Director's commentary

The Dream

Directors commentary script

The film opens with an establishing shot of the protagonist running across the bridge who is very determined to be a professional basketball player. The fast paced background music flows well with the narrative and most importantly it interests the audience by sending an up beat spirit and a motivating message.

This is followed by a point of view shot of the protagonist running which demonstrates realism and it also connects with the audience straight away by it relating to their lives. The fast tempo non diegetic sound continues to the next scene which is cleverly done by it being a match cut and it symbolises aspiration of the protagonists willingness to reach his goal despite the tragedy that has occurred.
I decided to keep the diegetic sound of the footstep and the basketball bouncing to again illustrate realism. Its crucial in the basketball scene to get as many shots as possible and it is important to make it fast pace because it not only shows the determination of the protagonist but it also builds up tension. The fast paced music works well with whats going on in the scene.

The next sequence is the flashback where all micro aspects are changed because the event is at a different time. The mise en scene of this scene is in black and white so the audience can understand when it happened. Most shots in the flashback is a long take to show sympathy of the death of his mother

The Dream Analysis

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The continuity for our preliminary task was done to a good standard and looking at our final piece I think that we have improved the continuity of the film which makes it run a lot more smoothly and looks a lot better. A mistake that we made on our preliminary task was that we never had a script ready therefore we had to make up what we was going to do instead of having a set shot list which we would could follow so for our main task we made sure that we had a script prepared. Another thing that we learnt from our preliminary task was the range of shots we took and this was very important for a sport film where a variation of shot is needed to interest our audience. We used a much wider range of shots in our main task compared to the preliminary task, which gives the film much more variety, and more exciting for the viewer rather than just having the same shots time after time which will become boring for the viewer. Another thing that we have learnt from preliminary task is that we need to have a variety of different filming locations; this again makes the film more exciting by adding different scenes such as a driving scene. Also a major difference between the prelim task is the editing, the main task is edited together a lot better and the continuity in the main task is a lot better which makes the movie fit together and run smoothly. There also learnt how to include titles into our film. We learnt that from the preliminary task, but in the main task of ‘ The Dream’ we put our titles on a blank black background, which is a different piece of editing we had to learn.

The Dream Analysis

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In the development of our product our group has learnt about a number of different technologies, one of the main technologies we used was using the camera and editing software. We learnt how to edit our movie using final cut pro and putting the video together in a variety of different ways. As well as this we learnt how to use the camera in a variety of different ways, as we became more familiar with the camera we started to add more advanced shots to our film in order to give more of a creative look to the film opening. Also to do the music for our video we had to make our own track so that it isn’t copyrighted so we learnt how to make a track/beat on garage band. We also learnt how to put effects on the video putting in effects such as fades to move from scene to scene to make sure the video has a feel of continuity and fits well together. We also added filters to put the second half of the video into black and white to emphasize the feeling of a flashback. Also we used a radio-recording desk in order to record our voice over in the film, we recorded on the desk then imported them onto the computer in order to edit them and put them together to get the voice over to work well with the video and fit together well.

The Dream Analysis

How did you attract/address your audience?

The audience of our film is mainly to attract male teenagers. Therefore the films we researched is the same audience which is '17 again'.

We also researched one film that appealed to a wide range of audience and this film is Space Jam, so we decided to add some techniques of what this film uses to attract a wide range of audience. Despite that we couldn’t have a star and use CGI, We felt that the key feature to try and attract a wide range audience is from the narrative so the script for our voiceover should be powerful and effective, It should engage the audience to watch more of the film. All the films we have watched for our research did not have a voice over at the beginning of the film therefore we felt it would be a good idea to add it so it can not only be unique but also effect because it clearly tells the story. Making the beginning exciting interest our audience to watch more of it, so fast pace editing and sound is key to attract teenagers. In Conclusion, we made sure that we got our audience to feel excited about our beginning scene by adding great editing effects and making sure that we put techniques within the film that makes our clip seem different to any other sports films. We made sure that we put in what an audience wants from using our own experiences when watching films.

The Dream Analysis

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience for this film is mainly aimed at teenagers. Therefore, our film should be marketed to that specific audience. However, this film can interest other audience from the old by it being a sad film as well as the young, very entertaining film from the linear narrative; this shows that it appeals to a mass audience. The audience of our film is the same audience as '17 again' and this was a well produced film that had a huge success. The age rating of our film will be PG for the same reason as '17 again' as young teenagers as well as older teenagers will want to watch our film and if we put on a high age limit then some of the people that wanted to view the film wouldnt be able to. The gender audience of the film be predominantly males as basketball is dominated by male athletes and is watched by mainly a male audience, which is teenage males. This film has a smaller target audience than most films as it is a film that is mainly focused on basketball which will only attract a specific audience who have an interest in basketball.

The Dream Analysis

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The distributor for our film is called, ‘jay’s production’, as it being a low budget. A media institution that will be suitable to distribute our film is New line cinema, which is an American Independent film company, which is owned by Time Warner. It distributes both mass market and niche market films like ours. The film '17 again' is distributed by New Line Cinema and it appealed to a mass audience just like our film.

Another possible distributor for our film could be WT2, they may distribute our film as it is a small low budget film that is aimed at quite a small target audience that is male teenagers.

Also the main protagonist in our film is a male teenager, so as the film is based solely around a male character this will attract the audience we were aiming for.

The Dream Analysis

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents male dominance as the main character portrays that. It also represents the elderly at the end of the scene where the mother dies who is quite old. The media project represents mostly Asian ethnic group especially as the main character in the task was a young Asian boy who is trying to achieve his dream of being a professional basketball player, but the death of his mum hit him as a sad news which is hard for him to go through. It doesn’t agree with the stereotypes of Asian people, as there are not many professional Asian basketball players and this is sending out a message that no matter what your dream is you have to try your best and go out and achieve your dream.

There is a marked contrast between the character when he is playing basketball where he is chasing his dream to a real life flashback of what had happened in his past which is like his nightmare. It also shows a juxtaposition of emotions between the protagonist playing basketball and the protagonist in the flashback, in the basketball scene he is doing what he wants to and is happy.