Relating to the War time

Being able to relate to war time was tough, even though we are mere teenagers, we managed to use dominant ideologies of what it might have looked like in Britain.

We also used people such as the elderly to give us a better insight to what it was like, and what it looked like. We managed to see photographic evidence, get information from Lucy's grandma (Plays Dorothy in Timeless Love), and the vast amount of information was from the WII museum in London.

From the information we gathered, we also managed to use creative effects to add in on Final Cut Express. The Misé-en-Scene of the clothing was used to tell the audience that this is based in the WII time, and the black and white was to add on the effect and support alongside the clothing that is was based around WII time.

We had to avoid any contact, and photographic evidence of electrical devices in our filming, it was a NECESSITY to avoid it to give off the effect that it was based around the WII time, where there was hardly any electrical devices.

By Daniel Heighington

Prelim Film

BULLY, PRELIM FILM

Our prelim film was very successful, we managed to effectively show types of angles using the camera, our editing skills, and we nicely fitted in a music track that best relates to the video.

Our Prelim video is about a shy young girl, who has trouble growing up in her life. She gets rejected at school from "Friends", even relationships for her don't turn out good. Years after torture from others, she turns to drugs for comfort and for the alternative, but oblivious to her, it will end her life.

Post by Daniel Heighington

Film by Max Brawn, Daniel Fanthome, Lucy Hyner and Daniel Heighington

Inspiration

• For inspiration we went on a trip up to London, to the Imperial War Museum.
• On our journey we were overwhelmed by the interesting facts and objects that related to our chosen subject.
• This image, shows 8 individual pictures, all in black and white. Each and every one portrays it's own vast range of emotion, really engaging you to what is happening, such as evacuation and a baby with a gas mask on. Each image tells it's own wartime story, but with mystery behind it, wondering why? it is happening. This gave us the idea of adding a mystery effect in our film, we believe if it was able to show mystery through images, we could also show a great mystery through our film.

By Lucy Hyner

Focus Group Feedback

• There was a great amount of positive feed back which we were indeed very pleased with.
• They believed that the Black and White gave a added effect, alongside the clothing (Hats, war suit, jumper) - portraying a realistic viewing for the audience.
• 'Atmospheric' - reflecting back to the time, showing moving emotion, that is commonly shown in this genre.
• Romance, Period Drama, showing real life, romance and a historical side. Also mystery as it's left on a hangover.
• Family orientated film, as it's very loving. One member of the group stated the audience is 'Timeless' which relates to the name being 'Timeless Love'
• One member of the group, when discussing age and target audience, challenged the fact that it wasn't just for woman as it was a 'love story', and that it wasn't relevant bringing in a gender specific.
• There favourite scene was the separation scence, and would like to watch the rest of the film as it is such a mystery of why they separated?
• Liked - emotion, feel that kept in engrossed, photography, back to war - black and white, clear definition between past and presence.
• Disliked - More thought about costume, and costume work with the old lady and her grandson, more variation and focus on her face.

By Lucy Hyner

Evaluation Question 1 - Media Product

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

We have managed to develop the dominant stereotypes of the elderly into our opening, by watching trailers/openings of other films; we got our idea of conventions from “The Evening Sun” – to gain a better insight of the elderly, and we watched the opening of “Saving Private Ryan” – to gain a better insight of the war – this allowed us to understand typical conventions of the war, and of the elderly.

Near the beginning of the opening of our sequence, we put in a montage of clips, representing the elderly in present time, and showing their memories, suggesting how they think of their memories, that their memories are based around wartime. We chose these clips to engage our audience (The elderly), because it’s something they can relate to.

To avoid any slight confusion with our audience, the elderly, we wanted to stick with conventional ways of the elderly, to give off the right effect that this was a war- memory film. Having shown the elderly jumping around, on a sugar rush, being very hyper – this would just confuse our audience because the majority wouldn’t be able to relate to this.

Our genre to our opening has no action; just a war based time with memories of loved ones going to war. We tried to avoid the reality of action in our film because we thought it would be too much for our audience. Throughout our opening, you see not only elderly people; but also a teenager going to visit his grandma, and Dorothy and Edward in their 20-30s – this can relate to people that age today, to see how they may have acted differently back then. The music shows this film is calm, with memories from the past, proving it’s not the typical guns and violence movie.

Showing how the elderly back when they were in their 20’s may be conventions we have challenged because people that age today act differently than they people back in the war time did. Technology would be a huge convention to challenge because people back in the wartime didn’t have electronic devices, and nowadays, people do.

By Daniel Heighington

Evaluation Question 3- distribution companies

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

A film distributor may be a person or a company that is responsible for the release of a film for home viewing. They play a big role in the sales of films as they decide when and where the film is released. This is a important role as they also have to release advertising this helps to sell the film though means of a DVD or in a cinema. Some distribution company’s only deal with home video distribution this means that the only release such things as DVDs and blue ray disks

Distribution company’s that would distribute our product are: Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks SKG, and Mark Gordon Productions. I think they would distribute our company because in the past they have distributed war time films, such as saving private Ryan. Which is based in the war time and I think tries to hit the same audience as what out film attempts to do. We tried to focus on the style of film that they used, watching it over a few times to get a variety of ideas and inspiration for our own film. All of the distributing company’s above would be suitable for our company however they are American based company’s, they would be suitable for the fact that they are good company’s and are able to hit and grab the correct audiences attention that we wish to hit. The companies mainly focus on main stream films.

With the companies named I would expect the company to advise on all kinds of media and new technologies to hit audiences. This means that I would expect them to advertise through a variety of ways, focusing on social websites, such as facebook and twitter, which a lot of people use, so it would therefore attract a high amount of audiences this would help to gain the biggest audience possible.

by Lucy Hyner

Evaluation Question #5 - The Audience

How did you attract/address your audience?

When doing our preliminary task I learnt many things as I got more confident with final cut express this meant I knew where the techniques where that I wanted to use, this helped by cutting down on the time that we where trying to find the correct techniques on the program meaning we could spend more time on it. I also learnt how to import and export music and sounds from garage bang this help our final project as we needed to make music for it, therefore being able to create music fast and effectively what fit the scene and mood. Though this we were able to start research on our final project though a questionnaire asking questions that where possible for us to do.
We found out many things from our questionnaire such as:
· We did ten questionnaires and out of ten 8 where male and 2 where females
· Out of ten questionnaires 3 of then came back as to not like our idea of doing a wartime project this shows that the majority of people will like the idea.
· 3 out of ten people think we should not do the project in all black and white this is a good result as our project has already been planned as to be both in colour and black and white due to realistic features
· In the questionnaire 5 out of ten people said that they would like to see love and loss of people.
We tailored out film to make it what our audience wanted by looking at the percentages of what people wanted and if it was a big percentage then we put that idea in the film. Such as from the findings a big percentage or a majority wanted it in part black and white or all black and white so we put half the footage in black and white. Half of the questionnaires also wanted love influenced in out film so we have made the film based on love and loss.
We have made our genre clear in the opening by including a black and white hue or colour correction over half of the footage this helps to give the audience the idea that the film is based when colour filming was not around, also we have made the props old looking so that the characters are wearing cloths that would be found in the war times.
In our opening sequence we have made it so the audience carried on watching by putting music that attracts people and kept a lot of lose ends open. Such as in the start you see a photo album. We left the question open as why is there one there and whose in it.
We asked people to watch our film to see what that thought of it most of our comments where positive about the editing and filming however we did have some negative so we tried to sort them things out to make it the best possible video.

By Daniel Fanthome