Amy AS Media: Evaluation

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

real media products?

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How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Here is a slideshow presentation of some still shots within my final product that represent particular social groups within my film.

Representations of Social Groups

View more presentations from Amyasmedia.

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

"From 1 April, the British Film Institute becomes the Lottery distributor for film in the UK, with responsibility for funding film development and production; training; distribution and exhibition; supporting film UK-wide; film certification, the Cultural Test and co-production; strategic development; industry research and statistics; and the MEDIA Desk UK. The role of the British Film Commission in encouraging inward investment work transfers to Film London."
http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/

As of this year UK independent films who pass the Cultural Test will be funded by the BFI instead of the UK Film Council. As of this news my film will be funded by the BFI for it's development and production. Many other British Social Realism films are funded by the UK Film Council, films such as: Fish Tank and Bullet Boy. Because my film has many similarities to these two films I think the UK Film Council or as of this year the BFI will fund my film.

CULTURAL TEST APPLICATION FORM

At the top of the application form for the Cultural Test a film has to apply for to get funding from the UK Film Council, it says: The film must be intended for theatrical release (mine is intended for theatrical release), Not less than 25% of the core expenditure on the film must be UK expenditure (the majority of my money spent will be placed on UK goods or services) and The film production company responsible for the film needs to be within the UK corporation tax net (my production company is based within the UK corporation tax net).

CULTURAL TEST

As part of the Cultural test the film company has to fill out four sections. In total out of the 31 points involved in the test a film must pass 16 points to ensure funding from the UK Film Council (BFI). Above is an example of the points a film can get.

My film (from the table) covers:

Film set in the UK (4)

Lead characters are British Citizens (4)

Film is based on British subject matter (4)

Original dialogue filmed in in English (4)

FIlm represents a diverse British culture (4)

(only section A & B)

My film in total has 20 points out of 31 so my film would pass the Cultural Test.

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Who would be the audience for your media product?

Who will the audience be?
The audience for my Media product would be British. The films genre is based in British Social Realism and the British audience will be able to identify with it more than international audiences. However, in an attempt for the audiences internationally to see the film we could showcase the film in worldwide film festivals (e.g. Cannes Film Festival) like Fish Tank did upon their release. Because my film is an independent film created by a new upcoming production company showing it at a film festival would be ideal because they welcome new talent and it's a great way to showcase new up and coming talent.

Who will distribute it?

As part of my product research I have found many different distribution companies that have distributed British Social Realism films. The one I have chose that would be best to distribute my British Social Realism film is: Contact Verve. The reason I have chose this company is because: "Verve Pictures is an independent UK specialist film distributor, with particular emphasis on British and independent films.
As an off-shoot of Verve, Drakes Avenue Pictures distributes independent films on DVD, with a special interest in contemporary arthouse and foreign films."
Another reason I have chose this company is because they can distribute on DVD as well as cinema.
Exhibition process:
My film will be exhibited through a multi platform release:

After being released on a Multi Platform Release it can then be shown on television. A common broadcasting company which also funds British Independent films as well as showing them nationwide on television is the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). This TV channel has shown and funded many other British Social Realism films by an independent film companies such as Fish Tank and Bullet Boy. This would be an ideal broadcasting company to show my film as is it for the British audience which is broad casted on a British channel.

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How did you attract/address your audience?

Release date:
From previous research I have found for a British Social realism film to be successful upon releasing it, you have to release it when other blockbuster films aren't planning to release them. I have found the most popular time to be released is: July/ August.
So, in finding out that we have decided to release our film in September when the majority of our audience plan on going to the cinema.

However many other British Social Realism films don't make it to mainstream cinema; to attract our audience from a different angle is to advertise on the internet and be released on the internet.

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

As part of my coursework process I had to keep adding to and creating a blog with all my product research, audience research and planning process. Here is how I used my blog:

Typed in to the URL: www.blogspot.com

Another way I could add different ideas to my blog is through presentations and videos. The way in which I could do this was by clicking on the 'Edit HTML' tab and paste the embed code of my presentation or video onto my blog.

Equipment used:

When filming my coursework I had to use a camera and tripod.

The camera was a digital camera which had a zoom, record and playback button. By placing it on a tripod it allowed us to develop shots and pan across shots. The tripod has different levels so we can use a range of different heights when filming and still keep the shot secure. When we finished filming we then uploaded it on the the computer and stored it in separate folders so we could arrange our different filming by date.

How did I edit?

To edit my final product I used Power Director to edit the shots/sounds/titles of my final product.

Here is how I used it:

After I edited my product after several attempts at getting the edits right to fit my film I then produced my film for viewing.

Here is how I produced my film after editing:

Problem Solving

In part of our final product the sound in the background over powers the characters verbal speech. A way in which we tried to reduce the background sound levels was to transfer the sound of the clip onto Audacity. However, with many attempts, this didn't work so we had to stick with the volume of the background noise. Another way we tried to solve this problem was by re-filming that certain scene. Even on a quieter day in a quieter surrounding the noise levels were still high. We thought in final production of our film that the noise added to the realism of the film.

How did we create a voice over to evaluate our film?
As part of our evaluation we decided to create a voice over for our film to describe the ways our product challenges real media products. The way we did this was record our voices/speech onto a program called Audacity. We planned a speech before hand then typed it up and printed it off to read out whilst recording. We recorded it whilst watching the film to ensure the timing was correct.
Here is how I used Audacity: