Evaluation: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents the following social groups of class, age, race, gender and sexuality.

It represents a class status as working class. My product conducts this idea as in my product it is clear that the characters all have low income jobs or at college and that’s why the big ‘dream’ is to escape from that background of the working class in order to make their lives better for them and their futures. I think that the title of my product fits this annotation perfectly as it’s ‘To live and not survive’.





 Many poorer people believe that they are only living and not surviving in this current society and this is how my characters feel throughout the opening scene the narrative of opening scene supports this idea as the title is repeated in the voice over. At the beginning of my film there is a shot laddering up a keyboard instrument and if you notice the shot itself its rather uneasy, this demonstrates the life for the working class represented as life is not a walk in the park for them.





In the product the clothing the characters are wearing are a good example of working class clothing as some working class can be stereotyped as ‘scruffy’. Most of the characters are just wearing a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt as they spend most of their money on their instruments to make the dream come true.

It represents a particular age group of 15-21 year olds. I think my media product conducts this idea as the protagonist in my opening scene is roughly the same age of a 17 year old so people around that same age group would be more than likely to be the type of people to watch this film as they’d be able to relate to the characters relationships and feelings within the film. My product represents the idea that the younger generations live in the clouds and not having realistic future goals. As not many older generations ‘realistic’ dream would be to create this idea of a famous successful rock band.  It challenges the idea that the younger generation are lazy as in the end the band does actually work out and they've had to work for their success rather than them just expecting it to be given on a plate. As we see in the disequilibrium of someone in an older generation giving a group of teenagers the time of a day and the chance to succeed.

It represents a particular race of white people. In my product the protagonist is white.

The narrative suggests that the characters have had a normal but boring stereotypical white working class family background of going to school, college and then getting a part time job in a shop or fast food outlet.






It challenges the stereotype of black people have a better chance or singing voice then white people it shows that a white person can have just a strong and as powerful singing voice as a black person.

It represents a modern view of the female and male. The reason as to why the female gets more screen time then the males and gets to be the one in control of the narrative when it comes to the voice over represents that she is a strong independent female.  I believe this shows a modern view of females within film as many years ago females were seen but not heard so my product shows how time has flown by and how the progress of equality has improved.  It also in some way disconnects the idea of stereotypical idea of the male breadwinner as the males in my product have broken away from the stereotypical 9-5 working hour to them be able to afford to take a risk of becoming a rock star.

The sexuality I have portrayed is heterosexual as it as seen as traditional. But it has broken away from the sexuality stereotypes as the female is doing the same job as the males. 

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

To live and not survive with credits final film.

Audience feedback.

Audience feedback.

What was good/effective about the project?

-          The idea is really good, and the contrast between dreams and reality is drawn out.

-          The backing track.

-          The voice over – explains the story.

-          The Opening titles.

-          The different use of camera shots to tell the story.

-          Clever and neat transitions.

-          The link between instruments and everyday items.

What did you like?

-          Good array of characters.

-          Some interesting use of mise-en-scene.

-          Camera shots.

-          Opening titles.

-          The sound bridge.

-          The voice-over to help explain the story.

-          Colour in the shots (lively) explains their life.

-          The guitar and mop, this shows the comedy element.

-          The background music.

-          The narrations.

Any suggestions for improvement?

-          Sound levels (the voice over to increase and the backing track to be lower smoothly).

-          Courtney Burch after Atlantis productions.

-          Stop the typewriter when the words stop.

Experiments with camera.

A few of my takes within my film involve 'unsteady' takes like it does at the beginning when there is a shot involving a keyboard, this is to represents that their lives are unsteady, their love and passion for music is unsteady, and the idea of it travelling up the keyboard represents how the band are going to have to climb up some sort of ladder in the film and that they have to work their way up the music industry in order to get where they want to go in their careers.

I have used many close ups to represent how fed up and bored they are with their current life.. I decided to use this so you know how much emotion is put into their music and how much they love it.

Audio used.

I used Paramore - Ain't it fun.
I used this song as I thought it was a good song to sum up how they would feel if they were stuck doing their dead end jobs, and Parmore are one of Tays role models as it states on her wall as she wants her bands music to sound similar. So once again its to keep up with the continuity of my film.

I used Blink 182 - All The Small Things.
Everyone in the rock/punk industry looks up to Blink 182, they are idolised by many current musicians and that's exactly what Ash was doing while he was completeing a letter for Work he was listening to blink 182 idoloising them.

Location Planning.

The first main scene in my film is Matt doing his homework in a home environment.

I decided for this to be the location as you can tell its a home environment from the the curtains and the decor and the fact that the decor is rather modern, as my film is based around young people you'd expect to have most of the up to date trends.

 

 

The next scene it comes to a bedroom I decided this would be the best location as there are band posters all over the walls which fits in nicely with the theme of it being a music drama with hints of comedic elements to it.Around the room you notice a guitar case which ones again fits in nicely with the genre/theme of the film. You can also tell that the room is also a girls room due to the flowery wall paper and all the pink films/dvds but it's not too girly which I think fits in with Tays indentity really well.

 

 

The next scene is a scene of Cameron with a mop, I used this location as Cameron is supposed to be a cleaner for multiple house holds and the footage looks like we've caught him 'rocking' out on a shift which shows this really is his passion which cleaning is not. I thought that kitchens are the one place in a house hold that always seems to get dirty so they take longer to clean that is why i used a long take too.

 

 

As Ash and Matt live in the same apartment they have the same decor, so I decided to film it in the same location to keep the continutiy flowing and show how close they were as friends.