Evaluation of preliminary project: video production

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

As this was our first piece of video production i feel that it challenged many of the conventions of real media products. Firstly we have not been conventional with our framing - we have alot of dead space above and around the talent in almost all the shots suggesting we have not stuck to the 'ruleof thirds'. Also our eyeline between the two talents is not matching and some of the cuts are obvious and 'jump'. All these non-conventional features make the piece look scruffy and not as slick as we'd like. This has a negative effect on the audience as they can pick out faults quite easily which we did not realise when filimg and editing, but will know for next time how to improve on these points.
However we did use the continuity editing techniques of the 180 degree rule, match on action cuts and the rule of thirds which made the piece flow much more than it would have done without them.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
  

Our product is representational of teenagers in the way that the talents are talking like they would in everyday conversation, also the fact that they are situated sat on a bed may suggest the laid back, friendly approach that many teenagers take. This is a dominant representation as this is how teenage life is viewd by most people - meeting up with a friend and having a casual converstion.

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

I think that a suitable distributor of this would be channel 4. This is because, as i explained, there is many broken conventions of media in our piece and channel 4 programmes often do not stick to the norms of media as strictley as other channels, like channel 1 or 2, do. This maybe because they want to be a little bit different or appeal to a young, modern audience - which is also fitting for our product.

• Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

I think that an appropriate audience for our product would be, in regards to social values, hedonistis and age - teenagers roughly aged 16-18. As they are open to different things and, as i said before, we often break alot of the rules and conventions of real media. This means it may appeal to these groups, as it's a bit different to what they are used to seeing.

• How did you attract/adress your audience?

We used a variety of techniques. We used talents that are the same age range as the target audience which may attract them as it is easier to relate and listen to. Also we used some unconventional media techniques which may appeal to a younger, modern audience that are open to different ideas and a variety of images, not like traditionalists that would not like a change in the forms and conventions of filming.

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I felt i have learnt alot from this project as i had never used any of the softwear before. We used adobe premiere pro 2, which was new to me but now i am much more comfortable with using it and would happily use it again for editing, but this time it would be a much quicker process as i now know what i'm doing and know to name clips carefully. This is one problem we had - the clip names weren't clear enough making them hard to find.

We also used the video cameras with a tripod. This was also new to me but when shown how to work it it came quite easily. When putting the shots we had together we noticed that the eyelines didn't match up and it was quite obvious. We could resolve this by putting something on the wall either side of each talent at the same point for them to look at, so when put the shots together their eyelines match up. Another problem we found was that we left alot of dead space above and around the talents head, but this could easily be resolved by going in closer and filling the frame with the talents head, but still sticking to tyhe rule of thirds.