Here I have analysed 9 frames from the well known film "The Notebook". It is a very similar product to what we have produced for our main task. I have analysed key aspects of the opening from The Notebook and have then compared them to how we have done in our main task with another 9 frame analysis of our own film. Because The Notebook was such an influential film for us in our creation of The Ripple Effect, we tried to replicate some of the key aspects in our film and here you can see what we have done in comparison. (The order of frames starts a the top left being frame 1, then it goes from left to right with the bottom right frame being frame 9)
FRAME ONE
In the first frame you can see the title of the main actress in the film "Rachel McAdams" who plays Ally in The Notebook. The typeface used is a font called Georgia. As you can see from the font, it is a crisp and easy to read typeface and it is white also which stands out from the image which it is placed in. Having this plain looking yet bold and visible text shows the films genre. It isn't massive and bold like you may see in an action type film. However it is simple yet a relatively sophisticated looking text which reveals the genre of the film to be more serious and romantic perhaps.
FRAME TWO
FRAME TWO
In frame two again you can see the title in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. The conventions they have included in the opening of The Notebook are quite simple. It begins by introducing the main 4 characters of the film with their own name with their own frame. It then appears with the title of the film "The Notebook". After this it goes through further characters included in the film with three names per frame after this. Once the important characters had been credited it came into the director and the music composer and the other creators of the film.
FRAME THREE
In Frame three we can see the rower, rowing in the lake quite clearly within the frame. This is a key part of mise on scene within The Notebook's opening. The rower represents the country and out doors type of lifestyle. This represents Noah as he also rows later on in the film so therefore creates an enigma of who this character is meant to be.
FRAME FOUR
The location is key as seen beautifully in frame four. The lake is very big and also shows the environment to be natural and hints that this film may be set in the past time (which it is) and also that it includes the countryside within the film - which it also does. The orange coloured sky reflecting off of the water also shows the time of day it is. It is in the evening and the orange colour reveals what the genre might be of the film. Because it is such a beautiful scene and a pure orange colour this suggests that the film is going to be about a romance with passion and purity involved.
FRAME FIVE
In this frame you can clearly see the editing involved within the film's opening. There is continuity throughout as it is all the rower rowing so far and there is no misguided scenes within this opening where the viewer may be confused. Also there are simple unnoticeable transitions between each scene. They fade into one another slowly which presents this peaceful transition which is barely noticeably and this all adds into the continuity of keeping the genre being a romantic type film.
FRAME SIX
Because of the image created in frame six, it is a good place to mention the camerawork used throughout the film's opening. This camera technique in frame six is an establishing shot which is used frequently throughout the opening of this film. It is used so often to show off the beautiful scenery involved - which all adds in to the genre of the romance. As well as this there are pans used in the opening as well as frequent slow motion. These techniques all have a peaceful effect when used in this opening which further gives off the feel of how the film will unfold.
FRAME SEVEN
In frame seven it is a good frame to mention the sound throughout the opening of The Notebook - as the frame shows the composer to be Aaron Zigman. The piece of music is called "Main Title" and it is played throughout the opening from the start to the finish. There is no dialogue included in the opening of the Notebook as the music is so peaceful and moving itself, that the dialogue may have ruined the effect given by the music. There are slight ambient sounds throughout such as the water rippling from the rower however they are barely noticeable and just add to the continuity of the editing.
FRAME EIGHT
In frame eight you can mention the fact that there are no real characters properly included within the opening. This is possibly made purposely to create a bit of enigma or to focus the viewer onto the music and the location used, to get drawn into the film straight away and to get prepared for the emotional side of the film conveyed throughout.
FRAME NINE
In frame nine it is a good chance to sum up the overall genre portrayed throughout the opening. In almost every aspect from the music to the camera angles/techniques and even to the mise on scene and location - the genre of a romance is conveyed throughout the opening and this is key for a film to get across it's genre immediately when the viewer begins to watch the film itself at the beginning.FRAME THREE
In Frame three we can see the rower, rowing in the lake quite clearly within the frame. This is a key part of mise on scene within The Notebook's opening. The rower represents the country and out doors type of lifestyle. This represents Noah as he also rows later on in the film so therefore creates an enigma of who this character is meant to be.
FRAME FOUR
The location is key as seen beautifully in frame four. The lake is very big and also shows the environment to be natural and hints that this film may be set in the past time (which it is) and also that it includes the countryside within the film - which it also does. The orange coloured sky reflecting off of the water also shows the time of day it is. It is in the evening and the orange colour reveals what the genre might be of the film. Because it is such a beautiful scene and a pure orange colour this suggests that the film is going to be about a romance with passion and purity involved.
