Change of Genre

During the production of our opening sequence, my partner and i decided that the film was swaying into the genre of a British Drama than the action packed Mystery Thriller we thought it would be at the beginning of the planning process. We decided to run with this as it had more homegrown feel to it and felt like it was becoming a sequence that people could relate to whilst also seeming realistic.

My partner and i went back to the drawing board and edited/re-evaluated a few things we thought would benefit our production. We began to research on films that related to our genre of choice. Adulthood resembled our opening sequence the best because of the fact it kind of has the same story-line  Man comes out of jail feeling guilty of his past and tries to correct it knowing that it wont be easy with enemies on his back. This is the same plot as our opening sequence but we needed to make it different which is why we kept our idea of the voice over there instead of the flashbacks. Kidulthood also relates to our opening sequence because it is gritty and homegrown which is the same affect we wanted to leave on our audience. Bullet Boy is also another one we could relate it to because of the fact it has the same type of concept. Boy comes out of jail wanting to stay out of trouble but cant seem to escape the cycle.

We still kept certain elements from our previous idea of doing a mystery thriller and incorporated it into this new genre. We changed the colour of the footage in order to give it that dark British Drama feel which is what we learnt from researching some independent British Drama's.

The genre was changed at a late stage but definitely benefited us in our production. Taking ideas from both the British Drama genre and the Mystery Thriller genre allowed us to further incorporate different techniques of filming and editing. Our quick cut shots and close ups still give that mysterious feel. The colour change to grainy grey gave off the dramatic British feel and helped our production to be distinctively different from our peers.

Evaluation Question 7

LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT FROM IT TILL NOW ?

I think that from my preliminary till now, i have learnt a lot of techniques that have made production better. Firstly i have displayed a higher use of different camera angles as well as making my shots clearer and making my cuts flow better instead of looking so choppy.  The preliminary still gave me a foundation for my filming and made it easier for  me to know what things i was wanted to achieve in terms of my production.

Here you can see that the shots are okay but could be taken better. I learnt from this and realised how i can make it better and i showed this. You can see here that my over the shoulder shot looks much better and cleaner in my final project. The shot looks more professional and fulfills its purpose.


The continuity of our shots are  now much better and feel like they have a natural flow between them. The transitions make the sequence progress which is something that was not included in our opening sequence. In this shot we used a fade to allow better continuity of the shot and allow it flow.

My long shots have also improved, it looks more established and is also clearer. I am happy with this shot and i can see a clearer improvement from then till my final product. When i was doing this shot i knew exactly what i wanted to achieve and how to go about it. However if it was not for the foundation that my preliminary gave me then i wouldn't have been able to capture this. 

I think that my preliminary did give me a firm push start into working on my final product. It allowed me to use my creative side and learn how to manipulate certain techniques that i would not have not if it had not been for my preliminary. I have enhanced what i had previously  learnt and exploited different things that benefited my final production. I think that i have shown improvement in my final production and you can clearly see that my final product does depicts this. 

To make our product different to others, we put a voice over on it which nobody else we know had done. My preliminary helped to do this.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ?

From this product i have learnt many things that have enhanced my creativity. First of all being able to use the camera efficiently and taking good shots and knowing what exactly i wanted to capture helped me to make the production better. I used the notes from early media lessons to help me know what shots would make my production better and what ways i could manipulate and use them.


I used Blogspot to upload my progress involving my work. This is a program i had never previously used but i got the hang of it after constant use. I learnt how to include certain things in my blog to make it more interesting. I tried to update as often as i could during the filming process although it was hard.

YouTube was also a technology used in the production process. Prior to this i had never uploaded a YouTube video and did not know how to. Uploading onto YouTube helped me learn how to use another program which i was only familiar with to a certain extent. I also used YouTube to search our soundtrack.


During the production process, i found out what a Dictaphone was. We used this product to do the voice over for our sequence. I found this easy to use and it was a straight forward process.

During the early stages of editing, i found it very hard to achieve what i wanted from Adobe Premier Pro which is the program we used for editing. I could not use the program how i wanted and felt like i was going nowhere with it. However after a little help from my lecturer, i started to come to grips with it and got the hang of it. I found it easier to shape my production how i wanted it to come out whilst also being able to include the necessary effects in it. I used a series of fades in both the sound and video. I now feel very comfortable using the program.

Evaluation Question 5

HOW DID YOU ADDRESS/ATTRACT YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

There are annotations that answer this question on my YouTube  you must click show annotations. 

Evalution Question 4

WHO WOULD BE THE MAIN TARGET AUDIENCE FOR YOUR PRODUCT ?

Personally the people who i was trying to target were the teens aged 15 - 25
I asked a group of people their name, age, hobbies and whether they would watch Distortion if it came out in cinema's.

I did this with a camera and then uploaded it to YouTube.

I was trying to target teens that like to go cinema sometimes and are looking to catch the most interesting films. The people i asked said that the film would be interesting which is a good sign for my product. People below the targeted age might find this video difficult to follow and understand and people older that the target age might not feel it relates to them.

Evaluation Question 3

This is the link to my prezi. Here you will find my answer to Question 3

http://prezi.com/lp0y1-mbtnny/untitled-prezi/

Evaluation Question 2

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT A SOCIAL GROUP ?

I will be comparing my main character, Bobby, to Noel Clarke's character 'Sam' from Adulthood. I think the two characters can relate together very well. Their lives within their individual story-lines seem to parallel. 

Adulthood is a gritty British drama film which displays typical stereotypical views of the youth in London. Without even knowing, we had similar story-lines. Both the characters have left prison after being convicted of manslaughter. They both seem remorseful of their actions and both the characters come across some drama as repercussions of their actions. 

In terms of Mis en Scene, both the characters are in the same type of attire, grey tracksuit top, trainers and baggy trousers. They both seem to have the same body language. They both come across as sinister looking characters but yet have a humble side to them. They both have a time to reflect during their journey home and seem to come across as remorseful and look as if they are trying to change their ways. 

They come across as the same type of stereotypical black boys from the 'streets' and look as though they have come from the same background. Their swagger, walk and speech is similar. Hand gestures, facial expressions. However what makes them different from their stereotypical past is that they are trying to change and break the cycle and get out of their deprived, violent surroundings.

Our product represents a theme of British drama and allows certain audience members to relate. I found myself being able to relate to certain aspects of Adulthood which is what i thought was one of the main intent for the Adulthood movie. I felt as if the film was targeted to me and that's the same thing i wanted my product to do. 

I think that even though there are so many similarities, there are also certain differences that make our product distinguishable from other British drama's such as the voice over and type of camera shots we used.

In my opinion we were successful in creating a good British drama whilst also changing certain stereotypical views.