Evaluation :p

As a group we decided that it would be better if we went with comedy as the genre. As a genre we felt that comedy would be aharder to do as it all about timing and content and so means that it would be just as challenging to edit as it would to film.

At first we decided that we would create an americanized style film about a secondary school outcast who in the end turns out to be the 'hero' of the film. We thought that in the opening scene we would create an atmosphere of how the main character, melvin, views himself and at the same point we would show a clip of the reality of life and how he is really treated.

We decided that we would start with narration from the main character, we believed that this was a good idea as after analysing several different comedies such as "American Pie" and "superbad" we found this was a common technique used in comedies, we felt that by using him to 'big' himself up and then contradicting it with a clip of his life would add humour, although when it came to the editing process of the course we found that the voice over didnt seem quite as natural as we wanted and seemed more robotic and forced than a natural flow, so we decided that instead of using a narrataion we would use titles in our film, and after we watched it afterwards we found that it the same effect as we wished from the voice over.

We also found that by using the 'voice over' it allowed us to portray our character and allows the audiance to understand the character and connect with them.

Later we found that the narration did not fit with our clip as the voice over was not quite fluent enough and seemed forced rather than flowing and in the end decided not to use the voice over. Yet later on we decided that it wwould be better to have it in for two reasons, first it we found that it was iconical of comedies to have a v=narration in the beggining, and also we found that it seemed ironic that although the hall monitor was trying to make himself sound better he didnt sound too emthusiastic about it and it allowed the audiance to realise how much he really thought about himself.

AS far as the filming went i believed tha it was perfect apart from we had to film the class room scene several times as the first time we filmed it that there was no sound. The hardest pne to film though was the last scene in the Hallway, this was because of the fact we had several cameras filming at once and it made it harder as we had to try and avoid getting the other camera in the filming.

The editing was next and this was easy once we worked out how to use Adobe Premier Elements. I found that is was harder to transfer the files needed for our clip into the program rather than it was to use the program itself.

The filming was taken in our college, in both the rooms and the hallways as these are typical areas where teen comedies were filmed as they are familiar areas for the audiance. We felt that by using area's more comonly know to the audiance would make it easier to determine what genre the clip was.

When choosing the characters we wanted to portray in our film, we first looked at our comedy research and the characters that were used, most of the time they have 'the jock', 'the hot girl' and 'the geek' and so we thought these would be the characters we would use. As we were only filming the opening 2 minutes of the film we only had time to show the geek as he was the main focus as the film was about his life. We tried to find clothes that were more conservative and formal for him to wear and we believed that he should speak with a different accent as to help portray him as an 'outcast'.
We also found that when looking at our research that there was a change of 'status' within the school in the teen comedies, 'the geek' generally tends to become more of a 'jock' at a point in the film, this is what generally helps to add humour to the film and this was a focus of our film aswell.
We also tried to portay the 'hot' girls in our clip, this was fior several reasons. It helped to show what the hall monitor 'aspired' to have, it also helped to show how far from reality his thoughts were. In our piece we have tried to show how the social groups/click's are decided by what people prefer to do rather than who they are and that anyone can be popular.

I think the main target audiance for our piece would be late teens to mid 40's. Although this seems like a larger spectrum of people to choose for an audiance i feel that due to the fact it is a teen comedy it will appeal to teens in school and college, and then you have the students in uni who in the same situation. The you have all the adults who have not long left education and those who have children in the same posistion as many of the characters depending on which sicial groupp their child falls into. So by using teens as you characters you have the potential depending on the storey itself to reach a large audiance of people, such as with the 'American Pie' series.

Since my preliminary task i have become more knowledgeable and more comfortable using the Adobe Premier Elements program and now feel comfortable making short clips, although i have learnt that if you wished to make the film look more professional you would need to use a program which has more advanced transactions and effects as the one's available can make the film look tacky and leaves you with a limited amount at your disposle.
I aslo learnt more about the work that needs to be put in in the background, for example i have learnt about shooting schedule's and how by planning ahead you can save time, although you may believe that this is a fact everyone should have known, it is actually impossible to go ahead with anything unless you have planned ahead when filming, to just turn up and think of the top of your head wastes too much time and prior planning was a major fault of my group.

Overall i am pleased with our clip and how it turned out although i wish we had found a more suiting background tune. When we showed our finished poroduct to the public we asked them what the liked, what they would change, what they thought about the editing or sound and whether they would change anything if given the chance. The majority of our feedback was posistive with many being able to tell us the genre and how they felt about it in general, although the main focus the audince was unhappy with was the music in the background and they felt it was not in sync as far as the action is concerned and it seemed too slow. Many found it funny and it was found that t he humour they saw was more slapstick rather than in the dialouge, this shows me that if i was to do the film again i would have to look more at the dialouge and work on making it more interesting.