AS Media

1. in what way does your media product use develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

Prior to the production of our title sequence, research into the codes and conventions of different genres was completed and i feel confident in saying that our media product follows the codes and conventions of the time travel/romance genre to some extent. The title sequence however shows alot more romance characteristics than it does time travel. Codes and conventions of romance are constantly fulfilled all the way through the title sequence. Beginning with the music, our musical choice, i believe fits considerably well to the genre we have presented. Its relatively slow paced with a range of high notes and low notes, this sound hints some kind of drama which in this style tends to be associated with romance.
Visually, links to the romance genre begin almost immediately. The first few frames show the construction of a letter which is later shown to be read by a another character of the opposite sex. Here to enigmas are revealed and it becomes quite clear what their relationship is due to the music and style of presentation. the switching between character in the duration of the sequence also shows this, the face that they are both in the exactly the same place suggests that they may live together. Which supports the assumption that they are in fact in love.
The title also accurately portrays the genre ''A Time to Love'', the words love and time each individually are suited to the two genres our media product consists of. ''Love ''the most commonly known word to relate to romance and ''Time'' a word that is actually present in the second genre of time travel.
The link to Time travel is alot less obvious than that of romance within our media product, however clues are present. The most noticeable is the occasional showing of a clock overlapping other clips. This gives the implication of passing time and time in general. However the idea of time travel doesn't become clear until near the end of the sequence when the clock hand is shown to be circulating in the opposite way to the accustomed motion.
Another factor where a time travel genre is presented is in most of the frames that the letter is being constructed in. Here i have layered up a number of clips of the letter being written. This also suggests a passing of time as well as a time lapse. These two points of time travel suggestion are relatively typically used to portray this genre in the codes and conventions of time travel.

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

Our title sequence mainly represents women due to the low key, normality of it. Judging by the title sequence it could seem that the rest of the film may be fairly typical in the likes of the romance genre, although this is not the case. I believe this because women may feel that they can relate to the characters in the title sequence on an emotional level. This emotional level can be obtained due to the camera angles which were carefully selected and used. a large number of close ups and extreme close ups to the characters allow for this personal sphere to be opened. Being stereo typically linked to sensitivity and emotion women are our target representation. Due the characters being dressed in a relatively plain manor the audience are drawn away from this area and purely focused on the emotion shown on their faces. Other examples of mise-en-scene are also kept proportionally simple. the wooden table is dressed with a few candles, lamps, joss sticks a joss stick holder and an ashtray as well as the book in which the letter lies. in all frames bar the last few the character and the book are the main focus this has been allowed to happen due to the to some extent simplicity of the setting. It was a deliberate choice to include no narrative within our media product. This decision was made to keep a sense of mystery prior to what typically would be the rest of the film. I feel the moderate amount of information we have included in the title sequence is just enough to hold the audiences attention and to keep them watching. The audience however being made up of women. Its not impossible nevertheless i find it highly unlikely for this title sequence to appeal to a man which is why our media product is mainly representative of women.

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

As a group we researched into different types of film distributors and assessed what kind of films they produced. We chose paramount vantage which immediately sounds strange due to the genre of our and they genre they most typically produce. some of the films paramount vantage have produced are 'no country for old men', 'case 39', 'Year of the dog' and 'son of Rambo'. here are films with a variety of genres; thriller, horror, drama and comedy. Obviously this none of these match the genre of our film, however it is safe to say that paramount vantage produce relatively low budget films which is something we decided our hypothetical ''film'' would be also due to the dramas and comedy's. It is notable that paramount vantage are able to attract a youthful audience, evidence of this comes from the films 'American Teen' and 'Son of Rambo'.

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

The target audience for 'A Time to Love' is mainly female, ranging from ages 15-45. To make sure that this was attainable we had to make our media product visually and audibly appealing to women/ teens of this age. We attempted to do this by trying to make the title sequence as soft as possible for the senses. gentleness being another thing associated with the female gender. The lighting was carefully created in order for this effect to be successful along with the editorial choices. Firstly to establish such a conclusion in relation to the lighting, our group had to wait until around 4:30ish before we could begin with the filming. Baring in mind the filming took place in January, the light didn't stay as we wished for very long. Also a number of lamps were placed around the table where the title sequence was set. To add to this softness the transitions between each shot were a number of different fade effects to ensure there would be some kind of continuity and flow. Additionally the varied levels of opacity in the layered parts are conjointly another factor that allows this soft feel to be apparent. This effect is also achieved partly due to the delicate piano music which i feel would appeal to the female target audience too.

