Filming Locations

Filming Location

Shop robbery - We will use a wide angle shot as it can show the characters leaving the shop and running out of shot; indicating they have escaped. Moreover, there is room to show Sanjeev shouting at the boys despite them being out of shot, allowing a focus on his angered body language and facial expression.

Smoking scene - The brick wall background is typically associated with gangsters and fits well with the fact we are smoking a 'joint'. The background, along with the use of a wide shot allows for full focus on our tiresome body language from the 'joint' allowing the audience to achieve the full humorous effect from the scene.

Money falling - The background brings out the colour of the boys' black suits and allows them to be seen very clearly at the centre of the shot. Low angle shot connotes power, the mise-en-scene, body language, facial expression and use of money falling in slow motion also connotes power and that they boys are serious crime artists. The lighting was also perfect in allowing full focus on the boys and the money.

Leaving the house - Establishing shot (wide angle). The setting is important in conveying that the boys aren't living in the typical city environment where crime is expected. This shot is intended to create a juxtaposition between the characters looking serious, and setting looking harmless. The effect on the audience would be the realisation that the boys might not actually be big shot crime artists. Lots of natural light allows for the audience to take in every aspect of the shot, including the boys and the background.

Crossing the road - Establishing shot (wide angle). This shot will show the boys crossing the street, continuing the contrast between the environment and the characters themselves. We hope the frequent use of showing the characters walking with serious costume and expression would boost their self inflicted egos while showing that they are in reality just two 16 year olds. The use of a wide angle shot would also allow for space for some text on screen such as the writer or director. Moreover, the use of the road in the shot and lighting would allow for the text to be seen clearly and distinctly. I will use a white, bold text so it stands out against the grey background of the road.

Walking away - Wide angle shot. The boys will be shown with their backs to the camera walking away. This is to infer to the audience that they are going somewhere important; possibly their next big job. The fact they are in the centre of the screen along with their costume and style of walking shows how they are think they are powerful and professional. The location here focuses on the rural, village setting; showing how the boys don't come from the typical gangster environment. The effect of this would be humour on the audience and possibly confusion, which is effective as it will most likely draw them into the film which is a key purpose of any film opening.

Character Biographies

Main Character Biographies

Jamie Small

 

Jamie is 16 years old and has developed a love for the gangsta lifestyle from listening to and admiring various rap artists. He loves their lavish lifestyle and thus seeks to do crime to achieve money and mirror his rap inspirations. 

 

His mise-en-scene of a black suit and sunglasses is intended to create a false impression that he is actually a professional, big-shot gangster for the purpose of the film. It is important that Jamie believes he is a gangsta for the narrative of the film as that is the reason why he has the confidence to take out various ridiculous antics in the film.

 

Actor - Jamie Small. Jamie is playing himself in the film, that way we would not have to change much of his appearance and can focus on creating a memorable character through what he says and does. Jamie lives in and near to the filming locations of the film, this is extremely practical as it gives us guaranteed permission for certain filming locations and reliability that he can be used for our different filming dates.

 

 

Jared Morgan

 

Jared is also 16 years old, he looks up to Jamie who is largely responsible for Jared's involvement in the gangster lifestyle. He seeks to acquire money and boost his reputation from being largely mocked and disregarded at school. Jared desperately seeks to leave Bedfordshire and take his antics along with Jamie to London and possibly abroad.

 

Jared's mise-en-scene is the same as Jamie's, we also thought it important to create an untrue gangster impression from his costume and mise-en-scene for humorous effect.

 

Actor - Jared Morgan. Jared is also playing himself in the film, he too is trying to create the gangster impression by wearing a black suit. It is also good that himself and Jamie have been friends for a long time, as they can work together efficiently, with good communication. Moreover, their on screen relationship is meant to be close (like best friends) this is something they could achieve with little difficulty due to the two characters knowing each other for a very long time.

 

Props and impact on audience

Cigarette -

 

The cigarette is a very important prop. One because it clearly shows the characters' rebellious nature as they are clearly too young to be smoking but more importantly how the characters react to the cigarette. We used various camera shots including mid-shots and wide-angle shots to show the cigarette in shot but also the characters' body language and facial expression. They both act like the cigarette is marijuana and pretend to act high. The pair are shown from standing up to sitting on the floor with a tired facial expression and body language to show that the 'joint' has really hit them. The prop's affect on the audience is humour, as it is clearly a cigarette but the boys pretend to be high in order to look cool and like the 'gangsters' they aspire to. The link between the prop itself, and how the boys react to it generate this effect of perceived rebellion but in reality they are just acting like idiots.

