Evaluation

We spent no money at all on our film and I think this challenges the conventions of a real product because many football hooligan films contain a lot of violence and often have a voiceover and I believe our film has done this because we created the violence with the use of blood capsules when Shane hits Harry and the voiceover is used effectively to give a brief description of what will happen in the film and this is similar to The Football Factory. We also created 1980s style music and felt this would also challenge the conventions of a hooligan film because many hooligan films such as I.D and Away Days are based around the 1980s and this is the kind of music which is often heard. We also made a lot of cuts in our film to build up the pace of the film and this is common in all hooligan films. We had a wide variety of shots but would have been more effective if we used point of view shots s this is also common in a real football hooligan media product.

I feel our film represents a social group who live in working class areas and are often unemployed. Another social group is also football fans, particularly those who support Dover or Folkestone as they are involved in this film. This film also represents people who live in urban areas and people who are bored with work and have nothing else to do than fight because they may live in a deprived area where there is little to do.

I feel an independent film company would distribute our film and we would have filmed professionally in a small studio. The problem is theis small studio is not capable of promoting our film to the audience or shops because of the high costs involved. We would have to give our film to a company that distributes films or some form of advertising with little costs which can attract the attention of our desired audience. We are currently planning to show our film over the web via YouTube for free so people across the world are able to view our film.

The audience for our media product are likely to be people who like football or people who enjoy watching action films. Our audience is also based on where people and would attract people mainly people from Folkestone or Dover because these teams are involved in the film. We want to try and attract as many people as possible and we decided to lower the age rating from 18 to 15 because we want younger people to watch our film too. We will also edit our trailers carefully so there are many genres involved such as action, hooliganism, romance, drama and crime/gangsters. We would also use translations so people are able to watch our film worldwide and would use subtitles for people who are deaf.

Our target market for this film is big and the way we attract this large target audience is through advertising. We would have to use trailers and advertise them on the main television channels such as BBC 1 and ITV 1. We would also have a premier viewing and the use of celebrities walking down a red carpet to watch our film will also attract our target audience. This premier screening and the use of celebrities could also be shown on news channels which would attract more viewers because so many people watch the news. We also plan to advertise on various billboards nationwide and even globally to attract an even bigger audience and we would also advertise our film on poplular websites such as YouTube where advertisements now show when the video is still playing. We have made our film specifically so our audience can relate to the characters. The audince can relate to the main character, the son of Folkestones firm leader, Harry, who is a bit of a 'jack-the-lad', a very cocky and flash young man.

We have learnt a lot from the technologies used to create the media product. We have learnt to how put clips in order and how to edit them. We put the uploaded clips in the correct and then did a voiceover after this. We did the vocieover after because we know what we could talk about by putting the clips in the right order first. We did the tiles first and then put the music in after this. The music fiited perfectly with our titles hinting there is a 1980s theme, when hooliganism was at its peak.

Looking back on our reliminary task, I felt our group have learnt a lot from our preliminary task. To begin with, we did our preliminary task and we were quite limited with what shots we did. We mainly did the 180 degree rule with over the shoulder shots. For our main task, we had more freedom with our shots and weren't restricted with what we could do. We got good feedback for our evaluation but there was also some criticism such as 'a lot of wasted space at times' and 'exaggeartion of the 180 degree rule'. For our main film, we worked on the wasted space and how we could eliminate the wasted space. This is shown when Harry gets punched in the alley way by Alex and Shane and is also shown when Harry goes up to Alex and Shane and shouts 'Oi, soppy bollocks!' There were some errors in our film. We did not want the camera to shake as much but could not help this as we were not allowed to use a tripod within Folkestone Invicta's ground.

Task 3 - Construction

Firstly, we got the camera and tripods from the teacher but our group was already at a disadvantage as one member of our group was absent. After a major disagreement on one idea, the idea of a James Bond type scene, we decided to do something similar which included violence and based our film on football hooliganism.

I took the tripod home with me and Harry took the camera home with him and the following night, we decided to film at Folkestone Invicta's Buzzlines Stadium. We had many problems including trying to make the filming of the crowd less obvious and we did not use the tripod as this would be too obvious and would stand out around the ground. Instead, harry placed the camera on a fence and we did our filming on this. Another group was also in attendance at Folkestone and we had to give our tripod to this group as they did not have one.

The next day, we uploaded the footage but there appeared to be a lack of footage and the quality of the footage was not up to the standards we expected but we had to deal with this and upload the footage and begin editing. Shane was not present at the match, but he did most of the editing with Harry helping whilst I was constructing our storyboard and animatics.

