Evaluation 7 (Amended)

Evaluation 1 - How does our opening compare to actual film openings

'The title font and style of the film' - Our titles are quite stereotypical for the Teen Angst genre. We have used a Serif font, in bright colours. This shows that the film is aiming to be quite fun/light hearted as the Serif font is a little bit swirly and has an edge to it, in comparison to Sans Serif fonts. The bright colours also connote that the film is meant to be fun. Our titles are quite similar to Juno as that film also has cartoony, Serif style fonts.

 The style of our film is also very stereotypical from every teen angst film I have watched from my research. Opposites, like every other teen angst film I have watched, has quite a generic style. For example, there is no aesthetic style that they follow, such as low key lighting for a dark setting or anything like that. Instead, they all have a high key, generic style. High key lighting connotes that the film will be quite light hearted and fun.

'Setting/Location' - We used the setting of our film in a school. This is very stereotypical to see in the Teen Angst genre and was in almost every film we watched for research. I think that a school environment works very well in this genre because our target audience is teenagers, around 13-18. Having a teen angst film set in a school means that our target audience can relate back to it and they may enjoy it more.

'Costume and props' - We decided to wear casual clothing as this is typical to see in a school environment. Every Teen Angst film that I watched for research, such as Easy A or Superbad, that were set in schools, had characters wearing casual clothing. Quite a few props were used but the main one was the football. Football or just sports in general are quite common to see being played by the male main characters of Teen Angst films, it is usually the popular ones as they are seen to be athletic and that is what we decided to implement into our film opening.

'Camerawork and editing' - Throughout our film, many different camera shots and uses of editing have been used. For camerawork, a wide range of angles and shots have been used to add variety. Long and extreme long shots were used to show the setting, and mid shots and close ups were used to show facial expressions, which involves our characters more with our audience as they can empathize or sympathize with our characters. These have been used in all Teen Angst films by which I have watched for research.

A variety of different editing techniques have also been used. The screenshot above shows a crossfade, which shows a passing of time and also includes an ellipsis. Throughout all of the scenes of the characters walking, match on action used. Freeze frames of the introduction of characters was included with their 'nicknames' beside them to quickly show the audience what type of person they are. Other editing techniques such as shot reverse shot and other transitions were used. Many of these editing techniques are used in other Teen Angst films however the freeze frames with the introduction of characters was not. We decided to use this to make our film different and stand out to the rest.

'Story and how the opening sets it up' -  The bag suggests that the film will be set in a school, and the football indicates that Aiden is quite an athletic character, and based on my film research, this type of character is always the popular one. The football also indicates that there may be a scene to do with the football, or it may have some significance and this is shown in the very first seconds. The opening shows a boy and a girl quite different to each other, and this is expressed in the voiceovers done by both of these characters. One thing that Aiden stated in his voiceover was the he needed a girlfriend. Throughout the opening, there are subtle hints that these two characters will somehow get to know each other and this is done through things like 'awkward staring'. Right at the end of the opening, Kate is hit by a football and this implies that this will be their first confrontation.

'Genre and how the opening sets it up' - Right at the start when Aiden opens up the boot, his clothing, bag, and football are seen within the first few seconds. This gives the audience a very early indication that this film comes under the Teen Angst genre. His clothing is casual which is very stereotypical for teenagers to wear and the bag implies that the film will be set in a school. A school setting is very common for Teen Angst films, as found in my research. The voiceovers of both characters express the highs and lows of teenage life, further showing that it is a Teen Angst film. Many other films under this genre also highlight these 'high and lows' of teenage life.

'How characters are introduced' - In opposites, we decided to use quite a unique way of introducing the characters. As other Teen Angst films, they are bought into the shot. What is different about our is that we used a freeze frame and then have their name show up in bright letters. Along with this, we also used a nickname, in this screenshot it is 'The Wing Man'. This helps create an understanding of the characters as early as possible whilst still making it bright, fun and appealing to the eye.

'Special effects'- We used a few special effects such as changing the number plates into a name, and the titles appearing.  These are slightly different to other Teen Angst films because the titles normally just 'appear', rather than having some sort of effect or animation on bringing them in, which is what we have done. E.g. when the car drives away and the letters appear one by one. We decided not to use any more special effects as we felt like they were not needed and may be unnecessary if we implemented them.

Evaluation 5 - How did you attract/address your audience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXQoB54ODI8

Final video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FriSQ0ig5P8

Evaluation 2

One social group that is represented in our teen angst opening is the more unpopular females in school, this is shown through one of the main characters; Kate. She is very similar to the main character in 'The Edge of Seventeen' - Nadine. One of these many similarities is the way they look and dress, both of them have dark brown hair and are white and their clothing could be seen as less fashionable compared to the popular characters in both movies, hence showing their differences beteen unpopular and popular. Another similarity that they share is that they are both quite negative about life and don't think they are very important. This is shown in our teen angst film by the narration by Kate when she is introducing herself. In 'The Edge of Seventeen' Nadine only has one friend, this is another similarity between the two characters.

