2. 1. In what ways does your
media product use, develop or
challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?
3. I believe that our project did very much stick to the traditional media conventions
that typical Italian-American Gangster Films carry such as the classic ‘Tommy Gun’
that has always been a personal favourite for the gangsters portrayed in the film.
George and I did work very hard on trying to live up to the traditional conventions
of the Gangster film for the simple fact is that they work so well, an example of a
well-known gangster film is ‘The Godfather’ which was released in 1972 and is still
a classic even today, so by sticking to the same known and loved traits of the
gangster film, we were able to satisfy the gangster film lovers who by the film’s very
nature, would be the target market for the finished film.
Below you can see that we modelled our own Don around the Don from ‘The
Godfather’ played by Marlon Brando.
1972 2012
4. 2. How does your media
product represent particular
social groups?
5. In our product, it was very much based on the lives of men who had moved from their
home country of Italy in order to pursue ‘The American Dream’ and are , at the film’s
present, Brooklyn’s biggest crime syndicate, known only as ‘The Italian Mafia’.
Everyone featured in the production is of Italian descent and have strong Italian accents
to enforce that idea. Stereotypically, Italian’s are known to be close and personal with
their families and we have translated this into the family that is ‘The Italian Mafia’, the
idea that the Mafia is a family is another media convention that allows us to portray the
Italian social group to the audience.
At another angle, we portray the social class as the gangsters being at a higher class
than the man they are hunting for as they are in smartly dressed suits and hats that
advocate the impression that they are at quite a high social class and status. On the
other hand the character ‘Pauly’ was dressed in much lower class dress consisting of
bland, natural colours that make us aware that he isn’t as well off as the gunmen
chasing him. Its this kind of assumption and character development that allows
theories regarding backstories to be explored, Pauly might have borrowed money from
the mafia and was unable to pay it back for example, nothing was implied for the
audience to think this, but it does allows us to create more to deliver to the audience
bearing in mind the time constraints we were given.
6. 3. What kind of Media
Institution might distribute
your media product and why?
7. The media institution that might distribute our media product would be a company such as
Paramount Pictures UK or 20th Century fox that have a controlling a significant portion of
the Film production/Distribution market, meaning either would be a viable choice if we were
given the option to choose a specific studio. Paramount Pictures was the company
responsible for distributing the Original Godfather movie, meaning they have experience in
marketing and distributing movies of this genre. I highly doubt however, that movie
production companies such as 20th century fox and Paramount UK would agree to distribute
an unknown movie from a small British independent film company so we would need to find
a smaller film distribution studio that would be more willing to pick our film up to
distribute.
8. 4. What would be the
audience for your media
product?
9. Our product could easily be marketed to all ages. There is little to alienate the elderly,
middle-aged or family viewers, but it would not be suitable for very young children to see
on their own. Our main target audience would be men or women between the ages of 15 to
56. these are the age groups that are practically attracted to the action/gangster genre. This
genre practically appeals to men due to the levels of violence and the wide usage of
firearms. The main audience would be men over twenty who have their own means of
transport and a disposable income. It is this specific age group that is most likely to attend
the cinema or buy films of this type for pure entertainment. Although our product is
marketable to most ages [15 to 56] and both sexes it is best to market this product to
financially independent young males. Overall, our product falls into the boundary of PG,
because while it doesn’t display violence or other controversial spectacles, it does display
weaponry so children can watch this film under their parent’s disgression.
11. We thought to attract and address our audience, we would make a promotional poster
advertsing our product, to create the poster, we went through a variety of prototypes to
try and create a very bold yet striking design that would interest and entice our potential
audience and developed the idea of a silhouette of three gunmen, (which linked in to the
three gunmen featured in Piccola Italia), and so Niall drew the initial silhouettes while
George began preparing the template for the promotional poster, when we had completed
both we then proceded to combine the two for the final design, Niall then went and
completed the finishing touches to make the poster complete, the final poster is pictured
below.
12. 6. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process
of constructing this product?
13. We used a variety of technoligcal devices in order to complete our project,they are as
follows:
Imovie
Imovie was the sole video editing software we used in order for any post production
editing we did during the project, we used this software on the Apple iMac to edit the
clip’s sound and trim clips to make professional looking videos.
Blogger
Blogger is the blog-hosting website I used to showcase my portfolio of work I have been
doing throughout the year, it helps keep all the posts organised and time-stamped.
Google
Google is the search engine used to collect relevant data and images regarding our project,
I personally believe it was the most invaluable tool at our disposal throughout the project,
we helped a great deal with fact finding and statistics.
Tripod
The tripod helped keep the Video Camera steady throughout the filming process, and we
wouldn’t have had such a smooth and proffessional video outcome without the use of this
tool.
Video Camera
The video camera was an absolutely necessary tool as it captured all the video we used
throughout the project, it was an easy product design to use and allowed us to write the
video to wither the internal hard drive or tape (dependant on model).
14. 7. Looking back at your
preliminary task, what do you
feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full
product?
15. As I look back onto my preliminary task, I notice that I was fairly inexperienced when it
came to media techniques and conventions, so I can safely say I have learnt a wealth of
knowledge about Camerawork, editing, sound and mise en scene which are all vital pieces
of Televised media. The difference between my preliminary task and my final product is an
outstanding difference in both professionalism and in content purely because I have been
introduced to new ways of approaching a task such as a filming project that would require
quite a lot of planning for it to come off without a hitch, whereas in the preliminary, it was
very unrehearsed and it showed in the final product of the preliminary task. To me, the
finished product of ‘Piccola Italia’ is my greatest achievement throughout my AS levels
because it is a project I have been most interested in, I also spent a lot of time in the Media
Studies office polishing and fine-tuning Piccola Italia so the finished product could live up
to the way I envisioned it, and it’s safe to say, it has.
