Evaluation - Self Evaluation - Eric Chima

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

My media production incorporates various techniques that are also used in an industry standard film.

My film was produced similarly to that of a 'triple a' film. We went through various activities that helped us brainstorm ideas on what the film should be about and what techniques to use in it. Over the length of the course we put together a story board and formulated an appropriate script that would match our chosen genre and be appealing to our chosen demographic which are teenagers of both sexes.

Close up

Due to financial limitations we were not able to posses the advanced equipment like high quality camcorders but we were still able to incorporate a variety of camera shots and angles within the film. We used camera shots to convey messages and we also used professional software like première pro. A major challenge we cane across is that due to the limited budget we were unable to use powerful computers to encode our film, a consequence of this is that encoding our film took a lot longer than we would have liked and this took away time to spend on other things.

An example of this is the close up on the antagonists face which we did to create emphasis on the emotions of the character. This technique is commonly used in the industry especially in horror films to create emphasis.


2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Burberry Scarf

All characters in my film were white, in their mid teens and from the region of sub urban Essex . We took advantage of pre-existing stereotypes which allowed us to reduce the amount of character development needed. In my film white teenage males are represented as being "chavs" since the main antagonist is wearing a camo Superdry  jacket with a Burberry scarf which links to the popular stereotype that Essex boys are "chavs" and wear Burberry clothing. Chavs are known for being highly promiscuous and un reasonably aggressive and these traits are accurately if not a bit exaggerated in our film.

Ghetto clothing

As for teenage girls they are presented as being "ratchet" with a ghetto esque vibe. this can be seen in the clothing of the main female character since she wears a body warmer a common item of clothing associated with the working class population.


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

To distribute our film we concluded that publishing it on the largest online video sharing site in the world YouTube. We decided this because this would allow us to gain a small fan base which is an advantage since they would give us feedback in ways to improve our film. Another advantage is that it will help us reach our target audience easier since they are familiar with the site and that uploaded videos are easily shared across various social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus.

YouTube could also help us find investor who are willing to invest in our production group and this would help us as we could use the money to buy more expensive equipment and hire better actors.  With the influx of cash we could then create a full length film and move to the national cinema.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience would be white British teenagers as our research has shown that this demographic watches horror films in the cinema more often. By targeting this market we hope to maximize the viewership of our film. We also made our film more appealing to this market since all the characters are teenagers and are white British.

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

We used social media to attract and address our audience. We primarily used Facebook the largest social media networking site in the world. We chose this method of advertising our film since it is free which is good considering our limited budget and it was also good since the majority of our target audience use this website.

We also made all the characters teenagers that would help the majority of our audience to relate to the characters and this would provide a greater sense of realism and depth and overall improve the viewing experience for our audience.

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

Over the length of the course I have acquired a variety of skills relating the process of content creation.

The most significant would be the editing side. the Majority of the editing was done on Adobe Premier pro and that entailed a steep learning curve I myself was not familiar with all the tools and effects the software included. Over time I familiarized myself with tools such as rolling edit which allowed smooth transitions between shots and the razor tool which allowed me to trim shots to the required length. I also learned how to create a ghosting effect by playing around with different layers and tweaking transparency.

Celtix was another technology I learnt how to use since it helped me create a correctly formatted script along with a story board and helped keep me organised with allowing me to create a master catalog which told me what to bring to each filming session.

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

My understanding in the field of film production has increased exponentially since my preliminary task.

I have become more aware about stereotypes and how they can help me film  since they save me time character developing and help appease my target audience more.  I have also become more proficient in using camera shots and angles to convey tension and emphasis and also aid in character development.

I can now manipulate various types of lighting in order to create various effects and I can distinguish between high and low key lighting and what each type of effect they each create.

In terms of editing I can now use each tool in premier pro efficiently and effectively which would reduce the amount of time I need to spend editing and create a more professional look for my film.