Evalation Question 2

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

Genre

The genre of our film is first seen as festive. We made this clear when filming as the very first image seen is a bauble on a Christmas tree with tinsel and sparkles which are objects associated with the time of year. However, an aim we tried to stick to was the fact that there was a twist. We wanted the audience to believe that the film was like any other festive happy film which went with a predictive narrative. We decided to make it have a different beginning, one where Santa gets taken away by someone dressed in black. 

Looking at the film opening we produced, we took this plot twist and created what looks like Santa being kidnapped which changed the genre from a happy cheerful story to a quick and dark one. We did this when filming by having two parts, the first was the upbeat, decorative view then we added in a 'fight' scene where Santa (who normally is a large loved man) who is then dragged away by a more powerful person. 

Looking at the two screenshots below show images that suggest the happy narrative at the very start, then the image later on in the opening when Santa is being punched and taken. 

These two images are both showing the same genre, yet the left shows a more pleasant side of the genre where as the image on the right shows a less predictive image, Santa being less powerful than someone else. The lighting in the image on the left is bright, where as the image on the right is darker and has less lighting by Christmas decorations. 


What we did to show the genre

As explained with the images above, we used props and costume to show the audience it was a film for the Christmas festive period. Traditional colours are shown for Christmas, green and red which are seen clearly in both photographs. We have used a cosy family home to set the scene for the film, which is typical for a film with this genre. When we planned Saving Santa we were not sure about what location to use, i believe this location worked really well. The one room we used throughout was the perfect size to work with as it had room for the titles at the start and the characters to move about, any bigger or smaller and it wouldn't have worked as well. 

Location

Choosing a location when planning was a struggle, we couldn't decide between a few of our houses some didn't have room for all the scenes, and we couldn't find a house with a fireplace big enough for Santa. In the end, we asked to use a lounge area of a friend which she agreed to.  As seen in our final opening, the room was perfect. We had everything we needed in the room plus extra props and of course, our costumes. 

We could have used many other houses but this one was just right. Also, there were a lot of rooms to choose from but we decided to use just one room to make it a realistic setting.

Costumes and props

The costumes and props we used created a great real media product as we used very detailed costumes which even included the eyebrows and glasses of Santa. We used actual Christmas decorations instead of little cheap ones which made it so much better (we know this from our poor practice when we used a tiny tree that looked silly in the room and random decorations that we had all bought separately. The second time filming improved our film opening incredibly and props improvement was the main cause.  

Titles and fonts

When we planned our titles, we didn't think too much about the font, we thought we would just create simple and basic fonts for labels to make them more realistic. When it came to feedback for our first draft, we had negative comments which said 'titles were boring' and 'could have a lot better fonts'. We decided we needed to change this straight away. We changed the person who wrote them, they wrote them with extra time and care to produce what looked like Christmas font with different names.
Looking back at the draft and then looking at the final opening, font has improved dramatically which has played another big part in improving the film opening to make it more like a real media product. 


(Shown below is a variety of labels and titles we created.)

Camera work and editing

When we planned, we really didn't think about camera work. We knew ways we could use the camera to make certain shots but we didn't plan enough which became an issue when creating the first draft. When shooting the draft, we took the first long shot which was too quick, the lighting was poor and there were shadows seen in the shot. 

When we got feedback, people picked up on the lighting and shadows so we knew we had to re-do the scenes. When we re-filmed, we improved the lighting by shining a torch on the objects in the shot so they stood out and were lighter. Although this was improved hugely, it was difficult to cut out shadows so there are still a couple in the opening which we didn't have time to fix. 


How characters were introduced

In the final opening, we introduced Santa a lot better compared to the draft. Shown below is the first image of Santa (not the filming image, a photograph taken whilst filming.) He is in the centre and takes up a lot of room, his arms are spread out which makes him look important. 

Evaluation Question 1

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

Final Video

This is our final film opening sequence:

 

Film Poster

Our film poster is of Jack Frost because he is the main character in our film. It has a snowy background because Christmas films are often represented by snow. It has our film title, main characters and people who were a part of making the film and our film certificate. We have quite a dark background to our film poster to show the danger of Santa being kidnapped and to show that it is set during the night. The North Pole stands out easily against the dark background and shows that this is a Christmas film.

 

New Music

Here is the new music we decided to use because we thought it suited our film more:

 

 

New Font

New Font

One of the main changes we had to make was the handwriting and font of the baubles. The original writing was quite messy and did not look very festive, so we re-did the handwriting so that it matched what we were hoping for. These were the type of fonts we were hoping to create:

For our first film, the name labels were written on pieces of paper which was then stuck onto the baubles. This time we decided to write on the actual baubles instead, which looked a lot better, although they were harder to write on so we could not be as creative, like with the cards.

This was the handwriting we used for the card name labels:

Re-Filming

We found a lot of things we could improve on for our first draft of Saving Santa. We decided to re-film our opening sequence to make it better. We went back to our filming location after school and made our opening sequence better. We used a wider variety of names for the title sequence and added in a fight scene to make it appeal to our target audience more. We used a bigger tree so that it looked much more like a realistic Christmas scene and made sure that when we filmed it, it was less shaky. The labels looked a looked a lot better when we re-filmed it and the lighting was more cosy for the film, with less shadows.

Instead of just dragging Santa out, we thought the Robber could carry him over his shoulder as it would make the scene more exciting. The Elf and tree were shown in a different place and the layout of the background meant the camera angle was a lot better.