Media Assessment

Research and Planning

The beginning of my AS research was to look into the conventions of general film openings. This gave me a good introduction into what I would need to include when making my film opening, such as how early on you need to establish the genre and how you should create enigma to keep the viewer watching. Before researching this I had not noticed these aspects of film opening. Following on from that I looked more into detail of general film opening starting with the different shots which I analyzed from Harry Potter, this was helpful I learnt close up were used a lot and mid shots and what they showed the viewer. Next we looked at the jaws opening in groups focusing of different aspects of the opening such as characters, enigma, sound and image. I therefore learnt how all these aspects worked together to create the full opening, I also learnt the high importance of the music used as it created most of the enigma in this particular scene. Next we looked at still images and the effects they have on us, we also took some of our still images to see how to create them to fit a particular genre. Although this was helpful within showing how to create still images it did not affect my final opening and therefore I think I could have looked how each still image in my final opening would have represented the genre more to make the whole opening genre specific. As my research continued I looked at film posters, I looked at Bridesmaid’s poster it showed me how the image can create a sense for a film and therefore how important the mise-en-scene is I think I analyzed this well noticing the contrast between different elements of mise-en-scene. I think the research done at this point did help me, giving me a general view of film opening and what I needed to include in them, but I think as it wasn’t specific to my genre a lot of it was wasted and I couldn’t progress using the details of what shots and music used as it was for action and horror rather than my chosen genre of romance. Therefore in my research I decided to focus on just romance. Our next task was to create our preliminary video, I think I struggled a lot with this and it showed in my final opening, the shots were weak and didn’t link up properly also we used a lot of make do locations rather than searching for ones that would of made the video look more like the original. Now I was in my group we chose to do specific research looking into the conventions of our genre, romance, this helped us as we could plan and make our opening around these conventions ensuring we used appropriate locations such as real life which is used in romance alot. Creating a mood from looking at these conventions helped us put all our ideas into one place, looking at a creative version gave us an atmosphere for what our movie opening should be like. Our next step was to look at previous romance film opening so that we could see how the conventions were used in real movies and also give us inspiration for ideas for our own opening. We looked at Grease, The Holiday, 500 days of summer and The vow. We look alot of inspiration from grease as their opening was more to show of the titles rather than tell the story. Finally we looked at title timelines, making a timeline of the opening writing on when each title and appeared and in what order. This gave us a good idea of how long to leave between the titles and also in what order as we had never picked up on that before. Next was our planning we begun by working out what titles we would include and how we would include them, so we could plan around it. Next we created our film pitch so we had a clear plan of what we was doing this helped us create the opening realistic. Next we planned the mise-en-scence and shooting schedule but this wasn’t very detailed and we didn’t really stick to it. To finish our research and planning we created different production logos it different formats this gave us skills in another programme and helped us to see what looked professional. Looking back at my AS research and planning I spend alot of time on research, this made my work very real life like, but I think I spend too much time on work that wasn’t relevant to my genre. Through A2 I want to spend more time focusing on my genre in research rather than general so that I can make my work very gender specific.  Also I want to make a much more detailed plan this year having every outfit and make up organised so that we don’t waste time when filming. I also plan to make a detailed shot list and stick to it more this year.

Following the conventions of real media texts

During my research we looked at the at the general conventions of film openings and have tried to follow them as best as we can. Firstly we found it must include a production logo, we have included an animated production logo that we made ourselves at the beginning like seen in normal film opening. We also found that it should include titles, we therefore researched previous titles to find out the order theses should go in, and based a large part of our opening through including a title in each part of our montage. Therefore we included scenes like a birthday so that we could write the title on a cake and chocolate giving so that we could write the title on the chocolate box. Another convention was to  establish genre, key characters and key locations in the opening. We showed our main characters in every shot clearly showing the characters. I think the genre was shown very quickly as we had very romantic scenes such as hand holding, kissing, present giving and dates. We included sound of backing music to add to the genre and also folie of button on the CD player going down, as sound is a convention of a music video. Finally we created enigma at the end of the opening by having the girl crying as all openings are supposed to create enigma, by having her crying makes the audience confused as why she is crying. To continue we also have to stick to the genre conventions of romance. We found out romance usually contains a lot of emotion therefore we included the girl crying at the end to show the emotion of the boyfriends death. We the emotion of love throughout. They also contain a lot of day to day examples hence why all the parts of our montage included day to day to events such as brushing their teeth and getting ready in the morning. Romance films always include romantic music to set the scene , therefore we chose a romantic tune to give the romance vibe. We introduced the characters instantly and used a voice over which we are all conventions of a real movie opening.  I think we stuck well to the conventions and therefore created a very realistic film opening. But there was some aspects we didn’t stick to as much, firstly we didn’t have many romantic props, costumes or lighting. So overall I think I need to focus on the mise-en-scene and making it fit the conventions. Finally I think our characters could of been more fitted to the genre they came across and dressed very mainstream whereas we was trying to make it look more quirky, therefore in my music video I want to make sure if we choose an indie r&b song that we choose someone with that looks and concentrate a lot on their style. Also as we have to create a digi pack for A2 so I think I will focus a lot on the styling and mise-en-scene to make that fit the conventions of my genre.

Creativity / Originality

Through my AS film opening my group tried to make it as creative as possible while sticking to the previous conventions. We decided to make our titles very creative so we could take something that is a convention and give it our twist. We chose to include the titles into props in our scenes, rather than putting on the top as it gave a more indie twist and was original from openings we have seen before. We used a cake, lipstick on a mirror, coffee cup and chocolate box etc. Also to make our opening creative we chose to use romance music and a voice over rather than a script, I think they showed the emotion more. Finally we tried to practise production logo of a stop motion paper ball being scrunched up then opened with the company name on, this was different from what we found before, although this was creative it didn’t have a professional theme so we then decided to go for a typical video instead. I hope to carry on being creative in this video, firstly by using creative locations such as London graffiti walls as backgrounds and also shots of the artist looking more fun. I think clothing and make-up can also help us to make our video creative as we are going to use statement looks. Finally I think editing will help us to improve creativity we are going to start the video in black and white then introduce colour throughout, also using blur transitions.