Another social groups that our teen angst film represents is the more popular/'cool' males in school, this is done through the main character being Aiden. He is represented as being popular mostly through the way that he is dressed, wearing fashionable clothes and seeming to care about his appearance, as well as what sort of hobbies and sports that he is into, being football. This can be compared to a character in the film  'The Edge of Seventeen' who is called Darian, He is the stereotypical athletic male character in this film. He is similar to Aiden through aspects such as the way they are both dressed with both of them wearing hoodies, dark blue jeans and a bag due to both films being mainly set in a school. These clothes are casual and quite simple and yet expresses the characters in the same way. They are also both into sports with Darian playing American Football due to that being a very popular sport in America and Aiden playing football for the same reason in England. The only major difference between the two characters is their ethnicity, Darian is Caucasian whereas Aiden is from Pakistani descent, this is also one of the only countertypes in our film. This adds more diversity within our film. They are also roughly the same age being at the higher levels of education. (Sixth form & High school)

Evaluation 7

Skill/knowledge/application	Preliminary task	Feature film opening
camera Using a range of camera shots Using different camera angles, for what effect? Using camera movement (pan, zoom, tracking) for different purposes	In the preliminary task we didn't use much of a range of shot types with the majority being mid shots or close ups - this was so dialogue was clearly  seen. There was a very minimal amount of movement and there were hardly any angles shown.	During our actual film opening we used a much wider range with long shots and extreme long shots, along with the mid and close up shots. We also used some more movements such as a pan. Angles were used more effectively such as when Aiden is walking down the hall.
Framing (what is in and out of the shots)	No thought was put into what was being included in the shots throughout the video. Because of this, there may be some things in the background that we would like to change if we could have filmed again.	we ensured that everything in the shot was meant to be there. This was done by careful plannng and positoning of the camera of what we wanted in the shot. This was to make sure that nothing out of the ordinary was in the back ground at any point which may hinder the realism and/or the final product.
Mise en scene Lighting Costume Props Settings	In our preliminary task not much thought went into any of the things that come under Mise en Scene as there was no props involved at all. The setting and costumes had nothing to do with what was being recorded.	A lot more planning was put into things such as the costumes which all fit our teen angst genre (casual clothes), as did the props such as the football which is something associated with teenage boys. The setting was also mainly based in a school which is very stereotypical for the teen angst genre.
Mode of address Way actors speak, words and sentence structure Gestures	Not many words were used during the preliminary task so there is not much variation in voices or use of gestures. The mode of address was probably the most basic as it was just one person speaking to another.	We used 2 different narrations over our opening with one sounding quite sad and the other slightly more happy. This showed the contrast between the two characers. Much longer sentences were used compared to our preliminary task which worked well as it is a voiceover. Our mode of address was also more complex, as it was to the audience and to the characters in the film. Gestures were also used in the football scene to show fear of one of the characters, which adds humour.
Editing 180 rule Match on action Shot reverse shot Cross cutting Jump cut Juxtaposition Transitions Sequencing effects	Not a huge amount of editing was used during the preliminary task, the only main ones used was the 180 rule to ensure that the audience did not feel at all confused, and the shot reverse shot to show each person speaking. There was no use of transitions as the film was very short and they might not have worked as there were no jumps in time, or changes of setting etc. If transitions were used, they may have been irrelevant.	During the actual film opening we used many more types of editing, for example we used many more transitions such as a crossfade to show the passing of time. During the whole of the scenes of the characters walking, we implemented match on action. We also used shot reverse shot to show the ball about to hit Kate, this also used the 180 rule so the audience knew what was going on. A lot more sequencing was also used to ensure the whole opening made sense.
Use of titles Size Font Positioning transitions	No titles were used during our preliminary task due to it being so short and may have seemed irrelevant.	Many more titles were used during the opening such as for the main title which says 'Opposites' we used the colors red and blue to connote the two opposite ends of a magnet. We also used a lot of different colors as well as font sizes to catch our target audiences attention. The font was sans serif as it shows that it is light hearted and that our film is not meant to be taken seriously.

Evaluation 3 - What kind of media insitution might distribute our media product and why?

Production Company Logo:
Our company is called Tomorrow Productions. We chose this because our target audience are younger people, who are always looking into the future rather than older people, who may like reflecting on the past a lot. The word 'Tomorrow' clearly connotes this.

Which film distributor would you choose for your film and why?:
The film distributor I would use is STX Entertainment. I think this because they have distributed similar films such as 'The Edge Of 17' and 'The Space Between Us'. They are also a smaller, less known company that distribute films that do not have huge budgets. This ties in well with our film opening because we also did not have a large budget.

