Stacey Hubbard

12Q1-09

Children’s Film Evaluation

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

Professional filmTitle sequenceCredits/media companyIntroduction of main

charactersEstablishment of locationTheme tune/ soundtrackIntroduction of film

narrativeIntroduction of film

genre

Title sequenceCredits/media companyIntroduction of main

charactersEstablishment of locationTheme tune/ soundtrackIntroduction of film

narrativeIntroduction of film

genre

Conventions of children’s film opening sequence:

Our film

A good film opening sequence needs to be short but also introduce the key settings and characters as this helps capture the audience’s attention.

Opening conventions

Our film is a adventure fantasyIt is similar to Charlie and the Chocolate

Factory as the credits are done in a similar way.

The soundtrack fits with the genre as with fantasy films it needs to be emotional as is the same with our film and this can be compared to the Harry Potter films.

Our genre

By using a soundtrack we are able to build suspense and make the audience use their emotions all through the sense of sound.

With a fantasy film this should happen all the more as it has factors that wouldn’t happen in real life and the characteristics of a fantasy sound track are that it should convey all different emotions such as danger, excitement, anger, etc. Which ours does quite effectively.

Sound

Overall our camera work is quite good although we didn’t use a wide variety of shots which is one area we could improve as within the fantasy/ adventure genre usually there are many shots used.

However the shots and quality of our camera work is of a high standard which would compare very highly to a professional film as we kept the main characters a mystery which in a fantasy/adventure opening sequence it is key to do.

Camera Work

Our mise-en-scene was limited as we didn’t use many props or very drastic costumes although those that we did use was effective and suited the genre.

Our main set locations were the library and the woods as these represent the characters, the geeky school boy in the library and the magician in the woods.

Mise-en-scene

Geeky school boy set location: Library

This gives the impression the boy likes to read and study

Set Location (1)

Wizard set location: The woods

This shows the area is mysterious and magical

Set Location (2)

Our editing was of a high standard and we used transitions that were effective and suited the genre, although we didn’t use an special effects as we didn’t feel this would be appropriate to the content of our footage.

Compared to a professional film our opening sequence was of a very high standard although it could still be improved to give it an even better finish.

Editing

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film was aimed at families with childrenMany children have a very vivid imagination

hence why we used the fantasy/adventure genre.By using a school boy the audience are able to

relate to the character in the film.Our film uses the stereotype of a ‘geeky school

boy’ to do this we used the library as the character’s main setting and used typical clothing and glasses.We used the character as we felt they were under represented.

Representation

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

Narnia ‘The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe’ was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures

Similar to our production through the fantasy and adventure genres.

This distributer could be interested in our production as it is similar to their current products and productions.

Children’s Film Distributers

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The main audience we were working with was children

We decided that the most appropriate classification for our film would be PG as it was what most fantasy/adventure films were classified with that are suitable for children.

I think this film is both appropriate for children and is also appealing to children as it fits into the market of fantasy/ adventure films available today.

Audience

How did you attract/ address your audience?

We attracted our audience by using a child friendly and fantasy appropriate font.

Audience

We also used characters that the audience could relate to, school boy. To make the character more real we used realistic clothing.

We used a small number of characters so that it is easy for the audience to follow.

Audience

We used a basic plot as this would be easy for the audience to follow.

This helps the audience as they are unable to understand in depth plots.

Audience

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

Was used to capture the footage in a professional manner as we used a high quality camera and a tripod. These helped to give a good quality finish to our final product.

Camera Equipment

Is a video editing software that allows us to edit the footage we captured and insert effects and transitions.

As we captured the footage in a different order to what we want it in the final product it enabled us to cut the footage and rearrange it. We were also able to delete the footage we didn’t need.

Final Cut Express

An example screenshot of Final Cut Express

By using various transitions it makes the final product smoother

They also make the continuity a lot better as the final footage is easier for the audience to watch as it doesn’t jump between cuts

Transitions

In the opening sequence it is important to keep the shot length short to keep the audiences interest.

However in our production our shots where probably slightly too long as we wanted to keep the characters face’s unknown until right at the end of the opening sequence.

Although keeping the identity of the character’s hidden for the opening sequence fits in with the mystery element of the fantasy genre.

Shot length

Is a music editing piece of software which we used to edit our soundtrack. The software is already loaded with loops that you can edit which is really good if you aren’t able to compose your own music.

Garageband

An example screenshot

of Garageband

To create a professional finish.Different pieces of software have different

purposes eg. film editing, music editing etc.

Why we used these pieces of software?

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

PreliminaryLow qualityBad sound qualityBad acting

Better continuityBetter transitionsBetter sound qualityBetter actingHigher quality of

camera work

Preliminary to Final Product

Final Product

We were able to understand how to work the camera and software properly so our final product was of a higher quality

The acting was better as the actors were more comfortable in front of the camera

Improvements