For my Media AS Coursework I decided to choose brief one from the options we were given. I then further decided to choose task one and two following this. I decided to create a 3-minute film opening and a 3 page A4 information booklet about the opening sequence. I decided to choose these because I felt that they would enable me to create my best work. I wanted to base my film around a target audience of young teen around 12+ as I knew that the basis of the film I was going for was a bit harder to understand for younger generations.
Before I decided to create anything I first carried out some research. Firstly, I watched other sporting films such as ‘Forever Stronger’ and ‘Goal II’ as I knew that my film would be based around sport. I also contacted a man named Jimmy Gittings. Jimmy is a former Rugby League player who suffered a terrible injury which ended his career. He speaks openly about life after his injury and works for the charity ‘State of Mind’. I felt talking to him personally would enable more knowledge on the subject of depression in sport. I also looked at published booklets such as 40/20 Magazine and league weekly to get an understanding of how my designs are supposed to look. I felt that this information was key so that I could stick to the original codes of conventions of a proper magazine.
The first task that I chose was to create a 3-minute film opening sequence. I decided to follow the brief and base my film around ‘a secret’. That secret obviously being that this sports star was suffering from depression. This however was a bit of a challenge as depression in sport is a touchy subject so whatever I created had to be as accurate as possible. This then made me have to think outside of the box of how I would portray the depression.
I made my main character male to follow the codes and conventions of a classic sporting film. Although a problem I encountered was the age of the actor as he just looked too young, we only had one day to film so this problem was never really solved. I used relatively sporty people in my film again to follow the codes and conventions of a sports film. I also used a male character because of its relation to the male hegemonic representation theory. This allowed me to reach the greatest amount of target audience, as stereotypically in this theory the male is more responsive and the audience feel a greater bond with due to the fact with him being more dominant. I dressed my actors in relatively sporty clothes as it makes sense, having a sport based film with the actor in normal clothes doesn’t make sense.
I was disappointed with how the filming went as I was expecting to use a drone for some bird’s eye view shots but unfortunately things didn’t work out however I was still pleased with the finished product. I felt that the filming quality and the editing was at a very high standard. I felt that the way I portrayed the actor’s depression was in a unique way, after talking to Jimmy in my research he mentioned a lot of the time you feel on your own and I tried recreate that feeling by using only two actors and completely focusing on the surroundings and the main actor only. I do however feel that the story line was kind of lost as it doesn’t really tell a story but only sets the scene.

I decided to use no audio except the song, ‘high hopes’ again I was trying to create the feeling of loneliness. The song was my entire 20% on unoriginal media.
Due to the location being at an actual stadium we only had one day of filming and I felt that this was my downfall however without the stadium I doubt it would have looked as professional and realistic if we would have just used a field somewhere. The downside of using the stadium was that we had very limited time to film. I felt that we were held back by this fact, with the video only lasting 2 minutes 45 seconds by the end. I feel that if I were to do it again I would either get more time to film or choose a different location.
Editing the film, I decided to use very simple titles with a little bit of opacity. All the titles were mainly the same because I felt that simplicity looked better and created a better sequence rather than over complicating everything. I felt that this was the right choice and after getting feedback from others it paid off.
With task one out of the way I started to design task two. The print task was I felt my strong point. For my first A4 page I wanted to just have a film poster. I wanted the front page of my booklet to be a poster with all the titles and everything on. I got my inspiration from the ‘Thor’ Poster and although I don’t have a superhero on the front of mine you can spot the similarities. I definably felt that the photos I took on the shoot should feature massively. I chose my favourite photo that suited the poster and placed a bleed at the bottom so that I could write text underneath. I felt that the black bleed I had at the bottom worked really well because it looked natural and allowed me to type in white text with stands out really well. I felt that the 3 main fonts I chose worked well together, one font was really blocky and was the main font for the film title which also features in my film with the text ‘13 as one’. It really stands out and works as if it’s a logo almost. Another font I chose was just a normal font so that it’s easy to read while the other allowed me to recreate the credits at the bottom of my poster.
I created my booklet using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, both programs allowing me to create high quality, high resolution images. I felt although these programmes allowed me to create the highest quality booklet I could and allowed it to have a professional look.
I did feel that the colour scheme was a key factor in making my booklet as good as possible, I felt that having a really darkish and gloomy colour scheme would work well allowing me to use bright font colour such as white as I knew that the text would stand out. I decided to use this colour scheme because following my research when I spoke to Jimmy Gittins he told me about your world feeling dark and gloomy and you always felt on your own, so I tried as best as I could to re-create that feeling with my book almost. I also decided to use the same font for my title to create a logo almost such as the Iconic Harry Potter font is seen as a logo.
I felt that my booklet was to a high quality as the page looked complete and there were clear continuity between my film opening and booklet. I felt although Photoshop was the best software to use as it offers a lot more professional features which I feel that other software such as publisher doesn’t offer. I was able to completely cover my 3 pages by using Photoshop which again I think helps add that high quality look to it. As well with Photoshop I was able to edit my film poster with great detail with little things such using the blur tool on some parts and being allowed to add a white bleed at the top to add extra text and a black bleed at the bottom.
Task 3 I did not chose simply because I was not familiar with the techniques used to create a website and didn’t feel that I would’ve been able to create a detailed final product. If I would’ve chosen to do this task however I probably would’ve approached it in a similar way to my booklet in keeping the same colour schemes and fonts etc. I know that print based media and e media can be very similar in certain aspects until the hyperlinks and stuff comes in. However, I do feel that some things would’ve worked better if it was published on to a site for example a page about cast and crew and being able to go into detail about that whereas on my print work I was only able to use a segment of the page to talk about cast and crew. Although my target audience of 12+ around the teens are more internet reliable and are unlikely to read a booklet over a website so making a website would’ve probably been better to be able to relate to my audience and keep relevant as you can update websites with ease but not a booklet.
In conclusion I felt that my research and planning with both tasks did link back to the brief we were given at the beginning, leaving me with two high quality end products, I felt that my film was heavily linked with classic codes and conventions to a classic sports film and my poster related to other popular film posters and wouldn’t look out of place if it was mass marketed and produced. Overall I was pleased how everything came out, I felt that all my work was to the best quality I could make it and with the idea I had in my head before I made anything I think I stuck to that well. I felt that if I came across and difficulties I was able to deal with them as I never had any major issues.