Evaluation

Evaluation Questions

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1

My film is similar to the film Kidulthood; the film would be set in inner London, mainly focusing on the current youth culture and the portrayal of the stereotypical juvenile delinquent. After discussing different ideas in our groups the one we all happened to agree on was the concept of a teenage drama based on the crime within youth in the city which we are all from. What attracted us all to the idea was the thought of trying to bring out another famous film inspired by ‘One Day’, ‘Adulthood’, Kidulthood’, ‘Bullet Boy’, ‘Boys N The Hood’ and ‘West 10 LDN’.

Our film’s characters are teenagers; this is similar to all the films above. The setting of ‘Kidulthood’ is introduced in a school playground, revealing three of the main characters almost straight away; we have also used the technique as the plot is set very early into the film.

In the film; ‘Kidulthood’, one of the main characters; Trevor, also know as Trife, from Kidulthood is portrayed as being a surprisingly kind and mature individual. He plays an extremely influential role and similar to Che in our media product, they both share qualities of being characters who stick out of the stereotypical crowd affiliated with gang culture and violence. They both keep them selves to them selves and are very respected by their friends wearing similar clothes. They are around the same age (16 – 18) and both go to school located in London.

Our film is not an action packed or horror/ Sci-Fi film, but a small budget youth drama, therefore special effects have not been used in our featured film. Effects have not been prioritised as most inner city dramas do not include these effects mainly because of the small budget. ‘Kidulthood’ for example, one of the influential films listed had a somewhat small budget of £600,000 and had become good and recognizable films simply because of the story line and how they extraordinarily showed the life of young adults growing up in a crime associated location.

The title sequence from ‘Boys N the Hood’ is similar to our sequence, each share the simple black background along with white text, as well as both fonts share comparable designs to graffiti. ‘West 10 LDN’ also shares this same technique, however with housing estates in the background introducing the youth drama. The title sequence is also very similar to ‘Kidulthood’, with the same contrast of font colour and background colour.

Both films share a similar title sequence to our finished media product, a simple but effective design.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For the comparison I have chosen ‘Tre Styles’ from the film ‘Boys N the Hood’, he was portrayed as a sensible character that kept himself to himself, similar to Che, the character in our film task. In the main task Che is becomes the victim of murder whereas Tre was not killed in Boys N the Hood, however plays the role with comparison to the academic side combined with positive attitudes towards his class work and has no affiliation to crime or gang culture, just like Che who is seen leaving a ‘Chess Club’ in the first shot scene. They are both from cities where crime can be very high in areas as well as being very safe, Tre being from the city of Compton and Che the city of London.

The film represents the London’s current teenage social groups in many stereotypical ways. The featured characters are not of one descent however with a multi cultural cast similar to many youth dramas. There is a scene with the three male characters ‘hanging’ on stairs appearing unapproachable, standing with their hoods up meeting the stereotype of the teenage ‘hoodlum’, who is not entirely academic and likes to cause trouble and misbehave. The knife and gun crime also affiliated with our film, as many stabbings occur in London every year with the offender normally being a relatively young individual. The social group also represents the gender through the featured characters as being mainly males. This is because most gangs are predominately males, as they are normally the aggressive offenders, and commonly more likely to commit a serious crime such as murder, drug dealing, kidnapping etc.   

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3

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

The marketing-lead, all rights film Distribution Company of Revolver Entertainment have worked on a large number of films including;  ‘Kidulthood’, ‘Shank’, ‘Adulthood’, ‘1 Day’ all of these films being youth drama’s based in London. A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing (DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television programs through broadcast etc.). A distributor may do this directly or through theatrical exhibitors and other sub-distributors.   ‘Revolver Entertainment’, an all rights distribution company distributed many films similar to our media product, these include; ‘Kidulthood’, ‘Shank’ and ‘Sket’. We hope a company like this would distribute our product as ‘Kidulthood’ was produced and distributed on a budget of only £600,000, this budget would be highly acceptable to produce our full film.

Many distribution companies may be interested in our product as it is a London based youth drama, only requiring a small budget and has the potential to become very successful, like ‘Boys N the Hood’, with relevance to the recent riots and the bad stereotype of teenagers. 

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We would expect our target audience to range between teenagers aged 17 and above, Because our film is based in the city of London, we feel that we have the upper hand by attracting many individuals who have experienced or seen crimes such as robberies, stabbings etc. We have not produced the film to encourage crime however educate and inform our audiences into how London schools are. (Our film is an exaggeration and not based on true events.)

