Evaluation First Draft

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


Our film is of the genres fantasy, children, and romance. Our target audience for this film was children and teenagers, though I feel that it can now be considered as a family film as it is appropriate for all types of people and older people won’t get bored by the themes considered. Media products which we feel relate to ours are films such as Aladdin, Matilda, Peter Pan, jumanji and other children films. As they capture the innocents we were looking for and all have typical happy ending.

It uses the codes of conventions of a fantasy film as it is essentially a fairy tale and uses a magical element in the form of the character genie that has the ability to grant wishes. We could have made this more of a plot device but choose not to as our film was already looking as if it would be too lengthy. Instead we decided not to play on our characters ability too much and used the characters abilities similarly to how the genies is used in the film Aladdin which moves away from the predictability of other children’s films. We showed how the character Genie longs to be human and this wish is granted as it was by Luke.

Also as we were making a relatively small production we tried to keep most of our special effects to a minimum therefore due to the restrictions of the technologies. Making a character pop out of nowhere is popular in animated fantasy films. To recreate this we used fast chopping shots to show the character genie popping out of nowhere seemingly in a couple of shots in our film. We also used suggestive music which normally occurs in fantasy’s to give the audience and idea that something mystical is about to occur. This happens in Matilda as she is approached by the scary teacher and she is ostensibly cornered.


Our characters are distinctive to a film of the genre fantasy such as the genie with the ability to grant wishes. We also tried to give her traditional genie style attire to make her look extraordinary similar to the genie in Aladdin and genies in other films. We also created through Luke a typical normal boy who the audience can relate to. He is in need of wishes but does not end up using them much at all which goes away from the codes and conventions of fantasy film. Instead we focused on the relationship of the two characters as we felt this was more important to the message we were trying to create. Olivia is a loud demanding popular character who is typifies this type of character which we have all seen whether it be in the actual world, children’s films or TV sitcoms and everyone can relate to have knowing or seeing someone like her.

As our film was created for a younger audience initially we decided that it was most appropriate to use vibrant colours for our characters costume, especially the genie. Also bright lighting for the cinematography of our film, which would make our film seem more magical, attractive and keep the audiences interest. This is similar to Peter Pan as it is also bright due to it being animated. We tried to reproduce an animated film feel with our use of colours.

The setting of our film was in a school as we felt this was both convenient for us and our story as everyone at a time in their life has most likely attended a school and can relate to the environment. This is not typical of a fantasy as most mystical films are based in a more distant place. Though there can be comparisons to this film and jumanji as in that film a board game is found which has powers such as those of Genies in our film.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our film uses different methods to be effective. Our opening builds a tense magical atmosphere before the film starts this is effective as it makes the audience engage with the film and prepare for the story. The music we used first for our title sequence was quite upbeat and it was said to make our film seem too epic, but the music we chose the end suited the romance genre and was more effective with our film. We also used various tracks in the course of are film which we think are memorable for the audience and we ended in the last scene with a shot of the characters holding hands and used a soft sound track to lead into our credits which parades the happiness and softness of our ending The story of our film is effective as we have used characters which various types of people can relate too and the progressiveness of the film is easily follow and showed. The story is not too complicated and can be understood by most if not all types of people. Scenes in our film such as the start when the genie appears, when Olivia first appears and when the makeover occurs, grab the audience’s attention and push the story forward while. I think this makes the audience want to watch the film and the film is highly likeable due to the subtle romance in the film which all people can relate to.

We created three posters which aim to advertise the film and entice people to watch it. All the posters have bright colours which we decided to use as they reflect the vibrant mood we were trying to create in our film. Our titles in our posters have a very cultural feel which along with the lamp and the great mass of sparkles illustrate the mystical magical feel of the film. The first poster has the genie title in the centre of the poster with the character Genie at the side holding it in her hand. Luke is at the bottom of the poster looking up at genie and the colours of the background are pink and orange. Wishes can come true is at the top of the poster which gives the audience a slight hint as to the nature of the story I think this structure shows the importance of the genie in our film but it may underrepresented the importance of Luke in our film as he is small and placed towards the bottom in the poster. The credits also come over him which makes him seem more insignificant. This Poster correctly captures the magic in the film and projects the Genie as an important part of our film. I think we have used colours which are true to our film but the structure could be improved. The second poster we created fixes the structure argument with the first poster and uses a slightly less vibrant blue; I think this indicates the romance of the film more along with the picture which shows the characters together. The attire of Luke in this photo makes him look neutral and so it hard to tell whether he is nerdy or normal meaning that it gives away less of the story. The third poster was inspired by the ocean’s eleven poster and the home alone poster which are each unique posters which use different techniques for a posters than usual. We have focused this poster on Luke and have done the background differently and put pictures of the two characters on the wall this is echoes the time in the film Luke and the Genie spend together.

