Production schedule

This is a production schedule, it is a basic overview of the times dates, camera,costumes , characters, setting and music that Fern and I will be incorporating within our film opening, it is extremely useful, as we can be time efficient when preparing different sections of our film opening.


WEEKEND: 16TH OF NOVEMBER TO 18TH WILL WHEN FERN AND I DO OUR FIRST FILMING

CAMERA

Fern and I will be using the cameras which are supplied by the school, using the cameras that the school provides ensured that our shots and final opening will be clear  due to good quality that the cameras obtain. Borrowing the school cameras are convenient and reliable as we will always have easy access of using them. Once we have filmed our opening we will then be using the memory card that is in the camera to transfer our work onto the IMACS, this method is extremely easy. Fern and I are fully advanced with using the cameras therefore this is a huge advantage to us.

COSTUMES
The costumes that we will be comprising in our opening are as follows:
Fern and I will be wearing casual clothing, this will instantly suggest that it is a normal day as if we are on our journey home from school, wearing normal clothes such as a t-shirt and jeans will not release any clues to the audience,  and suggest that they are not a target to the stalker character. We hope for the audience to be oblivious of the story, therefore dressing the two girls down will hopefully make the audience not set predictions of what is going to happen.
The stalker man will be portrayed as a stereotypical mid aged man who is vulnerable, who wouldn't be expected to be a stalker, therefore he will dress in normal average men type clothing. These clothes will instantly challenge the stereotype of a stalker guy in this genre of film, as usually stalker characters will be wearing mysterious unusual clothing. Using these particular outfits will be extremely easy, as Fern and I will not have to go out and buy new clothing, therefore we have access to them at all times, and do not have to worry about not having them.

SETTING
The setting of our opening is extremely significant as we have to ensure that it is appropriate for the genre type. Fern and I have agreed two settings would be involved, as this would imply a sense of mystery, these two settings are as follows; the stalkers characters house will be inside, the atmosphere of he's house will indicate a stereotypical mans house, it will be situated with many different clocks and mismatched furniture, which is common for a man living by himself to have. Fern and I hope to select an area which is rather rough and gives an impression of not a great environment.

CHARACTERS
There will be only three characters who we will be introduced to in the opening, therefore each one of them play an extremely vital part, and create a huge impact on the entire film.Fern and I will be the two girls that play the part of the vulnerable characters, who are stalked. we thought this would be the easiest option as we wont have to worry about finding two girls who are willing to take part. Even though we are the two main girls who are featured, when the camera shows to the stalker guy and other parts of the opening we will video it. Fern and I are appropriate for these characters being two typical female teenagers. For the stalker guy we hope to choose a man that challenges the stereotype, therefore we will choose someone who evokes no stalker characteristics.  We are currently unsure on who we will choose to play this part, yet we hope to use either one of mine or Ferns siblings.

TIME AND DATE
Fern and I will video our opening on a weekend, therefore we shall borrow one of the cameras and take it home for the duration of 48 hours. We believe this way we gain extra time to make several attemps to  get the perfect outcome. We will be able to get a variety of different shots and apdapt scenes if needed, therefore having a whole weekend provides us with more time for alterations. Obviously the weather constantly changing makes us unable to predict what the  conditions will be whilst filming, yet having 48 hours allows us to decide what particular weather (throughout that weekend) is suitable for our opening. In my opinion, I think Fern and I should film during night time, as we're able to get full effect of the thriller genre, and although it may not be challening the stereotype evidentely it will straight away set the genre without confusion being raised.

MUSIC
Within our film opening Fern and I will include techniques of non diagetic and diagetic sounds. Our main source of sound will be the clock that ticks throughout the whole duration of the opening which will then strike right at the ending to suggest a climax has developed. We will use a ticking sound off of youtube, Fern and I have both searched through several types of ticking, and yet are still undecided on what particular one we shall use, yet due to having accsess to youtube at home and at school we're able to decide whenever, and have no particular time limit.

• Cameras- Fern and I will be borrowing them on a weekend
• Costumes- We will be using two outfits of our own, and also provide the stalker character with male clothes
• Setting- Accessible and nearby to both Ferns and I town
• Characters- Fern and I, and a sibling of either one of us
• Music- Accsess to youtube at all times

Our animated story board

OUR ANIMATED STORY BOARD

Fern and I had produced an animated story board, this had instantly enbabled us both to take in account what our expectations were of our film opening and what scenes we hope to comprise etc. It gained us awareness of the order of scenes and how we hope to accomplish them. This will be extremely useful to both Fern and I, as if we are ever stuck or confused with what to do, we have this base to look back at.

We had created this animated story board by sketching brief images on seperate pieces of paper of to then show the movement of our scenes. These images were slightly simple, as it was only a brief idea.

