Who would be the audience for your media product?

One of the key things about musicals is that most of them appeal to a wide audience, even if they have a slightly more specific target audience.

My target audience is younger teenagers who are interested in rock music, much like the target audience of the film ‘School Of Rock’ (2004). These people would probably listen to rock bands from the 60’s through to the early 90’s, but not much modern music. They have just started to learn to play the guitar or another ‘rock instrument’. They are picky about the clothes that they wear – usually a basic t-shirt, hoody and jeans combo with a pair of skateboarding shoes or basketball shoes. They grow their hair long and messy in an attempt to look like their rock heroes.

Because of these characteristics, a film about rock bands as the protagonists and ‘chavs’ as the antagonists would be very appealing to them. They would enjoy the musical genre because the music would be appealing to them, and because the story revolves around older teenagers playing rock music they may feel that this is something to aspire to.

However, musicals are often appealing to a very wide audience, possibly because music is a widely enjoyed thing that is not as subjective as some might think. A film of this style would be appropriate for most if not all age groups, although some stereotypes may offend people.

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

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Similarities between my ‘chav’ character and ‘Sam’ from ‘Kidulthood’:

Appearance:

Both characters are captured with low angle shots, making them seem intimidating.

Both characters faces are partially covered.

Connotations of power

Costume:

Both characters wear hooded jackets zipped up to the top

Both characters wear their hoods up

Both characters wear dark colours

Role In Film

Both of these characters play similar roles in the films in which they appear. In Kidulthood, Sam is on of the antagonists of the film. Similarly, my chav character is the antagonist in the film.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of film openings)

The Title Of The Film

My film is titled “Sex Ed Maths And Rock’N’Roll”. I chose this title because our film is a musical about rock music, and the title reflects this by playing on the title of the song ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’ made famous by ‘Ian Dury And The Blockheads’. The title also reflects the fact that our film is set within a school (sex ed, maths). It is common for films to show the title of the film in the first two minutes or so. It is especially common in musicals e.g. in Hairspray and in Grease.

Setting/Location

My film is set within a school. This is connoted throughout the film, like in the scene with the nerds – they are seen in a school ICT area. Another example would be when people are walking into the school property at the beginning of the film. Introducing the setting is a key factor in the first two minutes of films because it effortlessly explains to the audience where the film is based. It can also give the audience an idea about what type of film they are watching.

Costumes And Props

Because my film opening is largely based on stereotypical social groups, I have used a wide variety of costumes and props. For instance, the lead singer of our rock band is dressed in a leather jacket and a loose desert style scarf. He is holding a microphone and a microphone stand in his hands. The other people in this scene are playing a bass guitar and a drum kit. This use of mise-en-scene helps the audience to identify this character as the singer of a band. Another example of my use of costumes and props is the music technician who is recording the band. He is operating a mixing desk and has a pair of studio headphones in his head. He also wears a cap and hooded jumper. This is a reflection of real studio technicians being quite contemporary.

Camerawork And Editing

I am quite proud of some of the camerawork in my project. Because I did not have access to a steady cam or track cam, I decided to strap a camera to an office chair with wheels and push it around the school while filming to get the effect of a track cam. I also like the editing sequence in the scene with the rock band and music technician. The cross cutting was smooth and well timed, giving a good continuity. I also like the use of ellipsis by speeding up footage to make time pass quicker. I have not seen this in any musicals but I thought it was a nice touch.

Title Font And Style

The title of my film is show in a ‘bubble writing’ style font. I chose the colour yellow because I think it represents the liveliness of the film. I chose to use a ‘bubble’ style font because it is similar to the one used in Hairspray, a musical that I have analysed to get an idea of how to stylise my film.

Story And How The Opening Sets It Up

Story Summary – My film is about a protagonist group – the rock band, and an antagonist group – the chavs. George (the lead character) is a singer/songwriter that replaces Harry (the singer of the band in the first two minutes) as singer in the rock band. Harry then befriends the chavs and plots to sabotage the rock bands performance at the annual ‘Battle Of The Bands’. This is set up by the opening two minutes of the film. In the opening two minutes we are introduced to the chavs, the rock band, Harry and George. The rock band is seen recording a song. The following scene is George playing the ending of a song in the same key as the non-diagetic music. This order of these scenes was supposed to hint at an interaction between George and the rock band.

Genre And How The Opening Suggests It

My film is a musical, and to show this within the first two minutes, I have written some music to play throughout the video. I have also removed the audio from many scenes to put more emphasis on the music. The last two of my scenes are both music related – the rock band recording a song and George playing a song on a piano. Many musicals use social stereotypes as characters and groups. For instance, ‘Grease’ uses classic USA stereotypes of its time such as ‘greasers’ and ‘jocks’. For this reason I have decided to include stereotypical social groups of our time in my film – ‘emos’, ‘nerds’, ‘chavs’ and ‘skaters’.

How Characters Are Introduced

My opening two minutes focus on introducing characters to the audience. Each character, excluding George, is introduced within a group of people. The groups are introduced as stereotypes with text written on the screen. George is introduced separately because he does not fit within a stereotypical group, making him stand out as the main character. He is shown playing a piano, suggesting that he is musical and therefore the focal point of the musical film.

