Final Teen Angst Film Opening- OMG

https://youtu.be/NBtGl29UmBs

Evaluation 1- In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1st frame- Special effects
This special effect is an additive dissolve. We decided to use this transition as it creates a build up from the guests arriving to them actually partying. There is a flash of white as it fades into the party scene which will have an impact on the audience as it is quite sudden. The dissolve into the party scene is a conventional form as a stereotype of teenagers is that they like to party with their friends.

2nd frame- Introducing characters
We decided to introduce the characters in our film by using a montage. This montage is a selfie of all the characters at the party. A montage is a conventional form of teen angst films as they are quite frequently used. One teen angst film that uses a montage is Easy A. However, we are developing this as the montage in Easy A is of the settings used in the film whereas in our film, the montage is of the characters.

3rd frame- Costumes
This frame shows the costumes that the Triple L's are wearing. The Triple L's costumes in the school scene are casual, every day clothing however, the Mean Girls in Mean Girls wear skirts and dresses to school; this is more appropriate to the climate they are living in.  Therefore, our teen angst film challenges the convention of the 'mean girls' costumes and clothing.

4th frame- Editing
This frame shows some of the editing in our film. We decided to use the conventional split screen in this part of our film as you can see both groups of people walking towards each other which creates suspense for what happens next. A four way split screen is used in Mean Girls when the Mean Girls and the misfit are on the phone to each other. We have developed this convention as we use a two way split screen and Mean Girls use a four way split screen.

5th frame- Props
The fifth frame is of the phone we used for the alarm. We chose to use a phone instead of a clock for the alarm because a mobile phone is conventional in teen angst films. However, we have developed the idea of using phones as phones are typically used in teen angst films for messaging people or going on social media. In the teen angst film, The DUFF, a group of friends use their phones to delete each other off social media during an argument that they are having. Therefore, we have developed the convention of the use of mobile phones within teen angst films. Also the teenagers are holding alcohol bottle as they are going to a party.

6th frame- Genre
This image shows the guests arriving at the party and also shows the teen angst genre. This is because there are a group of friends in the shot. In several teen angst films there are groups of friends, whether they are the 'popular group' or the misfits. Also, the friends are holding alcohol bottles as they are arriving at a party. Easy A, Mean Girls, Clueless and many more teen angst films have party scenes in them which shows that our film is of the same genre. These three things, parties, alcohol and friendship groups, follow and use the conventions of teen angst films.

7th frame- Camera work
This camera angle is a high angle shot. Using this angle really shows the hierarchy of The Triple L's and shows that we followed the convention of teen angst films by having a 'main mean girl' and her two friends; like in Mean Girls.

8th frame- Title
This frame shows how we decided to present our title and how we followed the conventions of existing teen angst titles. The font we used is called Goudy Stout. We chose this font as it is bold, large, bubble writing; similar to the title in Juno. We decided to make it pink as this colour is conventional in teen angst films and appears a lot in other teen angst film titles, such as Mean Girls. Also, our title, OMG, follows further conventions of teen angst films as it is an acronym and acronyms are used in other teen angst film titles such as The DUFF and GBF. Each letter of OMG appears in unison with each Triple L saying their word. This makes our title even more dramatic which shows the genre even further as teen angst films are filled with drama.

9th frame- Setting
This frame shows one of the three main settings in our film. We did not challenge the conventions of teen angst settings in any way. We decided to use the settings of the school, the party and the bedroom. This is because many teen angst films, including LOL, The DUFF, Mean Girl and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging include all three of the settings we included. We used these settings as these are the places typical teenagers spend most of their time.

Evaluation 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Jo Mitchel

               Faye

This comparison is between Faye and Jo Mitchell from Mean Girls 2. Both of the girls are from a normal, teenage girl social group. They are both wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans. This shows that they are a stereotypical teenager as they care about their appearance and keeping up with new fashions. Also, both of the characters are posing in quite a confident way. This also shows the stereotype as teenagers, girls in particular, put up a front to make people think certain things about them. The characters personalities are also very similar as they are both seen as innocent and the misfit. Faye is similar to Jo Mitchel however, also challenges this stereotype. This is because Jo is the conventional misfit and hates the mean girls whereas, Faye is friends with all of the characters, including the mean girls, in our film opening. We decided to challenge some of the features of the misfit stereotype as it made our opening more dramatic and even more unexpected.

