Opening sequence establish characterisation, setting, genre, visual appearance and ideology in a number of ways. this is done by using different media affects in a variety of ways.
In our opening sequence we established the setting by using a range of effective camera angles and shots. This helped the audience understand where the opening sequence was set as it was clear to see it was set in a woodland area. The use of different camera angles and shots sets the tone of the opening sequence as it can show different things such as vulnerablitiy as we showed in parts of our sequence.
We established characterisation by the use of different props such as clothing and makeup also we establish it by the acting of Jess as she acts scared and happy. We opted to go for a scruffy clothing look as we thought this was very effctive in showing the audience the girl was involved with drugs and she wasnt ok. This was the same with the makeup it was smudged clearly showing something was wrong. The way Jess acted was to be happy at the start then turn scared and vulnerable towards the end this se characterisation as it helped the audeince feel sorry for the girl even though she was on drugs.
We established genre by the use of a girl on drugs also the way she acted being happy and sad in the same opening sequence. By using a girl that is messed up in the mind it helps the show the type of genre we are using which is a physcological thriller.
We established visual style in a variety of ways but the most obvious ways are the use of clothing, makeup and jewellery. By using a simple going out dress shows that she had been out and then ended up taking drugs and ended in trouble. The makeup used shows that she had been out aswell and got into trouble because of the smudged look. Again the jewellery shows that she had been out.
We establsihed ideology by the use of drug taking, normally the ideology of someone taking drugs is a negative view. But in our opening sequence we have twisted it so that viewers feel sorry for the young girl as she is shown to be vulnerable .
Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our sequence we have only used one character Jess Hutchinson we decided to use Jess as we believe she had the right attributes and correct characteristics to fit this role. In our sequence we are looking to target the typical teen steriotyped group. The typical teen group is associated with drugs, drinking, smoking and going out having a wild time. The first thing we thought about was age Jess fits this perfectly as she is a 16 year old teenager girl. The next factor was clothing we decided to use, we opted for a party dress which resembles the girl having been out at a party, the dress was simillar to a topshop one a popular shop amongst the teen group. Also the use of jewellery is popular amongst teens. The smudge makeup shows something wrong has happend to the girl as this is not normal, this has happend because of drugs. All these factors come together and show the target audience something simillar to what has happend to them or what they have witnessed before at partys. 
Question 3: What kind of media institute might distribute your media project and why?
Our project is no Hollywood masterpiece so we wont need a big film company such as MGM to distribute it. All our project is, is a simple low budget english film so the perfect distributer for this would be Film 4 a low budget english film company. Also because our film is a small low budget piece it wont need to be distributed globally. Flim 4 is linked with channel 4 and the very popular E4 which is a huge hit with the teen's as it brodcast's Skins a popular show within the teen group, making this a perfect institution to distribute our film as would link to our target audience. Film 4 was the distributer for the massive hit slumdog millionaire which recived oscar for its outstanding efforts. Our sequence could be simillar to the bullet boy film distributed by verve pictures again a small distributer, even though it was small it still found great success and made a huge profit. This is why Film4 would be ideal to distribute our opening sequence.
Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media project?
Our target audience would be the Teen group as we are trying to represent a steriotypical teenager from our project. Someone that gets drunk is wild likes to party and take drugs. Taking these factors into consideration we decided to use Jess. She is a 16 year old girl with the style and characterisation to fit the role which we needed. because it was aimed at teens we need to costume to be right so we went for a dress similar to one of topshop which is popular amongst teens therefore given them something to relate to. also the jewellery and makeup used helps the audience relate to this as jewellery is a thing which teens are keen about also they like to use makeup. by using a character simillar to the target audience it helps the audience relate to the character therefore making them more likely to watch and enjoy the film.
Question 5: How did you attract/adress your audience?
