Jimmy and his wild mind.

Harriet’s evaluation.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?Children’s film opening sequences can be quite similar to those of adult films but can be easily distinguished

if you take into account the conventions. Mostly every film opening sequence includes opening credits. These inform the audience of the media institution, and title sequence. This is done alongside the genre of the film, and in such a way as to give the audience an insight to the film, probably before it even begins. Usually the characters are established, and introduced to the audience along with the setting and the period of time.

We used the ‘Juno’ opening sequence as inspiration. We liked the fact that it was introducing us to the main character from the first second. We also got to know a lot about the character before the end of the opening sequence, before dialogue had even started. The rotoscope makes it unique, and the colours and the music are well organised within the film, as they all go well with the themes; indie. Also, the transitions are smoothly done in a creative way and the use of focus on main objects (such as the sunny D carton). The music and the colours in this editing technique, are well organised and both go well with

the themes of the film- scruffy and polished to imperfection, as well as a bit of deception and spontaneity. However, the important

features in the mise-en-scene are a different tone of colour, to make it stand out. We wanted to use the same sort of features as this in our product, having a long introduction of simply making the audience aware of the character through their actions. I think that, given the time and equipment, the rotoscope could have been engrained in our product too, attracting the ‘children’s’ audience more.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?In our opening sequence, we began by introducing the main character (Jimmy). There is a soundtrack placed

over the main introduction of the character, a cheerful, upbeat, well-known song, which can give the impression that the character is a very jolly, happy person. However, we used this in a strange way, to try and show that ‘Jimmy’ has ‘two worlds’; his imagination and the real world. Although this song is played throughout the opening sequence, its purpose is to divide the two worlds. This is where the genre was displayed, but it isn’t until the end of the sequence that this is made obvious, through the mise-en-scene. We based our genre on the fact that we would be able to achieve a large target audience, as fantasy is a very popular genre in all mediums. Lastly, we ended the opening after the characters first speech, which followed by the title sequence.

Overall, I think that we used many forms conventions in the correct way, however they could have been developed to improve the opening and engage the audience more.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?We weren’t given a choice about the setting of our media product, but we used the surroundings to build on

our genre. For instance, we used the trees to show his passion, and weirdness for naturalistic objects. We also used the door to show his transition between his two ‘worlds’. We were limited to our props, but I think that we made the best out of what we had- the stick which he ran along the fence, and the plastic forks which we used to show the position of our character within his society (without harm!). Costume was also used well, picking out the main character from the crowd, drawing attention to him, as well as stereotyping to run alongside our genre. We couldn’t really use artificial lighting, especially as we were mainly set outside, in the middle of the day, therefore we used natural lighting, which doesn’t contribute much to the genre itself, but keeps it more ‘naturalistic’.

We thought that the best opening shot would be an establishing shot, as this easily shows the relationships between figures in the mise-en-scene, and indicates where and when the rest of the scene takes place (in our case, a school, which is the suitable location for our sequence). After the audience start to get the impression of the character, we included a few close-ups, so they could build on their impressions further. We used the two-shot to show the relationship between the main character and the burger. A reaction shot was used to show the reaction from the character when he first hears the burger talk. Also, a zoom was included to draw the audience’s attention to the burger. We also included some high and low angle shots, to make the character feel superior/vulnerable at certain points in certain situations.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?Over most of our opening sequence, we used a soundtrack, which was ‘Walking on Sunshine’ by ‘Katrina

and the Waves’. We chose this as it is a very up-beat, cheery song, which went well alongside the ‘happy’ side of the characters mind, when he’s in his world as he is at the start. There is also the use of diegetic sound, such as the shouting from fellow students, to emphasise the relationships between the main character and his classmates. The dialogue we used towards the end of the opening sequence was stereotyping the main character, in a high-pitched, un-manly voice, and the burger talking, looking realistic with a touch of humour, added the the fact of the ‘fantasy’ genre- as it is impossible to happen in the real world.

When editing our product, we had to cut, and move clips and add transitions to create a smooth-running film. As well as this, we had to edit the sound, and attach music such as what we did. We tried our hardest to use visual effects with the burger, to make it look as if it was talking, like a human being. This, is called anthropomorphism (adding human characteristics to an object). This is used in few films, especially in the fantasy genre, such as Beauty and the Beast, with talking teacups and candlesticks. However, there are more films that include talking animals, than films which include talking objects. I don’t view this as a bad thing, though, as it makes our film unique and more individual! And, in addition, develops our genre.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I think that a large group of people would be interested in our product, but particularly children and family social groups. These people, whether they are young or old, are more likely to connect with our product if they are familiar with the school atmosphere and routine. If they have experienced growing up in the modern society, we feel that they are more likely to understand aspects and situations that are included in our product. The groups should be interested in fantasy, and have a good imagination to make our product work for them. We have tried our best to make it as easy as possible for the audience to put themselves in the characters shoes, but without the mindset that is needed to make the film enjoyable, it will not work, therefore I believe that our work won’t be as good entertainment for some, as it is for others. The characters, costume and location represent this particular group, along with the relationships and situations that are overcome in our film.