    Aaron Samuels                                                                                        Charlie

This comparison is between Charlie and Aaron Samuels from Mean Girls. These two characters are very similar. They are both the conventional teen/school heartthrob who gets the girl. Both characters are from the same social group; this group being the good looking, confident, popular group. Both of the boys facial expressions are very similar in this which shows the audience their social group further. This is because their expression shows that they're confident and sure about themselves. Also, their appearance is very similar. It is obvious that both of the male characters care about how they look and what others think of how they look. Both of the characters have slightly styled their hair. This is an accurate representation of this stereotype as it shows that they want to look good. As well as this, their clothes are similar. They are both wearing quite casual t-shirts. This suggests that they care about their look but don't want people to think that they are trying too hard to look good. This is also accurate of this stereotype as they put a lot of effort into their appearance however, they want teenage girls to think that they naturally look good without putting any effort into what they look like.

Brandon                                                                              Christian

This comparison is between Christian and Brandon from Easy A. The only feature that these two characters share is that they are both homosexuals. They are both very different as Brandon doesn't want people to know that he is a homosexual and pretends that he is a heterosexual. However, Christians character doesn't try and hide his homosexuality and embraces it. Christian is very confident and the way he is standing in this shot shows this. Brandon and Christian are both wearing the colour khaki. This is a very fashionable colour however, their actual clothes are very different. Christian is wearing a very fashionable bomber jacket and skinny jeans whereas, Brandon is wearing an out dated collared t-shirt. This suggests that Brandon is trying to fit in, by wearing a fashionable colour, but he is still an outsider as the actual item of clothing is not the current fashion. Later on in the film Easy A, Brandon pretends to be a heterosexual by 'hooking up' with a female character. He changes his clothes to ones that are considered fashionable. He wears a leather jacket and a normal t-shirt with the colours red and yellow on it.

These clothes are a lot more fashionable than the clothes he was previously wearing. This furthers the idea that he is trying to impress people and is pretending to be something that he is not. Brandon and Christian are both accurate representations of the teenage homosexual stereotype as some homosexuals will do anything to hide this about themselves, even if it means pretending to be a heterosexual however, some teenage homosexuals are very happy with the way they are and do not care what others think or say about them.

      The Plastics                                                                                       The Triple L's

This comparison is between The Plastics from Mean Girls and The Triple L's. These two groups of 'mean girls' are very similar and are from the same social group. One way in which the girls are similar is because they are both seen as the 'popular group' in school. There is a 'main mean girl' and her two friends who she bosses about. Also, they are standing in very similar ways. The poses they are doing shows that they are very self confident girls. Also Lucy and Regina, the 'main mean girls' are standing in front of the two friends. This shows further, that the Lucy and Regina are the most important and are superior to the other girls. However, there are some differences between the groups. One difference between the two groups of girls is their clothes. The Triple L's are dressed much more casual than The Plastics. This makes our film more realistic as these clothes are the sort of thing English, teenage girls wear during school. Both The Triple L's and The Plastics are dressed in the latest fashions however, so therefore this can be another similarity between the girls. It enhances the audiences knowledge about their social group; the popular, confident teenagers as they are wearing the latest trends. Another difference is that The Triple L's all have very similar hair. Their hair's are roughly the same colour and length. We decided to challenge the stereotype of the 'mean girls' being blonde or brunette and decided to make them all have a ginger/auburn hair colour. We did this to show that the stereotype of blonde people, which is having more fun, being considered as the 'bimbo' and being more attractive, is incorrect. The actors with ginger hair are normally used for the misfit/outcast character and the blonde actors are usually used for the popular groups characters. We switched these both round as we wanted to show that these stereotypes are not accurate and that people no longer get judged for the colour of their hair.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m50bJYEEbms&feature=youtu.be

Evaluation 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Are you a male or female?
Female
How old are you?
16
Where do you live?
In a village
What film genres do you prefer?
Rom-coms, comedies, horrors and chick flicks
What do you like wear and where do you shop?
Casual and fashion clothes which I like to buy from places such as H&M, River Island, Topshop, Zara and Primark
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Take dance classes, go to parties, go out for dinner, spend time with friends and go shopping
Do you prefer British made/low budget films or Hollywood Blockbusters?
Mostly Hollywood blockbusters however there are some low budget films, such as Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging that are enjoyable to watch
What would you like to do after sixth form?
Either university or an apprenticeship
What do you spend most of your spare money on?
Food or clothes

The demographics of our teen angst film opening are...
The gender of our opening is aimed at mostly females however, homosexuals might also enjoy and relate to our film as there is a homosexual character in our film opening. Our age range for our opening is 12-18 years old but more specifically aimed at older teenagers. Our film opening will be aimed at middle and working class people, who socialise with their friends and have a medium sized family who work. The geographical location of our film will be aimed at people living in cities and large towns as our setting is a large town. Therefore, if the teenagers live in a similar location to our setting, it makes it more appealing and relatable. We have one main protagonist in our film. She is aged 16 and is known as the 'innocent' one however, her friends find out later that she is not so innocent after all. We feel that our target audience age of mainly older teenagers is reasonable because this age range will be able to relate well to the characters, setting and general idea of our teen angst opening.

