Research for hit me baby one more time

My group decided the roles that everyone would have on the very first week we were given this task because we knew the assignment of roles is a very important part of the process.

Roles:

Joana (me) - choreographer and the role of Britney
Joyce - Director 
Katrina - Camera 
Sephora - Make up artist and hair stylist 
Fernanda - Costumes 

We all chose the roles that we believed we would be able to complete successfully and to the best of our abilities. I decided that i wanted to be the choreographer of the dance routine because I've always done choreography. To do this correctly i watched the video until i picked up the right steps, however i didn't keep in all of the original routine. I used the original dance moves that i thought were good but i also changed and added some of my own routine.
In addition, i had to learn the song as i had to lip-sync since i was playing the role of Britney. 

Joyce immediately wanted to be the director of the video. For her to do this effectively she watched the video many times and took note of many of the camera shots they used in the original video. She also informed us and made us know what we had to do and how to do it correctly.

Katarina also was very fast in deciding to be the camera women, she had to do similar things that Joyce had to do. She watched the video multiple times to get a good idea of the shots she would have to take and figure different ways we could use it to make a different recreation. She also had to make sure that everything was fine with the camera and that we wouldn't go through any problems.

Sephora wanted to do everyone hair and make up, for this she had to be aware of what the characters hair looked like and what sort of make up they were wearing. We wanted to keep some of the make up and hair elements but instead of doing braids like Britney had we wanted pigtails.

Frenanda decided that she wanted to do the costumes. For her to do this she had to check what type of clothes they wore in the video and get us to find similar clothes that we already had at home. She would then tell us what she though would look best for the recreation of the video. 

The story boarding was one of the very first things we did because we decided that i would be good to have it done and ready for us to use and follow. To the story board we watched the video multiple times and decided which camera shots and angles we liked the most and wanted to use. The story board helped us when we were doing he filming because we it guided us.

Since the original video was set in school grounds we also decided to shot our video within the school as well. we shot the video in many different parts of the school because in the real video there were many of scene changes and we wanted to keep that certain element of the video.
The first scene was filmed in a classroom within or school because in the original they are also in a classroom. 

We then filmed in front of the lockers and corridors, this was easy to do because there are so many locker within the school. However we chose these ones in particular because they were set in a wide corridor that would allow us to have space to dance and move around, also it was just outside the classroom we filmed in so it was easier to complete the match on action shot.   

Later on in our music video we filmed in our schools gym because in the original video they also dance and play basketball in the gym. We decided to use the gym because it was the only place that looked similar to the one in the video.

We also did a small part in the corridor outside of the gym. We chose this area because it looked very spacious and similar to some locations that they used in the original video.

Question 2 - Baby one more time video

Analysis of Britney Spears ‘Hit me Baby one more time’. Explain why this is a good 

music video and highlight why it is memorable. Why is it unique?

The video for "Hit me baby one more time" is a iconic video that has proved to one of the biggest 

video in the pop industry. The video came out 15 years ago but it is still talked about today and music 

channels still play the video. This immediately shows that it has been an extremely memorable video. 

Personally i think it's a good video because the song it self is targeted at a teen audience who would 

listen a lot to dance/pop music, this is actually a very big audience to aim at. Since the song had a teen 

feel to it the video obviously had a teenager vibe as well. In the video we see a bunch of young teens 

in school and dancing around, i think this attracted a mainly young girls demographic because teenager 

and young girls enjoy seeing dance videos with easy and simple routines that they can pick up on. 

I also think that the variety of angles and camera shots also make the music video better. Within the 

whole video we see many close ups, medium close ups, long shots and even a birds eye view shot. In 

music video's its very typical to see the close ups and the long shots, however it's very rare that we see 

a birds eye view, especially in the middle of the dance section. I think this made the video unique and 

it also shows it had good camera work.

In addition, the video actually does conform to most of the conventions of music videos but i think that 

what made the music video even better. A typical convention that we see many times in pop/dance 

videos in particular is bright clothing, in "hit me baby one more time" there is bright 

clothing especially the outfits Britney is wearing since she is the main attention. We see Pink, yellow, 

red and white. All of these colors are considered bright and eye catching. I think this may have helped 

the popularity of the video because it makes people want to watch it again. 

Question 1 - Baby one more time video

Explain the re-creation task and your first reaction to it.

The task that we were given was to re-create the video for "baby one more time" by Britney Spears. Even though we had to re-create it my team decided to change a few aspects so it wasn't a exact replica.   we learn the original choreography but we wanted to use some of our own dance moves so that we weren't using the same routine as hers.
In the video she's wearing her school uniform and we decided that we should also be wearing a uniform to show that we are in a school, it also shows that it's a re-creation of the "baby one more time" video.

When i was first give the task i wasn't very excited about it because i never really enjoyed the video but i though it would be interesting to see how it would turn out and i became more happy about doing the task because the idea grew on me.

