills are fairly basic, for example, splitting clips and cutting music and voice overs, they are important when it comes to creating a professional product. Other skills I have learnt include adding music to a clip, adding transitions and effects, as well as using the precision editor to create accurate timing. Furthermore I have found that the Finder application on the MAC can help to find anything on the computer that you may need, very quickly, be it an application such as ITunes or a file. I have learnt that ITunes is integral when uploading or downloading music as it creates an accessible point from white you can transfer music into other applications.  Initially the IMAC was quite difficult to get used to (No right click!?) compared to a traditional Windows format. The advanced technology gives an opportunity to create what you want and however you want it to be as well as making it of a high standard.     


Programmes, websites and features I have used and learnt about include;


- IMovie
- ITunes
- GarageBand
- Finder
- ImageCapture
- The Grab tool
- Blogger
- MoonFruit

IMovie - This was used to edit our film, obviously. It allowed us to piece together the shots that we needed to create meaning for the audience. We feel this was done sucessfully as the feedback we recived for our first draft was very helpful in gaining knowledge on which parts were confusing so we could smooth them out in time for our final draft. This also allowed us to overlap certain clips of music. We needed a continuous piece throughout to keep the opening flowing sucessivley, however at points we needed to create more impact, for instance, when male 1 kills male 2, we overlapped Prokokiev's Finale for Romeo and Juliet. We could also add in transitions, effects and make the timing perfect.

Garageband - We used this to put our voice over together. We had recorded Rich speaking whilst he was watching the opening. The script had prompts of when to speak, however in some places the speech was not in the place we wanted, for instance, we intended the word 'End' to be when male 1 slit male 2's throat. So we imported the file from IMovie over to GarageBand and improved the timing or cut out mistakes. We feel this was done succesfully as the speec was in the right place at the right time, with barley any mistakes. We used an external microphone to record Rich, this allowed us to get a clearer and more coherent recording.

Blogspot/ Blogger - This Google website has allowed our group to present our work and any thoughts we had during production. This is what you are reading this blog on at the moment. It enables you to create one, or several, blogs, format and design them. You can follow other's blogs if you enjoy reading them, either publicly or anonymously. Additionally, you can create new tabs on your page, this is useful when seperating catogories of information, for example, I have a Foundation Portfolio tab and a Contact tab.

Grab - This feature on the IMacs allowed us to take screenshots of the page we were looking at. This was especially useful when we needed to post photos of our locations from Google Maps.

ITunes - This was extremley useful in uploading tracks and sound effects and when we needed a platform to take the clips we needed and transfer them into IMovie or GarageBand.

MoonFruit - This website is similar to Blogger in the way that you can present your work and thoughts. You can create your own website. You can edit it by changing the design, the layout, the pages, pretty much everything about it. Unfortunatley, you     must pay if you want more space than the allocated amount of memory. This was very akward when we tried to upload our files to the site as we had to be very selective in what we put on there. Occasionally we would have to put a photo into PhotoShop, for example, and make it smaller, then re-save it and re-upload it to give us more space for other things.

IMac - These are so much more useful than traditional Microsoft PCs. They are more professional and accesable (when you get used to them) as well as having more opportunities to create exactly what you want/need for the project.

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

I have learnt a lot in the progression from the pre-lim to the foundation portfolio. I have improved on all of my practical and planning skills. For example, we knew we needed plenty of time to allow for shooting. In the pre-lim, our footage kept getting wiped out by other people's footage, so by the thrid shoot (yes. third.) the shots we obtained were of a very low quality, not varied and there were some continuity errors. We only had twenty minutes to get our footage and then twenty minutes to edit it together. This meant that we could not add any effects, music or decent titles, as well as having very bad shots which did not convey a lot of meaning. See skills audit 2 for more on progression.