Next Monday, we decided to do some extra footage which included filming in an alley way, near a pub and inside a classroom. Before this, we had done another scene which does not appear in our film because we had used a different camera and the camera we used did not 'letterbox' like the other cameras did. In this deleted scene, we did not have any blood capsules and had to use tomato sauce instead. During the scenes which include the alley way, pub and the classroom, we had to do many takes as the acting was poor and we were without a tripod as the group we lent the tripod to were still using it. We had to put the camera on a wall and even produced some handheld footage. We borrowed some blood capsules from another group and used these in the classroom scene and were used to great effect. We finished filing, uploaded the footage and left the editing to a later date.

Shane, who was very good at editing, was absent again and I was still busy with the storyboards leaving Harry to do the editing and he struggled. We asked our teachers for editing ideas and the group we have worked closely with helped us at times. Shane did not appear in the lessons for around three weeks and we were lagging behind, so we thought, compared to the group we worked closely with. Shane managed to come into school and completed the editing leaving me and Harry to do the music and titles. We did not need any help with the titles but got some help from Hamish for the music.

Task 2.7 - Storyboard/Animatics

We wanted the idea of an introduction to a film that would be at a high tempo and the use of a voiceover set the scene. The problem is we could not express a high tempo and a voiceover in our drawn storyboard. We decided to put the word voiceover underneath the picture to highlight a voice is speaking over this scene. We wanted to try and get all of our generic conventions and iconography into the opening of our film and included people at the pub, singing and violence. These are few of the iconography and genric conventions in a football hooligan film.

Task 2.6 - Single Sequence Analysis

Watch until 6 minutes, 42 seconds.

The opening to this film is set in November 1979, at a time when hooliganism was at its peak. Carty wears what all the other hooligans tend to wear. A typical hooligan tends to wear Stone Island and Fred Perry clothing and a hooligan usually wears white trainers and jeans, which is very typical of the late 70s, early 80s fashion for hooligans and has carried on in today's hooligan films and characters such as Tommy Johnson and Matt Buckner also wear similar clothing to Carty. At the very beginning of this sequence, it is very ironic that Carty is grieving for his mother but then comes out of his funeral clothing and into his hooligan wear and getting on the train and looking for trouble. Carty is late for the train and has to sprint to get there. This is simlar to Matt Bucknern Green Street running after his hooligan firm, the GSE, as they meet up for a fight with the Millwall hooligan firm. Like Matt Buckner in Green Street, Carty is seen as an outsider at first and copies what the other hooligans are doing. There is already a division just like in Green Street and Football Factory between Carty and another youth which is apparent when the thug asks Carty 'What are you starin' at?'. This is similar to Billy Bright and Harris in the Football factory although these two are fighting for the leadership and Green Street when there is a hatred from Bovver towards Buckner.

There are several typical generic conventions in Away Days. There is the use of drugs and drink on the chain and fighting on the football terraces. Carty sees the thug who doesn't take a liking to him stab a rival firm member. Blood would normally appear from a stab wound and this could represent danger and that the youth, whose name we do not know, can be seen as a threat to Carty and the firm known as The Pack, who Carty becomes fascinated with. Another convention also includes swearing which was very common on the train. Linking this to the train, many hooligan firms tend to take trains on match days to away grounds and this is apparent in Away Days. ICF, West Ham United's hooligan firm, stands for Inter City Firm and is named after the use of InterCity trains for away games. As I have already mentioned, fashion is a huge part of hooligan life and Carty's sister mocks him when she says 'Who do? The local anglers club' after Carty says 'This is what they wear'. Like Matt Buckner, Carty copies what the hooligans wear. Another convention is many of the hooligan firms tend to walk around in large groups. This could represent intimidation as well as togetherness.

Task 2.5 - Comparison of sequences

Both scenes I have looked at are fight scenes from both the Football Factory and Green Street. I have chosen these two scenes because they are both similar but they do have their differences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFRiP3eA7WY

