Evaluation: Production Companies and Film Distributors

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


A production company is the basis for most works in film, television, radio and video, etc, and is responsible for things such as funding, budgeting, scheduling, scripting, supplies, staff, post production, distribution and marketing and most things during the creation of the work.

A film distributor is a company with the responsibility of releasing films to the public. This can be either theatrically or for home viewing, such as DVD, video, TV, etc. The distributor is also responsible for ensuring advertising material is available to help attract an audience to the exhibitor (theatric showings) and ensure the film arrives where it should be on time, and is shown in the intended manor.

One company who might distribute our film would be Warner Bros. They have many different subsections of their company, and as result, distribute many different types of film in many different genre's yearly. It is also the company which distributed The Hangover, which was one of the films that we used as inspiration for our own.

Another company which could distribute our film could be 20th Century Fox, as they distribute many successful films of all genre's particularly comedy though, and another of our inspiring films, Dude, wheres my car? was distributed on the same company.

Because our film is only small scale with a small budget, we could appeal to the UK Film Council as a way of gaining funding. They run a series of different schemes and funding plans which could be benificial to us for things such as software for editing, or filming equipment, and other basics such as paying staff had this been a real production. An aternative could be to self fund the movie, though this could have an incredle amount of effect on quality.

The people named in our titles are only people who acted in it, or would have acted at some point during the rest of the movie, meaning it was essentially our group with several other names.

Evaluation: Progression

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


Editing and Camerawork- during the progression from preliminary task to full product I feel I have become more confident with using a camera and editing software. During the preliminary task, I was very uneasy with filming, and needed a fair bit of help from the rest of my group, however during filming for my opening sequence, I felt a lot more confident and comfortable with filming footage. Also, during editing of the preliminary task, I had no idea of how to use the software, and required a lot of help, whereas when editing our final product, I felt more confident and able to use the software, even though it was different to the one I had used previously.

In both the prelim and the full product, 180 degree rules were used several times;

Evaluation: Technology

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

Throughout the process of creating the opening sequence we came into contact with a number of pieces of equipment and software's.

Apple Mac


Final Cut Express- We used final cut express in order to edit our final product.

iMovie- We used iMovie to upload our footage from the camera to the Macs.

Safari

Blogger- We used blogger to record our progress throughout filming, etc, and post our research and planning for the opening sequence.

Youtube- We used youtube to

OpenOffice














Photoshop/Gimp

Evaluation: Representations

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The character of Louis could be compared to Jay from The Inbetweeners TV series and movie. Both characters are represented as typical teenage boys, who are both concerned with drinking, good times, and women. Louis' love of a good time is represented quite early on in the opening sequence; from the fact that he is drink/hungover and from the small flashbacks, whereas Jay's love of the same things are shown through his constant want to go to parties, drink and hang out with his friends. Louis' concern for women isn't shown much in the opening sequence, but is shown by his paranoia that he perhaps took it too far with his best friends sister, whereas throughout The Inbetweeners, Jay makes his wish to get all the girls clear throughout every episode and regularly throughout the movie.

Both characters also have darker senses of humour and a habit of being rude to their friends. Louis' darker humour is shown from the flashbacks of where he is torturing Barry and winding him up, and he finds it amusing before winding Barry up further by reminding him that he is claustrophobic as he is taped to a tree. Jay doesn't necessarily wind his friends up, but he's very often less than nice to them.

Evaluation: Conventions

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

The film title of a comedy film tends to not have any real conventions to it, just normally that it is interest provoking. For example, 'The Leap Year' provokes interest as it already makes people wonder what will happen, as it gives nothing away, only that it has something to do with a leap year (this being that is is set on a new year party for a leap year, and is a reference to the year it was made, though this isn't obvious to begin with) and means the audience will watch on in order to decipher why this film is titled in this way, because it intentionally makes no sense to begin with. However, the title being obscure is quite unconventional when our inspiring movies are taken into consideration, as 'The Hangover' and 'Dude, where's my car?' introduce the movie's events quite quickly, primarily the 'we got drunk and a lot of crazy stuff we can't remember happened', wheres as 'The Leap Year' does hide this quite well.

The title style/font is a clear development of the comedy genre. Although the genre has no outward conventions to which the title styles must comply, many films within the genre have title sequences designed to fit the film, and therefore the genre. Our title sequence are in rather large bubble style writing, and falls to the bottom of the screen with a clattering sound, which fits the conventions of alcohol and accidents within the film.