FRAME FIVE
In this frame you can clearly see the editing involved within the film's opening. There is continuity throughout as it is all the rower rowing so far and there is no misguided scenes within this opening where the viewer may be confused. Also there are simple unnoticeable transitions between each scene. They fade into one another slowly which presents this peaceful transition which is barely noticeably and this all adds into the continuity of keeping the genre being a romantic type film.
FRAME SIX
Because of the image created in frame six, it is a good place to mention the camerawork used throughout the film's opening. This camera technique in frame six is an establishing shot which is used frequently throughout the opening of this film. It is used so often to show off the beautiful scenery involved - which all adds in to the genre of the romance. As well as this there are pans used in the opening as well as frequent slow motion. These techniques all have a peaceful effect when used in this opening which further gives off the feel of how the film will unfold.
FRAME SEVEN
In frame seven it is a good frame to mention the sound throughout the opening of The Notebook - as the frame shows the composer to be Aaron Zigman. The piece of music is called "Main Title" and it is played throughout the opening from the start to the finish. There is no dialogue included in the opening of the Notebook as the music is so peaceful and moving itself, that the dialogue may have ruined the effect given by the music. There are slight ambient sounds throughout such as the water rippling from the rower however they are barely noticeable and just add to the continuity of the editing.
FRAME EIGHT
In frame eight you can mention the fact that there are no real characters properly included within the opening. This is possibly made purposely to create a bit of enigma or to focus the viewer onto the music and the location used, to get drawn into the film straight away and to get prepared for the emotional side of the film conveyed throughout.
FRAME NINE
FRAME ONE
This is a good frame to represent the camera angles and techniques we have used in our film. Although we have not used an establishing shot throughout our opening, this is due to filming under trees and in our location it was difficult to get an effective establishing shot suitable for our film. However we did use some shot of the nature and trees as you can see in this frame, with some effective placements of the camera revealing the beautiful nature reserve we filmed in. I believe this gave our film opening a peaceful and romantic feel which is what we wanted to convey with our camerawork.
FRAME TWO
In this frame of our film you can see a title we have used in our opening. We have used the same font used in The Notebook, as we are going for the same sort of impression with the typeface of our titles. We want to give the simplistic look which will represent the passion and romantic base to our whole film.
FRAME THREE
In this frame you can see an action shot of our main characters running in our opening. Although in The Notebook there are no characters introduced properly, we decided to introduce our characters as it gave us an opportunity to show our knowledge of representation as well as show more skills with involving characters in our task. I researched the characters involved in The Notebook as well as watching the film several times to develop an understanding of the characters and their relationship, as well as how their relationship is represented in that film. We then tried to introduce our characters in an effective way by showing their relationship with one another - In this frame they are running together holding hands showing their close, loved up relationship with one another.
FRAME FOUR
I think this frame is a good place to mention the sound we used in our film. We decided to use the majority of our film with a piece of music throughout like The Notebook has. So I believe the peace of music we used was very effective and gave the feeling of a romance with passion involved like done in The Notebook. However, unlike in The Notebook where no dialogue was used throughout the opening of the film, we decided to include a small piece of dialogue in the hope that it would reflect the fact that we can use different pieces of equipment and incorporate dialogue into our film effectively.Even though we hoped to broadcast our skills by using a voiceover as dialogue, the voiceover did mess up slightly and this maybe didn't work in our favour.
FRAME FIVE
Here is a good example to mention our editing of our film. In this frame, the transition before this ends with the characters exiting the scene in the centre of the frame, then the scene fades into this frame with the two characters entering also in the centre of the frame. This shows my continuity in editing as I made the two clips merge together effectively and smoothly. As well as this I tried to incorporate simple fade transitions that flowed into one another to give a smooth effect which linked with the genre of our film also.
FRAME SIX
Our conventions of titles used within our film are mainly based on those used in The Notebook. We went through the main 4 characters at the beginning of the opening and then mentioned the less important characters in groups of 3. The only thing we changed from The Notebook's conventions is that we put the name of our film at the end of our opening instead of near the beginning. We did this as we wanted to leave the opening with the title being one of the last things mentioned and we thought it suited being put in the end better than anywhere else in the opening.
