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

What does a production company do?
A production company is in charge of everything that goes on from the idea, right up to before the media is completed. They are in charge of funding all costs, wether they are below the line or above the line. They also control everything from filming to booking actors. Once the media is completed, the will sell it to a Distributor. One example of a production company is Pixar.

What is your idea of a film distributor?
A film distributor is the company that sells the final film onto cinemas. They will buy the finished product off of the production company, for an extremely large sum at a huge risk, and hope that there will be a large number of exhibiters that wish to buy that movie, for example, vue or odeon. An example of a film distributor is Twentieth century fox, or Universal studios.

Who might be the distributor for your film and why?
Because my film has an extremely small budget, it is not likely to have it's own premiere in London, full of celebrities and reviewers, this is because it is not going to be of a high enough standard compared to such films as Batman, because of the sheer talent and cost that has gone into producing this film. Therefore, there is a more of a chance of a smaller more independent company, such as Film4 to distribute our film, depending on the quality of our final media. Another option, is distributing our film on unofficial distribution places, such as youtube, because this product is something that would suit an environment such as YouTube, because of the large number of young film producers operate on YouTube, and this can be an effective way of creating money for your product on a more appropriate scale. Perhaps, our film would be successful in a film festival, and this could be an effective method of promotion.

Where would the money come from for a film such as yours?
Because our film is of such a small scale, we would have to show complete excellence in previous media in order to get the trust of an investing production company, as investing on a group of teenagers creating a film for the very first time, is likely to generate a heavy loss. Therefore it would be more sensible to use our own investments, and attempt to keep our costs as low as we can, because even though this limits our ability to do certain things, it means if our film was successful, we will make a greater profit, and we will also gain more respect for completing a top quality film on such a small budget.

Why have various people been named in your titles? Which jobs appear in your titles and in what order and how have you reflected this?
There are not that many people that were involved in the production process of our film, and we have not officially distributed it, therefore the credits only contain the names of the three people that contributed towards the creation of it. Me, Damian and Dean have all put our names onto the opening sequence, in order of contribution, firstly, was Damian, the 'Director', as he was in control of which shots we used, and other clip related choices, and Camera man, then, Me the 'Producer' as I was ensuring that everything we create was up to standard, and also the editor, then Dean, who was the actor and camera man. We included these names, as we felt that we deserved credit for what we have created.

How is your film similar 'institutionally' to others? Name some films which would be released in a similar way.
Our film being a school project-created film, makes it different from all of the others, but it can be compared to films that have not been released in cinema's, but have been shown on independent film channels. It mainly depends on the quality of our film, which determines the possibility of our film being backed and managing to fulfil or overtake our expectations. We believe that our film is institutionally similar to The Godfather, but just on a smaller scale.

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

Our preliminary task contained many elements that we weren't pleased with, there are certain things, like shot angles and shot types that we needed to ensure we got right this time, because they are the kind of things that would make our sequence look bad.
Here are some examples of the lessons we learnt;

Shot 1, is the overhead shot we used to show both of our characters. You can see how poor this shot was, as it is at the wrong angle, which is highlighted by the position of the table, and is also extremely unfocused and shaky. In our final piece, we balanced the camera over the bridge, but used the tripod as a stand, as this kept our clip still, straight and also allowed it to focus well enough to get a clear shot.

Shot 2 shows the overt editing we used on our prelim, in comparison to our final piece. As unexperienced editors, we clearly put far too much of an effect on this shot, this makes our clip seem tacky and unprofessional, whereas in our final opening sequence, we kept editing the colour to a minimum, and opted for a more subtle decrease in saturation.

Shot 3 displays our poor shot choice in out prelim, as this is very simple, yet makes our camera work extremely varied, which makes it hard to establish professionalism. This clip is of a door being opened, and looks very shaky and rushed, because the camera wasn't at all balanced or focused. On the other hand, during our final production, when shooting a close up of money being passed, we put the camera on the tripod, and allowed it to focus before recording, this means that the thought which had gone into positioning the camera, and planning of the movement, gave us a crisp, professional shot.

Finally, shot 4 shows our understanding of distancing, and the use of zoom on a camera. In our prelim, we positioned the camera very far away from the action, this made our shot very blurry and pixelated, whereas in our final piece, we put the camera as close as possible, this made our clip look very sharp and clear, which adds to the professional feel we created during the rest of our piece.

Therefore, through filming and editing our prelim, we gained the skills needed to create a professional piece of media, because we essentially learned from our mistakes upon evaluation of our prelim task, and made sure we corrected them during our final filming process.

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

This is a picture of our camera and tripod that we used. The tripod was used to keep our camera steady. The handle helped us to do the pan shots and the angling of our shots.

The camera of course is what we used to record. We could save all of our clips on there and then upload them to final cut to edit.

This is our phones. As you can see, they are all iphones, we FaceTime'd each other from various WiFi zones in order to communicate when filming in different locations in london. We also communicated via text and phone calls.

This is the mac. We had all of our software stored on the computer, also we did all of our research, editing, storing with the mac, which is a very highly effective piece of equipment.

This is the Cinema 4D interface that I used to create our intro. The intro was a very complicated process using multiple softwares, that we had stored on our macs. This programme lets us create 4D text to then edit in other software to finalise.

This is adobe after effects, which is what the intro was finalised in. Here I added the special effects, like lighting and flares. This is what makes our intro seem professional and expensive.

This is livetype, this is the programme that we made our typewriter effect on. We had to time the effect with the length of the text, so that each letter actually fit in, and so that it started and ended with enough time to map in our sound effects.

