Evaluation - Question 7.

Looking back at your prelimanary task, waht do you feel you have  learnt in  the progression from it to the the final product?


Question 7.

Evaluation - Question 6.

Evaluation Question 6 on Prezi

Evaluation - Question 4 + 5.

Who would be the audience for your media product?/How did you attract/address your audience?

Looking at the two main audience theories, I think, as our film is a comedy, the Hypodermic needle theory would be more suitable in our case. The Hypodermic Theory is about how the audience are passive receptors of media which means they take in information without thinking twice about it. This means that, if this happened to our target audience, then our film is easy and simple to understand. Even though the Hypodermic needle theory suits comedy films, its normally used with mainstream films.

Another audience theory is The Gratifications theory. This is when the audience are actively watching the film, meaning that they are able to connect with the characters as they might have been stereotyped before.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK


Positives.
"Actors spoke clearly and loudly, Different pieces of music made it seem happy, funny costumes"


Negatives.
" Actors stumbled on lines"

Evaluation - Question 3.

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

Question 3

Evaluation - Question 2.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation - Question 1.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Final Cut.

Consideration of sound.

From gathering our ideas as a group, we came to the decision that these are the sounds that we could possibly use in our film opening. As one of the main conventions of comedy is to have a upbeat soundtrack, we aiming to use an upbaet soundtrack in our film.

Rough Cut 2.

Audience Expectations

As a group we created surveys for 8- 10 to gain more knowledge and understanding into the different genres that we could possibly use in our film opening. My chosen genre was Horror. I asked questions based on their opinions and what they expect from a typical Horror film.

What is your favourite Horror film and why?
The Results I got from this question were varied but similar in explanation. 2 answers that I got were paranormal activity 2. This may be down to the chain of Paranormal Activity films that have been released and people finding new editions better than the first one. As the stories are linked within the paranormal activity films, they may have created a better narrative for the second release. The explanation for their choice was to do with the advertising and rumours that were spread about the film. As many people believed that the films are true stories, they find it more intriguing as their curiosity leads them to relating the film to their personal situation. Other answers were the Grudge 2 and the strangers. The reasons behind their choice were that the storylines were intriguing as the tension built up throughout the film. Another answer I got was the devil's rejects. The person is very interested in the director Rob Zombie.

What do you expect to be in horror films?
Out of all the people I asked they all responded with similar answers. They thought if it was a psychological thriller there would be innocent women who would be haunted by something e.g. a spirit or there would be a theme of metal health issues. They would also think that some characters will be dressed in destroyed clothes e.g. rags. For stereotypical horror films they would expect to see some blood and a dangerous weapon.

What sort of props/ set up do you expect horror films to have?
From conducting my survey, most people thought that would be a use of a gun or a knife. They would also expect the use of supernatural related props such as Ouija board that would be used in seeking spirits/ghosts.
They would also expect the set be partly inside and outside as an outside set would be a graveyard or a dumpsite. An example of an inside set up would be a haunted room.

From conducting my research I have gathered what people expect from Horror films. It has also made me think if I would consider having horror as my genre for my film opening. In my opinion, I think doing a horror opening won't be suitable for our group. We don't have the special effects equipment available to us and if we tried to make the opening it would be too difficult.

Rough Cut 1

Audience Genre Certification.

The Shining
Rated 15.
Drama Horror


SuperbadRated 15
Comedy.


Pulp Fiction
Rated 18
Crime/Thriller.

From looking on IMDB, I have discovered that most sub genre comedy films are certificated 15+. as they contain unique comedy remarks that could be interpreted as something offensive or not suitable for any age under 15 due to children not being mature enough or being in the right mental state. This is due to the narrative of the film and use of violence/gore that mildly appears in it. An example of a British Independent film that would have similar conventions as our opening would be Paul. The certificate for Paul is 15, this is due to the fact they have offensive language in it and there are scenes of nudity.

Another example of a film that is rated 15 is Pineapple Express. This is because it features the characters using recreational drugs. The whole film is based around the fact these two men go on a Journey to find a drug factory. Throughout the film, there are scenes of nudity, scenes of violence (due to stabbing and gun use) and use of firearms.

