EvaluationGrayWolf EntertainmentKrishan Patel

Introduction

For our Media Coursework, we had to plan and create an opening scene which would best fit our target audience

Our selected the genre was ‘Teen Comedy’.

We had formed a team of 4 members, this team consisted of Jayesh, Mark, Shyam and myself.

Research had to be done specifically for our selected genre.

Pre-Production Planning

There are many different aspects which had to be covered in our opening scene for a teen comedy, including the appropriate camera shots where necessary, the speed of each clip and the varying transitions or sounds used.

As a team, GrayWolf Entertainment had a meeting which allowed us to freely discuss what we should use in our opening scene, this was very beneficial for us as we answered key points such as:

What our genre will be.

How can our target audience relate to this opening scene.

How effective the camera shots we have chosen will be.

More Planning On top of brainstorming ideas, we also had to create

much more detailed plans to guide us through the process of creating this opening scene, explaining why each shot would be used and why they were used.

We did this In the form of a ‘Storyboard’, displaying the events that would occur in our opening scene in chronological order.

Here is one of the pages of the storyboard, mapping out what camera shot will be used, in what direction and precisely when. The storyboard also shows the dialogue being used at the time simply so we can visually see how the scene would play out all together.

Production Timeline

The following chain of events occurred whilst creating our opening scene

Planning Research Initial Draft

Teen Drama/Comedy

surveys

Editing First Draft

Final DraftEvaluation

GrayWolf Entertainment Opening

scene Planning and Production

Planning and Production

For Planning, we created our opening scene synopsis, script and storyboard.

Whilst Filming, we tried to include a range of camera shots to emphasise key parts of the opening scene, E.G emphasising the peer pressure as it is a common occurrence in teen life.

Whilst editing we had to keep it between 2 and 3 minutes so video trimming was quite important.

The final draft session was used to include our bumper and any other clips and transitions we felt was necessary.

Research

Research had to be done before attempting to create our own opening scene, and this research had to be specifically targeted towards our chosen genre and target audience.

In our case, we had to do research based on Teen Comedies as that is what our opening shall be.

By analysing the four aspects, mise en scene, camera shots, editing and sound, of many professional teen comedies we easily noticed how teen comedies are layered and built up.

Target Audience After analysing the different teenage comedies and the

conventions used in them, we moved onto creating a target audience profile.

The target audience profile would be used to see what teenagers prefer in teen comedies, whether it would be an overwhelmingly funny opening scene which attracts the audience, or if the opening scene was much more subtle and engaging.

We used the target audience profile to see what the typical teenager enjoys most, allowing us to adapt our opening scene much more accurately than to guess what teenagers look for in a comedy opening sequence

Ideal Teen Comedy Conventions

There are a few conventions of typical teen comedies which we have implemented into our own opening sequence. The conventions we used include:

Fast Pace Editing. Teen Comedies have very quick, short scenes and do not drag themselves out and this is to prevent the audience from losing interest in the scene.

School Setting. One of the main conventions of teen comedies is that they are set in or around a school or college as this is the easiest way of representing the actors as students (young).

Rock Music (Or similar to). Fast paced electric guitar sounds accompanied by a drum beat will often set the tone for many opening sequences, we have decided to implement this convention as it is very typical and generic in teen comedy movies.

Conventions Rejected

We decided to reject the following conventions and not use them in our opening sequence:

Dark Lighting. Dark lighting in a scene with the main character would connote that the character is ‘evil’ or planning something relatively bad.

This does not fit In at all with our other chosen conventions because the main character of a teen comedy is typically very predictable and what he/she is going to do is obvious.

Slow Music. Slow music is used in sequences to build tension in a scene where something shocking may happen however this is not ideal as scenes in teen comedies are short and quick to the point, the faster paced music we have opted for is much more appropriate.

Audience Feedback

After the production of our opening sequence, we gained audience feedback from others in the class who judged our work, giving us compliments and also points for improvement.

The suggestions for improvement given to us played a crucial part in turning our rough cut into the finished final cut.

We received feedback complimenting our editing on the voice over multiple times, however we also received suggestions for the dialogue as a few people thought that it was not as descriptive as it could have been, All though this was intended, we did edit the voiceover to include some more details of the typical students in a classroom.

Way which our media product uses, develops and challenges forms of real media products

There are many similarities in our media product compared to real media products, however there are always differences which were decided to either skip or to reject, keeping our media product unique from the others.

From extensive research and analysis, we understand now that many teen comedies begin with short voice overs to introduce the area and the characters. Voice overs talking about the character or others have also been used in teen comedies such as Kick-Ass.

Our use of 6 to 7 short voice overs are used to engage the audience and to make them feel comfortable with the situation, phrases in the voice overs such as ‘welcome to my life’, ‘ nothing much happens’, is very relatable to many teenagers as it is true, not much happens In an average teenagers life, at least not every day.

Instead of trying to include all techniques from real media products, we focussed on a few specific ones.

This is so that our media product would be able to compete with the real media products in the market as it would have a better/more progressive storyline to follow than a generic real media product which would involve many thin layers to create than one bigger layer (our media product).

In real media products, we see that the story focusses on one or two specific characters, we have used this technique however we have also introduced more characters with personalities very different to each other, we believe that this can further engage the audience as the main story can progress in many different ways.

For example, our main character is a nerd, however with the multiple characters introduced with a voice over, this main character has more than one opportunity to meet someone with a varying personality, therefore the story does not bore the audience.

Way which our media product uses, develops and challenges forms of real media products

As a group we thought that it is very significant for the audience to identify the techniques used in our media product the same way they would if they were viewing a real media product.