 

Porn Magazine -

 

The lad's mag prop is important in showing how the boys clearly aren't real gangsters or crime artists. We placed this scene early in the film after the boys are shown looking like real gangsters in their suits, the purpose of placing it so early was to cut down the impression of the boys looking professional. We hope the use of this prop and Jackie screaming "you've brought pornography into our house!" shows how the boys are still very immature and under the control of their parents. It also shows the audience the minimal nature of the characters' 'crimes' and perhaps hints that the 'crimes' might get more intense as the film goes on. This is also shown through Jackie saying - "you two boys, you're just out of control" and the boys smiling proudly, inferring that more antics are still to come.

Money -

Money was important in establishing an end to the opening of the film. The use of it falling on the characters in slow motion along with their 'gangster' costume and serious facial expression coms together to make the audience see them as real gangsters even if it's just for a moment. The scene sets up the rest of the film as it is a break in continuity, much due to the slow motion and lack of movement from the characters. This is also shown by the actors' names and the film's title flashing on the screen. The purpose of this scene was largely to slow the pace of the opening to set up the audience for the rest of the film and to clearly show the audience the real narrative of the film is starting. The money adds to this greatly, the fact they are US 100 dollar bills shows how the pair want to emulate their American rap artist inspirations and would hopefully generate a humorous affect for the audience.

Storyboard

Blank Storyboard

Cut to the Chase - Final Cut

Media Evaluation

1.       In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our film opening challenges many different aspects of media products. It firstly challenges societies. We also challenged the genre comedy. We used light hearted comedy which most of today’s youth would relate to more so than someone from the older generation. Our aspect of comedy is when the two characters rob the convenience store in white Arabic dresses, also when Jamie’s mum finds the boys lads mag. We hope the audience finds the humorous side to this segment of our film opening as it is a known stereotype for teenage boy to hide lads mag’s from their parents/ or to have them at their parents discretion.  We hope that the comedy comes through as comedy, as there are some scenes, which could be seen to be offensive to certain ethnic groups (such as the shop robbery). As it shows two teenage boys attempting to fit in with the gangster world of today (which is why they’re wearing suits), we hope the audience finds the humorous side to this rather than seeing it to be just a pathetic attempt of recreating gangsters. When the two characters are wearing suits, this fits in with our genre as it’s a crime drama. When they move on to rob the corner shop, whilst wearing Arabian dress, this is when we challenge our audiences sense of humour as we hope to create an immature/irresponsible funny side to this scene, whilst partially remaining serious when robbing the shop in an attempt to still appear as gangsters. We hope the smoking scene doesn’t come over as humorous as it is supposed to show the audience that stereotypical teenage boys will do whatever to find in with their mates. Our film doesn’t show that it complies with Propps character type theory initially, but it shows signs that one of the two characters would be the hero and the other would be the helper, the one who helps the hero restore and equilibrium. Jared, is the character who leaves the shop first in the robbery scene and is the one to introduce Jamie (the second character) into smoking. This shows he’s got a leading figure in him which hints to the audience he would be the hero, whilst Jamie is the helper in whatever mission/activity they later pursue in the film.

2.       How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our product represents teenagers, to be typically rebellious and to disobey parents or guardians. We show the two main characters to be rebellious by them going out of their way to go against what their parents would’ve told them; don’t do drugs, rob shops and so on. These two acts in particular shows the characters being rebellious at their best. Our specific characters are shown to go to incredible lengths, just to prove to friends and family that they‘re the next level of gangsters. This is representing the youth of today to be typically immature and irresponsible. It show’s some of today’s teenagers or people of the youth; wanting to be someone or something they’re not. For example we see the two characters in suits and then later on we see a scene of 100 dollar bills flying over our characters giving them the view that they are ‘Ballers’ (a slang term for people of incredible wealth). We can see these are fake bills and that this links into them wanting and aspiring to be things they’re not much like many youths of today. The media product is also attempting to portray the view of some social groups of today’s teenagers aspiring to be ‘Real Gangsters’. Jamie’s mum who catches the boys with their lad’s mag shows the typical parental discipline move and shouts at the boys expecting them to know better. This is showing the audience that she has the typical parental traits that an older person would say. Sanjeev (the shop owner) shows traits of a typical shop owner as the boys rob his shop as he runs out shouting “I know your mum” in hope to threaten and scare the two characters. Our media product hopes to play on this common stereotype, by the two characters resorting to crimes such as robbing shops, doing drugs and having money lavishly poured on them. Having dollar bills poured on the two characters is purely a fantasy that these characters have.

