Weighing up the Scales..

My Evaluation
Our film is a modest one and the methods for filming didn't require the use of anything more than a handheld camera and a tripod stand. If we had a bigger budget we would hav ebeen able to peraps get better quality footage and be able to get a professional camera person which would have added to the over all finish of our peice.On the other hand we did use HD cameras and thats quite a new technology and I concider us lucky as we were able to do so. There were many other mediums of media e.g radio and text ie. magazine or a paper but I feel that a film was the best way to portray our ideaas it includes the visual and audio side of media in in perfect harmony.

The Call Back represents older teens just before the peak of adulhood, it shows them as friendly in the form of Bobbies best friend it shows the good side of teens tht they care about each other and look out for one another. It displays that they are ambitious and maybe to an extent naive as she is hoping/ thinking she can make it as a singer. Later on in the film teens are portrayed in the form of a rival as being untrustworthy and are willing to do whatever it takes to make it dispite who gets hurt.
The film also shows adults the over all view of them is a neegative one being generally pessimistic, the main chracters parents telling her she canot make it and the judge at the start having a snappy un interested attitude towards he- gives off the impression that adults just like to put kids down.
The characters in this movie are mainly ethnic minorities and the 3 main people are afro-carribean, this was not deliberate as we just happened to be in the same group but I feel it is a good thing as it is some possitive representation as young black people as having dreams and being ambitious- it I feel would be a good contribution as it opposes current sterotypes of black people.

Such Institutions as MTV Films might be interested in this as MTV are a company associated with programmes and movies suitable for teens and were responsible for Save the last Dance and I feel the plot to our movie matches it closest ou of the films that I mentioned earlier as being similar to our own, not only in the opening but also in cast and in a sense the story line aswell. Also compaies involed in the film industry are also wanting new talent, and concepts but usually go for ones with a similar take on things our movie would be an original thing and this is what makes us appealing.

When making our 2 min clip we took the audience straight into the middle of the story and made our main character seem endeering and gave the judge an edge, we kept everthing moving and tried to keep the shots very interactive e.g over the shoulder shots and two shots directly facign characters so that the audience feel involved.


Before I started this course I actually just took media for fun, because I thought it was going to be easy and a break from all the academic tuff I do i.e politics. I don't regret choosing the subject but before I was just unaware of how much actually goes into film and what it takes to pass a media AS level. Its been a journey in one sense and I've learnt a coupel things along the way like how to do a couple simple editing techniques and how to pretend I didn'y make a mistake in filming. I realised alot of hard work and time goes into making and editing -thinking about movies and representation and all the legal difficulties.


Looking back at our first task-the continuities I think that they helped me to think about what it was going to be like making the main/real thing , but we faced some of the same problems again so I guess we didn't really learn much but, well there's always next time.

Age Rating

Well since our movie is one about aspirations and dreams and doesn't have any sexual scenes and no seriously violent scenes , it has however got a few adult themes during as its a young girl growing up -because media is a big part of how people are socialized certain things would be thought of as inappropriate for the younger viewer and so the Age rating of The Call Back is 15+

Hoping for the best

We finally finished filming and editing our work, I thought we'd like never get to this stage and have nothing to show for our efforts. We have however produced...something, it may not be great but its all we've got. I'm proud of our continuity pieces as we did quite well for the short time we had and my change of group. The main piece however I feel we were slacking majorly in the amount of shots and sketchy editing.

Legalities

Us just being kids we don't have money to waste and so in our two minute piece we didnt use any copyrighted sounds/music however in one of our continuities we did use a Song we wern't officialy allowed to use and so we wrote to the record label of that artist asking for their permission explaining the purpose of the sound clip.

The main piece

Unfortunately our school system was playing up the day we were to be uploading our video so the main piece can only be found at http://bjbriscoe-jabby.blogspot.com/2010/05/main-movie.html [the paragraph below the video on the link was not written by me so below is my own interpretation/ analysis ]

Our main piece was originally my idea for a continuity piece but it over run slightly and the main piece we had filmed the day before was we realised invalid for use as there were dier continuity errors and we couldn't refilm the places where mistakes were made because the cast we used theen were no longer around as they were apart of a consortium and are just avilable certain days of the week.