The a comedy film can take place in a number of places, meaning determining a setting for the genre as a whole is difficult, though less so within sub genre's, for example a space ship being a setting in a sci-fi comedy. Most films take place within settings or locations that are relevant to the film idea's or events. As the film is a teen based comedy, the film settings most associated with this are houses, schools, shops, and clubs, and so the setting of our opening sequence does slightly challenge this, although this could also be due to the alcohol conventions, which could mean the conventions of quite strange settings due to strange events taking place is actually developed.

Costumes featured in comedy films often depend on the particular sub-genre for which they are part of. For most comedy films, the costumes are quite casual (jeans, shirts, etc) which we chose to do also, as this made the film more believable and easier for the audience to relate to.

The props featured in comedy films are pretty generic to all film genre's, and tend to be basic or everyday items. In our opening sequence, this isn't much different. The characters both have mobile phones, basic everyday items which most audience members will own and therefore be able to relate to. However, a few of the props we used were to provoke humour, such as the mask, party poppers and masking tape. which aren't usually items the audience will use, or at the very least not in a park. Humour provoking props are often used in comedy films, be they generic everyday items used out of context, or actual strange or joke items.

The story and how the story is set up fits the conventions of this type of comedy film. The set up to the story is very much waking up the morning after something big happened and being able to remember barely any of it, and spending the rest of the film tracing their tracks back to the party in order to find out what happened. This is a pretty common convention for this genre, and is seen in both 'The Hangover' and 'Dude wheres my car?'.

The set up of the genre is probably quite conventional also. Like the way the story sets up the movie, this set up helps set up the genre. The opening sequence is full of gimmicks and little flash backs, which in themselves are gimmicks. These gimmicks set up the genre as comedy. For example, the first gimmick is Ryan (Louis) falling for the tree, which I don't beleive is in many if any comedy films, or at least not from what I've seen. Other comedy films use gimmicks also, notably in both 'The Hangover' and 'Dude where's my car?' the use of wild animals is used as a gimmick to address the fact that all is not well in the opening sequence, though we chose to avoid this gimmick and go with something a little simpler and more unique.

The way the characters are introduce are by falling and finding. Louis's character is seen just before he falls out of the tree, but we're only really introduced to him when he stands up and looks around, as we get a sense of his personality this way, that being that he's comedy's generic mean character with a stupid best friend, who we're introduced to when he walks to the other side of the tree and finds taped to it. Barry is seen in the flashbacks that Louis has before this point, but we just see the pair of them messing around, we don't see much else of them, and so Barry is only really introduced when he's sleeping taped to a tree. Barry's introduction is quite fitting with the genre, as in 'The Hangover' a few of the characters are introduced while they're asleep. Louis's could also be, as in 'Dude where's my car?' the characters are awake, though when Louis wakes up, he knows something isn't right straight away, though they're in their house and he's in a a park, so it's forgivable.

The camera work and editing in the film is conventional to any film. There is no real set way any film has to use a camera or editing, just so that it is in a away which suits the film. For example, we chose to zoom in ever so slightly on Louis before zooming right back out on him in order to establish confusion to those who notice it, and therefore the confusion which Louis will show shortly after. The editing we chose to do was mainly sequencing and music. All films use relevant music in order to establish genre conventions, and as so, we used 'Macho Man' by the village people to add comedic effect. Also, we chose to sequence the opening sequence with flashbacks after each object he looked at, in order to establish comedy, as the events in the flashbacks are slightly comedic as well as giving an insight into Louis and Barry as characters, and the night before.

Just as with camerawork and editing, special effects have no real conventions depending on the genre.

Evaluation: How we attracted our audience video

Planning for directors commentary on opening sequence (How did we attract our audience?)

Below is a rough plan made of points for our directors commentary on how we attracted our audience in our opening sequence. We plan for all, or at least most, members of our group to speak at some point during the commentary.

So, how did we attract our target audience?

Production logo- The choice for this to go first allows the audience to know who created the film, but also introduces the genre and music well.
Titles- By having the titles come in and clatter to the bottom of the screen, we thought the genre was well represented, and it also relates to the theme of drink within the film, as the clattering sounds like glass.
Music- We used Macho Man in order to add comedic effect.
Setting- We thought that the setting of  park would cause humour and confusion among the audience, and  interest them into watching the rest of the film.
Actions- The first action is Ryan falling from a tree, which we added as it was a simple and easy gimmick for us to pull of, and would also gain laughs from the target audience.
Flashbacks- We included these to give small insights into the night before in relation to where they are the next morning, without giving too much away, but still giving a comedic effect- the plan was also that after the opening sequence, the film would soon return to the party.
Taped to a tree- We included this primarily for comedic effect, but also to gain audience interest.