Rough Edit 2

This is the second edit of my final piece. I've changed the volume of the "death bangs" which I think works well, and I added the monologue. I have also added the title 'Displacement' to the start of the film. It's in sans serif white text of a white background, which I got from the television series "Skins" and "Shameless".

After Audience Feedback

The backing music goes on after the "death bangs" just for a fraction too long, and people in my media class said that I should try to cut the music off the second that the image changes. They also said that the monolgue needed to be louder, and the backing music should go quieter when Alex is speaking.

Genre Research

Teen dramas are typically television series in which the focus is on teenage characters. For the first 45 years of television it was relatively un-heard of, but it came into use in the early 1990s. Before that, most series based around teenagers were typically sitcoms, while anything with teens and drama tended to be part of bigger ensembles that include adults and children. Teen dramas often reflect elements of soap operas, allowing the young adult characters to get into challenging situations and face an array of realistic teen issues. However, some teen dramas have elements of science fiction, adventure, fantasy and often have elements of comic relief.

“In the UK teen dramas were aimed at older children and teenagers. They were shown after school hours in special variety shows. Presenters would introduce them in between cartoons and other children's programmes such as Grange Hill and Byker Grove. The only exception is the teenage soap opera "Hollyoaks" and older audience aimed teen dramas, such as the groundbreaking "As If" and also "Skins", "Sugar Rush" and "The Inbetweeners" all shown on Channel 4 and E4 with "Hollyoaks" shown at 6:30 pm and Skins, "Sugar Rush" and "The Inbetweeners" shown later at night..” Quoted from Wikipedia.

Target Audience & BBFC

My product is based at a 15 – 25 age group. I’ve attracted this age group by the fast-pace music, the quick editing and the young central protagonist. I think that the overall content of the film would get a 15 rating. By BBFC ratings, this means that the drug content would be “Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse.” This is relevant to my product as the story ends with the both of the main characters dying from drug use. The BBFC website also states “No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate to 15 year olds” which means that so long as the content is handled appropriately, I could still have such a difficult topic in the film.

Within the first two minutes, no Non-Caucasian characters appear in my film, although would plan to have some later on in the narrative. I didn’t plan to have no ethnic minority characters to appear in the part of my film that I made, but due to the availability of actors, I wasn’t able to include any.
Although my product isn’t targeted at a specific gender group, I think that females would prefer this film. I don’t believe that my product would exclude either gender. The girl in my film is stereotypical of the kind of girl that usually appears as the “out of control” character in teen dramas. The boy in my film is counter typical of the male protagonist of a teen drama. The gender roles in my film are typical of a teen drama, with the girl in control of the boy’s heart, and the boy trying to do whatever he can to get the girl to like him.
Although not specifically focused on socio-economic groupings, my film does have some difference of social class. The main character, Alex, has just moved from London, a very upper-class and expensive place to live, to a small town in the countryside. He finds it very difficult to adapt from the upper-class setting of London to the middle/working-class setting of the new town.

My product does involve many stereotypes that are associated with the British nationality. The overall film is set in two places; typical English countryside, and London, the capital. There’s a mix of stereotypes within the characters themselves, having a southern character representing the upper class Britain, and having a female with a very distinctive Yorkshire accent to represent the north of England.
I believe that fans of the following would be interested in my product; Skins (2007, TV series), Kidulthood (2006, Menhaj Huda) and Cruel Intentions (1999, Roger Kumble). This is because the storylines of the three films are all similar to that of “Displacement” and also the style of my product is a mixture of these three styles, plus Mean Girls (2004, Mark Waters).
The audience that I believe would be most interested in this film would be the 15-25 youth audience, students who would be able to relate to this sort of narrative and identify with the characters (i.e. teenagers / young adults who like to go to parties, take drugs etc.)

Production Logo

This is my production logo. It's not the most interesting or engaging logo in the world, but I like the simplicity and bold colours. The 'HB' stand for Helena Beeson, which is my name. It could be easily modified to suit the genre of the film, and I believe that it's a memorable design, due to its simple shape.

Editing

Once I had filmed all of the footage I needed to, I set to editing it on iMovie. I planned to make my introduction very fast pace, with lots of jump-cuts and differing angles to move the action along quickly. This meant that I had to cut each individual take into several pieces, and change the order around. I ended up with over 40 different shots in my 2 minutes.

Software

For editing I used iMovie06. This software had its advantages and disadvantages. It allowed me to cut clips in two so that I could move them about in an interesting order to give a fast pace end result. This software also allowed me to put music onto the film opening, and I could place it at the right point so that it fitted in with the action. I found the music on www.freeplaymusic.com and downloaded it, then copied it into iMovie. It has a function so that I can adjust the sound levels of the dialogue and background music respectfully, so that I could continue the music beyond the point where the dialogue comes in. I also was able to include an audio voice over with the 'extract audio' function, which meant that I didn’t have to film the dialogue at the same time as the action. However, while importing it had to "Letterbox" each clip, which took along time and made me behind in my editing. This was a severe disadvantage as every moment I could spend editing my piece was crucial.

Equipment

1) The camera we will be using is the Canon MV 920 E. It has a built in microphone and the audio output is stereo. The lens shutter speed is 1/6-1/2000 with a 800x digital zoom and a 25x optical zoom. The minimum focal length is 2.60 and the maximum focal length is 65. The focus type is automatic but can be manual if chosen. It also has a motorized zoom adjustment. It has a lithium ion rechargeable battery charged with a power adaptor and is available to connect with USB, Audio Video Interface, Fire Wire, Composite Video Input, Composite Output and Component Video. For speech it has a microphone and for playback it has a headphone jack.
The following software can be connected with the camera:
Canon Photostitch
Canon Imagebrowser
Drivers & Utilities
Canon Zoombrowser EX
It uses a mini DV tape for playback. The image format is JPEG, it has special effects such as Art, Black & White, Sepia, Mosaic, Ball, Cube, Wave, Colour Mask and Mirror. There is a built-in image stabilizer and is available in widescreen. By using either normal movie mode or digital photo mode you can choose from shooting programs such as spotlight, portrait mode, night mode, fireworks, sport mode, sunset, beach or snow. This camera was effective and of a high enough quality to ensure a well-filmed product.