Evaluation 1-In what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Screen Shot 1: 

This shot is of our title. We decided that our film would be called Student Exchange. This is because the film is about a new exchange student from Poland. We felt this would have been an appropriate title as it tells the audience what the film is about, without giving any other information away. It is an example of foreshadowing of the plot in our film as the new boy who moves to the school is on a student exchange trip. This was based on mean girls as within mean girls Cady Heron has moved back to America after living as a home schooled girl in Africa. She is seen as an outsider at the start of the film. After developing our knowledge of other teen angst film titles, we decided to make the title appeal more to our demographic. Mean girls bases their title on their demographic of teenage girls, hence why their title sequence is pink. As our demographic is teenage boys, we made the title blue and sans serif. This was because blue is a stereotypical male colour and the sans serif is more plain which may attract males. 

Screen Shot 2:

We decided to set our film in a school. We chose this because stereotypically many teen angst films are based in a school as this is where the target audiences spend most of their time. We used a close up of the school sign within the title sequence to allow the audience to recognise it straight away. This is similar to many other  teen angst films as this is where most teens spend a lot of their time. For example high school musical, wild child, mean girls all are based in a school as their demographic can relate to some of the issues that school life can throw at teens. Although our setting is stereotypical of Teen angst films, we challenged the convention by basing it in a British school rather than an american school. Within the film easy A they show a close up of the school sign aswell which shows the audience where their film is based and ehat its storyline is. 

Screen Shot 3:

Within our title sequence, we used an edit. This edit was time lapse. We felt that this would be an exciting way to keep the audience interested. It shows what the 'popular' group do at lunch. It gives the audience an insight as to what the school is like and who some of the characters are. Within mean girls they show the different cliques, this is sped up for effect to show how many different types of groups there are and allows the audience to get an insight to what they are like. 

Screen Shot 4:

We used a variety of shots. (Look at Shot list). We used a high angle to show when Peter had been beaten up. We used a high angle when he was getting up off the floor. This allowed the audience to see how badly Peter was after getting hit. It creates sympathy for Peter and the audience can connect with him. We based this on the scene within Mean girls when the girls starting fighting. This is to represent the bullying is a social issue that happens in today's society, mainly in teenage years.

Screen Shot 5:

The titles we use throughout the film are in red and white. We chose these colours as they are bright and attract the audience. We use these to show the audience who has created the film and who is an actor/actress. This is similar to the film Kidulthood. Their film is targeted more towards boys as it involves some violence. 

Screen Shot 6:

This builds the plot. This is because after Peter gets hit, he has to go back into the class room and sit near the bullies. It shows the audience what tension there is already between Jay and Peter. It sets the story up as the audience are then keen to keep watching and find out what happens with them. This is similar to wild child when Poppy first arrives. Straight away Harriet takes a disliking to Poppy as she stands out compared to the rest. 

Screen Shot 7:

This shot shows the special effects we had used. We used transitions in our film to help make it appeal to our demographic. This allowed the film to appear more enjoyable as there was more to look at. We used transitions to keep the audience engaged. Many teen angst films use transitions to make the film flow and have that teenage feel about it. 

Screen Shot 8:

The characters all get introduced in different ways. Peter is first introduced when he wakes up in the morning. We use different scenes to show how he gets ready. This is so the audience can get to understand the main character and relate to him within the title sequence. After research of teen angst films like mean girls and Kidulthood, most films all use close ups or mid shots to allow the audience to see who the characters are. The screen shot above shows most of the main characters in one shot. This scene is the first scene where all the characters are first together. It gives the audience an insight as to what all there personalities are and how their relationships are towards one another. 

Screenshot 9:

This shot shows the genre of the film. This is because it shows the two main characters of Jay and Peter. It shows how they act and what their social lives are like. It shows the genre as being teen angst by allowing the audience to recognise that it is about teenagers as you can easily tell that they are college students due to school bags and the location. It represents the characters as they are. Peter is on time for school and is on his own, this shows that he has no friends yet which makes him an outcast to the others. Jay and his mate are sat next to a bon smoking which they look at as being 'cool'. It shows that they are    of a lower class due to the anti social behaviour and they automatically judge Peter as he walks past by whispering about him. 

Feedback

We got many positives of our film. Some of these included;

A good range of shots

Good title placement, and good use of transitions used for them.

The production company logo is professional looking and the 360 degree transition is even and good timing.

The demographic of our film is boys, which is a counter type of teen angst films.

However despite there being many positives, there were a few negatives which we had to go back and change (you can view the changes we made in the drafts of our film), these include;

The sound needed to be adjusted when in corridor.

The hand held camera was too shaky.

The title font didn't fit in with the film and looked out of place.

All of our negative feedback was changed straight away and we eventually had our final product.