Our task was to sketch these images and then video them in the correct sequence, we would use final cut express to make adjustments to our video so that it would flow through without having gaps etc.

After completing our animated story board Fern and I had realised huge weakness within it, and many adaptions that we could be made.

Our animated story board video had lasted for the duration of 12 seconds, it is apparent that we would extend it when doing the real opening, as we would be incorporating a use of different shots, camera angles, mise-en-scene and diagetic and non diagetic sound. Never the less,  the 12 seconds that we had filmed provided us with a basic idea of what to work with.  

Unfortunately we hadn't included any transitions when editing our video on final cut express, therefore we thought that we had slightly unachieved on this task. Our movement of the scenes were rather fast already, however at times it went rather blury resulting the images to look distorted.

Fern and I hope to produce another animated story board further on in the project, which will include more detail of the scenes, yet this animated story board is convienet and helpful for Fern and I for what we are currently working on. When videoing the images, Fern and I didn't have great balance with holding the camera, which could perhaps be suggested for another reason of why the images aren't very clear.

Over all, this animated story board will advantage us both, and potentially help us to accomplish our final opening.

Target Audience

Target Audience

Fern and I hope to achieve a film opening which targets at the age of 15-45, we believe this is appropriate for a thriller genre as it is prone to evoke fearful feelings; therefore that age group is suitable for this. The content of our film opening will not be appealing to anyone who is younger than 15 due to the language and physical actions that will be incorporated may be rather full on and scary to those who are younger, therefore it is entirely vital that we ensure to stick to this specific age.
I have searched various film openings of the thriller genre, and it is clear that most films of this genre usually obtain similar conventions that Fern and I hope to accomplish, meaning that all thriller target audiences will be very similar. When searching different target audiences, I had mainly studied the target audience for the genre of Thriller, as that being our chosen genre, meant that we have to focus on this target audience particularly compared to others (target audience's genres)
Fern and I thought that it would be extremely useful if we produced a questionnaire, we thought this would be a vital method that would collect valid results for us to then take in account for when creating our film opening. We had designed several questions which weren't too personal, yet were enough for us to gain ideas. The questionnaire will determine our final target audience and also decisions in which we will make for our opening.
We had asked a variety of individuals who were willing to participate in answering our questionnaire; we had ensured that we had asked both sexes and different ages so that the results would not be identified as sex or age bias. These results had then determined in what we would incorporate within our opening, as the main purpose is that we consider what our target audience want to observe, and not what Fern and I want. We had received many different responses from all different age ranges and both females and males, the conclusions that we gained helped us decide on specific elements of our film opening, as we were able to see clearly the expectations for our target audience. It was extremely imperative that we took on board the feedback, as if not it would result our film opening to not appeal to any particular target group/audience, meaning that our opening would be entirely unsuccessful.
I had  used the Internet source for exploring the target audience, this had provided me with information on what the target audience will consist of and the reasons for this, I found using the Internet was extremely convenient and helpful as Goggle contained many websites for this subject particularly.
Overall I had received judgements and opinions of the target audience from the Internet and also by producing a questionnaire.

  

Group ideas

OUR GROUP IDEAS- TWO DIFFERENT ONES
Our first idea

• Genre: Romantic comedy
• Our intentions are to begin our film by capturing a stereotypically busy street which provides main stream shops
• We hope to select a female in which will be willing to play the role of a protagonist character, our aim is to follow the stereotype of the female figure in a romantic comedy which portrays an attractive girl who is likely to be inspirational to the audience.
• Our expectations is to achieve an opening of a stereotypically woman to then meet with an attractive man. The subject of the story which will not be shown yet will be expected from the audience  will be that a man and woman falling in love, yet will experience problems and lapses in their relationship throughout.
• Our setting will consist of a busy environment, therefore myself and Fern are eager to capture the busy surroundings. We will do this by using a range of different angles such as tracking, to follow the girl up the street, panning to show the location, establishing shot etc.
• This opening will be aimed at female, as it is likely to be inspirational to the female figure compared to the male. It will be targeted from 15+ - 28.
• Jolly music will be played in the background which copy the stereotype of a rom-com
• We will incoroprate girly type text, which will also be in a typical female colour

Our second idea

• Genre:Thriller
• Our target audience would  be a 15. The film wouldn't be very fearful so using an 18 certificate age rating would be slighltly extreme.
• The film is about young, vunerable girls (played by Fern and I) who are unnoticeably being stalked by a neighbour. The story may suggest a stereotypical thriller as it follows the conventions of a usual 'stalker' theme.
• The stalker will be male who will be classed as the antagonist, he will be much older and isn't usually seen as the type of individual who would stalk young girls, therefore we hope to use a character who in  which will challenge the stereotype. 
• We won't reveal the male stalker in the opening, we want to create a sense of mystery and tension therefore we could incorporate and list a main actor in the opening credits.
• We want the audience to also be guessing, therefore we will only capture shots of hands and parts of the stalker face so that we're unable to observe his true identity.
• We are eager to get a shot of the stalker looking through the windows watching the two young girls every movement, he will be writting times etc down in a notebook.
• fast pace music either generated by ourselves using the Apple Macs or finding a tension-building song using an internet browser, will be played in the background or even over the top so that no diegetic sound can be heard to create a mysterious, scary effect
• we'll take camera shots of her perception of things, she's completely unaware of this stalker so her story will be exposed as more happy and upbeat
• A constant ticker clock will be the over voice, which will then strike when it hits the hour, once the clock strikes to the hour, the camera will instantly draw onto the stalker however he will no longer be existent.

