Assesment 1A - D.I.R.T

TV Dramas

Young Minds Evaluation

Our task was to create an advert about a charity to help teenage issues. We decided to have the main issue as depression. Our target audience was mainly aimed at teenagers. The email address is featured so teenagers who need the help can actually gain it. However, it could be aimed at adults because they can help teenagers and also look out for those who might need the help. We looked at multiple adverts online to get an idea of how to create it. These days, there are many things affecting many different people so we chose a well-known issue to help promote our charity. We chose the name Young Minds. It is already a charity and we thought it goes well with our concept.

1)  Once being put into groups we were happily given the topic 'Teen issues". From this started point we initially thought of bullying and depression, soon after researching the "young mind" advert we took inspiration from that at extended the idea of 'depression' further. Our main target audience were high school kids struggling with loneliness, feeling unwanted and worthless, an issue that has massively spread across the world. By creating a youtube video we knew this would be the best way to attract our audience, in our video we wanted to show the same perspective that sense of feeling alone and not fitting in. We decided by creating young minds it would make us feel closer to the target audience and make them feel more connected to our story, all in hope to make them feel comfortable to come and receive help from our charity 'Young Minds". 

2) Who did you work with and how did you divide the research, planning, filming and responsibilities?
In my group was Josh Spencer, Harriet Putt and Emily Benham. In our planning, we gave out different roles to our team. A few examples are editor, cameraman and actors as well as other small jobs such as getting props and making a filming schedule. By giving each other a role, we were able to divide the research work. This meant each member of our group were responsible for at least one feature, getting everyone involved. For filming, we had one main cameraman and the rest of the group added in opinions and ideas to get the best shot for the scenes.

3) How did you plan your sequence?
We planned our sequence by looking at different charity adverts and we took inspiration from them. We made our advert black and white to reinforce the emotion that the advert is meant to give out. We planned our shots according to what places were available to us, so the classroom scene was filmed when there were people in the media room to contribute as actors. We used canted shots, close ups and tracking shots to create a direction, connection and power with the main actor and message.

4) What research and planning did you undertake?

We researched three other similar existing adverts for similar topics, depression and mental health, and took some ideas on how to piece together an advert raising awareness for a real life problem that affects so many. With these three videos we evaluated them to see the good effective parts and what could be improved. As well as this we created a storyboard to see how the different scenes would look when pieced together and if we could put the scenes in a different order to improve the video.

6) Identify what went well and with hindsight what you do to improve/ do differently.
The whole idea of our video worked well with our project of a charity for teen issues. Also, the black and white effect sets the mood and our actress played the part well and was very convincing. Next time, our group could do more scenes is a range of places. This would allow more people to relate to this message instead of just teenagers suffering at school. 

7) What have you learnt from completing this task? 
What we have learnt is how to compromise and communicate our ideas which allowed us to discuss them when we had free periods to film and when we were available to edit the footage. Also, we learnt how we should film each scene as each of us gave our own ideas to each other and we gave one another the opportunity to experiment with different shots.

8) Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing your future productions?

This production will teach me that the effects you put onto your project is very important as it can completely change the personality of the advert alongside the music which changes the whole aspect of the performance. As well as this the different camera angles and shots can create a dramatic effect amongst the audience. Also, for future projects I will know to set roles for each of my group so the work is evenly set out and everyone gets to be involved. 

Young Minds Plan

Name- Young Minds

Main Theme- Depression

Music- Sam Smith, Too Good At Goodbyes

Roles- Harriet Putt: Main Actor/ Editor

           Josh Spence: Director

           Emily Benham: Props

           Abby Bezant: Camera/ Editor

Props- School Equipment (eg pen, paper, books)

Costumes- Casual clothes, school bag

Research- Planning for young minds teen awareness video 

NSPCC- Audience: advertising to young children to call NSPCC when in need. 
                Language: Emotive- persuasive language 
                Representation:  A young child coming home from school, with close up of her calling the charity.

Childline- Call center (2005, UK) 
Audience-pursuading adults and and watchers to donate and ensure alls in need can                be answered.
                   Language- emotive- persuasive language. 
                   Representation- How so many individuals are suffering and are calling child line for help, we heard and see their stories and they use many effects to make it more emotional. 

Sabrina Benaim- "explaining my depression to my mother"- 
                    Audience- carers and parents to listen to their kids and understand the way they are feeling. 
                    Language - very emotive, speech, 
                  Representation - how many people are feeling the same emotion as her yet they all  feel alone, they want people to understand and help.  

Storyboard

Shot 1: A girl sitting on a table - people laughing around her - in lesson. Black and white.
Shot 2: She opens door to the corridor.
Shot 3: She's walking forward, everyone starts walking towards her.
Shot 4: Focus just on her alone in the corridor - long shot.
Shot 5: Phone the help line number - close up of her typing phone number into phone.
Shot 6: Close up - crying.
Shot 7: Closes the door - colour, charity name across the screen.

