Evaluation

Evaluation... 

The brief requirements were to produce a two minute opening of a film which appeals to a demographic audience age between 16-35. Our group consisted of three of us; including me; Hargio and Vinisha. The production would primarily target the psychographic audiences such as reformers and explorers due to the fact that it taps in to the 16-35 year old demographic audience (C2DE). It fits in well with shows which feature on E4 such as ‘Top Boy’ hence why we have decided to air the production on E4. We have produced a short two minute opening to a series which is of an urban crime genre. Also, I’ve produced a magazine cover and double page spread to be sold with a copy of ‘behind the scenes’ which is another magazine.

The research which I did effectively contributed to the ideas which I had for the production. I initially was thinking about producing an action crime related film; in terms of its genre; however it was hard to do this being that the task required the production to be pre-watershed and therefore we changed the idea to an urban crime drama. Despite changing the genre, some ideas were still inspired from the research from the crime drama series’. For example, they lead us to spending a lot of time in making a visually interesting title sequence in order to help introduce our three main characters in the short two minute period. For the narrative of the production, we didn’t follow the typical narrative structure (Todorov’s theory) as we started the series with the disequilibrium. We also have another (USP) unique selling point as the title sequence in our production would be different in each episode because the characters daily routines would be different depending on the story-line. In terms of institution, we came to a decision to air the series on E4 due to the fact that many shows are aired on E4 and are very similar to our ideas which we had.

The research which I did; in terms of audience; is that I looked at what 16-35 year olds watch on television. I also looked at the statistics of which age groups tend to watch different programs and different television channels; also accounting for my own groups opinions due to the fact that we all fit into the 16-35 year old demographic audience. The demographic audience/targeted audience for us would be (C2DE) in terms of their hierarchy status. Predominantly, the target audience is 70% male and the rest female due to the storyline however one of three main characters is female therefore meaning that there is female interaction present. The target audience is to be in education; whether that’s further education or standard education. My target audience belongs to the psychographic groups reformers and explorers as they would want to explore different content and watch a variety of shows/series’. In terms of the brands which they would generally be associated with, that’d be brands such as Adidas, Nike and other brands which are sport related brands. This demographic audience would not be earning a decent income or if they were it wouldn’t pay much at all. The target audience is predominantly male due to the characters which we’ve selected/chosen to portray youths. In order to make a more female friendly environment, we could have included more dominant female characters in the production which could have increased the amount of female viewers.

A key moment in our production ‘wasted’ is the fact that the series begins with the equilibrium first which goes against Todorovs narrative theory. By doing this, we are engaging the audience into the series; just through the first 30 seconds of the production. This is also an enigma code (Barthes theory of enigma codes) as it makes the audience question why and how this character has been shot and they are able to follow his story. I especially like the first shot which is of the barrel of the gun which zooms out slightly to the gun man’s face and upper-body. This shot in itself creates tension and drama. This shot is an example of a key convention of a typical urban crime drama due to the fact that it’s an extreme close up which emphasises danger without giving away too much about the character or the scene. Another shot which I’m particularly proud of is the panning shot from when the scene starts from one wall and passes through to show another character getting clothes out of his cupboard. Despite this, one of the panning shots was really jerky and doesn’t look smooth and therefore makes it look a little unprofessional.  An audience pleasure (user gratification) which is present in our production is social relationships as the target audience may be able to relate to the characters because they may be of a similar age to them. They may look up to a certain character and want to be like them.  For the title sequence, we thought about integrating a split screen idea where the main characters could be doing their own daily routine, leave their home and all link up in a certain area however, the limitation to this would be that viewers would only be able to see one or possibly two of the characters. This idea could have visually looked great however viewers may not understand certain things which went on as the title sequence does change in each series and does link in with the story-line for that episode. In order to make the final cut more professional, some shots should be re-done in order to eliminate any shakiness in terms of camera movement. The mise en scene; more specifically the lighting; for some scenes should be duller to convey a sense of pathetic fallacy. Low-key lighting would have set the mood of clips. For example, I think that if the whole beginning scene was done with low-key lighting, the scene may have conveyed more emotion and suspense to the viewer(s).

My print work matches the key conventions of a typical magazine cover and double page spread in some aspects however there is still room for improvement. The cover consists of a large image of one of the three main characters, the title of the production (which is also the name given to the magazine), the stars/actors names as well as information about the media institutions such as E4. A weakness of my front cover is that the background; behind the image; is white and I kept trying to Photoshop a visual background to go with the image but was not able to do this therefore it’s a plain brick wall. The titles for both pages (front cover and double page spread) are the same fonts and the text used is also the same. In order to keep the same style, both images are quite dark in its contrast. This really helps to promote the production as an urban series. The double page spread has simple text and keeps to the same colour scheme as the front page/cover. There are also small technical elements to the double page which makes it look professional such as the use of the page numbers on the bottom of the pages.

In my production work, young people are represented as violent. The production reinforces dominant ideologies placed upon the youths however by doing this; it makes it more appealing to the 16-35 year old demographic audience. By doing this production, we have reinforced stereotypical representations of youths due to gender, age and ethnicity. The characters are predominantly male implying that males are more violent than females. The age being young adults, the production reinforces the fact that people think that these young adults get up to no good. Also, the fact that we haven’t included a white Christian race/ethnic group in the production could imply that we have reinforced the face that stereotypical ideologies are based around all races except white Christian males.

The third brief was to create an e-media marketing campaign to raise awareness for the production which we did not create. We had to use e-media successfully to launch the programme/series and create synergy (cross promotion) between the final production and an e-media campaign.  If I was to do this, I would create a social networking page in order to raise awareness for ‘Wasted’ due to the fact that we don’t have money to promote or advertise the production and therefore creating a social networking page would be great as it’s free to create. People; such as fans; are able to talk one another and leave their own opinions based on the programme. There’s interactivity going on between the production team and the fans of it therefore meaning that we are able to gain awareness for ‘Wasted’.

In terms of the tasks brief, I feel that I have met the brief through creating the media production ‘Wasted’ and the front cover and double page spread for a magazine. Many improvements can still be made, and there’s also small parts which seem a little unprofessional to me, however in terms of the production itself, I’m happy with the way that its turned out and feel that it has the original brief outlined in there. The final product could be successful in the media marketplace due to the fact that it has a few USP (unique selling points) which most other shows don’t have. For example, the whole idea of the show always starting with the disequilibrium is one of the unique parts of the show as most series’ would start by introducing the characters. Another is that the title sequence is always different for each series depending upon the storyline. In this case it was of the three main characters getting up and leaving their houses to meet each other. As the final production I like certain elements of it like the fact that it has various USP’s (unique selling points).