Hit me baby one more time

This is our Britney Spear music video re-creation. Click the link below to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=796hYmYmoTU&feature=autoshare

Great Music Video

For this task i have been assigned to choose a music video that i think is very good. The music video i chose was "This is Gospel" by panic at the disco. I chose this video because i had seen it before when i first came out and i was instantly captivated by the video. I think the camera work they did in this music video is outstanding and very difficult to achieve. Throughout the whole video there are parts that are filmed in one shot, for example from the beginning of the video to 0.42 seconds it's all filmed in one whole shot. For me this is very impressive because of all the action that was taking part in that scene. I also think that the visuals in the video are outstanding, it can be very difficult to create such great visuals that match some of the song lyrics, so i think that they did a great job at doing that. I believe this video is an example of a great video.

Evaluation question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

The Unique Selling Point (USP) of my film, is that even though Horror films are extremely popular we added another Genre in the film. We added a bit of fantasy. However, these films aren't the usual types of films that are screened on cinemas. Cinemas like to show comedy films like 21 jump street, they also like to screen romance films such as Dear John. They also enjoy showing horror films like the cabin in the woods.Horror films are a very popular and cinemas like to screen them because of the vast amount of audiences that they attract. However, "Ever after" isn't just horror, it includes fantasy. This isn't a very popular mix because their isn't huge amounts of films that include both. Films that are horror/fantasy aren't films that you see many times in cinemas because they aren't as popular as the other genres. Even though it's a mixture of genres that's underrated i believe that "Ever after" will be successful and will bring big audiences to the cinema. I think this because of Pans Labyrinth, it was a film that included most elements that "Ever after" has. This film was a huge success because of the strange range of genres. Many people enjoy watching horror films like sinister and the shining. There are other people who enjoy fantasy and magic films like Harry potter and the Hogfather. Even though they are both popular genres individually think they go very well together and it's a shame that there aren't many films which contain both. Due to the big audiences of both genres i think our film will be successful at cinema because it will attract audiences from both genres. 

This is the first time we see the characters. I think this shot will immediately attract the audience, especially the ones who enjoy horror films because this is a typical shot that many people use. This shot will get their attention because they know that in other horror film,this shot suggests that the characters are either in danger or they are being watched. In our film that wasn't the case, no one was actually watching them but we wanted the audience to sense that they were in danger from the start of the film. 

In the image below is the close up that allows us to see the children for the first time. In many horror films children are used to go against the stereotype that children are kind and innocent. In films like the ring and Halloween we see that children aren't always that sweet, in fact they are seen as evil and dangerous in horror films. We didn't want the audience to get that view of the children so we made them fit the stereotype that children are innocent and aren't evil. we made them seem innocent by the colors that they are wearing and their surroundings. The colors that they are wearing are the typical colors that you expect children to wear, also their surrounding are pale and delicate. we did this purposely to show that they weren't the villains.

  

I think this shot is extremely important because it is the biggest hint that the book is the reason that they will go through difficulties. A few scenes later we see them when they are older and we see that happens to them. Many films are based off a book or even other movies, ours however is a idea that has never been explored so i think it will make intrigue the audience. the point of this shot is to highlight to the audience that this book is the beginning of all their problems, the fact that their children suggests that they are naive and they weren't aware that this book wasn't meant to be read. Once they read the book they were cursed and their lives become what happens in the book which includes a killer. through out the film people should start to notice that the reason behind these multiple killings is the book and it's curse.

Ever after - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8dizwMSLDQ

Evaluation question 3

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

Our film is called 'Ever After' and it is a low budget British film. Due to the fact that it is so low budget we decided to do it's first screening at a small film festival. After a while of me and my peer decided that we would want to show it at 'Leeds Young Film Festival'. The "Leeds Young Festival" is widely know for promoting independent films that are made in the UK. This is the first step we want to make, we want to see the audiences reaction to "Ever after" and if they like it we're hoping that it will possibly be screened at small, local cinemas such as Clapham Picture House and the Ritzy. 

     












In addition, we're also hoping that "Ever after" will be screened at bigger cinemas such as the Odeon and Vue. After the official screenings we expect to make DVD and Blue-ray copies, which would be sold at stores such as: HMV, WHSmith and other stores which will want our film on display. By turning the film into DVD and Blue-ray were giving our audience another way to watch the film at home. We would also contact DVD renting stores so that we could place "Ever after" for rent in shops such as blockbuster. 
We expect "Ever after" to also be available to watch legally online, this would be achieved by asking movie websites such as :Netflix and LoveFilm to place our film on their on their website so that people could watch it by paying the subscription to have memberships for those websites. The fact that it's on these websites means that people from other counties will have a biggest access to watch our film, meaning that we will achieve a international audience outside of the UK.