Special Effects

In my opening two minutes I make good use of effects. Between scenes there is a white flash that was added post filming. This was included to detach the scenes and to give an effect of non-continuity. I have also sped up a lot of footage between character-based scenes to build audience excitement.

Character bio / Unused character images

These are the final images that me and my partner hoped to include in our project, but could not because of time restraints. We imported the pictures of the characters into Adobe Photoshop along with some 'notepad doodles' that I designed for each social group. We intended to show each of these pictures after the corresponding scene had shown on screen to give deeper insight into the characters. The mise-en-scene was important in each picture because it helped reinforce the steriotypes to the audience.

This picture shows the 'skaters'. In terms of mise-en-scene, the most important thing was the skateboard in the centre of the image. The clothes are also important. The costume was put together to give a sense of effortlessness, something that is often linked to the extreme sports culture. The doodles consist of interests of the characters, such as skate ramps, skateboarders, and danger signs to convey the dangerous nature of the characters lifestyles.

This picture depicts the 'nerds'. They all wear large rimmed glasses in the picture. The key thing in this image is the doodles. They are all linked to the steriotypical social group. For instance, there is a chess club reminder in the top left corner, maths equations and a hydrochlorid diagram.

This is the 'emo' image. The important factor in this image is the fact that all the characters are wearing black. This fuels the steriotype that 'emos' only wear black clothes. In the background image there are a few doodles of hearts, one of which is cracked down the middle. This is suposed to suggest that the characters are depressed. The 'I love MCR' doodle means 'I love My Chemical Romance'. 'My Chemical Romance' are an American band who's music is traditionally popular within the 'emo' culture.

In the picture for the 'chavs', we decided that all of the characters would wear their hoods up with peeked caps on. This is an obvious steriotype to play upon because it is widely shown in the media. As for the background, I decided to use rudimentary, childlike drawings to suggest the chavs' lack of intelligence.

Photos Finished

Today I created the 'backdrops' for the photographs of the stereotypical groups. Each 'backdrop' was made up of a piece of lined paper with scribbling on it that in some way was representative of the group. For instance, the skateboarders backdrop features pictures of stick men on skateboards.

Credits - In the style of a musical

I have added credits into my film. The first two credits are the companies involved - Paramount Films and Bad Robot. These two are presented in a relatively normal font. The next text that appears onscreen is the title of the film (we chose it today - 'Sex Ed Maths and Rock'N'Roll'). This is shown in a large orange 'bubble writing' style, and from this point onwards all text is shown in this font. Actors names are listed and at the and the directors etc are listed i.e. Rohan and Myself.

Finished Editing

Today I spent a lot of time uploading the last scenes onto a computer and editing the project together. It was a struggle to get the film to fit into two minutes, so in the end I cut some scenes shorter than I would have hoped, but I am happy with the outcome.

Skaters

We filmed on of our friends skateboarding in the school grounds. I watched a few skateboarding videos to see how they are filmed. After watching the professional skateboarding films, I decided to take a simple shot where the camera follows the feet/board from behind and slightly to one side, and as a trick is executed, the camera moves parallel to the skateboarder. When the trick is over, the camera is in front of the skateboarder and rises up to give a long shot of the whole body of the person.

First bit of Editing

Me and Rohan have cut our scenes together and have started choosing bits of footage to use in our project. We have looked at effects to use and have calculated the average time that we can allow our scenes to run on for.

Some new scenes

I have filmed some new 'transition clips' to account for changes in our project. Me and Rohan also filmed a new scene - a handheld camera walks into the school building from the school gate. This scene was designed to attach the opening of our film (people walking into the school) to the rest of our film (track cam viewing different areas and groups within the school).

Cutting out the 'Normal Kids' scene

Are project was getting too long. We have managed to film over 100 minutes of footage to fit within the two minute boundaries, and after making a rough cut of the project it was too long and we needed to cut something out. We both thought that this particular scene was not of the same standard as the others and have therefore chosen to remove it. I have filmed a new 'transition clip' to account for the change in setting.

Rock Band

Today Rohan and I filmed the scene with the rock band and music technician (we cut out the jazz band because of time restraints in the film). We set up a drum kit, guitar and microphone for our actors to work with, and filmed another actor operating in a recording studio. From the recording studio, the band is in the shot, visible through a window. There is no photo for the rock band because in our story they are all main characters.

Establishing shot of the school in the morning

I got to school early this morning to film the main enterance of the school as people walked into the grounds. I filmed for about quater of an hour, filming as the amount of people entering at one time increased. We plan to take three or four small sections from the footage, each section with more people in it than the last.

More transitions

Today we also shot a new version of the transition from the bands to the lead guy because we ended up changing the room in which we shot the lead guy's scene, meaning that the transition clip had to end at the foot of a different door.

Emos

Today, Rohan and I shot the 'emo scene'. We had a cast of five, including myself. It is another short scene that focuses on the five people standing next to some trees in the school's garden area. We have also taken a still picture.

Nerds

I filmed the scene for the nerds. I filmed them in the schools library. In the scene there are three people sitting at a table wearing nerd style glasses reading from a pile of science text books and talking to each other. I have a close up of the books that they are reading as well as other more general shots of them. I have also taken a photograph of the key cast members of the scene to be edited.