The titles at the beginning of this opening sequence of Football Factory are very graphic and show what hooligans have done in the past and also shows us what is going to happen throughout the film. The pace of the titles builds up to show the life of a hooligan is at a high tempo, backed up by the non-diegetic sound which is also at a high tempo. After the titles, it shows the main character, Tommy Johnson getting kicked in the head repeatedly. This a typical generic convention of a hooligan film, the use of blood and getting beaten up. Tommy is then seen walking down a street and is walking down a street. He describes his life and talks about the typical iconogrpahy within hooliganism - drugs, sex, alcohol, violence. It then cuts to 'Tottenham away' and shows police horses, who tend to be an agent of disruption in hooligan films and also shows a group of people coming out of the train station. In many hooligan films, hooligans tend to walk in a group to show that they are intimidating but to also be protected by his fellow hooligans. In every hooligan firm, there has to be a leader. It is hard to realise who the leader is at first, it could be Billy, Zeberdee or Tommy because they are communicating with each other on their phones. Tommy later explains Harris is the leader because the other potential leader, Billy Bright, is not seen as mature enough. Hooligans tend to meet up in a pub and fighting takes place outside the pub, where the Tottenham hooligans are situated. There is a lot of swearing and there is lots of bloody vioelence and the sounds of punching, kicking and the breaking of glass emphasises how violent the vioelnce really is. Women can also be seen as an influence and another agent of disruption, normally asking for the fighting to stop, as is seen in the opening the scene when the woman with the pushchair labels the hooligans as animals. After the fighting, they are in the pub, joking around, reflecting on past fights. It seems the hooligans have two very different personalities. They can joke around and be very kind but come matchday, they are brutal thugs. These hooligans have been brought up to fight and take part in other activities. In Tommy's younger days, he enjoys casual sex and being influenced by his father by becoming violent. Billy's father was always violent and grew up in rough areas, like Tommy has done. Zeberdee's main influence is drugs, beating up people to get drugs but also used to live in a rough area. It shows Billy in the present day with a nice house and a family. It is strange that a violent person can have such a nice house and loving family and could be possible that he used his violent ways to get what he wanted and uses this house and his family to cover up what he does at the weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmDWbNSaIU

The opening to Green Street has its similarities and differences with Football Factory. Football Factory did not have any football chanting unlike Green Street where West Ham hooligans chant 'West Ham til' I die' and Tottenham hooligans chant 'Yid Army!' The two hooligan firms meet unintentionally and the location is at a train station where the group in Football Factory also appear from. Like Football Factory, there is a lot of swearing but there is no 'banter' in the opening of Football Factory, just giving a brief overview of the story to come. Green Street 'banter' involves where West Ham are in the Football League, the Spurs thugs saying West Ham are no longer 'top flight mob.' Like the Football Factory, there are leaders but in Green Street, a former West Ham hooligan firm leader is called 'The Major'. Pete is now the current leader of West Ham and argues with the Spurs leader, whose name is unknown to us. This leads to bloody violence which has the same iconogaphy and convention shown in the Football factory fight scene. There is a lot of bloody violence and you also hear the sounds of constant punching kicing and the breaking of glass as heard in Football Factory but Green Street has no agent of disruption, like the woman with the pushchair in Football Factory. Both fighting scenes show us awkward camera angles, the quick movement of the camera and the quick cuts which increase the pace of the film and emphasise the violence shown. There is then a transition to peaceful Harvard University. The main character, Matt Buckner, is kicked out for having drugs with him, although he is innocent and his room mate hid his drugs in Matt's room. Matt calls his Dad who is not there to answer. Like Football Factory, Matt could also be seen to having a bad upbringing like Billy and Tommy, his father is not there for him and is seen as a bad influence on Matt. Like Football Factory, the main character does a voiceover but Matt sounds more educated and is seen to get an A grade for a piece of work to highlight his intelligence. The music is much more slower than the music in Football factory. The slower music represents the innocence of Matt and the sunny Harvard also represents innocence unlike London at night, which can be viewed as dangerous because of the darker picture. Matt happens to arrive in London at the scene of the fight and meets his sister. The Americans sound very upbeat and positive but the British tend to be very negative, looking for violence and the people walking past Matt and his sister were very quiet and negative.

Task 2.4 - Generic Conventions

The genres I have chosen are gangsters, action, war and hooliganism because they all link in with the film my group are producing. As well as generic conventions, I will also be looking at the iconography in the different genres. A generic convention is a feature of a film that is expected to happen. For example, in a fairytale, you expect everyone to live happily ever after at the end. Iconography can be defined as object or image representations that are associated with a specific type of genre. For example, the iconography in Westerns in cowboy hats, saloons, guns and horses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc9zF8G2Pvc

The link above shows a scene from The Untouchables, a gangster film about the life of the infamous Al Capone. In this scene, Capone jokes around with his colleagues but there is an awkward silence and Capone hits a colleague round the head several times with a baseball bat. In a gangster film, you would normally expect to see violence and the gangsters themselves normally end up getting killed or sent to prison. Another generic convention is you would expect the gangsters to go about their business quietly and is normally out of public view. In most gangster films, you would normally expect the gangsters to be Italian-American as many of stories are based on true stories such as the life of Al Capone in The Untouchables. Gangs tend to fight with other gangs with the police being an agent of disruption, another typical generic convention. Another convention is may of the gangsters are respected by the people of the area they live in, possibly because the people are scared of them.

