Media EvaluationAntoinette Bates

WHO ARE BEHIND ‘RED NAILS ENTERTAINMENT’??

KIMONE CARRIDICE. PRODUCER &DIRECTOR.

ANTOINETTE BATESEDITOR, DIRECTOR

&CINEMATOGRAPHER.

OUR GOUP MEMBERS ARE:

PRODUCTION LOG

WHY TEEN COMEDY?

We decided to choose teen comedy BECAUSE: IT WOULD BE EASIER FOR US AS WE ARE FUNNY. TEEN DRAMA WOULD HAVE BEEN A BIT HARDER TO FOLLOW The films that we watched (Easy A, Clueless and House Party) all

started off with one gender at the start off the films. We also realised from these ‘Teen Comedy’ films that the opening

sequence is set in the home. We thought we would in co-operate this into our piece as it will help the audience get the characters better, making our whole sequence easy to follow.

We also knew if we set it in a school, we wouldn’t be able to introduce the character as well as we wanted to. By having the character by themselves, we are able to show them out of school life.

For our sequence, we made our characters funny and likeable, decreasing any negativity towards our piece. As all of our characters were young black females, we knew this would come with stereotypes. Some of which we encouraged, others we tried to subvert.

In regards to the plot, we figured out we would make it simple like the ones we’ve seen; character wakes up and gets ready then heads out to school. As teens are familiar with this lifestyle, it will be easier to relate with the characters.

We came to the decision to not use that much effects, as the other films we watched kept the effects to a minimum. We figured this was done to keep the genre of ‘TEEN comedy’ going, not forcing it to fall into the impression of being a children’s film. A simple fade cut would help us change scene – as this runs more smoother and looks more professional.

How have you challenged the conventions of the form?

We have challenged the conventions in many ways. As we were new to media, we knew it would be tempting to throw in a lot of effects, &very fast paced editing.

With this knowledge, we decided to minimize the effects, sticking to slow motion, freeze frames and fades. We thought this decision was quite mature.

We overcame the area of stereotyping. By involving 3 young black females we were able to subvert these stereotypes and make Afro-Caribbean’s look better than they are usually portrayed.

LOCATION

HOME SCHOOL

SOCIAL GROUPS

In our sequence, we included couple of social groups; females, teenagers of Afro-Caribbean decent.

ONE TOKEN – BLACK IS BEAUTY. BUT NOT STEREOTYPICAL.

FEMALES. We knew females are usually seen as ‘sex objects’ – usually dressed inappropriately

and looking for the wrong attention. We noticed, in ‘Teen Comedy’ films, especially with Afro-Caribbean girls, they’re body parts are usually on show , attracting the male attention the most. With this knowledge, we knew to make our sequence different we would have to portray our characters positively.

Our females were fully-clothed, no low-cut tops and no tight jeans. We tried to steer our females away from wearing the color red, as they would automically be seen as sexy. We wanted the audience to choose their favourites themselves – without us helping them.

We decided to add no males into our sequences as he would be seen as a distraction to at least one girl – leading her to be a ‘slut.

All the characters in our sequence are friends, subverting the ‘bitchy’ stereotype attached to girls.

Even though the girls in our sequence do own phones, we have decided not to include them in our piece. This subverts the stereotype that all teens do is text.

TEENAGERS.

In general, teenagers are represented negatively; partying, sex, texting, bunking off school, lazy, taking drugs and getting in trouble with the authority.

We decided not to in co-operate NONE of those in our sequence. Our teens are in full-time education, as our sequence shows them

getting ready for school. This represents teens as having a positive attitude towards education which we were really happy with.

In general, teenagers are represented very positively in our sequence.

ETHNICITY.

As our characters were off Afro-Caribbean decent, we knew we had to represent them positively.

With this, we decided to use a cast of the Afro-Caribbean characters we auditioned. This was because it was more challenging to represent them in different categories. Black people are usually gang related or humorous in comedy movies. We manipulated the characters so they represented all teen types, with in one ethnicity.

ALL WHITE?

Even in situations where the character is black, she still ‘acts white’

In ‘House Party’, black teenagers were seen as party animals, sex lovers, quite crazy really.

The parents were seen as quite aggressive , not really encouraging their children to attend school.