To recieve audinece feedback on our opening sequence also to see if our piece was successful enough in appealing and and attracting our taregt audience, we posted our video on facebook. By doing this it allowed us to see what people thought about our video especially our target audience as they gave feedback on what they just saw. From the feedback we got from facebook most of it was very positive with pretty much all of the comments explaing how amazing it was. one thing that was said alot was about the sound effects, saying how well they convey the whole piece to be "trippy". this is what we wanted people to beleive what was happening is real, also another point people put across was about her "state of mind" and how well she portrayed herself actully be on drugs. Again this was great as we wanted people to believe that she had actully taken drugs. We also asked people in our media class and people from other media classes to watch our video and give us views on what they thought was good and bad in our video. A common reaction to the video is "why is she acting like this". Some of the viewers didnt understand and grasp why she was jumping around laughing and so on. So from this feedback we filmed again adding the side shot of jess taking drugs. this answerd to questions of the viewers who didnt understand the first attempt as it made it perfectly clear why she was acting in that strange way. Also we left our filming on a cliff hanger as thisd would encourage viewers to want to watch on as they would be drawn to what was happening.
We handed out questionnaires to people in our targer audience age range to see what they thought about our video, hoping we would recieve some quality feedback.
Question 1: Did you like our opening sequence?
From this question we wanated to find out if people enjoyed the opening sequence. the feedback we recieved was great as 98% said they enjoyed it, this shows that it was popular amongst our target audience. so we must have protrayed the typical teen steriotype well as they could relate to jess and enjoy the opening sequence.
Question 2: What genre would you class our opening sequence?
From this question we were looking to see if we had hit the right genre in our target audiences eyes. From the graph it shows a high majority of our viewers said they believed it was a physcological thriller. obviously to make an effective vthat appeals to your target audience you have to set the right genre. Some people said they thought it was a thriller, but we understand why this has happend. Physcological thriller is a sub genre of thriller so we can understand the misunderstand of this and why it happend.
Question 3: Did you understand the narrative of the opening sequence
We wanted to make the narrative eeasy to understand which would mean making it as clear as we possibly could. from the pie chart it shows that a high percentage of people understood the whole concept of what we were trying to achieve which is poisitive to know.
Question 4: would you continue to watch on?
Everyone we asked said they would want to watch on if it was to continue. we asked them way and most of the responses we recieved was they felt eager on what was going to happen as it left them on the edge of the seat as the opening was soo intense.
Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product
I have learnt a variety of different things about technologies from creating our opening sequence. One thing is the research we did on the internet for example i did some research on genres this helped us decide on a ideal genre to use. Another important thing i learnt is planning about different cameras to use, there are a variety of different types of cameras to use for example sony and panasonic we wanted to use a camera that would give us good visual results not a scruffy dim filming which would ruin the whole sequence. Another thing i have learnt about is the editing software sony vagas, by using this i learnt how to edit the filming we had collected, this is an important factor as it is vital in creating the perfect sequence. Also adding music into the filming is very good at setting the the right scene wether you want a happy or tense scene. By using all these different factors i learnt alot about different kinds of technologies and the importance of them in the media world.
Question 7: Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to full product
From our preliminary task we completed i have learnt many new things, things that have helped the group progress and improve to create a better opening sequence that the preliminary task. One things we did wrong in the preliminary task is that we didnt use a tripod which made the filming more shakey and look un-realsitic, to improve this in the opening sequence we ensured we used a tripod so that filming wasnt shakey or un-realistic. A struggle in the preliminary task was the equipment shortage we had which meant that the filming we got was very late coming and the editing we did wasnt to a high standard as it ws last minute. to avoid this problem in the opening sequence we made sure we go a camera early we did this by using one blaise provided from home. this meant that we had a long time to film and perfect in the editing sector. Also to get 2 minutes of filming rather than 20 seconds was alot harder and also it was harder to plan and edit it as there was more to think about, for example more camera shots, angles, editing, music and sound effects, to think about. this made the whole thing more time consuming and ended up completing the editing in lunch times and frees. In our preliminary task we used a drug dealing scene and for the opening sequence we went for the idea of a girl taking drugs. So we used roughly the same camera shots and angles but for the Opening sequece we used some different ones for example to make jess look more vulnerable.
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