Evaluation of my AS Film Opening

1. E V A L U A T I O N
M I K A E L A R U D D E L L
Media Film Opening

2. The Film Opening
This is a brief synopsis of the film opening;

3. Analysing Film Openings
At the beginning of the process we each analysed different film openings so we got
an idea of what an opening scene looks like as well as technical points such as;
who to put in the titles and how many titles to include? This was really useful
because we were then able to draw ideas from different openings but obviously
include original ideas of our own. The first film opening I analysed was The
Notebook. This gave us ideas on how to convey romance in an opening scene with
romantic colours and the establishing shots of the scene. Because our film opening
also had to include elements of comedy, this is why our opening is a bit less
mature than the average romantic film. This is also because of the target audience
we are aiming to entertain.

4. Social Groups Within the Film Opening
 Without meaning to, we have included stereotypes into our opening scene. In the
classroom scene, we have reflected the people in the back of the classroom as trouble
makers and the people in the front as quiet and getting along with their work. This could
be seen as a typical classroom setup due to the social classes of the characters.
 The film also represents young people’s partying lifestyle.
 Challenging the stereotype that the geek in a film is always perceived as ugly, we
purposely created our protagonist with the intention that she is a pretty young woman.
We decided to go against the ‘ugly’ stereotype because we wanted to make the film more
romantic. We also thought that it would appeal more the target audience age because
boys are much more likely to watch a romantic comedy when there’s an attractive lady
acting as the leading character.

5. Ardleigh Media
We decided to put our film under the production company; Ardleigh Media. This is because
it’s a small English company based in Essex England. We think our film with all English fits
better with an English
production company. Also,
Ardleigh Media is a
small company and
we think this is better
for our Film Opening
beings it would be our
debut film.

6. The Audience
The target audience of our media product is women in the age range of 15-40
years old. We wanted to try and make our audience as wide as possible but we
know that the genre particularly
appeals to the women audience.
Because of the teenagers in the film,
this may be aimed more at the
younger years of the age range but
we aimed for the older years to
still enjoy the film.

7. Survey Monkey
In order to get to know our audience, we decided to
create a questionnaire on Survey Monkey. This attracted
our audience and made them feel involved within the
creation of the film. This also allowed us to get feedback
on the story line we had created as well as the genre itself.
This way, we knew exactly what they wanted to see within
the film. As stated on my blog, we discovered that our
audience would have preferred to see a bisexual relation –
ship. Maybe if we made another romantic comedy this
would be something to think about.

8. Twitter and Instagram
We also used Twitter and Instagram to connect with out audience. We used Twitter to ask our followers
what we think we should call the characters in the film. We had some great responses which I posted on
my blog. Twitter also came in handy when we had to contact Martin Garrix to ask him if we could use his
music in our production. It was so quick and easy to contact the people we were looking for and our
audience. We also used Instagram to keep our audience updated with the film opening. We posted
pictures of the filming process keeping the audience involved in the creation of the film opening. I think
this would have worked even better if we were making a full film because it increased the suspense to the
first showing of the opening scene.

9. Technologies
Taking media and being involved in the making of this film opening has made me realise how important media is in our lives. We
mainly used iMessage and e-mail to communicate as a group. It was so useful that we all had apple technologies so we were able
to have a group message where we were all able to keep in regular contact even in the school holidays.
Also during the process I learnt so much about the program iMovie. I’m fully confident with all aspects of the program and I’m so
glad that I now know how to use it. However; there is still room for growth; a lot more to improve on and a lot more to learn.
Camera angles were so important in the film. The preliminary task was so useful in learning the 180 degree rule . We tried our
hardest not to break this during the movie.
Computers can be so unreliable. However, the growing world of technology means that even though they are unreliable, we are
going to rely on them more and more as time goes on. This means that it’s so important that we had back up plans if the files
were lost. Unfortunately this happened to one of the people in my group during the process; Vikki. Luckily some information was
recovered but sadly not all.

10. Preliminary Task
It’s so good to think how far I have come along in my media skills just because of the small
amount of practise I’ve had. The footage of our preliminary task shows how far we’ve
progressed due to almost breaking the rule. Doing the media film opening has allowed me to
learn so much about editing with continuity and the 180 degree rule.

11. Conclusion
In conclusion I believe that our film opening showed off the skills
we have learnt. The most helpful thing I did in the process was
researching the film openings at the beginning because it gave me
such a wide range of ideas to go from. I’m glad we decided to do a
romantic comedy because it meant we were able to produce a good
film, which was completely in budget. If we did decided to create a
horror then this would have been harder to create something that’s
more original. I think we all worked well together as a group and I
believe we made a strong film opening.