With most ‘teen comedy’ films, those which featured white families included both parents, sometimes a sibling and a pet. The white folks in the films would be wealthy, with that character being stuck up and spoilt – looking down on the black people.

However, in ‘Clueless’ it was unusual seeing a white girl and a black girl as best friends. Cher advises Dionne to not pay any attention to the boys who “holla” at her. Cher encourages the high school teenage boy stereotype, labelling them all as “dogs”.

The teenage boys in ‘Clueless’ are seen as uneducated and only wanting the female attention.

There is rivalry in this film which is the norm for teen comedy films.

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

INTERNATIONALLY – AMERICA. DISTRUBTED AT THE SAME TIME PREVENTING PIRACY!

BUMPER

DISTRIBUTION

POSTERS! INTERVIEWS! TRAILERS! WEBSITE!

SOFTWARE

I MOVIE FINAL CUT PRO YOUTUBE – COPYRIGHT ISSUES FREEPLAY

ROUGH CUT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ApkJ2fCTA&feature=player_embedded

FINAL CUT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p0YSBVIVRyI&safe=active

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target primary audience is teenage girls preferably round the age of 15-19. Our media product is suitable to be watched by males too, not just homosexual males, heterosexual males also. In our product we have three different types of teenagers,:

‘The ‘IT’ Girl’, ‘The Misfit’ ‘The Diva’.

EASIER TO FOLLOW!

Our secondary audience could be male teenagers. This could be possible as our sequence isn’t a ‘Teen Drama’ so they wouldn’t have to worry about it being boring. Boys are most likely to watch ‘comedy’ films after ‘action and adventure’.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Mise-en-scene could be appealing to our target audience in many ways:

The fact that we have pictures on the wall is very clever as this is familiar with many many teenagers, especially females.

The costumes we decided to dress the girls in are quite relatable also. In modern times, it’s not likely for teens not to wear pyjamas (especially matching) to sleep, so we thought it would be best for Kimarly to wear a casual baggy top and some shorts.

In regards to Lucy and Shaniqua, we knew we had to subert all stereotypes. This is why they were both dressed in very casual clothing, which they audience could also picture themselves wearing on a normal day.

We knew in order to make our product sucessful, we had to think about your target audience at all times. This included making sure the sequence wasn’t too long or jam-packed with clips. Each clip had to be thoroughly assessed as we knew it couldn’t be too long before a nexr clip was shown, as this would cause interest to be lost in our sequence..

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

With KIMONES CAMERA, I learnt how to position it at different angles and how to adjust the lenses in different weather conditions. I learnt a lot about how to use iMovie even though I do own one myself. I learnt how to create a freeze frame, and how to slow down clips and trim them. I learnt how to use the tripod and how to position the camera on top of it and use all the different levels.

My skills in production work have developed a lot since the start of the course. I have become more professional with media and realised everything on screen isn’t as easy as it seems. I’ve gone from filming and editing every single piece of video to having disagreements about what looks appealing and what doesn’t.

We have looked at our errors and corrected them to the best of our ability. This helped us produce the most effective piece of work.

By organising the time well, I was able to know exactly what needed to be done and how long that should take. With the deadlines that were set we were able to make sure we were never behind our schedule and everything was on point.

I was very dedicated to my work and this was shown through my production. The shooting of the sequence is done is a range of locations, enabling our video to be unique.

Our audience feedback (which was given frequently) was useful as we knew what we was doing wrong and what could be done to fix it and how this would help our work.

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

Our planning and preparation for shooting our work was way more effective than the preliminary task. This is because we wasn’t really sure about what we was looking for in the preliminary task, and we didn’t think we would need so much takes and so much different opportunities to shoot a better product.

We definitely planned way more than we did with the preliminary task. Before the start of each filming/editing session, we would have a brief overview about what will take place. At the end of these sessions we would come together and find out if this has all been done and if there was any complications, how can this be improved the next time. This was not done that well in the preliminary task.

The quality of the footage has improved to its maximum strength. We have more good takes from different angles, enabling the sequence to run more smoother, we upgraded the tripod we used, enabling more angles to be possible without a struggle. By this time we were more familiar with different angles, this knowledge allowed us to have a wider range of angles to shoot from, more options to edit.

We have improved the quality of the edited piece, we used more features rather than effects on iMovie, tried out the ‘Voice Over’ tool, added freeze frames and slow motion clips and even added a sound clip.