A2 Short Film January 2010 - Genie

This is our final product for our A2 coursework, a 5 minute film, of which we named "Genie." After all of the hard work and effort we put into producing this media text I'm happy with the way it looks. After projecting the final piece to an audience and watching it for the first time after post production, we received a lot of positive feedback and numerous people commented on how well our film turned out. With a huge comparison to Disney's "Aladdin" it appears that the tremendous efforts put into this has paid off and "Genie" seems to be a film that everyone has enjoyed. We managed to use and develop ideas from other films and were also able to challenge specific stereotypes and characters. It's a very touching, sweet and simple story that has been filmed in a way which arises emotions and feelings within the audience and I'm proud of the final product. If you would like to view a full evaluation of the film please direct yourself towards the labels and select any of the 'Evaluation' pages.

Please, enjoy the film!

AS Opening Sequence 2009 - Tam and Cam

Question 4 - Final Draft

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

As opposed to using log books, like last year, we were introduced to http://www.blogger.com/ where we would be using blogs to display every step of our A2 coursework. This allowed us to be more creative and personal within the way that we presented our work and use of layouts and images could be included, we could relate the look of our own individual blogs to the 'world of our film.' It also created familiarity for us as students, we use the internet on a regular basis within our own time on websites such as www.facebook.com, www.myspace.com etc, so we were already accustomed to the basic settings of blogger.com. The fact that it works through the internet meant that we could access it at any time and in any place, whether it was at home or within school. This meant we had more time to do work as we weren't restricted to one location where the work could be completed. The blog's gave us the opportunity to communicate with other people, both in and out of our own groups, and provide comments and suggestions towards their work. It also meant we could access each others blogs, through our department blog - Barking Abbey Media department and see what other class mates had done that could perhaps inspire us and give ideas. The department blog was also a way of distributing our work to us as we could check it frequently and complete any work that was posted on the wall under 'Year 13'. This meant even if we were absent for any reason we wouldn't fall behind on too much work because it would be available to us on the blog. We were also using a new editing software, instead of Avid which we were familiar with from AS, we were now using Premier which was a lot better than our original software. There were different transitions and effects that we could interpret into our work and the programme was a lot easier to comprehend and I became familiar with how it worked within a few hours. The use of the new effects allowed us to create different atmospheres within our scenes, such as passing of time, change of activity etc... The digital technology we use today to edit our films allows us to use non linear editing which means we don't have to edit in the order that we film. We are able to import and upload film onto a computer and edit in which ever order we prefer so chopping shots has become a lot easier and faster.
The internet was a huge aspect of our coursework as we were regularly using it for all kinds of reasons. Due to us having blogs that were accessible to everyone via the internet we frequently accssesed them to receive feedback from other class mates. We were also able to post comments through the internet which allowed easy communication and a simple way to provide suggestions and ideas towards people's work. Through internet we were also able to use emails to contact people with information. We were able to send teachers emails informing them of any students that would be missing lessons etc, which allowed us to be time efficient, preventing us from wasting time trying to find teachers that weren't available. In the same sense we were able to email cast members with information concerning rehearsals, auditions and filming times. So technology assisted us regarding communication, it was a quick and efficient way to contact people with any neccessary information. During research and planning we used the internet to find images and clips that related to our work so it made sources of information available to us with easy accsess. If we weren't able to access the internet researching would have been a lot more time consuming and tasks would have taken longer to complete. Where we were able to simply use www.youtube.com to find videos and clips from films we would have had to actually watch films in cinemas, on dvd's etc and it would have taken us more time to do this and we would have been restricted as to where this could be done. Therefore technology provided us with simple and effective ways to complete tasks and benefitted us hugely.
Another software we used was Adobe Photoshop which I used to create the posters for our film. Although it's not professional equipment we were able to create posters of good quality that didn't look too far from real film posters. The programme allowed us to copy and paste images into the document and add effects, layers etc which improved the overall look of our posters. There was also software that could be imported through Photoshop that provided things such as new brushes that weren't available on the original programme. Therefore with a convergance of the internet and Photoshop I was able to create our film posters. As opposed to programmes such as Microsoft Paint, Adobe Photoshop provided us with the software we needed to create an imitation of a real film poster.
As well as computers we used filming equipment such as cameras and sound booms which also aided our coursework. We were already familiar with the equipment as we had previously used them in our AS course, but this year we had been introduced to new techniques and effects that we could interpret into our work. The equipment we used allowed us to have portability, the Canon camera that we used for filming doesn't require a huge crew which made moving around a lot easier which ultimately made filming quicker and more time efficient. The equipment isn't very complex to comprehend and learning the controls and buttons didn't take very long, this is because the digital revolution has made using cameras a lot easier and simple. It's also allowed people to be more creative because they don't have to be a professional camera user to be able to use one, the digital technology that we have available to us has meant that anyone can make a film and distribute it.
Due to the easy accessibility of technology we were able to do a lot of things that weren't neccessarily possible a few years ago. The internet and things such as firewire leads and usb cables enabled us to create a film, edit it and publish it on the internet for our audience to see so digital technology assisted us with the construction, marketing and distribution of our film and as students we were able to create a real short film. The technology available to us is considered universal, the technologies all converge with each other and provide new and creative ways of doing things, in relation to films it allows us to make them without the need to be a professional director or film maker.