Fern and I have both agreed that our second idea was much more interesting, and challenging to accomplish. Therefore it is likely that we choose our second idea. It appears that we have a lot more ideas for our second idea etc. 

Research of Genres

RESEARCH OF GENRES
This first part of this project was to research various types of genres so that we were able to gain ideas and influences of how we wanted our video to be perceived.
It is chief that Fern and I consider several types of genres, it will gain us ability in what to expect to see within them genres and the conventions that are used. Researching different genres allows us to make a decision on what one to use for our film opening. As it will determine what we feel is best for out target audience, and what we think will be the most successful. I have particulary focused on Horror/thriller and Romantic comedy, as those are the ones that Fern and I wish to consider for our final genre.
I had explored the convetions of Horror and Thriller, whereas Fern had searched the conventions of Romantic comedy, below are as follows;

HORROR/THRILLER
I have explored the conventions of a horror film, it is clear the chief purpose of a horror film is to frighten the audience. Horror films target audience is a mixed gender; however it does appear to appeal the male dominant figure more due to the violent actions that are exposed. The scenes that are included in a horror film are more likely to frighten a female in comparison to a male. The age group depends on the certificate the film has; however it usually starts from 15 onwards to 24. In my opinion it varies, as some are a lot stronger and violent compared to others. Horror films are designed to cause dread and alarm invokes hidden fear. I believe the age group should start off at 18 however the film producers have to take in account that younger age groups are eager to watch horrors and will go against the age rating. I had searched several different horror openings, each one had shown similarities with each other yet were presented in different ways. Every horror/thriller film will contain a type of antagonist which is prone to scare the audience, yet also a protagonist which is portrayed to be the hero. It will contain gory and frightening acts to then enable us as an audience to not only be frightened but eager to wonder what the following scene will hold. Evidently the setting of a horror film usually locates in an isolated areas, urban environments, small communities etc. High and Low angles are extremely common in horror films as they instantly indicate fear or power. Disturbing sounds are entirely significant in a horror film, which included both non diagetic and diagetic sounds; diagetic sounds often evoke fearful feelings for the audience when watching horror films as they consist of realistic sounds which build tension in the scene. The lighting of a horror films mainly consists of low key, scenes are usually dark with unfamiliar shadows, shapes etc that have been formed to build a tension feeling. Props in a horror film will identify any type of device which is prone to indicate danger such as; knifes, chain saws, masks, weapons. These particular elements are expected to be incorporated in a horror film as it creates the narrative as whole to be fearful.


FERN HAD SEARCHED ROM-COM 
A rom-com tends to focus on an audience above the age of 15 because they have sexual content, language and innuendo along with minor swearing. The characters generally involved in the film are usually the ones who are distracted have the comic value and tent to do daft things so that the genre remains a romantic comedy. Usually we are taken on a rollercoaster journey with two main people, they are our main focus and because we are following their story we are encouraged to believe that they are the ones who will eventually fall in love. The plot of a romantic comedy will see an obvious couple taken through a series of unfortunate events and misadventures designed to keep them apart until the ending. We are most likely to see a heterosexual relationship between a male and female who are both more attractive than the rest of the characters. Usually the plot would involve the male protagonist trying to win over the female’s affection, having to overcome obstacles throughout using humorous elements. The plot would become conventional, as when we watch rom-coms we could almost guess what is going to happen, it is inevitable that the main focused characters would fall in love or meet each other along the way. Most of the time the location in which the film is set would be a busy city such as London or New York City, adding to the stereotypical view of a rom-com. The male used would usually have to compete with another male in order to win the females heart, and usually the opposing male character would be more attractive, cleverer or wealthier whereas in this genre the original main man would be more humorous. It could be perceived as the most unlikely couple in the beginning to be the most suited in the end.In a rom-com I think it shows a modern interpretation and the audience is easily able to relate to some of the story line or one of the character traits, you often have a wide variety of characters with a mix of personalities such as; the 'dumb' one, the typical blonde popular one, the funny male friend who has no hope to begin with but find love in the end, etc.

