In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product uses forms and conventions from real media products to see what has been done successfully in the past and what has been done not so successfully. This was to see what fans of the genre would be interested in being seen again and what they liked before and then to change the things that they did not like done before. Our product challenges the forms and conventions of real media products to judge how we should create our product to appeal to our target audience and to also push the conventions of the genre to make our film different to films of the same genre that have been made in the past. To discover some of the forms and conventions of a film title sequence we looked into the title sequences of other films of a similar genre. We did this to see how the film company had done the title sequence to their film and then decided if we wanted to carry any of the forms shown in the title sequence or not. For example, in the title sequence to the 2008 film ‘Defiance’ they make the beginning of the titles to resemble real news or propaganda footage of the time. This inspired us to use some news footage of John F. Kennedy during his inaugural speech. This, like the ‘Defiance’ opening titles was to give the audience a feel of when the film is set.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our media product represents particular social groups in a fair and unbiased way. Considering the film idea of for our title sequence is based around the Cold War in the 1950’s we decided that we did not want to take the side of one country involved in the war. We wanted to make sure that our title sequence represented each country involved in a unbiased way to not alienate a certain audience from viewing the film. Our title sequence does not go too far into social groups to properly represent them but does allow you to know that the characters involved were not part of everyday society.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The kind of media institution that might distribute our media product would be Universal Pictures. We decided that they would be the appropriate distributor for our film because of some of their film choices in the past and the budget spent on these films. We looked deeply into the budgets and genres of films that many distributors take on for films and then the final outcome we got was Universal Pictures.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for our media product would be 18-40 year old males and maybe even men of an older age. The film would most attract people who were interested in the Cold War and would like to see another angle on it. It would also appeal to people from around the world as it doesn’t show either America or Russia in a bad light without showing the other in the same light. This is to not make the film aimed at either an American or Russian audience. We selected the target audience of primarily 18-40 year olds as it is not a straight forward action thriller but also involves a lot of thought and some wisdom behind the history and social context of the film. It is also because the audience would have to make up their own mind as to who they think the organisation within the film is really with.
How did you attract/address your audience?
We attract/address our audience by using both big name actors as well as a story that is known amongst the general viewing audience but with the twist of the possibility of showing a part of the story that people may not know. We use a big name actor like Leonardo DiCaprio playing the lead role as this would attract many of his fans to go and see a film they would not otherwise see if he was not starring. We also used the actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as she is currently a big name actress and recently starred in the third Transformers film and so she could bring some fan base from that franchise to this product. We also selected a story which would allow many people to want to see as it would give a new insight of the Cold War.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
From the process of constructing this product I have learnt the easier and some of the more difficult ways of using the editing software we were given to use. The first editing software I learnt how to use properly during the process was Adobe Photoshop. This was used to create some initial mock ups for the typographies used in the title sequence. The other editing software I learnt how to use was Final Cut Pro. This was used to create the final product. This helped us create our final product and get it to a better standard that we would have achieved on iMovie or another editing programme.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back at our preliminary task, I can see that our work has greatly improved. This could be due to our use of a better editing program and a lot more planning and preparation going into the shooting and editing. One thing we have learnt during the progression from our preliminary task to our full product is that planning is a big thing before shooting and also a lot of co-operation between the team is needed to make filming and editing easier. We struggled a lot when it came to the preliminary task because we struggled to decide on a lot of aspects of our piece and we then had to rush to complete our shooting so that we could have it filmed and edited in time. We also learnt throughout both processes of the preliminary task and final product that we would have to work as a team and take on everybody’s ideas and not make people feel as though they are not a big part of the group. Even if it means not likely a particular aspect of the piece it helps to show everybody’s involvement within the title sequence.
