7. Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?

From our preliminary task we have learnt to enhance our planning skills. All of the members in our group sat down and discussed any ideas we had for our main task; we also made notes and then had a vote on the best idea.

We then discussed locations and it was evident that a shopping location such as Manchester town or The Trafford Centre would be ideal for our theme of our movie. We decided to film in Manchester town because we wanted to do the filming in an outside location as we felt the lighting would be much better.

We filmed during our media lessons, as it was the ideal time for when we were all available.

We researched into our main character. In our preliminary task we didn’t do much research and we actually discovered that research was very effective and helpful. We wanted to portray our character as an independent woman who is pretty and rich.

We then created our storyboard, which was the basic outline of our opening sequence. We had to decide what order the scenes would go in and what was going to happen in each frame. However during the filing we added more scenes especially during town when we added the entertainer to add a comedy element and the scene where the protagonist is walking with the big wheel behind her. We particularly liked this as it establishes the location and represents Manchester.

We learnt how to make our own soundtrack with Garage Band as we were not permitted to use an existing commercial song as we were planning. However we decided for our final product we decided to use a copyright free tune from YouTube.

Through the editing we learnt how to use the Apple Macs and Final Cut Pro. Initially we found it difficult and thought we would not be able to familiarize ourselves with this new technology, fortunately we learnt how to use Final Cut Pro and this should be evident in our final product.

From our preliminary task we also learnt how to use the 180° rule. If we had not taken this rule into account the film would not have smoothly and the footage would look odd.

Overall the preliminary task was incredibly useful as it helped us to be cautious during our main task and it enhanced our camera skills too.

Questionnaire

After the completion of our media product we asked a group of ten of our peers about their opinions of our opening sequence.

7 out of 10 said they really enjoyed it whereas 3 people said they did not enjoy it as it was not a genre they were interested in. This reaction was particularly interesting as the 3 people who said they would not enjoy it were males.

6 out of 10 said that they would be interested in watching it as a real film plot.

6 out of 10 found our editing effective and found the music was appropriate for our genre.

Overall the feedback we obtained was positive and really helped us to gain another perspective on our media product.

Inspiration for the editing of our opening sequence

We watched many music clips and opening sequences of a variety of different movies to find inspiration and help us for the editing of our filming. We especially loved this music video by Selena Gomez and found the editing original and interesting. Here are a few screen shots of a few shots we tried to replicate in our opening sequence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D31Gzfe2yL0

Inspirations for the soundtrack for our film

Lady Gaga - Fashion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msoL-34x5JA

David Guetta ft Rihanna - Who's That Chick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOdmf4N5aPE&feature=related

At first we chose these two songs as a potential soundtrack for our movie. The reason we chose these two particular tracks is because they both represent exactly what our film represents. Both songs have an uptempo beat which is ideal for the start of the film as we want the song to represent the character's excitement and pleasure that she gains through shopping. The lyrics match the theme too. Furthermore both songs are sung by two very independent artists which also reflects the protagonist in our movie.
However we are not allowed to use commercial songs in our movie as it is copyright so we are either going to create an original track in Garage Band or find an existing track from the internet which we are permitted to share.

Behind the scenes

Here are a few pictures from behind the scenes of our filming..This was taken in Picadilly Gardens whilst we were filming the trams however we have not used this particular shot in our media product.
This is a shot in the character's bedroom an this is a shot of the bills on her bed which indicates the great level of debt she is in.

This is a shot of the character as she awakes from her dream and comes back to reality. The character looks shocked and distressed. She then falls onto the bed.

Storyboard

This was a very basic and simple storyboard and consisted of our initial ideas. However during the film we included a few more shots and included more ideas such as the shot with the performer and the shot with the manchester wheel.

Audience and Genre

We have chose a rating of PG as this film may contain material that parents might not like for their younger children to view. Also ‘Confession of a shopaholic’ is a similar genre to our film and was rated PG.

'In your dreams' is mainly targeted at teenage girls and is based around a romantic comedy. The movie is based around a woman's struggle as she tries to get out of debt and find a job in an attempt to sort her life out and get rid of her shopping addiction. She also falls in love during her struggle and the male character supports her financially and emotionally.

This is Jennifer Smith who is our typical target for this movie and this film would greatly appeal to her and her friends. She is 18 years old and lives in Ealing, London. She is currently studying at a sixth form college and has plans to attend university to study English. She is in intelligent young girl who also loves fashion and designer clothes. Being an only child her parents have given her all their attention,love and affection. Her favourite stores are Topshop, Selfridge's and Harvey Nichols. She attends the cinema regularly with her friends and loves chick flicks like St Trinians, Bratz, Confessions of a Shopaholic and 27 Dresses.