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.