In conclusion, from looking at BBFC classification, I would certificate our film 12. This is because we do not in anyway encourage the use or misuse of drugs throughout our film. However, we do want to include some mild violence later in our film. We would have to ensure that in the violent scenes, we should clearly show these actions are not pain free otherwise our target audience may think if its pain free, they can do it. Our theme of our film is definitely suitable to certificate our film 12 as it is suitable for young teenagers, which coincidentally is our target audience,

Target Audience.

As our film is aimed at people who are interested in superheroes, I think they would be interested in reading Comic books such as Marvel Comic Books. This is because Marvel have a range of superficial superheroes in their range of comic books and in our film we have 3 rural superheroes. Another hobby that I target audience may have is Exploring. If a person is into exploring nature and its qualities, then I'm sure if they were to watch our film they would be on the rural superheroes side as they care about  nature as well.

I think the rating of our film we achieve in the UK will depend on how well we distribute. If we distribute it widely for example: through productions houses, art houses and film festivals, we would have an increased chance of receiving a high rating. If we were to distribute through those 3 methods, I think we would receive a rating of 3.5-4/5 due to the fact it is an independent film so it has a higher chance of not doing so well compared to mainstream films.

I think the other media works our target audience will regularly use will be TV magazines, magazines and websites. BY having access to all of these our target audience gets to collect things form the magazines, receive online offers through websites and have TV listings on when their superhero related programs are on.

films that are similar to ours, that I target audience would've seen would be Austin Powers, The Boat That Rocked and Submarine. These are all films that are related to the 1960's. As our hippie character is quite dominant in our film, we would associate hippie films to do with Rural Superheroes.

Our average audience member would probably shop for clothes online. If someone chooses to see only hybrid/sub genre films, they are more likely to wear alternative clothing. Alternative clothing is more common to be found online. Buying online means that they could search for any type of clothing and most likely get it.

We would advertise our film in cartoon magazines, comic book magazines and in newspaper agents.

I think if we were to show a trailer of a film somewhere, we would have to think strategically. We would have to bear in mind that we need to show it to a maximum amount of people as we possibly can. If I was to chose where the trailer would be shown, I would chose film festivals due to the high number of people attending them.

Film Remake

For our preliminary task we had to recreate a film opening. As a group, we chose the shining to remake a film of as we thought we would be able to successfully complete it. We used only a camera and locations and props that were available to us.

Certification.

Certification in film is classifying films into different age categories depending on different factors that are classified for that certification.

Classification is about access to film is restricted due to the material on grounds of age and censorship is cutting preventing access due to the material.

Legal Obligations are put in place to prevent any material breaking the law. As film trailers are exposed to anyone nowadays through television, some people may need to be protected from seeing the film. These audiences may need protecting from items that may cause harm. For example, children should not be exposed to material related to violence, as this could affect their well-being. Film producers have to look at the wider perspective aswell. They have to think about the society when releasing films. They should consider the broader public opinion with regard to language as curse words should not be included in films that are aimed at children under 12. 

The BBFC (British board of Film classification) certifies films since 1912. They classify all the films that are to be released in UK Cinemas/ picture houses. A new law came in 1984 that the BBFC certifies home videos. They also have to be aware of laws which protect children.

Examples of films and the reasons behind their certification.

Ali (2001)
15

• scenes of violence; infliciting pain and injury
• Strong language
• Nudity

The Nightmare Before Christmas
PG

• Frightening sequences
• Mild sex references (kiss)

Research Presentation - Comedy.

Comedy

Generic Conventions

There are three types of conventions:

• Visual
• Audio
• Thematic

These allow audiences to interpret the film, so that is why they are so important. If it is a comedy film certificate PG and  it had a bloody knife, the audience would be confused as it does not fit Comedy conventions.

Things that signify each genre:

Romance 

Comedy

Horror

Film Ideas.

From carrying out research throughout all films, we have decided to a Sub genre comedy film. our film will be, for certain a British Independent film due to not having a big Hollywood budget and our film won't be mainstream.For our film, we have already decided what the indentitities of our characters. They will consist of a Hippie, a farmer and a Nerd. These are very stereotypical terms but they fit in witht he narrative of our film.