This is Final Cut Express, this is what we did all of our editing in, it has numerous windows in which you can see your documented clips, your final render, and your pre-edited clips. We frequently saved our progress in here, and we did things like sequencing, saturation adjustments and time mapping here in stages.

This is the youtube homepage. Here we kept our final product saved, and we also kept our research clips here as this allowed us to refer back to them whenever needed. 

Blogger is where we documented each stage of our research, planning and different stages of production. We had out separate accounts and could individually comment on our piece, whilst also including the formalities, such as writing our screenplay and shot list.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

These are two main characters with similar roles in their respective films.
Firstly, is our main character in our film, then Adam Deacon, from Kidulthood/Adulthood.
They both represent the younger people of London, and they also have their similarities and differences.
Firstly is the costumes, they are both dressed in reasonably fashionable and they both look like they are dressed casually, as if they are carrying out their day to day activities. Although our second half of our sequence shows him wearing a formal outfit, he dresses like a typical youth and represents most late teens/young adults of our generation.
Adam Deacon also fits this stereotype because he is wearing a typical round neck t-shirt, a jacket and jeans.
However, our main character in comparison to Adam Deacon is more formally spoken, more well dressed, and has a more respected attitude towards life. They both have a similar role in their films, they are the main character and they are trying to become 'big'.

Adam Deacon is a more common gang member, whereas we have tried to make our character represent the higher classes of london, as he is more mature and respectable.

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

The title of our media product is appropriately named 'Rags to Riches' as the storyline of our sequence is how a young man made it from being a nobody to being extremely wealthy in just a day. Our title is the kind of phrase you could expect a typical 'Gangster' to say. Therefore conforming to the Gangster genre.

The setting and location of our opening is London city. This heavily challenges the traditional convention of an American city setting. We have chosen this to stand out amongst the rest of the films in the market of a similar storyline, as the inner runnings of London would be relatively different to the majority of the American films that have already been produced, being a point of difference that makes our piece stand out.

The costumes of our props have been kept similar to those of other films in this genre. A formal, black coat and a briefcase are what a typical wealthy/rich Gangster would wear. However, the black London cab we have used is different to the traditional American yellow cab, and the audience will notice this as a difference and relate it to our setting.

The camerawork and editing we have used for our opening sequence conform to the typical conventions of a Gangster movie because we kept our main character a secret, similar to things like godfather, because this has built tension. This kind of camera work is also used in the gangster genre as this allows the audience to see the main character in the cab drivers eyes, this also builds tension.

The font and style of our title sequence is one that represents blocks of gold, and this is quite appropriate according to our storyline, and this also conforms to the gangster genre. Shining blocks of light is the typical 'bank vault' environment, and this represent the money motivated storyline, foreshadowing future events.

Our story is introduced by a narration of the background runnings of London. This is similar to films such as Shawshank Redemption, but also the method of telling a story then cutting back to how it happens, is similar to that of the Godfather, therefore this follows this convention.

Our genre is introduced by the passing of a huge amount of money. Other films also introduce the idea of money etc by showing items or something like that being passed from person to person, i.e drugs. Therefore our opening sequence conforms to this convention of a gangster film.

Our main character is introduced in a harsh tense revealing scene which takes 2 minutes to be shown. This makes our audience constantly questioning who he is. This is seen in other gangster films such as Godfather where they have low lighting on a main character so that you cannot see his full facial details and you don't necessarily know exactly who that is.

Finally, the special effects have been kept minimal in our opening sequence as we want to keep it realistic, however the typewriter effect is one thing we used because this makes our sequence look professional. Other films in this genre have also used the typewriter effect because this also brings in the 'olden day' theme and represents the stylish gangster.

How did you appeal to your Target Audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is my personified target audience, who was created in open office by me. His name is Jack and he is 22 years old. He is the average person we have aimed our opening sequence as a specific target audience is key to create a well constructed, effective opening sequence. He is composed of many factors that we considered in order to create an opening sequence that appealed to a varied audience in order to earn as much money as possible in the industry.

The first thing that we considered, was his occupation, shown by his belt. He is a skilled working class manual labourer, more informally known as a plumber. I have chosen our characterisation of the target audience to be a plumber, as this shows motivation towards money, as he has put in the time to learn the necessary skills needed, in order to become a plumber, which is a highly paid job. Our opening sequence being a money motivated film, is likely to appeal to someone like 'Jack' as he will enjoy the type of story that engages an average, normal guy becoming rich and powerful.

Secondly, I have considered his clothing. He is wearing highly fashionably clothing and therefore he is likely to take pride in his appearance, but more importantly, it shows that he is just an average person living in london. He is likely to appreciate the story behind our sequence, as our main character is dressed similarly to him, and this will allow him to relate to our story, perhaps making it more engaging as he will feel that this applies to him, meaning he can one day replicate this story, just in more legal means.

Also, 'Jack' is holding a newspaper, which is in fact The Sun. He enjoys to read tabloid newspapers and this represents the fact that he is likely to enjoy a good story in which he can speak to his friends about, and this will mean that our story will not only be a good 'gossip' story that he can talk about, but also be an effective means of advertisement for our sequence as word of mouth is the most effective method.

His camera, and the scenery behind him, represents his love for good scenery, and also media. If he enjoys quality presentation of good scenery, he will definitely enjoy our well crafted establishing shots of london city. He will also like things such as the environment in which the main character is based. The quality of our shots is also an appealing factor to him.

Social media is another focal point, not only does this help display that he is someone who enjoys a story with ecological validity, that he can talk about to his friends. It also means that he will help promote our video through word of mouth, which is one that is most effective in advertising media.