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

A low budget film institute would be the best to distribute it as there isn’t any high end expensive equipment or green screens so it wouldn’t be a relatively expensive film to produce. Ealing studios would be ideal to produce our film as it has produced a very successful comedy film very similar to ours, Shawn of The Dead. As it is a British Film institute/studio, I would be a good one as it would be able to relate to our regional identic, British humour better than an American film studio would, which means Ealing studios could help enhance it as they have been making films for over 100 years (established in 1902). I wouldn’t go with a bigger film company because I don’t think our film is set to be the next massive blockbuster. Also because I think our film will not have a huge audience who will thoroughly enjoy it due to some of the aspects of our film such as drugs, lad’s mag’s and robbing shops.

4.       Who would be the audience for your media product?

The ideal audience for my media product would be teenagers from 16 up, to about people age 25. Our film would appeal to this age group because it is slightly on the immature side, this means that people over 25 are more likely to dislike it and not find it entertaining and quickly lose interest. The film isn't aimed at any particular gender; however I assume it would appeal more to the male audience over the female audience. This is because males are socially seen to be more immature than females therefore they would be more likely to enjoy it more than females, also shop robbery’s, smoking weed and various other things are known to entertain males more so than females. This would likely to be our audience throughout the whole film because the opening of the film are small tasters as to what is to come later on in the film on a much larger scale. The social class whom are film would appeal most to be C1 and C2; this is because they are the categories who would be able to relate most to the film. This is mainly due to the fact, classes A and B will unlikely find humour in watching teens rob a corner shop in a dish dash, common assumptions are that they’d prefer to watch high end expensive blockbuster films. Our media product may not be entirely appealing to some religious/ethnic groups, because of the Arabian dress scene, whilst robbing a convenient store. This scene isn’t like that to be racially offensive, it was aimed to be seen that two oblivious teenagers using a disguise they thought kept them undercover whilst on the mission.

                                                                                                                                            

5.       How did you attract/address your audience?

With my media product, we slowly showed the audience who the characters were and then we left some guess work, for them to figure out what they’re doing and why they’re dressed in suits. I felt this was a good way to ease the audience into the story without throwing them into it blind. The way in which I've presented this to the audience shows them briefly who the characters are and what they intend to do. I hope this entices the viewer into the media product and makes them want to see the rest of the film. Our audience is aimed at people aged 15-28, so teenagers to young adults so we have use language that they’d recognise and use in their daily lives. Our genre is crime/comedy so we've showed the audience aspects of comedy through the use of music, costume and language in which our characters have used.

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

I have learnt to use video cameras and the best lighting conditions to use to get the best video quality. With the video camera I've learnt the best ways to focus and get the best shots from it with the help of a tripod which has a specific panning cog in the centre which makes panning in a shot much smoother and professional looking.   If the lighting is unsuitable such as a dark environment, for example in Jamie’s mum’s living room in one of the initial scenes (when they got caught with their magazine), this room was too dark so I've invested in a filming light which makes dark scenes better and much clearer when produced in its final product. The editing software we've used is something which I've learnt and has made our film opening look much more professional. The software which I used (provided by the school) was cyber link power director, which I have developed my skills since I started making our media product, I have learnt how to cut down videos and layer music over video clips as well as layering text on top of video clips to present actors names. As well as that I've learnt to use different transition effects to give a more professional look when going from different shots. I've also learnt how to dub video with recording dialogue sound. We used an external microphone (one which wasn't the built in one on the camera) to record our dialogue which made the sound quality much better and makes it sound cleaner for the scenes which contained dialogue. The scenes which include dubbing are the ones in which the two characters are smoking, the one in Jamie’s living room and when his mum is shouting at the two characters. We have also made use of a tripod during the production of our media product. This has enabled us to create our still shots steady and very professional throughout. As the tripod we have has a special panning cog this has allowed us to create smooth professional looking panning shots.

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

I feel from our preliminary, I've developed many aspects of our media product significantly especially the camera and overall filming of our film opening. I have used a much wider variety of camera shots and angles when filming, to either make the story flow smoother, or to make characters feel more powerful than others. These examples can be found when the characters are putting on their shoes, blazers, and when they walk out the door there is a very low angle shot there as the characters step outside of the front door. You can also see as the characters walk across the road to the park, the audience is presented with an establishing shot. Our overall mise en scene has improved by just using a much better and higher quality of costumes for the characters and improved filming locations. In my preliminary we simply used one costume. In this media product we have used mainly two costumes but thy suit the look and feel of the film very well. We’ve used an Arabic dress (dishdash) when the characters rob the shop to hide their identity and also to create a funny side to the characters robbing the shop. Then the suits are mainly used to make the characters feel as though they are top level gangsters, but in reality their attempt is aimed to look immature and amusing.  I have also gone away and invested in higher quality camera and a tripod to ensure all still shots are steady and professional looking. I have also improved my editing skills immensely. I feel that my final media product is of a very high quality of editing, this is mainly due to trial and error. I have also audio dubbed all dialogue used in my media product which, gives a much clearer sound with minimal background noise.