5.How did you attract/ address your audience?

In order to attract/address our audience to effectively stay to watch the rest of the film after the 2 minute sequence we tried not to give too much away. It is clear the two enigmas share a love for one another and the contents of the letter shown in the sequence brings emotional pain to the male character. However it is not made clear why this sadness is created, what the letter says and further information on the couple. This automatically gives a sense of mystery and encourages the audience to stay and watch more. Initially the audiences attention is drawn in by the constant transition between the two characters creating a
relationship between them however this relationship is virtual as they are never physically seen together. This may cause the audience to begin to question these events resulting in a further concentration and continued viewing of 'A Time to Love'.

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

This year is the first in which i have ever been a media student. Due to this everything i have learned this year is brand new. In the construction of this product i have learned how to film using a range of different camera angles, i have become far more familiar with the apple macs, also i now know how to convert files and how to edit with an array of different techniques. During the course of the construction of the ''A Time to Love'' title sequence i have personally become relatively familiar with the editing software, Final Cut Pro. This took a while and sometimes resulted in disaster for example i actually accidentally deleted the whole sequence and had to start again. I got used to most of the controls by experimenting with the software and using a trial and error method. I feel the complete edited title sequence is successful to some extent a range of effects have been used, however i believe i could have been better. The titles enter and leave the screen in a relatively simple manor which could be seen as perhaps lazy or careless. Nevertheless i did this purposely for their to be some kind of juxtaposition in the product. I feel that if the same fade effect had been used for the titles too they wouldn't be as prominent and noticeable as they are without the effect. Although the editing was considerably fiddly and stressful, overall i did enjoy it and i'm glad that job was appointed to me.

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

The preliminary task we were given at the beginning of the year was a short continuity sequence that showed someone entering a room, crossing it having dialogue with another person and then leaving. Although now this seems comparably simple at the time the task was quite challenging. The preliminary task initially introduced me to Final Cut Pro with a much more straight forward set of steps to follow. To begin with the filming was completed followed by uploading the files onto the mac and converting them to DV, these files then needed to be imported into final cut. After this all that was left was to drag the clips into the timeline and cut them down accordingly which was relatively simple. The preliminary task in my opinion was great preparation for what followed in the construction of the final product because it allowed for the basic steps to be learned. I also feel that as a group we learned the importance of research in order to gain a greater knowledge and understanding of the title sequence task and how the film industry functions. Research into different title sequences allowed for the group to make the decisions needed and overall gave us a clue of what needed to be included such as the order of the titles and the style in which they appear.
Consequently overall, as a group i feel we exceeded our initial expectations that were subconsciously made at the beginning of the project. We had greatly underestimated our ability to function as a group and produce work of a standard that is acceptable.

Today we completed most of our filming, we shot everything but the clock face which we are still in search of. Filming took about 90 minutes as we had to re-shoot a few frames. We waited until it was about 4:30 because we wanted our lighting to be just right, a slight glow however not too dark. Due to this focus on light we only had limited time to complete all filming before it got dark. Thankfully we just managed to do it which was a relief. Shooting was rather enjoyable and i believe successful too. All shooting was completed in Daisy's kitchen, at her wooden dining table. Before any filming took place we cleared the table completely and laid out a tray with candles on it, a joss stick in a holder/ashtray, a glass lamp which we regarded to be quite futuristic, the notebook in which Arrow writes the letter and a pen. We placed the chair where Daisy and Todd sit in front of the window so we could get as much natural light as possible in the shots. This was also done because Daisy's kitchen window sill is full of pretty ornaments, we thought this would be a nice backdrop in the title sequence. Both of our actors (Daisy and Todd) were very focused and surprisingly not very giggly at all. This was great because there were very few outtakes, id say there were about 6 maximum. One problem we did come across was that daisy had to write the letter whilst we were filming, because of this we feel the content of the letter isn't as good as it could have been. overall though the filming of our title sequence was a positive experience. here are some photos of the setting we used and different positioning we played about with: