Mad Men

'MadMen is a postmodern period drama' because...

Its uses historical mentioning about the period in which it was written shown during the movement of women thus making it a period drama, however other aspects that relates to the programme being a period drama is the use of costume and props that relate to the time in terms of costume of the characters the key character (red head) is wearing sexualised clothes presenting her character but her costume is also that of the 1960's along with the hair, in terms of props and set design features in this clip there are shelved items that would have been bought during the period it is set in thus emphasising the genere of "MadMen" being a period drama. Interms of making the programme post modern it is obvious that certain set pieces such as  

click here to view studied clip

Question 4

This is a voice note that i have uploaded to youtube on question 4 of the evaluation

Question 7

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

We have learnt many things from our prelim task that we have avoided in our final movie the obvious things we have learnt is progression from the preliminary task which is to AVOID THE MIRRORS AND THE CAMERA MEN!  When filming the very first scene of our preliminary task, the camera man was visible on the far right of the shot (in mirror). Mirrors can be very difficult to integrate in our media, but the trick we learnt from our preliminary task was to film at angles in order to avoid seeing reflection or cover the reflection with an actor in still shots. That theory was very difficult in our full product as the glass in the elevator reflected off the light from the light in the lobby. This was difficult because we could not film at an angle because of the confined space of the elevator. So in order to avoid the reflection of the camera man, we used the view of the main characters to block the reflections and also blocked the reflection with another character. 

prelim task

covering mirror with actor in a two shot  

perspective shot 

Question 2

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Social groups can be split up into social class: ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality 

For example a person’s class is their economic stature in a society. Class can be split up into three general categories being; upper, middle and working (Lower) class. Our media product challenges all three social classes as it portrays the journey of three young men from an upper-middle class background using mise-en-scene. 

The mise-en-scene serves as a medium to display wealth and "riches" throughout our media due to the location being in a hotel establishment and costume of the characters being smart and suited. This then represents the young black males in a good light and not sticking to the stereotypical views of black males in crime related films, as they are not dressed to encourage the stereotype that all males black are thugs. However, the story reveals that these young men are in fact not upper middle class small business owners, but they are drug dealers, therefore  challenging the audience’s opinion and stereotypical views in society, as it is a clever attempt to deceive them, by leading them into a false hope that the main characters are business men (due to their surroundings and costume) creating a realization of "judging a book on its cover" 

Question 3

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


It’s a combinations popular genres although I feel not all distribution company would take on our product.

We have noticed that film 4 employs films with a similar genre and themes as does Warner studios and universal studios, even though this is an American company but they have produced films of a similar theme and genre warner have also invested in some independent british films .

Also because there is a huge market for this type of genre and as independent movies are becoming a growing trend to see we feel film 4 would make a very substantial amount of income if they take the risk with this film as they have produced films such as "trainspotting" and "this is England" which are both independent British dramas with "trainspotting" following the themes of drugs and users.

logos of the movie companies that may take on our film.

Question 6

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

After effects

Colour correction- this allowed us to change and remove certain colours from our film and also allowing us to insert certain lighting changes/effects such as a veient meaning our picture looks unique but Carries messages and connotations along with the voice over.

Titles- inserting titles in our products in different fonts and sizes so its a clear opening to the audience.


Final Cut Pro
-Shortcuts to render. (cmd + R)
-Enabled us to render the soundtrack more quickly and efficiently
-Splitting audio from a video file
-The voiceover for our product was taken from a video file, so learning how to split audio was very important as it needed to be precise as we split it into different sections.
-Keyframing Opacity and Crops
-Keyframing enabled us to create smooth and varied transitions between shots and overlays, giving our opening the slick upper class look we wanted thus presenting the characters situations and feelings to the audience .
-Colour Correction
- This enabled us to colour correct individual scenes to make them look brighter or emphasise specific colours to evoke a certain response from the viewer this also presented more contentions and messages to the audience subtlety although after effects was more effective.
-Compression
- Our film was recorded on a DSLR camera, meaning that it was automatically a H.264 codec. H.264 does not work very well with Final Cut Pro. This means that we had to use MPEG streamclip to convert H.264 to Pro Res 442 (which works a lot better with Final Cut Pro) in order to edit it. Also compressing our final film made it easier to move and import to different locations without effecting the RAM.
-Mirror Effect
- Enabled us to keep our opening interesting and helped the flow and continuation of the characters emotions and movements the due to the positioning in the shot.
-Resolution
- Enabled us to compress our footage correctly and use the highest quality obtainable, which is 1080p at 25 frames per second. However, we now know that recording at 60 frames per second may have produced a better opening. This is because some of the shots were slow motion and a higher frames per second means that a high resolution is maintained through these shots.

Question 1

our product/film "charlie"uses similar codes and conventions to similar coming of age and drug related films such as Adulthood, Kidulthood, American gangster. We also used a lot of aspects and techniques from Momento and Harry Brown in our film such as camera angles and story layout. We based our film around the same themes as we know these genres have had great success and with some being independent films have also made large profits. Momento one of the films we used as research made around 31 billion pounds profit on the box office alone due it its unique style although we didn't want to show the film backwards we wanted to insert clues and foreshadow what the characters journey may follow.

Our film is still unique because there are not many murder mystery genres involving gangsters and drug themes and we like the idea of giving the audience something to work out. We feel the murder mystery theme gives the audience a bigger purpose and participation and incentive to watch the film and to feel like they have worked something out and have gone on a journey with the characters. Meaning We have created a new genre of drama called ‘mystery crime drama.’ Although this doesn't mean our film is complicated but we hope this will challenge other film companies to take on more unique films, and to encourage more diverse genres to become present and for more people to take risks and not take the safe option like a standard horror, romance or comedy.



Our film represents young adults and teenagers from a life in a deprived area and presenting how they try to prove themselves in the adult world. It reflects their life in a dark way showing the problems these people have to face and to eventually need to overcome the problems in their life as their actions have serious consequences. I feel it shows the strength of these gangsters and how hard it is to be a successful criminal as it shows how mistrust and greed within your own "family" can cause your self to pay the greatest cost which is life.

Question 5 Prezi

here is a link to my prezi answering question 5 of my evaluation
http://prezi.com/yjxtpik0h2dm/edit/#67