DR CAGES homework

Disability
Regionalism

Class
Age
Gender
Ethnicity
Sexuality

Gender: Women would be stereotyped as wearing skirts and dresses and wear make up, jewellery and wear heels.

 

 

 

 

This piece of media emphasises the idea that women are not as strong as men and also shows the idea they wear make-up and they always have nice appearances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The song Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke has a music video that shows women as less than men. They wear less clothing and wear red lipstick and make-up. It is as if the women are being used as objects.

 

 

In suicide Squad there is only one girl in the main characters and she is dressed in little clothing as well.

 

Countertypical Media Text:



 

 

Mise En Scene Tasks

Task 1- What settings/ props would you find in:

• A Sci-Fi Film;

Settings: Space, Spaceships, planets, time travel
Props: New technology

• A RomCom

Settings: Houses, parks, holiday destinations, cafes
Props: chocolates, rings, flowers, red items

• A Horror Film

Settings: Old houses, graveyards, lake houses, forests
Props: Guns, weapons, candles, Ouija boards,

Task 2- What meanings/ emotions do the following images convey:

The man on the left looks deep in thoughts and also, as he is close to the camera, it shows it is an important expression contributing to the atmosphere of this scene. The man on the right looks anxious and worried, and these two expressions combined makes the scene feel as if something is wrong.

In this scene, the man holding the phone looks worried and therefore gives off a sense of worry about this scene. The man on the left is listening on with a curious look on his face which shows he is also worried.

The man centred in this pictured looks of higher authority, and his body language is confident as well as his facial expression. The others surrounding him look panicked and are shown as inferior to the main man.

Task 3- What does the positioning in the following images reveal about the characters/ films:

 In this image, the characters are set apart which shows there is some tension between the characters. Also, the actress has her arms crossed which is a body language feature of anger. The man in this scene also looks guilty which suggests he did something wrong and the woman is angry with him.

The axe in this scene is stuck in the wood. Axes are usually heavy and would have to have been under a big force for it to get stuck in a block of wood. Therefore, it suggests that a fight may have gone on and the axe has been used as a weapon.

In this scene, the two men are wearing matching outfits which suggests they are part of the same team or working together. Also, their weapons do not look like the usual gun or weapon and as it is in a bright silver colour, it could show that the film is sci-fi.

The planet in the background emphasises the idea that this film is sci-fi and set in space. Also, the character in the middle of the image is bigger and is above the other characters, which shows he is the main character. Also, the background is dark which could represent the stratosphere.

Task 4- What types of lighting are used in the images:

A) High key lighting
B) Low key lighting
C) High key lighting
D) Low key lighting
E) Low key lighting
F) High key lighting

Psycho-graphic Profiling

Psycho-graphic Profiling:

Main streamers:

Aspirers-Seek status, materialistic, oriented to image and appearance, typically young. 

Succeeders- Seek control, strong goals, confidence, typically higher management and professionals. 

Resigned- Seek survival, interested in past and tradition, typically older people. 

Explorers- Seek discoveries, energy, individualism and experience, typically higher demographics (students).

Struggles- Seek escape, alienated and disorganised, buy alcohol, junk, typically lower demographics. 

Reformers- Seeks enlightenment, freedom, personal growth, independent, anti-materialistic but aware of good taste.

Camera Angles

 

 

Club Advert Remake

1) I worked with Molly, Jack and Oakley and we were all in the video and took it in turns to video others. We all worked well to get props and make each scene as good as it could be.

2) To plan our sequence, we all thought about the props available each day and filmed those scenes before we filmed the rest.

3) The theories and theorists that could be included in this remake is Albert Bandura and Media Effects. This is because the theory is the idea that media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly and that the idea that media representations of transgressive behaviour, such as violence/ physical aggression, can lead audience members to intimidate those forms of behaviour. This can be seen in our video because the Club Bar gives the viewer the idea that everyone becomes happier and active with the chocolate bar.

4)Whilst filming our remake, we took camera angles into consideration and also settings. This is because we wanted to get our version as similar as possible to the original. Also, we had to take into account that some of the shots weren't perfect and we had to work with it to make it as accurate as possible.

5) Our sequence worked out very well. Our timings were in sync with the original video and we edited it to the precise moments. Although it all went well, it would have been better if, in some scenes, took more attention to detail. For example, in the shot where the baseball lands on the boys foot, our actor came in from the wrong side of the shot.

6) Others enjoyed my production and thought it was close to the original.

7) From completing this task, I have learnt that camera angles make a big difference to the videos. Also, that settings should be taken into account as well as outfits and props.

8) For future productions it has helped massively. This is because I know what could have been improved ( fro example precision of the scenes) and will be able to take these into account with my next projects.