Our production company "Rubix Productions" would search for a popular and good distributor such as the Warner Bros. This because they have distributed films that have the same genre that "ever after" is, those films have all been successful so we think that they would help us get our film to the right audiences. Our genre mixes Horror with fantasy, this is a mixture that not many people have attempted but the films that do include these two genres have all been very successful and interesting

Personally i think that "Ever after" has the potential to be a great film and i believe it deserves to be screened, i think the audience will enjoy the film because you'll need to work your imagination to try to discover who is killing all these people and how it all started. 

Evaluation question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

From this shot we see two of the main characters of the intro of my horror film. Just from this shot we already know that they are middle class characters and even though they are young they have education   due to the fact that they are both reading a book, this shows to us that they are going to school and that they are actually motivated to learn out side of school.
Their surroundings again show that they and their parents are middle class characters, this is shown because the house is what a typical middle class house would look like.
We liked the idea of using children to portray innocence. Also we through it was a different portrayal of children in horror film because normally they are seen as creepy or abnormal, we wanted them to seem like any normal child and to show that they were the victims and not the villains.  

Evaluation question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is Jessica Johnson. She is 16 years and lives in Central London. She Likes to wear normal and causal clothes which usually involves Jeans and a top. In her free time she enjoys to listen to music and having long movie with her friends.

She likes to shop in places like New Look and H&M and Topshop. She occasionally goes to thrift shops. 

Her favourite film genre is horror, due to this she enjoys movies like: The shining,  The Conjuring, Saw and Pan's Labyrinth. Even though she enjoys horror she also like chick flicks like: Mean girls, clueless and She's the man.

She would watch Tv shows such as American Horror Story, Supernatural, dexter, family guy and The Walking Dead.

The type of music she would listen to would be mainly punk rock, however she does listen to mainstream pop from time to time. She usually only listens to music on her phone or computer, but if she's in the car with her family they tend to listen to the radio stations like capital and magic.   

I think our film would appeal to this girl because she obviously enjoys watching shows and films that contain horror, mystery and a but of fantasy/magic . Our horror film includes all of these aspects so i think she would enjoy watching it. 

Evaluation question 1

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

In the first image you see the title of our horror film introduction, we decided to use this type of font due to the fact that it is a common style of font that you would typically see in a horror film introduction. Even tough it is a typical font you can see that instead of using a black screen we decided to put it over our setting, this is something that you will see sometimes in horror film because usually the title is on a black screen to make a bit more suspense. So by using it in this way we are going against the convention. 

The second image shows the second setting of the our horror film intro. Both me and my partner believe that this is confirming the conventions due to the fact that it's a isolated park, this is a setting that you would expect tot see in a horror film because it's a good location to use. The only thing that goes against the conventions is the fact that we didn't film when it was darker, we did this on purpose to show they would be lost for quite a while and then they would get killed closer to night time.

In the third image we see the little girls in their costumes, we decided to let them use their colorful pajamas to portray the innocence in the characters. Straight away we know that they are the victims we just don't know how they are going to die. This once again matches the conventions because the light and soft colors show that they are the victims.

The fourth picture shows the camera angles that we used through out the horror film intro. I really liked this shot because it shows their surroundings. You can see that most of the colors are soft and pale. this gives us a sense that they are safe in their house but it also keeps us on edge because we know something bad is going to happen. This shot actually goes against typical horror film conventions because you don't usually expect to see light and pale colors in a horror film, you expect to see dark.

The fifth image shows a part of the title sequence, me and my peer believe that this goes against conventions in a way because we used a black screen. Many horror film title sequences show the surroundings and have the writing on the screen but we didn't want to do that. However, it also conforms to the conventions because the font is something that shows up in many horror film.

The sixth photo shows the story line. This because it has all the things that set up the story. We have the girls and the book, just because of this we know that something evolving the book is going to happen to the girls. This conforms to horror film conventions because in many horror film characters find things through book and its a very popular prop that many horror films use.

The seventh image highlights the genre of the film. It's made apparent that its a horror film through the colors used. The villains in horror films usually wear dark colors to show that they are the person who should be feared, in this image the villain is wearing black which goes with the conventions of horror films. The victims are wearing red which usually symbioses danger in horror films, the clothing that they are wearing instantly lets us know that they are in danger and they are the victims.

The eighth picture is the very first time we see the characters, that how they were introduced. The characters are at their house, even though they are in the house the fact that were seeing them through a window makes them seem vulnerable. This is because this type of shot is very common in horror films, it's usually used to show danger. We used this shot for that reason so that conforms to the horror film conventions.