The psychographics of our teen angst film opening are...
We believe that teenagers are most likely to watch our film opening because teenagers like to socialize with their friends and one of the main ways they like to do this is by going to parties with each other. We have a party scene within our opening so therefore we believe it will attract many teenagers. Also, all of the characters in our teen angst opening are aged 16. This also helps attract our target audience as they are around the same age of the characters so therefore makes it easier for the audience to put themselves in the characters positions. We tried to fit in as much drama as we could in our film opening as teenagers are known to be centred around drama. Also, the more dramatic our opening is, the more the audience will want to continue watching our film. Some aims of our film opening is to try and make the audience believe that the scenario is actually happening and also for the audience to put themselves in the characters shoes. If the audience feel like they are in the characters situation then they will connect with the film more, leaving them wanting to find out how the film ends. Some of the values in our film opening is having good camera shots. Having good camera shots, for good lengths of time, in the middle of our party scene will help create the suspense needed at the start of the opening as it will get the audience thinking about what's actually happened.

Evaluation 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XbhB0G2AZo&feature=youtu.be

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

There were several technologies used through this whole process. The following list shows what we used and why we used it.

Software

• The programmes we used to edit our film opening was Adobe Premiere Pro. We decided to use this programme as, once we learnt the basics of it, it was quite easy and simple to use. We were able to tweak our footage and add in effects, transitions and text over the top of our footage. We were also able to slow down and speed up our footage. We used both the slow down and speed up in our teen angst opening and managed to do it without difficulty. Myself and Cerys Thomson found it easier to use Adobe Premiere Pro so we did the editing, however Abbie Arshed had input on how o make it better. We found that being in a group benefitted us whilst using this programme as we were able to have many different ideas on how editing and changing different parts would improve our opening.
• Another piece of software we used a couple of times was Photoshop. We used this to edit our production company log. Photoshop helped us a lot when editing this. It allowed us to cut around the crown and place it on the 'Q' at an angle. We could not do this on any other piece of software so Photoshop was a big help. The production company logo took us a while to create as we tried out several different ideas before we decided on the final one.

• Another piece of software we used is PowerPoint. We used PowerPoint when planning our initial and basic ideas of our teen angst opening. It was very helpful to us when thinking about our initial ideas because it allowed us to get down all of our thoughts and ideas digitally instead of on paper. With this work being done on the computer, it meant there was no risk of us losing the paper with the work on.

• Publisher was another more piece of software that was frequently used during my planning and research. I used this programme to present and create some of my planning and research. I then transferred it to Blogger. I did this as it meant that I got work done more efficiently because I already knew how to work this programme; I gradually started to understand Blogger more so started doing my planning and research straight onto there.

Hardware

• A hardware tool that we have used is a digital video camera. This camera was very easy to use as the record button was very obvious and easily found and also we could watch each individual clip that we film rather than going back through all of the footage to get to the clip wanted.
• The media technology that we used the most was a computer. This is because all of the software we needed to edit out footage was on a computer

Online tools

• An online tool that has been used during my research and planning is Blogger. Now  that I know how to work Blogger properly it has been very easy to use. It allows me to get all of my research and planning down in the same place. Also with this being on the computer and saved in one place it stops me from losing any loose pieces of paper that could be very important in all of my planning and research.
• Another online tool that we used frequently was YouTube. We uploaded all of the drafts of our opening onto YouTube and copied the link onto Blogger. This was quite a long and complex process at first however, the more we used it, the easier it became.
• A third online tool that was used was used was Facebook Messenger. This online tool was used between myself, Abbie Arshed, Cerys Thompson and Niall Hay to arrange when we would edit our opening and to discuss our ideas when we were not in school.
• The final online tool that we used was iMessage. This was to arrange with the actors where and when we would film our party scene. iMessage was extremely easy to use as I use it in my everyday life.