Question 3 - Final Draft

3.What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Audience feedback has proved to be an essential part of pre-production, production itself and post production. During the initial stages of pre-production we received feedback on our pitch, which was the starting point of our films. After pitching our first ideas for a story we were informed there was a lack of logical causality, character development/motivation and there were a lot of random elements within the story. We were also told that our film needed young cast members as opposed to our original cast who were sixth formers as we were dealing with fantasy and imagination which is usually targeted at young children. There were also issues with the length of our pitch, the story was far too long and there were a lot of complications within the storyline which prevented any narrative development. However we were told that the idea of a genie was quite interesting and different and it related to our colour, gold. After listening and considering all of the feedback we were presented we realised that we were creating our story without contemplating what it will involve to make the film. We were creating a lot of work for ourselves and our story was missing essential components so we decided to approach the pitch quite differently compared to our original idea.
- We stuck to the idea of a genie as people said our story had a "fairy-tale feel" and felt almost like "Cinderella" which we thought effective. However we tried to create a simpler story and we finally agreed on the simple idea of - Boy likes girl - Genie appears and helps - He ends up falling for genie. We then built the details around this simple idea and eventually arrived at the pitch we used for the film. We minimised the cast by removing the bullies and teachers as we were told during feedback that it will become difficult trying to manage large numbers of cast. We also found younger actors to suit the target audience of our film. Since there was a lot of people informing us that there was "excessive randomness" within our story we aimed to cut this down by finding a way to bring in the gold lamp that wasn't random. This is where the idea of the poster "Aladdin rehearsals" was introduced and it was a way that allowed us to bring in the genie action to our film without it being random. We also created a relationship between Luke and Genie because feedback told us that "it's random why she decides to grant him the final wish, why does she care?". Therefore by creating a relationship we were able to create a lot of emotions and feelings within our story which then determined what the themes of our film were. This relationship also meant there was character motivation and development apparent within our film as the characters were in a different position at the end compared with the beginning. This was quite popular with the audience as they liked the fact that the two characters got together. We also changed Luke having 3 wishes to him only having 1, which meant we could cut down the length of the film and also meant we had something to base the action around - the climax of the film would be when he makes his wish. By changing the narrative, according to audience feedback, we were able to create a story with emotion and one that would have the audience emotionally engaged. Audience feedback proved to be vital as we would have created a less effective story that would have been extremely long and complicated, creating problems for us during filming with the constant setting changes, and ultimately causing a negative response from our audience.
Once we confirmed our pitch we moved on to the storyboard and script. Again, we received numerous amounts of feedback before we finally settled on our final paperwork. The storyboard was almost fine except for the important fact that it was lacking in cutaway shots. Cutaway shots are used to show the audience what is going on around the action rather than staying focused on one part of the action which would eventually become boring and long winded. This was an issue with many people's storyboard's so before we asked for feedback we went back and reviewed ours and inserted a number of cutaway shots that we thought were neccessary.
Once the storyboard was confirmed we moved on to write the script which was a very similar process to the storyboard. We were told there was "too much dialogue" and that we could tell our story through actions rather than dialogue, so we reviewed the script and attempted to cut down the dialogue as much as we could. Excessive dialogue would result in a bored audience and a lack of concentration as a lot of speech would eventually become long winded and hard to keep up with. If we had left the script as we had done it there would have been a lot more shots, to display conversations and pieces of dialogue, and this would have ulimately meant more work which meant a higher risk of rushed and poor quality filming. Therefore feedback allowed us to re-do our work so that it'll advantage us during production rather than disadvantage us, through time etc.