The iconography normally associated with gangster films are the Mafia type people, who dress very smartly and normally wear a hat when they are outside so they are hidden and have an unknown identity. Many of the gangsters, especially the leaders tend to be rich and live in nice houses and have expensive dinner parties like the scene provided above (see link). Guns are almost always used in gangster films which are used to shoot down police or rival gangs. Many gangster films are located in urban areas and gangsters often meet in warehouses for alcohol and often deal in alcohol as there was prohibition in 1920s America. The gangsters often wear dark clothing to hide themselves fro public and shows they are up to no good, the colour black can represent mystery or even death.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtnVPzMHdMg

The link above is about the action genre. The most common action film series is James Bond and the link above shows a tank chase scene through Russia in the film Goldeneye, part of the James Bond series of films. The main generic conventions include the action normally being centered around a male protagonist with women normally portrayed as a sidekick or a love interest for the main male protagonist. Their sidekick is normally in trouble , struggling against incredible odds. Other conventions include the protagonist being in many life threatening circumstances, an evil villain or antagonist and you would normally expect to see chase scenes like the tank chase in Goldeneye. Another convention includes expecting the protagonist to claim victory over the antagonist which is normally achieved after a gun or fist fight.

Iconography in an action film includes lots of physical stunts, the film is usually at a high tempo, chase scenes, rescue acts, battles, disasters and fights which tend to happen at the end. The pace of the film can be slow or fast. In James Bond, the pace is slow when James Bond is in a casino or is with a woman but is very fast when he is involved in a chase scene or in a fight with the antagonist. Women are normally seen as sidekicks to the male protagonist or even a romantic interest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBeXRvdlmyY

The link above shows a brief battle scene from the Battle of The Bulge in the seventh episode of Band of Brothers and is in the war genre. Typical generic conventions include the protagonists tending to be British or American (especially in WW2 films) who are fighting against the antagonists which are either Nazis or the Japanese. Another convention could be escaping, The Great Escape shows many attempted escapes from a POW camp. There is often tough trench and infantry experiences and many of the men become friends which is common in Band of Brothers. A typical generic convention is an underdog within the film, who is normally afraid of fighting in the war. A good example of this is the typewriter in Saving Private Ryan who is afraid to shoot at people or even be involved in the war and normally carries equipment. These type of characters at the end normally end up shooting people and become war-hungry.

Iconography in war films include blood, a common feature and seen in almost every war film. The blood normally appears when someone has been shot and this can represent danger and death. There is also the use of guns and other weapons which are normally a dark colour which also represents death. Tanks and 4x4 vehicles are also included in many war films and these can be seen as intimidating. The soldiers tend to fight in bad conditions such as snow and heavy rain but when they are not fighting, the weather is normally sunny or fair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btTkBqDWUEY

The link above shows the iconography and conventions in the hooliganism genre. The film is called Cass and is based on a true story, a black boy bullied at school soon becomes a respected leader of a hooligan firm but leads to severe consequences. A typical generic convention of a football hooligan film is the hooligan firms normally fight just before or after a match, to show they have bragging rights over them. The protagonists are more focused and tend to be West Ham or Chelsea with Millwall being seen as the main antagonists. Another convention is fist fighting and little use of guns. There is normally a division within a hooligan firm. For example in the Football Factory, Billy Bright and Zeberdee along with his mate Raff, do not get along because Billy wants to be leader but Zeberdee looks up to Harris, the firm leader. The main fight is normally towards the end of the film and normally have less people and are seen as the underdogs hence they are given the protagonist tag.

The iconography of hooliganism is they are normally brought up in a working-class society and tend to wear the same clothes brands such as Stone Island, Sergio Tacchini and Fila. There is often a lot of drinking, use of drugs and dealing of drugs casual sex and lots of violence. There is a lot of swearing associated with hooligans. Despite this, they are still portrayed as protagonists because of the humour they give out to the audience or seen as nice people who have nothing else to do but fight. For example, you feel sorry for Cass at the start and is already seen as the protagonist and you support him when he is fighting because he used to be inferior and is fighting back.

Task 2.3 - Product Company Logo Design

Before creating our logo, we had to research into other company logos just in case we had not copied other company logos. Many of today's companies use animation and would be very difficult to include animated logos into our movies. We wanted to keep our logo simple because we wanted to avoid editing the logo for a long time due to time constraints.

With the research completed, our group thought up logo ideas and the idea of a cow as our logo as our company is called Beef'ed 'n Co and beef comes from cows.

Most of the logos created were simple and either had a black or white background. We added a cow cartoon to our logo because beef comes from cows and thought that this type of humorous logo would attract a wide range of audiences. After much thouht, we felt the logo with the white background was the most suitable because it stands out from the rest and was very simple in design.