Stereotypes are major factors in all media products which can be viewed positively, negatively, or both in the eyes of the audience. By creating certain stereotypes in our media product such as a school nerd and a bully we can engage our audience as well as other real media products as our target audience, teenagers, can relate to situations such as these.

Way which our media product uses, develops and challenges forms of real media products

Real Media Products vs. Our Media Product

• An establishing shot of the school entrance.

• White clothing• Walking straight towards the

entrance, trying to not attract much attention

• An establishing shot of the schoolIs used to show the main character standing by himself.• White/Grey clothing.• Standing still to not attract

attention.

How our media products represent particular social groups

Both genders have been included in our media product, signifying that it is for both males an females and not bound to just one gender, as our audience would not be as large as it would be.

Characters with different races are used in our media product, showing that all social groups can be equal to each other but maybe have not realised yet.

The common stereotype of the ‘school nerd’ is effectively used to show that those in that social group, regardless of how much smarter they are than you, do not care about showing off their grades to others in attempt to gain attention. This social group is represented very positively in our media product.

Some social groups including the ‘gamers’ have been shown negatively in our media product as they have been portrayed as lazy and careless.

What kind of media institution might distribute our media product and why

Our media product could possibly be distributed by wide range of institutions because as a team we believe that our media product can attract a very large amount of the most popular target audience currently, teenagers. Many media institutions aim their media products towards teenagers as they are well known for sharing products through current forms of technology and increasing the popularity of that product.

Our media product could also be distributed internationally and not just within the UK. We think this is very plausible as the stereotypes included in our media product such as the typical nerd and classmates are seen in the majority of public schools all around the world, therefore international distribution may not be as hard as it seems for a genre such as this one.

Distribution is methods of which a media product is released and sustained in the market, distributing a media product successfully would mean that our media product would stay in the market for a very long time, for example our media product could be released on TV, soon after DVD copies could be released and then it would forever be online to watch at anyone's convenience.

Institutions that could distribute our media product

We think that Universal Studios would be a very strong candidate to distribute our media product. We think this because Universal have produced countless teen comedy movies such as Johnny English, Ted, and Kick-Ass and may find our media product very relatable to the majority of our target audience

Warner Bros. Entertainment is another company we would feel confident with distributing our media product also. This is because, similarly to Universal, they are one of the top 5 major distributors in the world and this means that our media product would gain an even larger audience and a bigger release.

Target Audience for our media product

Our media product is aimed at teenagers, and more specifically, teenage males.

We think we have chosen the correct/most suitable target audience for our media product because we are all teenagers and we do have up-to-date knowledge of current stereotypes and what age groups are engaged most by it.

We have chosen teenage males specifically because our main character is male, therefore more teenage males can relate to this, on the other hand if our main character was female, we would have a larger female audience they can relate to each other.

I think that the age rating for our media product should be 12 and over, I think this because typically this is the time when teenagers become more aware of the different stereotypes in their surrounding area

Target Audience Surveys

Online surveys were created by our group in attempt to pinpoint onto our target audience, our survey results would show us whether or not we chose the right initial target audience and the results also improve the accuracy for our media product, in terms of choosing the right genre for the right age group.

Appealing to our Target Audience

This is the poster which was created for our media product. Our specific audience is teenage males so by using our main male character on our poster, we should appeal to more of our specific target audience.

We decided to create a poster also to appeal to our entire audience, teenagers, as looking at a poster for our media product is much more engage to our target audience than reading because it’s quicker, easier, and more fun.

Our Media Product PosterOur company name is labelled above the title so it is fully visible to our audience

Our title is a playful pun, suggesting that our main character is trapped in school as if he has a ‘prison sentence’, a fun way to engage our audience.

No specific date has been given for our media product, we decided to leave it open as the summer holidays is the longest holiday for students

The age rating of the media product, 15 is the average rating for all teenage movies

The main character is dressed in formal clothes and holding a briefcase to represent the figure of a typical nerd, waving to someone, as he is alone in the poster we can assume the other person is not waving back.

How we attracted our audience

Mise en Scene was used to attract audience by using props, clothing and the setting to replicate a typical classroom which all students can easily understand.

The pan of the room reveals all the students and their behaviour, we can see some students falling asleep or with their heads down and hoods up.

Here we can see the students bored of the lesson already, and it had only just started, however our main character is facing forward, continuing on with the lesson.

Technology used in the process

During our preliminary and main task, we used varying forms of technology to edit, create, and advertise.

One vital piece of technology was the mac and its iMovie editing software, this was used to create any and all of our opening sequences, from the preliminary stages all the way to the final.

Whilst using the mac during the preliminary stages, we gained useful knowledge that we could use whilst creating our final, therefore the progress of our work had very positive side-effects.

We used a Panasonic HD camera to record all of our footage alongside a very sturdy tripod which managed to keep the camera still during heavy weather conditions like very strong winds.

Improvements

Many improvements could have been made to each of the team members individual performance.

As I was the camera man, I think that I could have tried to keep the camera more steady when we were filming without access to a tripod, all though the camera movement is not very visible on camera.

The technology used could have been replaced with a camera of higher quality, because we could not do everything we wanted to do.

From the Preliminary to the Final

We have learnt a variety of things whilst creating our media products.

Our planning and research skills have been dramatically increased over the duration of time, as we had to do a lot of specific research, this means going through information to find what we want

We have also become more organised in terms of preparations for filming, the classroom and other settings also had to be set up so we weren’t interrupted during shooting.

We have gotten better at editing and handling equipment as a team, we have all had to use the technology during many different parts of production.