Question 1 - in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form and conventions of real media products?

Our film opening includes many different codes and conventions; the first very image at the top resembles an ordinary school boy for example the setting, costume and prop help to embrace the realistic genre, but also help the audience to know the character behind the hoodie. The mise-en-scene reveals part of the characters life style and it also interacts with our intended audience; teenage boys. The setting for the second image was carefully chosen as the alley way shows danger, the characters body language shows that he is careless but also portraying the view of a criminal. The next image shows the news reporter, the black curtains compliment the isolated profession and it helps to focus on the person that is speaking. The blazer and the black turtle neck helped me with my character. The sophisticated look, was chosen because it matched the profession.

The hacking images show a laptop with a fluorescent green keyboard which worked well because it gave the realistic look and it complimented the first very shot; our Hooded Hero being a Geek; the keyboard really stood out as it revealed more about the character and his abilities. The gym image resembles the strength he has and how he seeks to make the world a better place with his willpower.

Our media product challenges the media now as it uses ideas from which have been used before however it is an original and unique storyline. It goes against all odds when the hero is shown at the start being killed and then follows his story up to that final moment. It uses idea from films such as kick-ass by being based around a normal school boy around 17 years old who is focused and likes to be kept to himself but once he became involved with fighting a crime he became obsessed with fighting crimes for the better. The hero is then like batman in a way when he dressed in a way to keep his identity from being revealed. He trains like any other hero to gain strength and intelligence whilst working on his skills to be improved. He challenges himself to the max and will keep going whether it becomes too much or not. This then contrasts from different films as the hero loses his last battle shot and appears to be killed.

Written by Nayma and Charlie

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Both of this characters are similar and different in many ways. Firstly they are both main characters. The main character in "Kick Ass" is young; our main character the "Hooded Hero" is also a teenager nonconformist with the cruelties that happen around the world. Another similarity between our character and the very well-known "Kick Ass" is that both characters hid their identity for safety and a normal life, yet our main character does not use a heroic costume as we decided to convey realism. But, our character wore a hoodie to distinguish himself from the others; we wanted to keep our character simple and casual, living a normal life yet "Kick Ass" wore a costume as he joined another team of Heroes. Also, both characters are really smart and have potential in school. As we decided to remain our product realistic, our character did not have any super powers just like "Kick Ass", both characters are also Anti-Nihilists; they decide to be nice, heroic, caring, loving and compassionate even though they see the world as a bad place. Both characters are geeks yet we chose our character to have a more casual look, to take

Written by Nayma

Question 6 - What have your learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I learnt that Cameras are a really easy technology to use , it was a big challenge to film but it was successful. We used the camera for everything, to film, take pictures of locations and we all took part on the film so everyone learnt something from it. I have never worked with a camera before, so all the features and tools were really new to me; for example, the gallery button we use it to refer back to videos and pictures taken but you can also access your deleted footage and also change the settings of the camera. Furthermore, I also used YouTube and Google as a main resource for the planning of the final product; I used both to research music, locations and costumes. Google was mainly used for film research and cats, and YouTube was a really useful technology as I used it to watch other Media Studies film openings. Photoshop was used to make the fighting scene even better, but we decided not to incorporate it in our footage because we wanted to keep our Action film opening believable and original.

Written by Nayma

Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

The genres chosen for our film opening sequence was action and crime; so we started to research the genre conventions and put together our mood board where we would later on get all the ideas from to begin shooting the scenes. Our intended audience was teenagers aged 14-18 mainly boys, so an action film would perfect to attract the intended audience. The genre conventions of action movies helped us a lot as a group to decide the props and costumes for our opening sequence. I watched "Irobot", "Batman" and "The dark knight" which gave me various ideas for the film opening but also helped me to put together some of the genre conventions such as; 

Explosions and crashes

Fights 

Weapons - knives and guns 

Killings

Our film opening would have to include any of this features or props in order to be an action film, so we decided as a group to have a hero and a villain, also have weapons and a fight in order to attract the younger generation to watch it; the music chosen by all of us also helped to compliment the film genre and help to build the atmosphere and keep our target audience focused. The music was strong and it created a realistic theme. Our film opening has a lot of similarities to other actions movies such as the "Irobot" because it shows the main character at the very beginning of the film, 

The audience research taken around my school was really effective because it helped us to improve and also get feedback from our intended audience. The feedback given was processed and we changed everything and improved the camera angles and shooting.

Written by Nayma

Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience attracted to the genre of the opening scene of our movie is particularly aimed at teenagers who have an interest in work by Marvel and DC comics. Most age ranges enjoy watching action movies but for most it's white males between 13-25. Genera differs by hero which determines what category the film would fall under. Teens all around the world have an interest in movies and television shows that convey a very prominent message of how to live, and idealistic expectations which influence the music they listen to and the films they watch.

This is a typical representation of teenagers who may be fond of common interests such as social media and shopping habits. They tend to spend a lot of time watching Netflix and discovering new releases of their favourite movie or television genre. In our opening, one of the scenes consists of the main character listening to dub-step which is a popular choice of music for teenagers. This automatically modernises the film and entices the target audience to feel engaged.

Written by Sofia

Filming Progress - Locations

To start our main exercise (opening scene) we needed to do a location scout. The areas in which we intend to film in would be a confined dark room (interrogation scene). We got inspiration of films such as batman when he was interrogating the joker to find out information. We decided that this would be a great idea to use in ours as it will help create the tension and drama that is happening between the villain and hero.

                              

We then decided that we should use a place within our school to represent the hero's age. As the hero is considered to be smart and represent a teenage boy, the common room seemed like the best option to film as that is the room in which everyone would gather in whenever there is free time or work to do. Just like the image below:

                           

In addition to this, we needed an area that was quite and dark which most people would instantly recognise as a scene of a crime waiting to happen. An alley way or small street/road would be ideal as in many films that is were any fight scenes happen.

Our Opening Sequence

1st Shot: (Film Noir) Look at watch (1 month after start of Film).

High angle OTS shot of executioner pointing gun at Hero (Vigilante) (Don’t see executioner’s face), about to be executed. Non Diegetic Sound High pitch (Similar to Post-Grenade)

POV (point of view shot): splattered blood around edges (Vignette) (low angle shot) looking at barrel of gun.

Cut to Black (Maybe static): Diegetic Sound of Gunshot (High Pitch Sound Stops) Look at newspaper: Crime Increasing, Significant date (1 Month before last scene) Shot of Common room.

Walking Home: See person being robbed in distance jumps in to stop criminal.

(Action Shot) Knocks out the criminal (Roundhouse Kick) (Spinning Back Hook Kick) (Muay Thai Knee).

Hero realises he can save more people.

The News come on TV “Hooded Hero Saves Man” (M2S)

Shot of Hero watching News (excited, emotional)

High angle OTS, hero hacking into police database (Sees wanted list)

Titles (Cast, Crew, Director etc.)