When I got thinking ideas for the Hippie character, Austin powers came straight to my mind. This is because Austin Powers is set around the 1960's, which was the hippie decade. The use of costumes and props within Austin Powers would be of perfect use if we were to use similar things. In the following clip, you can see a variety of costumes that could potentially be a starting point for us when thinking of Mise in our film.




Following the 1960's inspired films, I also looked into The Boat That Rocked.

Jelly babies task

For our task, we used jelly babies as a substitute for characters in the making of creating our storyboard. We created our storyboard using post it notes, jelly babies and paper. We were in a group of 4 in which the tasks of creating the storyboard with the Jelly babies was divided up equally. The purpose of using the jelly babies in the making of a storyboard was to get an idea where the characters were in the frame. We were given a list of different scenarios for a film opening that had different narratives. When creating our storyboard we had to bear in mind the framing and composition of each different scene. Using jelly babies when drawing a scene for our storyboard allowed us to think of the different camera angles and shots we would use in each scene. Our group chose to do the sci- fi scenario which we had to create think of the narrative of the whole film even though we were only creating the opening which would be 2 minutes long. We had to think about the different conventions

In the jelly baby task I learnt how to create storyboards bearing in mind where the characters are placed in the scene and it gave me insight into what would be put in each scene. I learned that you have to consider what type of shot you would want to use in a scene/clip depending on what impact you want to have on the audience. For example, if I was making a horror film, my aim would be to make the audience slightly scared/uncomfortable. I could create a scene where a over the shoulder shot could be used on a mysterious unknown character. This would mean the audience will feel uneasy as the shot of the character does not reveal his identity and most people fear the unknown. I learned how we should think about lighting whilst creating our storyboards as some parts of characters or props may need to be highlighted in different ways depending on the genre of the film. Using the jelly babies allowed us as a group to figure out how the characters will be shown using lighting to reflect their emotions and feelings.

During the jelly baby task, personally I found it hard to place the jelly babies for certain frames and shots. As the jelly babies we are the same size, we weren't able to show scenes that had close ups or extreme close ups. Instead, we wrote what type of shot/angle it was as it would not be clear in the actual picture on the storyboard. As a group we first of all  did not get the reasoning behind doing the jelly babies task which lead us wasting time and made us rush when we finally  got down to completing the task successfully.


As a group, we mainly discussed what the point of the task was how we were going to place the jelly babies sin which shots and how would we show the different shots through using the jelly babies. after we decided where to put the jelly babies in the frame and write down the key info (camera shot/angle used, how long the shot lasted) we had to think how we could have a smooth transition between each shot with the jelly babies. As, if we didn't understand the concepts of Continuity, our future filming would not be up to high standards.

The task has enabled me to gain knowledge of Continuity. I think, if I did not do the task, I wouldn't fully understand as I didn't carry out a practical activity which would've tested me on my knowledge. Continuity is very important to get right within a film as the audience of our opening will not understand the narrative correctly if it came down to poor editing for continuity or having no continuity at all.

 The narrative within our story is about a person who is driving on a road at night and they see a bright light in front of the car, which they do not know the source of. Our storyboard goes through the different shots and angles used building up the cliffhanger at the end. It linked with conventions of horror due to the setting and location being at night. Also, having a mysterious happening that puzzles the main character.

We used various shot in our Jelly babies task. We used a close up - to show the radio playing an advert. The radio is a key aspect of the storyboard as it relates back to the title "Projection". This links in with our conventions of our opening as close ups allow you to see the key details of what is being focused on. if something is being focused on, then that must mean you need to pay attention to what is going to happen. We also used an over the shoulder shot to show the driver changing the radio station. This relates backs to convention of our opening as a over the shoulder shot allows the audience to get up close and personal with the character. It would make you feel sorry for the character as the audience may feel like they are betraying them for 'spying on them'.

Student Films pt.2.

What works well in student films:

• Close up shots of special effect make-up.
• Props being closely related to conventions.
• Music to set the scene (eerie for horror films).
• Tripod use - very steady.
• Using a wide range of camera shots and angles. 

What doesn't work well in films:

• Running with camera - moving handheld shot.
• Actors aren't well directed.
• No transtitions used - no continuity.
• Obeying the 180 degree rule.