Our media product does use certain stereotypes, and one is obvious- our main character. Some could view him as the average ‘geek’, which we can tell by the costume, and also by his actions. He could be compared to ‘Napoleon Dynamite’. Our product also challenges the ‘student’ stereotype, portraying

them as quite horrible, laughing at him and chucking things at him. As a children’s film, we don’t want to give the audience the impression that this is suitable behaviour, therefore later on in the film, we would have made sure that children would see this as unacceptable behaviour, not tempting them to copy the actions. We would also have to shorten the ‘tree hugging’ section, as this could give bad ideas and does not regulate with the BBFC as our classification.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

There are many film distributors, but some are a lot more successful than others. There are a few which focus on children’s films, the most popular being ‘Pixar’, ‘Walt Disney’, ‘Universal’ and ‘Warner Bros’.

‘Walt Disney’ is a producer, alongside a distributor, so it knows a lot about films. It is a very professional company, with the subsidiary company ‘Pixar’. ‘Pixar’ is a CGI animation production company, therefore, although they create all of their movies at the children audience, they won’t be interested in our product. On the other hand, they could transform our film to an animation, as the burger would need to be professionally created using CGI.

‘Dreamworks’ is a competitor to ‘Pixar’. They run in the same sort of way and are interested in the same types of films. ‘Dreamworks’ also uses CGI, to create animations. Therefore, they could also be interested in our product, as they would like the genre, and the audience it is aimed at.

‘Universal’ creates a wide variety of films and distributes them, like ‘Walt Disney’. Most of their films are classified as ‘PG’ and above, which makes me think that they may be interested in our product.

‘Warner Bros’ movies all have a sense of comedy in them, and whilst they have the same sort of audience groups, this could be a good potential media institution for our product. They have quite a few films with anthropomorphism, though, which may attract them. ‘Scooby Doo’, ‘Space Jam’ and ‘Jack Frost’.

Who would be the audience for our media product?

During the planning of our film, our target audience was young children, starting to settle into the school routine, ages between 5 and 15, although it would have been suitable for families too. Therefore, we were going to classify it as a ‘U’.

Whilst filming our product, we realised that some of the material wouldn’t be suitable for a 5 year old, so we raised our classification to ‘PG’, and after reviewing the product after the editing process, I would now think that our target audience is the more familiarised, experienced school children, at a minimum age of 8. To make it more ‘young children friendly’, we could have presented it in a more colourful and exciting way, and used less ‘grown-up’ actions and more ‘kiddie's actions.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

How did you attract/address your audience?We tried to attract our audience using a small amount of quirky black comedy, through the situations of the

main characters mind, with the talking burger and how he seems ‘weird’ to have such an extravagant imagination. We thought that this would attract the older generations of our audience. Alongside this, we knew that the younger generations would easily be able to relate to the scenes and situations, such as the normal everyday school routine, and being in a large place with lots of people. The soundtrack alone, I think, attracts a large number of people as it’s very jolly and is likely to put people in a good mood. As well as this, it is a familiar, popular song.

‘Family Guy’ is a family which don’t quite fit into their community,

just like our character doesn’t fit into his. It uses a lot of black

comedy, and although aimed at an older age group, there are ways in

which it familiarises with our product.QuickTime™ and a

decompressorare needed to see this picture.

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

Before doing this project, I had experience in using cameras and filming using recorders, however I had never opened an editing computer program! Using cameras to film lots of pieces of work as professionally as we could, built my confidence and developed my camera skills, and I became familiar with equipment such as the tripod. We used Final Cut Express, which, at first, seemed very complicated, but now I feel, and can do, a lot more quicker and with more ease. We briefly used Garage Band, and I feel like I can use it at for basic things, at a satisfactory level.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

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

to the full product?We were just starting to settle into the college when we did our preliminary task. Therefore we were just

starting to know one another, and getting used to the equipment we were going to be using. We can tell all of this in our preliminary product, as it was definitely not up to the standard of our final children’s film opening sequence product. The camerawork and sounds, although not at a bad standard, were not professional in any way. We were under time constraints, though, and not much editing was done because of this. Our strong point throughout has been continuity, but maybe we should have spent a bit longer on the sound, and making it more attractive to children, rather than being worried about the flow of it. The final product was a lot more complicated to film and edit, basically because we had more clips to sort and arrange, and it was longer. I found that our preliminary task was important for our full product as it set the basics for our main task and helped us to get used to the equipment and, especially, camera angles. It gave us an aim, and direction for our children’s film opening sequence.