FRAME SEVEN
In this frame it may be useful to mention the characters representation. In this frame there is the third character introduced. As you can see he is dressed in all black - which represents his character in the film. When this character is introduced he is a sign of badness and a danger to the relationship of Elizabeth and Tyler (our main two characters). His black clothing represents the danger he brings with him.
FRAME EIGHT
The location we have used is one of our strong points for our film. Like The Notebook we have decided to use a countryside type location, so we used a nature reserve. It is very peaceful and scenic which suits our film perfectly. It also gives our film a sense of being a bit old fashioned which is also something we went for when constructing ideas.
FRAME NINE
The last thing to mention is the genre we went fr with our film and as you take all the aspects into consideration I believe that we executed our genre quite effectively with what we've produced. With the representations of characters and the location used we gave off the impression of a romance with drama. Also the music we have used along with the titles we've incorporated, I believe, that like The Notebook we have conveyed the genre of a romance very effectively.
2) How does you media product represent particular social groups?
The main male character in our film, 'The Ripple Effect' is Tyler - played by Zak Jakubowski. We based our film on 'The Notebook' - therefore the character of Tyler is partly based on the character Noah from the Notebook. Here you can see that they way Noah is dressed - he is wearing an old cap and less fortunate clothing like a country boy. I believe that our character of Tyler represents the character Noah quite well and Tyler is well suited in our film. Also the relationship between the two characters (Noah and Ally from the Notebook) is a close and love based relationship. I also feel that our two characters reflect the same relationship as the two from the Notebook. The main downfall here in the representation is Lucy's character. Although we aimed for a distinct difference in background of Lucy's character compared to Zak's character in our film (as presented between the two characters in the Notebook) I think that Lucy's character - Elizabeth - looks too modernised for the film. She is wearing a modern coat as well as fashionable leggings which doesn't reflect the style of our film. The last few things to mention are the environment we set our film in. Because we have no real access to any old fashioned sets that we could film in - we decided to use a nature reserve to create this country/old fashioned location to film in - hopefully to fulfill the genre and style of our film. Which was to be set in slightly olden time as well as representing Tyler to be a country boy.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
For our institutions we have created for our media, we have "Dreadfall Productions" which is a short animation for our production company, as well as our company "2 swag 4 media". These two institutions may distribute our film as it is a British film and they are a British company. Because our film is British and has a classic British countryside environment in which it is set - it could be a big success due to its locations used as well as the film itself. There have been so many other successful British romances such as About a Boy (2002), Pride and Prejudice (1995) Love Actually (2003) and Notting Hill (1999) which all made profit at the box office. Therefore because this film may be another promising love story - these institutions may be tempted to distribute our film. Also it may be worth distributing as there is a slight difference in the age in our film than most other romances, so the younger actors may attract a wider audience making it a possible promising film to distribute.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
Age - 17
Gender - Female
Ethnicity - White British
Education - A-levels
Religion - Atheist
Economic status - Middle class
Employment - Part time
Sexual Orientation - Interested in men
Family Background - British
Marital Status - Not married
Interests and hobbies - Socialising, healthy living.
Group membership - Social person
Personality - Enthusiastic, emotional.
An average and stereotypical audience member for our film would be around the age of 17 and female. Because our film involves two white British actors who fall in love, our audience member is more likely to be the same, therefore they can relate to the characters a bit better. Because the age of our characters in the film are mature teenagers - the typical audience member would be of the same so would be likely to be studying A-levels. They may be atheist and of a middle class background. Again due to the age of the characters in the film, a typical teenager may be in part time work outside of their school life. The main aspect of a typical audience member would be their personality and interests. They would like to socialise a lot with their friends and go out shopping and enjoying spending time amongst their family and friends. They would be enthusiastic and a caring type of person, with an emotional side too. They would be drawn to watch our film as they are in touch with their emotions so would enjoy the romance/drama genre that our film fits.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
Here I have created a video with annotations on YouTube of how the film has attracted our audience and how it has kept them engaged to want to watch more of what our film has to offer.
6) What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this media product?
Here is a picture I created showing 10 different pieces of technology that we used in the whole of our coursework. These are the most important pieces of equipment that we used and that we couldn't have completed our coursework without. I have given a brief explanation of how they helped us in our progress.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the main product.
Here is a short video highlighting 3 of the things which we have made progress on from our Preliminary task to our main task. (the volume is quite low due to the video not uploading as expected on YouTube so you may need to use earphones to hear the audio properly).