How our film will be funded:
We will use the BFI film fund, within this there is the UK film council - they are known for funding independent films and we feel like this would be the best way to fund our film. One of the films that they have funded is Kidulthood, which is the same genre as our film  and follows similar themes, which is why we think that they would fund our film.

Titles and how we have presented them:
We have presented our titles in many different ways. They are all at the start of the video, so everyone knows the characters and who is involved from the very start of the film. We use them in places such as around the steering wheel of a car, on a number plate  and next to the characters on a freeze frame when they are introduced.

Unique Selling Point:
Our USP is that we have a male lead role, which makes our film different because based on our research, the majority of teen angst films have a female lead role.

Marketing Material:
Our main marketing technique would be social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. This is because it is very cheap and our target audience are teenagers, and they are often on social media. Facebook has 620 million active users per month, and twitter has 105 million active users per month. These are the biggest social media websites, we will use these to show things such as trailers and exclusive content.

Release of film:
We would aim to release the film at the end of the summer holidays, before they go to school. This would be because our target audience would also be starting school soon, meaning that they can relate to it. Also, at this time, the weather is generally colder and people might not want to be out and about, and instead, they could watch a film.

Information on Poster and Trailer:
Release date, names of actors, reviews, production company logo, distributor.

Cinema it would be shown in:
Our film would be shown in Showcase cinemas. These are smaller, and independent cinemas which show lower budget films. However, they show a variety of genres, one of which is Teen Angst.

Evaluation Post 6 - Technology

Hardware:

The computer was the main piece of technology we used, as we had to upload the videos onto there and all the editing software we needed was on the computer. If we used any other device to upload and edit, such as a phone/tablet, it would have taken much longer and the end product would look less polished. From this, I learned how to upload files onto a computer and import them into the editing software.

We used a HD camcorder to record our footage. Using a camcorder meant that the video footage is smooth and the video quality is clear. A tri-pod was also used to make the shots completely steady and made the footage look more professional. The camcorder was also compact, meaning that is was easily storable, and ready to use for the next day. However, this also meant that the battery life was not great and we had to manage our time effectively.

Software:

The editing software we used was Adobe Premier Pro. It was relatively easy to use and allowed us to implement everything we wanted in our opening sequence, such as titles, freeze frames, zooms etc. As a group, if we wanted to change how something looked, or the order of the clips, we could easily do so. If they didn't work, it was easy to put back. From using Adobe Premier Pro, I learned how to use freeze frames and how to effectively put in transitions where needed. These transitions included cross fades and fade to blacks, to show passing of time. I also learned the process of slowing/speeding up the video.

For our production logo, we used Microsoft PowerPoint. It was very simple to use and the effects that we needed were there for us to use, such as having a slight glow around the lighting and having the areas around it darker. An alternative we could have used would have been Adobe Photoshop CS5 but as a group, we had little knowledge on how to use it the way we needed to (glow and vignette) so we used PowerPoint because it was easier. We also used PowerPoint to present our ideas of our film opening to the class before we started filming, this was to highlight any faults in things such as our plot, or to see what was good and what to use in our opening sequence.

I thought that our school emails on Outlook were very useful because we were easily able to exchange files such as music ideas, storyboards, screenshots etc. over to other people in our group. Because of this, we were able to share posts on our blogs without any hassle. Facebook played a key part in the communication side of things as we were able to exchange ideas when we were out of school or during the school holidays.

YouTube also played a key part in research and in uploading the files in order for them to be on our blog. I used YouTube to research, Superbad, Easy A and 17 Again openings. Superbad and 17 Again had male lead roles and we used the idea of having a male lead role from these films. We got our football idea from a scene in the Inbetweeners, which we also used YouTube for.

Evaluation 4 - Audience Profile

This is Rahib Khan (me). He is 17 years and lives in St Neots, his profile says otherwise.
He likes to dress casually or quite fashionable, depending on the situation. Rahib enjoys a variety of films such as thrillers, war films and comedy, which is a sub-genre which our Teen Angst film comes into. We decided to implement some comedy factors into our film to make it appeal to a wider range of audiences who may not solely enjoy Teen Angst. He really enjoys being around his friends. That is a reason on why our film would appeal to this sort of target audience, there are aspects about friendship and our target audience could relate to it. Rahib goes to sixth form, and is very used to being in a school environment. Our film is based in a school and it means that our target audience who are of similar age, and also go school, can relate back to it and they have maybe found themselves in similar situations.

Feedback and how we acted upon it (First Draft)

What the audience liked:
- The titles appearing
- The music - comedic and ironic
- Shots of walking down stairs

What needs improvement:
- Make Aiden's voiceover louder/ re-do it
- Add the roles of each member of the group
- Add the production company logo

What we done to fulfil these improvements.
- Turned the music down and Aiden's voice

First Draft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53aiHlrpFFY

Storyboards

Evidence of group work