Our expected audience would be individuals who grew up working class and are from London, or cities around the UK. The film would appeal to more males than females, this may be because males relate to the issues of crime, drugs, and school misbehaviour more than females. There is a multicultural cast in our media product; this will create a larger audience appeal to all ethnicities. There is a high population of young people abroad in Europe and North America who may be curious about British life and what it is like for young people living here. Our film would probably be distributed in countries where certain audiences can relate to it the film. The product distributed within the population of young people who live in an environment similar to that of the film.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 5

How did you attract/ address your audience?

As our film is based around similar urban dramas like ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Boys N the Hood’ our target audience would be aimed at the younger population ranging from 16+ to late 20s. We hope to attract members who were quite fond of UK crime dramas as well as American crime films. Our target audience ranges, since our film is introduced within a London school we hope to attract many teachers and staff. Because our film is a crime drama, I do not believe our audiences are limited however can range from a number of different age groups, from bus drivers to police officers.



The font used is similar to that used for title sequences of ‘Kidulthood’ along with ‘West 10 LDN’, the graffiti font relates to the genre of urban youth drama.

  


The location relates to that used in an environment containing many young individuals who are vulnerable to crime and becoming affiliated with gang culture/bullying etc. This is a common youth drama setting, the target audience will most definitely relate to this.

 



The three introduced characters are represented as non approachable ‘hoodies’ through the mise en scene. The topic of the conversation relates to the stereotype of violence and shows how individuals can casually talk about harming another person.

 

The choice of footwear relates to the target audience, the individual also appears to be quite suspicious at this scene.



One again the clothing can be related to the target audience.




Sets the scene for violence to follow, attracts the viewers attention.



The term ‘Peak’ is a slang term used commonly in London meaning unfortunate.



Suddenly introduces violence and aggression relating to the target audiences.

The screen capture below is the last scene before the title sequence, where the victim is attacked, introducing the plot.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6

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

Producing the main task has been dependent on the cooperation and creativity of our group, we brainstormed many ideas before we began filming, and had a well set out plan before we began to film. Members of our group were familiar with cameras and tripods which help us to quickly record and catch scenes using techniques and various camera shots. This was beneficial as we did not have to get the hang of using an unfamiliar camera/tripod. After we finished and edited the entire task with video editing software (Pinacle) we decided to upload our task to ‘YouTube’, an extremely popular video-sharing website which gives the potential for your task to attract an audience for free. A website like ‘YouTube’ can be accessed from any computer or piece of hardware with an internet connection which was why it was chosen as the main host for the main task and preliminary. Every member in our group also had a ‘YouTube’ account which was an extra encouragement. 

As my media class had shooting lessons, we briefly leant about camera work and techniques before the filming, such as the ‘match on action shot’, ‘shot reverse shot’ and ‘180 degree rule’, I believe the lessons played an extremely beneficial roll in producing the finished product.  The kit we used for the media product included a ‘Lumix GF1’ which captured the entire product in 1080p; due to the conversion the media product’s quality was unfortunately downgraded. We used a tripod for all of our shots except the ‘tracking’ shot which followed the characters footsteps where we used a trolley.  The tripod provided stability and allowed us to pan shots.  We used ‘Adobe Photoshop’ to create our production logo as seen below.

   

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7

Look back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task); what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task I believe our group has transformed and produced a legit film which would potentially become a produced film attracting various audiences. I feel that our media product has left me far more interested in media and the film industry. The preliminary task was produced following very basic criteria. There was no included non-diegetic sound such as added sound effects, music, etc, the title sequence featured was very basic and the use of camera shots/angles were ordinary.

Unlike the editing of the preliminary task, the main task included advancement in editing and more use of camerawork. There was also the use of non-diegetic sound and music which was inserted in the longer editing/production process. A created production company logo and the introduction of the characters through a graffiti themed font affiliated with youth gang culture.

The title sequence in the Preliminary Task was very basic and did not include the graffiti font used in the final media product. The ‘extreme close up’ shot was used both in the main and preliminary task. This was one of the few advanced shots used in the Preliminary task whereas the Main task used many techniques and shot types as shown below.



The first scene is a panned shot of the school where the murder takes place. This shot introduces the entire first setting.

 

Quarter of the way into the film, there is a tracking shot following ‘Alfie’, the character who commits the murder. For this shot, a trolley was acquired where the camera was attached to maintaining a still shot.

This ‘wide-angle’ shot of the characters can be related to the 180degree rule.