Once we had filmed we started editing which was a stage of post production that also required feedback. While editing scene 1 we were told that shots such as shot 4 and 5 were too long and we didn't need to see an empty frame, there was uneccessary shots that didn't need to be included as they just made the sequence too long when it needed to be more "choppy" and use quick cuts. This would prevent boredem or a loss of concentration. We also had to rearrange some of the first few shots because the opening sequence didn't look very effective as there "wasn't enough of his feet" so we took out the shot of 'Luke's' feet walking and repeated the shot of him playing the psp. We were told that our genie's appearances work very well and everyone took a liking to that part of the scene creating a good reaction within our audience. One bit of feedback we got from the first scene was that part of the body language 'Genie' does doesn't look right because it hadn't been directed properly. So unfortunately we had to reshoot a part of the first scene due to the directing at the time not being effective enough and the acting wasn't how it needed to be. Once we had done the shot again and inserted it into our sequence we received feedback that "you can't even tell it was filmed at a different time" and that it looked much better than the original shot. The second shot that we needed film during the reshoot was the shot of 'Genie' asking 'Luke' not to walk away, as we had issues with the transition from inside the building to outside. We initially ended the shot of 'Luke' turning around to 'Genie' with a black fade and then the next shot was him coming out of the door. Although we thought the fade looked okay, when we received feedback people questioned why this was there and that it was quite confusing. So during the reshoot we also took a shot of 'Genie' saying "Don't walk away!" which meant we were able to change the end of the sequence to a shot of 'Luke' walking away. So rather than make our film look bad and save time we decided to reshoot the two shots which in the end proved very beneficial to the final look of our film. Other parts of the first scene were quite confusing as it wasn't clear what was happening, feedback told us that "it doesn't appear clear enough" what we were trying to show. As we knew what was going on we assumed that the audience would also be aware but this is not the case. We realised that we were ignoring our audience and the fact that they don't know the background story or what we were showing and that we needed to make this clear to them. Without this our audience wouldn't enjoy or understand the film. The feedback from scene 2 was that we had shots that consisted of empty screens, there was no action taking place yet we showed this part of the shot. This wasn't needed and just made the film longer and created boring parts. Therefore we took these out and realised that shots like these are irrelevant, they don't move the story along or create any effect so they're not needed at all. There was also the issue that the 180 degree rule is completely disregarded within one of the shots. The camera flips completely and films from the opposite side which isn't acceptable within filming. However there were too many problems with refilming so it had to be left as it was which affected the film and made us realise that we need to be more careful and aware of filming rules while shooting. There was also a lot of background noise as we were filming in a busy part of the school but these were covered up by music and other sounds so became less noticeable. Scene 3 is the makeover scene and feedback told us that "the shots need to be choppy" and that we needed to "flip between shots of Genie and shots of Luke". This was to create a fast, choppy sequence with action reaction shots. We were also told that we needed fast, upbeat music to match the scene. We decided to go with the parallel sound because it would add to the fun, fast atmosphere of the scene. We also interpreted transitions into scene 3 which people said "added fun" to the sequence and also helped to show a pass in time.
All in all we realised that audience feedback is vital to film making because as makers of the film we don't realise that we aren't always thinking of our audience. It's easy to disregard the audiences feelings and thoughts because you forget that they don't know the basis of the story and they only know what we show/tell them. Without audience feedback we would have failed to realise this and therefore produced a less effective film.
After editing it was time to create the posters/reviews. These also required feedback for improvements and suggestions. Since the posters are the first thing that audiences see before the film they need to address the genre and ideas within the film, attracting the audience to want to watch your film. Feedback told me that I needed to "highlight the magic in the genie" and use "glitter and sparkles to reveal the magical aspects" of the film. This would help to deliver to the audience the basic ideas that are within the film, in this sense relating to characters. After hearing this I added more effects to her image which made her stand out and look more 'magical.' There were also people who suggested that on maybe one or two posters I should "reveal there is a relationship between Genie and Luke" so when creating the second and third poster I took this into consideration.
Feedback informed me of what was missing from my poster that needed to be included to sell my film effectively.

