Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for our media product?

Our target audience is families. We decided upon this because of the majority of the real films cast would be made up of mostly children. We decide that because our film was a family film that the suitable age range for the audience of our film would be from ages 5 upwards. When creating the narrative of the film we had to consider how we were going to make the film entertaining for adults whilst keeping to the BBFC's certification criteria for a rated PG film. A way we could do this by incorporating innuendos that would be funny for adults but not for children as they would not get the joke. This has been executed perfectly in other PG family films such as Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

We also looked into how we could make enjoyable for both genders of the younger segment of out target audience. When doing this we decided that a good way of doing this would be to use actors from children's tv shows with a unisex target audience such as Disney's Ant Farm, where we found the actor who would play chuck in our film. Also using actors which they have seen on their tv could make the film more enjoyable for them as the actors are familiar to them. We have done the same with Hugh Laurie with regards to adults as he is in many tv shoes which adults would watch such as House.

When researching into the minds of our target audience we decide to release a survey on the Internet via surveymonkey.com to gain extra information into our audiences film interests. We got 21 replies and these were the the results we got from these people:

Film Interests Survey

These findings showed information such as their age, wether they were a fan of any of the 2 genres which made up our films hybrid genre of Family-Adventure and if they were fans of selected films in these genres.

Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution would distribute our product and why?

Or film is a mainstream film so it would ideally be distributed by a big mainstream company such as Warner Brothers, Universal or Walt Disney Pictures. This is because our product is one which is suited for a mainstream target audience because it fits into the genres of family and adventure.

 

If our film were to be distributed in real life then I think that Universal would be the best to do so. This is because they are one of the world biggest conglomerates and they have distributed many films in the same genre as ours such as The Lorax (2012) which is a recently released children’s film starring Zac Efron and Danny DiVito, and Jurassic Park (1993) which is in my opinion one of the greatest adventure films of all time! I would prefer to have Universal distribute our film because Disney produce and distribute more animated films and Warner Brothers haven’t distributed many adventure films.

 

We would also be able to ask for funding from Universal as they give $35m per film to working title which like us would be a vertically integrated company. However being vertically integrated, we wouldn’t receive too bigger income for the film because it would mostly go to companies higher up in the vertical integration. We know that our product would become recognised a lot quicker if we were with Universal and would make more money where as if we tried making our product independent because we wouldn’t of had the funding to spend extravagantly on the film’s production, marketing, distribution or exhibition.

 

I would want our product to be distributed in mainstream cinemas such as Odeon and cineworld because that is where our audience would go to see a film because these cinema chains are more family orientated that that of an art house. Another reason as to why these cinema chains are the ones we would like to distribute our film in is that these chains are the most popular so we would want our film being distributed to the most populated and known cinemas as there are more people watching our film.

Evaluation Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups? (G321)




 

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does our media product use, develop or challenge forms and convections of real media products? (G321)

The generic convections which feature in our film opening include the use of kids as protagonists. Also the film is focused around a group of kids just like in Unaccompanied Minors (2006) and The Goonies (1985). There is also a comedy role in our film, Chuck. Just like Chunk from The Goonies and Timothy ‘Beef’ Wellington, Chuck is on the receiving end on the majority of the groups banter.

Our film opening just like that of the Goonies (1985) introduces the main kid actors in our film opening. Its characters are just like those in Unaccompanied Minors (2006) with regards to their personalities

The generic convections which feature in our film opening are the use of kids as protagonists, a comedy role and that the film is focused around a group of kids. These are all generic convections of family films as these convections can be found in other family films such as Ice Age (2002) and Home Alone (1990). An example of a film which like ours has a group of kids as protagonists is The Goonies (1985) where a group of kids go off in search of treasure. An example of a family film with a comedy role in it is Shrek (2001) which features donkey, voiced by Eddie Murphy, who is Shrek’s clumsy best friend. An example of another film which is focused around a group of kids is Unaccompanied Minors (2006) which like our film is based around 5 kids (3 boys and 2 girls).

An example of how our work has been influenced by other family film is the aspects of our cast. It is  made up of 5 kids, 3 boys and 2 girls, just like in Unaccompanied Minors (2006). The roles of the characters are also the same, (reading from left to right) first we have the ‘nerd’ then we have the popular girl,the girl who enjoys winding her friends up, the group leader, and the unfit one.

Another way which or film opening has been influenced by another film is the use of the kids coming down a hill on their bikes. Just like in The Goonies (1985).

                                   

Final Cut (G321)

This is our final cut. It now features production company's logos titles and improved colour corrections to to the ones in rough cut 2 as the footage to our film now looks even more warmer and vibrant. An example of these improved colour corrections is that the sky in the shot which shows our actors running towards a tree looks more natural, rather than a big blue streak across the screen. The music also plays all the way through our film opening making it even more like other film openings in our genre.

In the end we had to remove the dialogue from our final cut. This is because we could not find away round the crackling wind other than to remove it completely. I tried rerecording our actors voices and we tried to layer them up over our footage but the non-diagetic sound was not in sync with our actors lips making it look tacky. This is why we came to a group decision to remove the dialogue completely, which I personally found frustrating as I feel that it would of been better if we had the dialogue but we couldn't because the rerecorded dialogue was not in sync with our actors lips.

Jelly Baby Activity (G321)

In groups we produced our own film openings using post it notes and jelly babys. We did this to broaden our knowledge of the ordereing of film titles.

 

The Differences Between Mainstream and Independet Film Openings (G321)

There are key differences between the openings to mainstream and independent films. For example the openings to mainstream films commonly feature the following things:

• Big name actors
• major genres
• Big budget/complexed openings

Where as the openings to independent films commonly feature the following things:

• Less well know actors
• Less expensive openings

An example of a mainsteam film opening featuring a big name actor is Disneys National Treasure (2004) the opening to this film features such as Nicolas Cage, who has also starred in Con Air (1997) and Lord of War (2005), and Justin Bartha, who has starred in Failure to Launch (2006) and The Hangover (2009). Actors like this would usually not be available to indpendent companies as their wage demands would blow their bidget out of the window.


An example of a major genre being used by a mainsteam company is Casiono Royale (2006). This is an action film which features Daniel Craig playing James Bond for the first time. In the opening sequence to this film we see a parcour chase which features gunshots, a protagonist, an antagonist and explosions. These are all generic convections of the action genre, a major genre. Stunts such as the ones which feature in this sequence would be very dificult for a independent to poduce due to their far inferior budgets.



An example of a big budget opening being used in a mainstream film is the opening scene from Fast Five (2011) the 5th film in the Fast and the Furious series. This film opening features a complexed stunt driving sequence featuring a Corvette, a Mustang and a Dodge; which are all very expensive cars, and a bus.

You would not see a independent company producing this opening sequence as it would be an expensive one to make, and an even more expensive one should something go wrong. i.e. One of the cars gets written off.

This opening sequence hopes to attract an audience by using jaw-dropping stunts to entertain them, something which this film can afford to do because of its budget of $125m.


An example of a independent film opening featuring a less known actor is Kidulthood (2006). This independent film was produced by Stealth Films and was made on an estimated bedget of £600,000. The majority of its cast was made up of teenagers.



An example of a small budget opening being used in a independent film is the opening scene from This is England (2006). It is made up of old video clips from the 1980's from things such as the news and top of the pops. This is because, unlike a Holywood production company which would have a budget of over £70m in most cases, This is England only had a budget of £1.5m so it didn't have much money to play around with so they couldnt produce an opening sequence the same as a film wiht a big budget.