Media AS LevelEvaluation

By Nathan Evans

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Evaluation Activity 1

1. This first shot is the very first thing that you will see as you watch our film opening, it is simply a title stating our production company that we made for this film opening. The title fades in as it is synchronous to the instrumental music that were using, building the tension for audience. This is typical of a film as almost all films state the production company in the film opening, to make the audience aware of who produced it.

2. This is the first shot that we see of Chris White, our main character, is a wide angle shot of him sitting alone in a changing room, crouched over his knees with his head down. This is quite typical of a film as it lets the audience know almost immediately the situation of the protagonist . In this case the audience can see that Chris is lonely and we can see that he has a focused mindset. We can also see from this shot that Chris is involved with American Football.

3. This next shot is a flashback of Chris working out in the gym. We chose to film it as a close up so the audience could identify the expression of Chris’s face to show the work that he is putting into his workout, especially highlighting the sweat on his face.

4. The next shot is again a close up of Chris’s face as he tells the audience a lot through his emotion. The audience would be able to see that he his in a specific mindset like he is preparing for something which the audience might be able to relate to, specifically if the audience play a sport and know the feeling before a big game.

5. This shot of Chris is a mid shot of him applying face paint. We chose to have him doing this as it is a very stereotypical thing for American football players to do as it shows intimidation and to fit in. This also again highlights that Chris is getting ready for a big game as he is in full uniform in a team changing room applying face paint. He is also very focused highlighting that it is something important.

6. This is a mid shot on Chris of another flashback showcasing the intense training that he has been doing to get him to where he is now, showing his dedication and his passion for the sport. Audience will be able to relate this as they may partake in exercise or training that they do to get better at something.

7. This is a wide angle shot of Chris walking out on to the field with training equipment. As in all of the shots he is alone which shows his loneliness and self motivation to train and work hard at something he loves. The landscape really emphasises this as there is not another person to be seen so all the attention of the audience is on Chris highlighting motivation. The audience may look up to Chris as being a strong individual as he just gets on with himself without anyone else's help.

8. This shot is the last shot of Chris as he walks out the changing room into the tunnel where his stance is almost silhouetted highlighting his figure as he walks out in slow motion for the game. This shot almost lets audience feel sympathy for Chris as they know that this is it.

9. The last shot is the title which is “Light at the End” which is essentially an analogy for the light at the end of the tunnel which is the pitch that you'll walk out onto. It fades in after the last shot of Chris walking out to almost build the tension and keep the audience on edge and make them want to watch the rest.

Evaluation Activity 2How does your media product represent particular social groups?I decided to compare the protagonist from our film, Chris White with Michael Oher the main character in The Blindside. Both of their roles being the protagonist of the films, they both share similar pasts, in the way that they have scars from the past which have made it harder for them later in life by affecting their confidence and social capabilities. Chris has struggled in school from a very young age whereas Michael has had troubles at home with his mother.There dark pasts soon get better as they both find a new light as they strive in American Football, they both use sport to get away from everything bad around them. American Football almost changes them to completely different people and is to be said that their pasts got them to where are they are now as it made them stronger people overall.

They both subvert the stereotype of an American footballer as they are not cocky and loud as they are really quite shy and keep to themselves. A difference between the two is that their actual living lifestyles are quite different as Chris was brought up with decent education and his family a generally quite financially comfortable. But Michael grew up in the ‘ghetto’ and in the ‘hood’ where he was surrounded by drug abuse, gangs and violence, which also played a huge part in why he is in the film. He is also physically affected because he is ridiculously big which is how he got so good at American football.

Evaluation Activity 3

• What kind of media institution might distribute our media product and why?

• Here is my final piece with a voice over on top.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnpcBymJ6jc

Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience member is 18-21 specifically male who is currently at University in America. He likes to play for his school team and enjoys the social group around this. He is not NFL quality though as he just plays it as a hobby and for fun and enjoys the competitive factor. He isn't looking for a career in it but he likes the responsibility it gives him to keep fit and train hard. When he's not focusing on his academic studies he likes to go out and spend time with his friends, a lot of whom are in sports teams. Because of the whole student financial situation as money is quite tight for him, often him and his friends chill on campus in there dorms and watch movies or watch TV. They enjoy a mix of various different genres including comedy, sports films or TV shows and action films. They like to watch sport films as they can often relate to the characters or events on screen and like realist stories of sports stars. As a group they never miss a big sporting event and they like to have rivalry in supporting there preferred teams, for example in the NFL Superbowl.

Evaluation Activity 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrMFq9RnueE

In this clip I interview my friend in my year who is 16 years old. He has an interest in NFL and currently follows the season.Previously to the interview he just watched our film opening so it was fresh in his head and we gave him an indication of what the questions would be like. The questions included points such as first thoughts, camerawork, editing, sound, the main character and personal opinions on if he’d want to watch the rest. Overall he gave very accurate and positive opinions about the film opening which gave me a slight sigh of relief and made me feel reasonably confident to what I had produced was worth the time in watching.

Evaluation Activity 6

YouTube Blogger LED Light Camera, Shotgun Microphone and Tripod MacBookPro and Final Cut Pro X

WebsitesThe two websites that we used were YouTube and Blogger. YouTube allowed us to upload our video and audio content in Full HD with ease allowing us to share our film opening and other essential videos to the world. It also allowed us to watch clips from other films that we analysed previously in our genre research so we could make notes and take screen grabs if needs be. Blogger the other website that I religiously used was for making posts about my progress along the way for my media product. I have never used it before but it is very user friendly and accessible to use almost anywhere to update your progress, whether it was research or planning or just simply a quick update.Camera EquipmentTripod: The tripod was very handy as almost all our shots were shot using it. It provided a smooth and non shaky shot making the film look more cinematic and professional.Camera: We used a DSLR such as the Canon 600d to film our film opening due to its outstanding video recording quality, filming at 1080p at 24fps . It is also is quite small and manageable which made it a lot easier to for us to maneuver to get to the location and to help us get the certain camera movement which we wanted. It also helped because we were familiar with it so we could manually adjust the exposure, focus, white balance and framing to get the shot we wanted.Microphone: We simply used this to the best sound we could especially for the flashback scenes where Chris is working hard and you can hear the sound of his breath and the machine working.LED Light: The lighting of the changing room scene was important so I hooked up my LED light to the ceiling above Chris and it worked really well to give this spotlight on Chris. This really made a huge difference to the finished shot!

Computer and softwareMacBookPro: This allowed to do literally everything, giving me access to the internet to do my blog and upload our content and also to edit our production using Final Cut Pro X which is the editing software that I used to edit our film opening with, I was very familiar with it which benefitted us greatly allowing ourselves to create a decent film opening.

Evaluation Activity 7

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

Looking back at the work that we did for our preliminary task we defiantly learnt quite a lot from it. Specifically it helped us in understand that we have to plan things before we do them so we do not have to stress out about it on the day on scene. We worked on perfecting our 180 degree rule as well although we didn't’t really have to use it in our film opening as there was no dialogue. We included match on action which we learnt from our preliminary so it was a lot more professional and was more enjoyable to watch as it included different perspectives due to the different camera angles.We also learnt to use an actor that we knew would take it seriously, which is why my partner acted in it. As he knew what we were trying to portray and how we wanted the opening to look, instead of having really bad acting making our opening look worse and less professional.