Question 2 - Final Draft

2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The film itself and ancillary texts all work together to sell and promote the film. The poster is the first of the 3 products to be released and open to the audience's eye so it has to be attractive and create a desire for the audience, to want to watch the film. Posters are used to deliver hints and clues about the genre, plot and characters of the film and to intrigue the target audience to want to watch it. Our posters reveal that our film is part of the children's fantasy genre due to the colours and characters. The colour blend of yellow and pink work to attract our main target audience of young females and the glittery effects and brushes clearly present the magical, fantasy side of our film. People said the posters were "cute" and that there is a slight "Disney feel" to them as they are very colourful and magical reflecting the imaginative and fantasy aspects that are relevant to these types of films, suggesting that our film will also be similar to the works of Walt Disney. Due to Disney being an extremely well known and established filming company it gives the impression that our film will be similar to the films that Disney produce immediately creating interest for the audience. Disney films are liked for their fantasy and family-fun stories so similar films will be intriguing for the target audience. From our posters you can notice that the film will have a theme of magic and fantasy due to the glittery backgrounds and characters. You can clearly see from the main image of 'Genie' that she is a genie due to her costume and the effects that surround her image and that perhaps she has a big role to play in the film because she is the focus of attention. She is very saturated in colour and is the main focus of the poster as she is in the foreground so her character will attract the audience as they can see straight away she is a magical character. Therefore the posters will appeal to people who enjoy fantasy/children films. Feedback informed us that it is clear to see that she is a primary character and that she has a magical touch. The prop, the gold lamp, also implies the plot will consist of genie's and magic as it is a convention of these. I was told that all 3 posters have "a clear and consistent housestyle" which helps to establish them as part of the same film. Each of them promote the fantasy and magical element of our film in their own way and through different colours and images. The saturation and colours of our posters actually match the cinematography of the film and you can clearly see a relationship between the two, displaying that they are part of the same film. This emphasises the housestyle of the posters in relation to the film and they share similarities that help to sell the film. The body language of the characters help to address the fun, childish side of the film and therefore targets the audience of children. 'Luke's' body language suggests he is looking up at the genie suggesting that perhaps they have some kind of relationship within the film. During feedback I was told that this works well and that "the picture of Luke and Genie looks cute and automatically shows they have a relationship". The genie's facial expression is looking away from 'Luke' perhaps displaying the idea that he has some kind of admiration for her because of his position in the frame and the fact that he is looking up at her. The credit block makes the poster look a lot more effective as it looks more professional and the layout isn't too crowded for it and it fits in nicely. In each of the posters there are clear indications towards the idea that 'Genie' and 'Luke' have a relationship/friendship due to their body language and facial expressions. In the second poster our audience told us that the "characters are clearly defined through the images" so our poster was effective enough to reveal the genre and provide hints and clues as to what the plot of the film is about. All 3 posters insinuate there is a relationship between 'Genie' and 'Luke' and along with the colours and fonts it suggests that the film is a kind of young love story. This will attract audiences who enjoy these films and more importantly it will appeal to our target audience of young girls.
The film review is used to provide audiences with opinions and information on what films are about and whether they are worth watching. Our film review continues to advertise our film and encourage people to watch it as it issues positive opinions and critisms of it. By suggesting it is a 'family film' it targets the audience of families. As our direct target audience of children aren't likely to read film reviews it is parents/family members that are most likely to read the review and they may be encouraged through the review to take their children/families to go and watch the film. The language of our review is quite simple and it's not very persuasive as the text is simply describing the plot of the film. However it does explain that it is a "family" film and that it is enjoyable to both "children and their parents." This would attract parents/family members to want to take their children to see it as it has been described as "fantastic" and claims that families have been watching it.
By using posters, the film and reviews you are marketing your film at various different audiences through different kinds of media. Posters are likely to be placed in areas such as bus stops, train stations, schools etc so will appeal to children/adults who use these places regularly. Reviews are usually found in magazines or on the internet so will attract attention from people who read the magazines, perhaps parents or other family members. These will all encourage people to go and watch the film because they'll be reading positive reviews of our film and be encouraged to watch our film which is 'fun for all the family.'