Premilinary Task

For our preliminary task we had to get into groups of maximum four, however I had selected two of my peers to work with. I had chosen two individuals that I was able to feel confident around, yet also able to produce a video which incorporated all of the conventions that were needed without any disagreements being raised. I had chosen Amelia and Avril.
I and my group were unsure on what particular genre to use when creating our video. We had mixed ideas and made several alterations when planning. We firstly thought of using the genre thriller; however we thought that would be slightly more difficult, as the task only had to last for the duration of 15 seconds. We were told that we had to use a 180 degrees rule, shot reverse shot and match on action; therefore we had to ensure that our video had included all of these elements.
We had to produce a story board before filming, so that we were able to use it as a base to work from. At times several disagreements were raised as we all had our own ideas; however we had combined our ideas together to then make final decisions. Creating a story board was extremely useful and vital as it made it clear on what to expect on each section of our video. The most significant element of this task was making sure we had integrated the conventions; otherwise our video would be unsuccessful.
We had resolute into filming just a conversation, as we believed no complications would be raised and the filming only had to last for 15 seconds, therefore nothing major had to happen. We had decided as a group who would be part of acting in the video, we had chose Avril and a peer of ours called Temi who was also willing to take part. Amelia and myself wasn’t entirely confident on acting as we knew we would be easily distracted, and we didn’t want our video to be a failure, therefore we settled with using Avril.
I found this task extremely easy, as capturing various shots to then combine to produce a final outcome was very straight forward. Never the less, I believe a huge weakness of our video was the lack of imagination that we used, as it wasn’t very interesting. It took several attempts to capture the most professional shot; however after several tries we were able to get it.
Once we had various shots we then had to combine this to produce a final video. We had transferred our work onto the Imac computers so that we were able to make further adjustments and development. I thought our video was appropriate and appealing for our first task, and it was apparent what particular improvements and development needed to be made for when doing our next filming task.
We had used final cut express to edit our video, to make changes by erasing parts that were needed and to render each section of the video together to make it flow. This part of the task was by far the most hardest, as I wasn’t fully advanced with final cut express, therefore I was unaware of how to do certain things. However, once being instructed I was then able to work it.
As a group we had edited our video, we had erased a part where Avril had walked close to the camera and was just awkwardly smiling. We had removed this exacting part we it looked extremely unprofessional and odd as it didn’t flow with the rest of the video. We had combined each section together so that the match on action had worked, the shot reverse shot and also the 180 degrees rule.
I believe our video was a success as the match on action had worked perfectly with the use of walking through the door, then coming out of the door. The shot reverse shot had worked, however, I believe we could had made the conversation a tad longer so that we were able to prove that we fully understood this convention. And we had used the 180 degree rule when Avril and Temi hugged. A huge weakness of ours as a group was we had to observe the video as a whole to realise where we had used the 180 degree rule, this was rather unprofessional as we should had ensured before filming where we would be using it  so that we were completely aware. We had used all of the convetions that were needed yet I believe we had used them in an extremely simple way. A huge improvment that could had be considered was trying to challenge and develop the conventions further, so that we had used them in a much more fascintating way.
I had enjoyed doing this task as it made me feel a lot more confident and comfortable to then do the main task that we soon will be doing. I had feel a lot more superior with using cut express and the flip cameras, therefore I believe our video was an achievement for the first initial task.

 

Why I chose to study A level Media Studies?

Before studying Media studies as a GCSE I wasn't entirely aware of the topics in which it involved. However, once beginning the topic I had realised that media is something that I’m extremely interested by. Therefore I was eager to take it as An A level.
At times I do find it rather tricky nevertheless, due to media being my preferred subject; it strives me to accomplish successful work in both my course work and exams.
I had chosen to study media as I believe it’s a subject which can link with my own lifestyle, due to using media every day. I am keen to know how the media does work, as I am constantly using it myself i.e. television, radio, magazines etc.
The media has become a huge influence in my life through dissimilar methods, as it gives me aspiration to what I want to achieve in my later career. I hope to study media at university as I believe it will lead me to different pathways for job opportunities. After taking Media studies for a GCSE I instantly had realisation that I take pleasure out of studying it therefore want a job which could involve the knowledge that I had gained, preferably a journalist
I was enthusiastic to continue with Media studies as an A level, as it is a subject that I not only learn from but also enjoy doing. Studying media has enabled me to have a higher understanding of society and how it functions.
The media is a major part of my lifestyle as I constantly listen to music and go on the internet mainly to use social networking sites such as twitter and face book. I often read magazines which give me with inspiration, because of the information that is exposed i.e. the latest fashion.  I have many role models which I would desire to be like.
I believe Media is a vital subject to be alert of becuase it helps you adapt to particular things in society, it provides you with facts, entertainment etc.
Media is a subject which I find extremely interesting. I admire learning about how it works, why it does specific things etc, and hope to use it in my later life.