Evaluation

1. In what does your media product use or challenge conventions of real media products?

The sub-genre my film falls under is a mockumentary comedy film. Mockumentaries are cheaper to produce than other films because they usually do not need to spend a lot of money on editing because the film is meant to appear natural and realistic. For example, Borat had a low budget of $18 million and grossed $261.6 million. I choose this sub-genre because it’s very easy to make, and it’s a film genre which has recently become popular, particularly with recognisable franchise with Sacha Baron Cohen’s three mockumentary films. In most ways I wanted my film to be typical of the mockumentary genre. For example, I included the trope of the main characters being interviewed and often embarrassing themselves during these interviews. The main mockumentary influence was The Office as we adopted its use of interviews and minimalist style. Although I took a lot of inspiration from Borat, my film was not improvised like many scenes in Borat. I feel like audiences prefer improvised scenes because they blur the line between real life and fiction. For example, in the Borat scene where he meets several drunken fraternity students the film shows up their racist attitudes and ignorance and it is more powerful because it is not staged. A unique selling point of the movie is the fact it is set in a school and is therefore relatable to all age groups because everyone has been to school before. Therefore everyone would have encountered recognisable types like the out-of-touch teacher and the misbehaving but quite likeable student. 

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

I tried to create a brand identity so that my product can be recognisable to the audience. Creating a new identity is particularly important for new films because they are not part of an established franchise and they need to stand out to the viewers’ mind. I did this by making a poster with just the main protagonist rather than lots of characters because I wanted it to be more memorable and I thought too many characters would confuse the audience, and stop them from realising it is the same film in different parts of the marketing. I took inspiration from the marketing campaign for Trainspotting which focused on memorable characters in one poster and used a recognisable orange background. However, the main difference was that I just focused on the main protagonist however Trainspotting did this with the five most important characters featured:

My poster and magazine featured a whiteboard which draws attention to the school setting but also allows us to include natural writing such as ‘DETENTION’ in the magazine cover, which links back to the teaser trailer which also uses a whiteboard to create the title cards rather than the computer making them adding more of an authentic feel.

I choose Empire because it's a very popular magazine and it works on promoting a range of movies, whereas with Sight and Sound, they are known to promote more independent films and do not tend to focus on blockbusters and films from mainstream production companies. Also Empire does attract a range of audiences from young kids to adults, but other magazines like sight and sound appeal to an older right winged audience. 

3. What have I learnt from audience feedback?

4. How did I use technology in the construction and research, planning, and evaluation stages?

During the pre-production stages, I was planning out my movie on Blogger. I focused on what shots will need to be taken, who will be my actors, and wrote the script. I found the script, storyboard, and shot list easy to make however there were numerous times when I had to re do the shot list, screenplay, and storyboard because it did not match my previous film. Also to research more about the mockumentary genre, I created a survey for other people to do and answer questions related to both the comedy genre and the sub-genre, Mockumentary comedies. For my survey I did not put it on a website like Facebook and survey monkey where it's able to be accessed by anyone with an account. Instead I decided to print out the questionnaires and have my respondents do it on the paper I gave them. Also with my focus group, I wrote down the respondents answers instead of gathering them together and filming it. The reason why I did this is because of availability of students and rooms to use in order to film. For filming I used a HD Sony Handycam for the trailer. I decided on using this camera because mockumentaries are believed to be very low budget. For example, the Ali G movie cost £5 million to make and I wanted to keep true to making the movie low budgeted. Another reason why I decided to use that camera because the canon rebel XSI would usually be taken by other media groups and this could seriously affect how long production lasted. Throughout filming I used the total of 3 HD Handycam cameras. Then for my evaluation stage, I only filmed the third question and the other ones were written on blogspot.