2. How dows your media product represent particular social groups?

Sarah is similar to Bex from Waterloo Road. Bex is controlled by her boyfriend and has no control over her life or decisions. Like Sarah she cannot turn to anyone due to fear of her boyfriend finding out. However, Sarah is a dancer which helps her to escape from the chaos of what is happening around her, Bex has no escape. Both of the girls dress similar in ways as they both cover as much of their body as possible with clothing, however we only ever see Bex in her school uniform, whereas we often see Sarah in her dance clothes. Both girls are blond and look frail and vulnerable, they also live in fear of men. Bex was a great influence for Sarah's character, however we have changed elements of Bex's character so as to give Sarah an individual persona.

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

• Our opening sequence is rather typical. We set the genre of a teen drama, as the teens introduce their characters through admitting their problems, introducing the audience to the storyline. 
• The Mise en Scene shows teens in stereotypical clothing and carryout stereotypical activities i.e. doing weights, smoking, etc. 
• The set up of the opening sequence is unusual, but not unique, as the opening sequence is the end of the film and the whole film is in the past. 
• The title of our film is indirect as it suggests that the teens are outcasts, however that is a title of a TV series, so we decided to use an indirect title.
• Our genre is also set through our font, it is in a graffiti style which is stereotypically related to teens.
• A variety of high angled shots and low angled steady shots were used to differ between the teens vulnerability and instability in the past and their dominance and self assurance in the present day. 
• The characters are introduced with influence from Trainspotting, we use a still frame to display the characters names and a voice over to introduce them to the audience. However, unlike Trainspotting we use flashbacks to introduced the character further.

Improving our Camera Work

When watching our opening sequence, we felt the opening sofa scene and the characters close ups on the sofa were rather shaky so we decided we would re shoot them. We thought it would be best to use a tripod to emphasise that the characters are no longer vulnerable and unstable. Our original location was not available to us due to unforeseen circumstances. We assessed our options and decided that we should relocate our scene to a sofa in the school main reception. It is a quiet and relatively desolate area, meaning we would en cure minimum disturbances. We re filmed and edited these sections of our opening sequence, adding in all the previous effects as we went. The outcome was much better as our storyline was made easier for the audience to follow through the steadiness of our camerawork.

This is our new location.

Creating our Credits

We decided it was time to add in our producers and actors names. We used the subtitle text effect over black with The Battle Continuez font in tangerine to display our producers names. We placed this just after our GLAM title but before our opening sequence began, the music and text fade in together. We added the actors names over their second black and white flashbacks in The Battle Continuez font in tangerine.

Making our GLAM Title

Our GLAM Productions title was created in Macromedia Fireworks using a variety of tools like pencils, paint, Stanley knives and more. It allowed our designer to create the letters of GLAM in a Graffiti style, like the rest of our opening sequence's text. The file was then imported to iMovieHD where we took a still frame of it and added it to the beginning of our opening sequence.

Editing our Music

We imported Ed Sheean's You Need Me, I Don't Need You into iMovieHD and began to edit it and remove aspects of the song we did not need. We decided to keep the opening of the song up to the first verse and we kept the middle and last choruses. the choruses would play when the voice overs ended so as the music did not interfere with our dialogue of our opening sequence and make it hard to hear. We had to extend the introduction so as it would play over all of our dialogue, we also turned the volume of it down so as the dialogue could be heard. We also deleted all natural sound from our flashbacks so the voice overs will gain the audiences full attention.

Adding Effects to our Flashbacks

When we played our opening sequence back we felt that although the date differences distinguished between past and present we needed something to show the difference immediately to the audience. We experimented with different iMovieHD video effects. We felt that making the flash backs black and white was the most effective as it would immediately make the audience aware of the time difference as black and white is commonly used to display past events in films. We then attached this effect to our flashback clips.

Creating our Freeze Frames

As 'Trainspotting' is one of our main influences we decided we would use the idea of having a freeze frame of the characters when they're names appeared on the screen. We done this by creating a still shot just before each characters flash back begins . This produced a 5 second still image over which we placed the subtitle displaying the characters name. We then cut these still images down to 3 seconds so as they were not too long.

Creating our Subtitles

We decided that to establish a difference between past and present we would add in subtitles displaying 'July 2011' for the opening sofa scene and 'July 2010' for the flashbacks. We also decided to add subtitles of the characters names in the sofa scene to allow the viewer to grasp who is who. We decided these subtitles would be in the same font as out 'Cut Loose' title The Battle Continuez in a Tangerine colour so it would fit in with our titles.

Creating and Editing our Voiceovers

We filmed the 4 characters voice overs onto a mac then imported them into iMovieHD. We extracted the audio from each film and once it was extracted we deleted the picture. We then imported the voice overs to our final cut of Cut Loose over each of the characters first flash back. This was done by adding each voice over to the third line of the time line underneath its corresponding scene.