Question 1 - Final Draft

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

We consider our film 'Genie' to be part of the children's fantasy genre relating to film's like "Wizards of Waverly Place" and "The wizard of Oz" as well as cartoon Disney film's such as 'Peter Pan.' Many of the films which we consider comparisons to our own are infact Disney movies, the majority of them being animated as opposed to real life. This is because of the fantasy element and the target audience of children, storylines like ours are usually expressed through cartoon or animated films. However we developed the themes and fictional storylines from animated Disney films, such as "Cinderella" and "Sleeping Beauty," and brought them into a real situation that our target audience could relate to. This was done by substituting the conventional, fantasy settings such as deserts and mystical lands that are displayed in 'Peter Pan, for a more realistic setting of a school. This idea is quite similar to the one adopted in the magical film "Enchanted" where a combination of animation and real picture is used to depict fantasy into the 'real world'. This allowed us to create a new interpretation for the target audience who are able to relate directly to the film and as they are familiar with the school setting and a new experience is developed. By setting it in a school we are helping the audience to feel as though they can empathise with the characters and the situations they face, therefore keeping our target audience intriuged and entertained.
Our female protagonist 'Genie' was inspired by the all time Disney classic, 'Aladdin' and we used the idea of having a genie from this particular film. However although we retrieved the initial idea from the Disney movie, we decided to challenge the original male genie and convert him into a female. By doing this we were able to create a relationship between the genie and 'Luke' which enabled us to construct a new purpose for the genie character compared to 'Aladdin' where the two characters form a friendship.
From watching other media texts during the research stage of our coursework, for inspiration on how to dress and direct our genie, I found that many genie characters wear 'genie' trousers, indian shoes, bright colours and they usually have a headband or veil clearly illustrating them as a genie. This is apparent in our own film as she has a blue headband going across her head which is the same bright blue as her top and shoes, similar to other genie's in films and programmes. She's also a very friendly and upbeat character which can be compared to other genie's who are also usually very enthusiastic about meeting new people (such as the genie in Aladdin) and it's rare to come across a genie character who is rude and unfriendly.
By including a character who holds magical powers/ability we followed typical codes and conventions of children's fantasy as there is usually at least one character who possesses these qualities, for instance Matilda from 'Matilda' and Tinkerbell from 'Peter Pan.' Our character 'Genie' is most likely to be compared to 'Tinkerbell' or the genie from 'Aladdin' due to the powers she possesses. Female characters who are considered 'magical' are usually depicted as old or evil. The fairy godmother from 'Cinderella' and the fairy's from 'Sleeping Beauty' represent the idea of female's that hold magical powers are old. On the other hand, characters such as the evil stepmother from 'Snow White' depict the idea of these characters being evil. Our film however challenges both of these proposals as our character is neither old or evil. By having this character we were able to establish the magical, fantasy element within our story, similar to all other Disney movies.
