In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product is fairly typical of its genre, not only is one feature our strong opening monologue from the perspective of the main character in the film (Ritchie, Karl Tedder), which is very common in these types of crime thriller film openings for example ‘Goodfellas’, ‘Snatch’ and ‘The Business’ but its also a main influence on our media product. Another principle of our opening sequence typical of its genre is the beginning of the film that is actually the ending, raising many questions within the audience and this maintains their interest for the film due to the fact they want to know more. Real media product examples of crime thriller films that also have used this technique would once again be ‘Snatch’ as well as ‘Goodfellas’. However, a feature within our film that is not typical of the films drama I feel is how we have moved on and developed in a sense from the average main character in a crime thriller as more of a ‘thinking man’s gangster’ instead of the average one dimensional gangster.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The main social group represented in our film opening sequence are that of working class underworld characters. Throughout our media product, we portray both stereotypical and counter typical of this particular social class; the stereotypical side of the characters in terms of their social class would be the swearing, drinking, violence and generally, the way the characters behave throughout the film opening. However, there are also examples of counter typical aspects such as the smart clothing that the characters are seen wearing throughout.
What kind of media institute might distribute your media product and why?
A company we feel that would be suited to the distributional side of our media product would we Columbia Pictures (UK). Our reasoning for this would be because they in the past were responsible for the distribution of the films ‘Snatch’ and ‘The Business’, two films very similar to ours that we feel share the same target audience as we do. Therefore, people who enjoy such films as these would be more aware of our media product as they would know that these distributors are responsible for many films of the crime thriller genre and therefore would be more inclined to watch.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
We would like to think that the demographics for our target audience would be people that are between the ages of 16 and 30, 70% male 30% female and social class C1. This is backed up by two films that are very similar to ours; RocknRolla; whose target audience was; ages 15-34 [77%]; 71% male, 29% female; Social Class C1 [35%] and Snatch; whose target audience was; ages 15-34 [74%]; 57% male, 43% female; Social Class C1 [30%].
How did you attract/address your target audience?
As a group, we have been able to address our audience with its content and our own unique take on the genre will hopefully attract our target audience. As well as this, we feel that the dramatic opening will draw attention and maintain the audiences interest because we feel it’s a powerful film opening and the fact that the characters involved are that of around the ages of 16-24 which is the same of that of our target audience can also be of use in attracting our audience, as we hope they can feel that they can not only identify, but also relate the characters with themselves allowing a greater understanding and enjoyment when watching.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Before beginning this project, nobody in our group had experienced working with an Apple Mac or any of the software involved with them such as ‘I movie’ or ‘ Final Cut Express’. But as the project went on, we have become more accustomed to and confident in terms of using the Mac’s and their software; Final Cut Express, iMovie, GarageBand etc. The main application we have used in the editing of our media product is Final Cut Express, and we have learnt such technical skills and techniques as the cut tool which allows you to trim parts of your video to let the film run more smoothly and video transitions one of which being fade which we have used for flash backs giving almost an effect of a blink of the eye emphasising the flashback scenes featured in our film.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?
From viewing our preliminary task, we can see many areas in which we feel we have improved hugely and successfully, I would say this is most evidently shown throughout our camera work; the preliminary task is very shaky and not great quality due to the fact that a great deal of it is shot on a mobile phone camera in comparison to the HD video camera on a fixed tripod used for our final piece. There is also visible improvements between our final piece and preliminary video in terms of video transitions which are considerably smoother I feel in the final piece, and also the use of sound, costume, filming locations and generally the quality of acting that our film is consisted of throughout. Overall I feel that we as a group and me as an individual have improved and progressed greatly between our preliminary task and final opening sequence product and have also picked up valuable skills.
Fernando Rocha – Wild Bunch Productions