Draft- Student Exchange

At first our film had several things we had to change. We found this out by getting feedback from the class, and there were some suggestions. These suggestions were to change the font from the graffiti font to the same as our other fonts. This was because it was difficult to read once the film was put onto the big screen. This was the same for our title font as it did not fit in with our film style and came across as plain. Once we looked back at our film we discovered that the corrections that we had made,due to the feedback, were the right choices and it enabled us to advance our film even more.

We finally made some quick changes to our film, this therefore meant that we had two small drafts before the final. After completing the changes to the first draft we wanted to make a small adjustments to our film.The first one was to increase the volume of dietetic speech in the hallway when the bullies are hitting Peter. This is  because the corridor particularly echoed  at this point. We also changed the last scene. This was because the hand held camera effect moved too much. It made the scene look out of place and unsteady. So we cut the last scene out in the middle and had it ending on the bullies staring as Peter.

our titles

Titles
For our titles in our film we planned out where we were going to place them. After looking at our film when we had finished the editing we chose where the right places would be to include the titles. We chose to stick to just two colours throughout the film.  We used a red font for the crew names, and black font for their job description. We chose these two colours as the red stands out from the black to show the names are more important, they are also both stereotypical male colours, which fits our demographic. From research most teen angst films are aimed towards girls and use a pretty pink and/or a handwriting style font like mean girls and legally blonde. However because our USP is that its targeted for boys we chose to stick to basic fonts.





Also we based our films around a white outline to show the importance and to make them stand out from the screen. We used the pop font as it is simple and easy to read which we thought was suitable for the demographic as boys are stereotypically more interested in action like the film itself. It also shows how professional our company is. We decided to make the crews name bigger than their descriptions, this suggests importance and authority as well as them standing out more. We also put the actors/actresses names on the screen when they are first introduced on the screen to show the audience that the name on the screen is the person in the scene. We used transitions so that the title would move on to the screen and fade in and out. This made the title sequence fun to look at especially for our target audience to keep them engaged. 

Risk Assessment

Before we started filming, we had to carry out a risk assessment, to ensure that we were safe whilst filming.
The risk which needed to be aware of was making sure the camera did not fall onto Peter, this could of happened when we filmed Peter on the floor and the camera was placed on top of the locker. We made sure that the tripod is firmly in place and not capable of falling.

One risk we had to assess was to make sure  no one got hurt during the fight scene. We resolved this issue by practicing the scene beforehand to ensure that no one would get injured. This allowed us to make sure the actors knew what they were doing.

  Another risk that is needed to be aware of is when the camera needs to be a high angle, the camera man may have to stand on a chair. We then decided to use the locker technique instead of making the camera man stand on a chair, this means the camera man doesn't have the risk of getting hurt. 
 
 

The Plot

Our film starts with Peter Davis, a student from Katowice Gymnasium, a normal high school which Peter likes a lot, and he gets ready for his first day in his new school. Peter was fairly confident with English language, this gave him confidence that he would find it easy to settle into his new school.

However, this all changes on his first day when the bully of the school, Jay Brown, targets Peter.  This is because Jay doesn't like people of different cultures'. Jay pins Peter up against a locker and then beats him up for no reason, apart from the fact that  he is Polish. Peter becomes friends with one other person in the school, Sarah Levine, as she is also new to the school.

Throughout the film, Sarah and Peter develop a strong friendship. Peter then develops more confidence and then decides to stand up to the bullies.

Throughout the film, Peter also develops a slight crush for a girl at the beginning, however, him trying to become more popular means that he forgets about the girl and he eventually looses her. The movies finishes with the school year ending, Alex then goes back to Poland, he looks over the previous year and realises that he has changed a whole lot and he knows whats important to him.

The Characters

 The main bully within the film is Jay Brown. He is a stereotypical lower class teen. He was raised with a lower class family and has a different perspective of life. Jay is fairly racist as his dad doesn't agree with Immigrants. When Peter joins the school he automatically doesn't like him due to his culture. He has many ASBO's and enjoys breaking the rules of the school by disrespecting everyone. Within Angus Thongs Perfect Snogging there are two school bullies. We based him on the two bullies as they are from a lower class and are stereotypical 'chavs'. They wear side ponytails and have big hooped earrings, all of which is associated with lower class people.

 The next character is Peter Davis. We originally planned for him to be an American exchange student, but we then decided to make him a Polish exchange student, this is because racial issues against the Polish is a back problem in Britain, therefore we felt this would give the story a more ethical view on cultural diversity. When Peter lived in Poland, he was a fun and lively character, however, he becomes antisocial when he moves to England since he finds it difficult settling into his new school, especially as he has Jay on his back. We decided to link Peter to Zac Efron in 17Again. This is because he is new to the school aswell and he doesn't fit in straight away. He gets bullied by a group of 'football jocks'. This group is the school bullies. We chose to go along the lines of them, however in our we changed Jays group life styles.

The third main character is Sarah Levine. Along with Peter, she is also new to the school and is struggling to make friends as she is shy and unsociable. As her and Peter are both new they slowly begin to develop a strong friendship.