We also used high key lighting, relating to our cinematography, which is usually used in children's fantasy along with saturated colours, to attract children and create a picture that will keep them entertained. 'Wizards of Waverly Place, The movie' also use this idea giving the film a bright, attractive look to appeal to children's eyes. 'The wizard of Oz' uses 'unseen magic' within the film therefore they never really use effects to portray acts of magic, which is an idea we applied to our film. Since we didn't have access to high end editing software or have the finance to use special effects and the like we needed to create the magic of 'Genie's' character in a creative way. We initially decided to make her unseen to anyone except 'Luke', similar to the character Fred in 'Drop dead Fred' who is invisible to everyone's eye except Elizabeth's, however due to changes in the pitch we resorted to another idea. We decided to make her magic unseen similar to 'Matilda' which didn't require effects but still gave the impression she was a magical character. For example, in the first scene she appears next to 'Luke' immediately after he has just seen her on the stairs, this creates surprise and suggests she has powers to transport herself from one location to another therefore portraying her magical character without the need for effects. In the same scene she makes a box of smarties appear and this is done in a similar way, relying on sound, camera and editing to create the illusion of her making something appear from nowhere.
The makeover scene in our film is adopted in many children's films such as 'Cinderella' and 'Aladdin,' and is used within our film to help develop our characters relationship. We chose to use the typical 'gold lamp' within our film as the genie's form of arrival but challenged the original idea of the lamp needing to be rubbed in order to release the genie. By using the initial prop of a gold lamp it creates familiarity for our target audience as they will recognize the implications that the lamp brings. As it's been used in 'Aladdin' it has become almost like an icon/convention for genie's so children will indentify the link between lamps and genies.
Our music is very similar to the arabian, mysterious sound used in 'Aladdin' as this music is normally associated with genie's and create a magical, fairy-like atmosphere which relates to the fantasy elements of these films. We also use 'Aladdin' as an allusion within our film, making reference to it in scene 1 when a poster reads 'Aladdin rehearsals.' By doing this we immediately compare our film to the Disney movie because this is how the lamp is implemented into the film, therefore it suggests the same themes are relevant to our film that are apparent within 'Aladdin.'
Although we use the idea of a genie typically appearing from a gold lamp, we chose to challenge the original concept of '3 wishes' and creating an ultimate wish which may be granted by the genie. By doing this it allowed us to have time to create a relationship between 'Genie' and 'Luke' as he only had one wish which he had to make perfectly. By developing the '3 wishes' approach we resorted against the typical codes and conventions and were able to introduce our own use of genie wishes. We created an importance of the wish and were able to make it the climax of our film - this is what the audience were waiting to hear. (What he would wish for). As we used the idea of a 'love triangle' on a children's level, such as 'Casper,' we made the audience assume he would wish for 'Olivia' but then completely disregarded this when he makes his final wish - following the pleasures of predictability.
Even though we used the typical convention of a happy ending we developed the idea of freeing the genie further to create the ending that we did. Our film challenges the codes and conventions of the genre is the way that it ends. As opposed to 'Luke' simply making his wish and having the genie leave, we decided to twist the story completely and have him fall for 'Genie' and lose his interest in 'Olivia.' This meant we kept our genie character which doesn't always happen within children's fantasy as usually the wishes are granted and the genie leaves. In 'Aladdin' he wishes for the genie's freedom as they've formed a good friendship within their experiences together. We implemented this idea within our ending but as opposed to a friendship we formed a relationship. When 'Luke' wishes for 'Genie' to no longer be a genie he ulimately takes away the fantasy of her character and makes her human, freeing her from her genie nature but in order for them two to be together. This is a different approach to 'Aladdin' who free's the genie to allow him to live his life without being a servant to anyone. We were able to develop the freedom of the genie due to the fact that we challenged the original male character with a female one.

Film review

This is the film review page featuring our film 'Genie.'