AS Media Foundation Production

As a group we had decided to do a comedy satire. Satires are often used to put out a message to the target audience, in a humorous way. For example, Family Guy, South Park and occasionally The Simpson's.

Our particular satire was targeted towards a wide audience, however the age group that would most likely watch it would be from 13-25. people around this age would be interested in satires particularly because they are often still making these opinions and decisions in life, whereas the older generation have already have firms beliefs, and are unlikely to connect to the satire itself.

Whilst editing my media product I have shown a few people, in order to get a reaction from them to see if they understood the message I was trying to put across. Many of them found it very funny, but at the same time understood that people with disabilities experience these sort of discriminations daily.

Especially within the younger generation. Many young people aren’t around people with disabilities therefore do not know how to interact with them, or even feel uncomfortable towards them. Thus treating them less human as ‘Michael’ does.

Over all it was a productive experience as I have learnt how to edit video’s, film, and also work effectively in a group.

My particular media product represents young people in an environment that can be under pressure to act a certain way.

Especially in the canteen scene, where Dwayne is trying to get some lunch, but becomes the subject of verbal abuse. Being called ‘meals on wheels’ and having things thrown at him. This is a realistic adaptation of what people with disabilities go through in school, parties and even in public!

If I had chosen to make it a drama the target audience would most likely have been slightly older, rather then towards the younger audience it attracts. Everyone likes to laugh, especially young individuals. Therefore this would most likely appeal towards them more so, than a serious drama would.

Mise-en-scene was a very important aspect of the filming. The surroundings that we filmed in had an impact on how funny it would turn out. The most essential prop we had to make the whole situation realistic was the *wheelchair, that we had to borrow from UCH (university college hospital).

Dwane’s costume also adds to the humour. He is without shoes throughout the film, and has a faded black shirt and stone washed jeans. His hair was also styled to make him appear crazy in some sense, having it in a wild untamed style made his character even more believable and funny.

I had asked many people to view my film, and tell me what they understood from it. They all replied that it was “hilarious” but also the fact he was out with no shoes and just white cotton socks made things even more funny.

For the party scene I used plastic cups that they were drinking alcohol from. At one point ‘William’ throws the cup at Dwane whilst he was insulting Dwane in front of everyone. William is drunk so this creates a more reasonable reason as to why he is bullying Dwane.

We used High-key natural lighting throughout recording. Thus creating a more light, friendly atmosphere. Rather than having it low-key, which would have done the opposite and made the atmosphere eerie and tense.

For the party scene we used music from someone's phone to play in the background to make it seem like a party atmosphere. However it was played at a low level, as we did not want to take away from the acting itself.

Over the process of filming, I have acquired many skills and understandings. I have learnt to differentiate camera shots. For example, close up shot, over the shoulder shot and two person shot were all used in the film.

The editing was the most difficult aspect of this production. As I am not one that really enjoys working on computers, but along the way I learnt a lot from editing. However it was very difficult and frustrating. As I would often start again and re-edit. Not being satisfied with what I had produced. The time limit was also a restriction for me, as I found it daunting to edit everything making sure I did not exceed the two minute limit.

The conventional aspects of my product were the opening and ending credits. Having the names shown when it began and when it ended.

The limited time that we had was a problem also because we had to use different sorts of camera shots, however we could not shot with all the camera shots needed because of the restrictions.

The equipment that we used to film were:

DV camcorder

DV battery

Tripod

Fish pole

Microphone