Audience Responses

Reaearch into Exhibition

Below is a list of 5 Warp X films and the strategy of their release.
A Complete History of my Sexual Failures was released on 12 screens and took a gross of $12,772 in its opening weekend and a total gross of $80,138.
Donkey Punch was released on 155 screens and took a gross of $144,953 in its opening weekend and a total gross of $293,071.
Hush was released on 34 screens and took a gross of $40,801 in its opening weekend and a total gross of $90,454.
She, A Chinese was opened on one screen and took a gross of $1,350 in its opening weekend and a total gross of $10,838.
Bunny and the Bull was opened on 27 screens and took a gross of $45,760 in its opening weekend and a total gross of $87,590.


Warp X used different strategies to release different films:
Donkey Punch was a teen orientated film and so it was marketed through posters, adverts and merchandise. Too boost its gross it was released within a school holiday to enable teens to go and view it.
She, A Chinese had a very selective audience and so was not advertised very publicly, instead it had a limited release at the ICA for 2 weeks.

Research into Distribution

Warp x is a low budget partner company to the more expensive and prestigious Warp Films Productions. Warp X have an agreement in place with Optimum Releasing, who will distribute all the films that Warp X make to cinemas and on DVD.


Optimum Releasing tend to focus on documentaries, low budget, American independent films, foreign language movies (Pan's Labyrinth) and british low budget films, most Warp X movies. In short Optimum Releasing distributes more complex and less commercial films.

Filming Day Three

Our third shooting session was on Wednesday 16th February. We filmed our opening sofa scene with all the close ups, both of Rian's flash backs and Lara's flash back in the mirror.

Shot 1 is an establishing shot to begin our opening sequence of an ordinary living room and our 4 main characters carelessly chatting. When watching it back we decided this shot was too shaky and so we would not be using it in our opening sequence.

Shot 2 is a close up of Mel as she begins our dialogue which will link our 4 characters together through a sentence.

Shot 3 is a close up of Tyrone continuing the linking sentence.

Shot 4 is a close up of Rian continuing the linking sentence.

Shot 5 is a close up of Sarah completing the linking sentence.

Shot 6 is an establishing shot of Rian doing weights.

Shot 7 is a side on close up of the same actions as shot 6.

Shot 8 is an over the shoulder shot of the same actions as shot 6.

Through editing shots 6 - 8 will become a match on action.

Shot 9 is an establishing shot of Rian doing sit ups.

Shot 10 is an over the shoulder shot of Rian carrying out the same actions as shot 9.

Through editing shots 9 and 10 will become a match on action.

Shot 11 is an establishing shot of Sarah looking at her bruises in the mirror. We decided to film Sarah's reflection as we thought it would vary the shots.

Shot 12 is an over the shoulder close up of Sarah tending to her bruises in the mirror.

Shots 1 - 5 are steady so as the show the viewer how the characters have now come to terms with their problems and that they are now no longer vulnerable.

Shots 6 - 12 are handheld to show the viewer how uneasy the characters are and they are also from a high angle to show the characters vulnerability.

Filming Day Two

Our second shooting session was on Friday 4th February. We filmed Lara's first flash back of her tying her shoes in the dance studio.

Shot 1 displays Sarah tieing her ballet shoes, preparing to dance.
Shot 2 displays Sarah carrying out the same actions as before but from an over the shoulder view, however we discovered we could not use this because mid way through the shot the lighting in the background changes.
Shot 3 displays Sarah carrying out the same actions, however it is a mid shot.
After watching these 3 shots back we decided that they were rather slow and maybe Sarah's actions could be displayed clearer, so we decided we would display her finishing tying one shoe and begin to tie another.
Shot 4 displays a mid shot of Sarah tying her shoes in the new way and faster.
Shot 5 displays Sarah carrying out the same actions as before but from an over the shoulder view.
Shot 6 displays Sarah carrying out the same actions as before in a mid shot from a different angle.
All of the above shots are handheld to show the viewer how uneasy the characters are and they are also from a high angle to show the characters vulnerability.

Filming Day One

Our first shooting session was on Thursday 3rd February. We filmed both of Mel's flash back scenes and Tyrone's flash back in the library.

Shot 1 displays Tyrone sitting alone in the library, we later realised that we could not use this shot as we had broken the 180 degree rule, and so would confuse the audience if we added this scene in.
Shot 2 displays Tyrone sitting alone once again, however we shot it through a bookcase to get a more intriguing shot and so to attract the viewers attention.
Shot 3 once again shows Tyrone sitting alone reading, here he opens up to the camera about his homosexuality through touching characters within his book.
Shot 4 shows Mel lighting and starting to smoke her spliff.
Shot 5 is of Mel smoking her spliff, we moved the camera around during this shot to get a variety of angles.
Shot 6 is an over the shoulder shot of Mel buying drugs.
Shots 7 and 8 are close ups of Mel buying drugs to give the audience a better idea of what is happening.
All of the above shots are handheld to show the viewer how uneasy the characters are and they are also fromm a high angle to show the characters vulnerability.