The review for our film also has the pun from our poster ‘wishes can come true’ which is very important message in our film. The review presents the film genie in a positive way and hypes the characters in the film. It has images of the film on a film strip. This looks professional and makes our film seem professional. Reviews also get more people to see a film and so if our film gets a good review it is possible that more people will go to watch the film. The film and the two ancillary tasks work together in the promotion of our film. There is a house style seen and you in each similar images and words are used. The each of the posters illustrates an important moment in the actual film and entices people to watch the film. The review gets people to want to watch the film using positive approval.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

At each section of the production of our film we received feedback. This enabled us to go back and change what was wrong in relation to what the audience told us was right or wrong. The first piece of feedback we received was for our first pitch. We were told that we did not have name for our characters, which was true at the tie and we then decided to call our characters Luke, Genie and Olivia. We were told there was also no name for our story, we started with Luke and the genie but felt this was too long and boring, therefore we went with just genie and found that this was enough for our film. We were told that the way the lamp appears out of nowhere was random and so we decided that Luke was going to find the lamp at first, in his bag after coming into contact with it in a drama lesson. Also we were told by our audience that in our first pitch the way the wishes turned from bad to good was slightly random. We then decided that in our next story idea we would have to make the character genies character more obvious to the audience as it shows her as a pleasant person who hates doing things wrong and working hard to be a better genie which leads to her becoming better at granting wishes. We were queried as to how we were going to make the genie appear and told that we would have to do this properly if it was to be effective. This is a very important piece of feedback from the audience as we had not come up with a solution yet. We thought we could give the impression that the Genie was not there by telling the other characters to ignore her and using cuts which show nothing one moment and then her appearing out of nowhere the next. Another suggestion given by the audience was to use glitter to show magic. We decided against this as we felt that it would be messy and hard to create. It was also suggested that we play on the idea that the genie was not there, we decided to incorporate this into our new story more without making it too lengthy. The audience said that we should use younger actors as a younger character as an older character would not be so quick to believe there was a genie there. At first we were not keen on this and felt out film suited older cast but decide d to go with the audiences’ feelings instead of our own. We were asked why the boy in our story got bullied, this shows that it was not very clear that Luke was not a normal boy and we had to make this clear in the next pitch. Also we were told continuity would be affected as younger children would not have exams. We felt this was not too important and it would not confuse the audience too much. We were told the ending of our film has pleasure of predictability. This meant that we tried to make our next pitch less predictable and more of a shook as we did not plan on making our film too predictable. We were also told that gold relates to the story a lot, we tried to incorporate as much gold in the film as possible. The Film was said to have a Fairytale, Cinderella feel to it. Are film became a fairytale as we were making it but we would like it to be less of a strict fairytale and make the film have more of a message. The audience said that the story had a lot students which could cause cast problems, we tried to get as many people as possible to fill the roles but in the end decided to reduce the amount of characters. Again we were told that certain elements of our film we to random, we tried to resolve this as best as possible. Our film was also said to be too long and there were too many settings and so we tried to cut down the amount of scenes and leave in the most important themes and also reduce the amount of settings used. We were going to change the lamp into something else but we felt that any other item would be even more random and so we decided against it and left it a lamp. The end of our film was said to be illogical and so we decided to show the genies character better in our next pitch. We were told to add more obvious triggers as wishes were too random. We were told to add something more into the middle of our story and so we decided to completely revamp everything so far.

Our final pitch feedback was as such; people said it our story was more effective than before, it was shorter and more to the point. This means that the improvements we made from our first pitch worked for us. Also we were told there was now the logical causality in everything which was missing before, narrative development which enables us to understand the story better and character development which enables us to learn more about the characters personalities. The initial reaction once we finished pitching was ‘awww’ which meant that the audience was emotionally engaged with the story and we had their attention. We were also told the story had to be handled carefully in filming. The locations aren’t as complicated as the other story which makes it simpler for us to make.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?

During planning of our film we used the internet and went on various video sites such as Youtube to watch videos of films and independent films. We also kept track of all the research we made and updated our blog on a regular basis which we used to log all the work we did and share work with other people in our class and also give and receive feedback. Also the blog connect us to the school blog which gave us work daily and allowed us to keep up with work and do any work which we may have missed. We were also provided with master classes on the different areas of filming such as directing, filming and sound. This enabled us to be adequate and better at the role we were given. We also had lessons on editing in whichh we learnt how to use a new software to edit. We formally used avid to edit our films and now we are using adobe premiere. oploaded photos onto the internet for our blog and also found images on the internet to use our pieces of reasearch. We used scanners to scan in all te work we did on paper.