The last picture is the special effects we used, we liked the use of the transition and cross dissolve because it shows the contrast of the characters and the surrounding they are in. Transitions and cross dissolves are used quite alot in horror films so this goes with the horror film conventions    

Evaluation question 6

Evaluation question 7

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


From looking back at my previous work and my current work me and my peer noticed that we had used very similar shots in both works. We used this as an advantage to show the process that we made between shooting both works. When we made our preliminary task we had only just learnt different shots types and angles, so when we filmed our horror film intro we had more knowledge and understanding of the media topic which allowed us to use a bigger variety of angles.

Final Cut (Everafter)

This is the Final cut of me and my partners horror film intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8dizwMSLDQ  <--- By clicking on this link you will be directed to the final cut of my Horror film intro.

Overall, me and my peer had a good experience whilst filming our horror film intro. Before we filmed we made sure that everyone evolved would be able to come on time. In the first part you see two little girls, we didn't face any problems with them because they were both very dedicated and motivated. They came on time and they didn't disappoint us. Due to the fact that they were so committed we were able film the first section in only one evening. That was a good shoot since we were able to film everything without encountering problems.

However, the second part was a bit more challenging. we had to change locations and we had to film twice. these were the few problems during the filming but we were able to solve these problems without great difficulty. To fix these issues we changed the location of the park were we filmed, the first time we were very isolated, this caused the camera to not pick up much light and we could not see the image on the screen. To overcome this, we went to a different park which wasn't as dark. This meant that we had to re-film the scene on two different days. The first time we filmed we realized that it was way too dark and even with the lighting we weren't being seen on the camera. The second time we filmed we decided to film it earlier so that we wouldn't have to face the same problems we had previously had, by doing this we were able to get clear images.

BBFC

For me and my Parter to determine the classification For our Horror Film, we decided to check the BFFC website and check which classification field fit in best with our film. After going through the classification fields we decided that our horror film should be rated 15.
We this because are film will contain aspects that fit in with the classification field "15". These aspects are : Strong violence, Frequent strong language (Eg: F***) and Discriminatory language or behaviour.

To find out more about the classification field for "15", click here: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/15

Feed back (Rough Cut 2)

This week me and my partner showed our class our second rough Cut of our horror film introduction. We got plenty of good feedback from our class mates but we also have a few points to work on.

WWW: From the feedback we got we noticed that many people liked the sound/music that we put since it fitted well with the titles and with the rest of the introduction. Another of my peers also commented that it was a very good choice of non diegetic sound because it was quite spooky but it also had a sense of magic, which is one of the themes of our introduction.
According to one of my class mates our introduction looked very professional, they also added that the font we utilised for the titles looked like something that you would see in a actual horror film.
In between titles we used black screens, this seemed to please many of my class mates since they mentioned that it helped to smooth out of transitions. Also, it helped to show that the camera was moving closer to the house.
One of our class mates really liked the effect that we used in for the fonts, she realised that the effect looked like a piece of a rubix cube. This was done by us purposely so that it did fit in the name of our production company which is called "Rubix Productions"

EBI: Apart from all the positive comments, we received some constuctive critisim which will help us to make our introduction even better. From the feedback we got told that we should consider making the black screens fade in and out so that it doesn't look so jumpy. To do this we have to go back to our editing system and make that black screens fade in and out.
We were also told that we should make the music a bit lower when the girls are talking so that the music doesn't obstruct the voices.

Click here to watch : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJSGEl2NTrw&safe=active       

Timeline

Last lesson we watched 2 different opening title sequences from the films: Seven and The Conjuring.
Whilst the Title sequences were running we created two timelines and they both show when at what times different titles appear on the screen. This gave us a solid idea of when and where to place out own information for our own films.

Seven:











The Conjuring:

Feedback (rough cut)

Last week me and my partner presented to our class our rough cut of our Horror movie introduction. After presenting we received all the comments from the other pupils in our class.
Most of the feedback we got was positive. However we do have areas which we need to work and focus in making better.

Positive: Someone in our class said that the camera angles were used successfully and clearly, the story was very clear to understand. Another pupil stated that the non-ambient music we used in the background fit in well with the scenes and made the meaning of the introduction clearer. Other people also enjoyed the background music as they stated "the sound of the music fitted well with each scene and helped set the atmosphere of the weather", "Sound was used very carefully to fit in the scenes and the weather made it look really interesting". 

Other people said that they really enjoyed the Mise-en-scene because it "was very good; the girls in the pajamas and bright lighting in the house created a very homey feel."

Another student commented that we used a good variety of camera angles and that they were used effectively, they also said that they like the long shot of the house because i instantly sets the scene. 

A different student also said that the sound, camera angles and lightning were used very well, she also stated that "I like the wind blowing, it makes it look like there is something magical upon them".

Negative: We didn't receive to many constructive criticism because many students didn't really know what we could work on. However we did get a comment which is that we should work on some of the transitions in the beginning of the intro. To do this me and my partner will go back to the editing system and make the transitions a bit smoother.