We did however get a main piece done & main piece started of similarly to Save The Last Dance with an audition- straight away letting the audience into the story, from the off making the main characters personality appearant her shyness and unwillingness to go in. The girl with her a supportive role makes the audience concider if she wil remain this way and want to know who she is and her relavance to the story. The judge in the scene having a very sarcastic and snappy tone hints that its foreshadowing negative news ahead adding tension compelling viewers through curiosity to want to see more of the movie as they are charmed by the singers modesty and want to know what her next step is going to be.

The very first shot is a two shot of both characters at firs appearing to just be sitting there but then the first thing heard is NEXT from another location, a voice not in the shot and its clear that they are actually sittin there in anxiety as Bobbie the main character is awaiting her turn.
The character I play at one point lliterally gives her a hand pulling her up persuading her that she can do it, this was a metaphor for being there for her and literally keeping her up , and the tracking that follows this happends in a somewhat dark way another metaphor for the journey she has been on and will be continuing, when Bobbie reaches the doors to the audition room the lighting is significantly lighter as she is a step closer to getting what she wants.
When she goes through the door the sound of it closing is exagerated to give the illusion of her fate being sealed in a way as hat happends next can change her life. There is an over the shoulder shot when the judge doubts her ability qestioning wether she can pull off the song she named.
The room apart from the pair is isolated dispite the bright clours it has a sense of negative energy as she is alone her friend no longer there and the man there seems to be against her, the long shot/ two shot when she is just about to sing emphasises the fac that he is not on her side as it shows a big gap between them. The sound of her voice when singing is noticable contrasting the sound when she was talking to her friend outside, her nerves are appearant and so is her discomfort.
The judge is snappy and barely lets her do the line, a side shot and zoom in when the handshake occurs shows more negative energy and makes it clear that dispite the seemingly friendly gesture the judge is in no way pleasant. He says the words 'm sure any aspiring singer would dread to hear 'don't call us we'll call you' at this point there is an effect used to show that his saying that and ending her auition so abruptly has affected Bobbie and in a sense shaked her world.

Inspiration and comparisons

Honey is a movie about an adolesent girl with a passion for dancing trying to better herself and get noticed by people in the industry and basically just to get by. The opening scene of Honey consists of a journey Jessica Alba's character takes, it has very little dialogue but covers quite a few angles e.g long shots and an establishing shot. Our movie Differs from this movie as we didn't include as much sound and we incorperated less shots than they did. This poster for Honey shows a siloutte of the city and above it is Honey showing that the city is hr oyster in a sense, she is quite clantily dressed in this poster and the genreal dea of this poster isn't in my view appropirate for our movie.

High school musical is about a group of peoepl all going through the struggles of teenage life the trilogy follows the cast in the coming of age type film based on people who are wanting and trying to be noticed and also to fit into their school environment. The opening Scene of High School Musical is focused on a karaoke competition and so the main event is the singing at which point the two main characters are identified. Again this poster isn't very relavent to our piece as it shows aslightly big group of friends happy together suggesting they work as one- our story is morre about one girls journey and the anticipation of finding out the reslt after her audition,with her only one friend to confide in- beacause f this our poster will not elemate this one.

Save the Last dance is a movie about change and a girl adjusting to new environments-but the main theme in this movie is that socializing specifically by the medium of dance can break down barriers and make peoeple closer. The opening scene of save The Last Dance shows Julia Stiles' character at an audition for Juliard school of dance, it is a very dramatic opening scne as it has jump cuts between her erformance and her mother's accident. Our film also starts off with an autition and the prelude to the audition where the main characters best friend is givign her a pep talk, ours however will be alot less dramatic than the startof save the last dance and our poster will also have just two characters, but they will be bestfriends so not displaying affection of the same persuasion:instead displaying loyalty and a sense of only having each other.

The Call Back poster - simple but affective

The poster above was our first atempt at a poster, its a very simple one where in the bold font and use of colours we intended to give the impression importance. Red a colour associated with passion, love,danger and various other things is the border colour this I believe represents all that this one phonecall can do- it boarders around the silver title a colour thouht of as one to do with fame,elagance,wealth and other such possitive things related to sucess. Using both together is showing that its going to be a ride a thing to remember and that this call back has the potential to make or break this young girls singing career.