Monday 30th November

In this lesson I completed the representation theories, Will carried on with the Final online questionnaire, whilst Hubert began the final pitch. Then I went on to emailing Fiona about our focus group interview and this is now set for Tuesday lunch in English 1.

Theoretical research: Representation Theory

Focus Group email

Will Guy sent out this email after I had received confirmation of an English teacher.

What is our target audience age?

From the BBFC website we have realised the suitable age rating. We have decided to aim our Dystopian Thriller towards this demographic because even though our opening will not include much violence, we feel that due to the action that we plan to incorporate within the flashback and the overall concept of our idea this age rating is best suited. Despite males being our main audience gender as they are stereotyped to prefer violence we will still try to attract female audiences through the use of mise-en-scene and our idea. Furthermore, we vision the main character to be quite confident and to use derogatory terms to connote that he is not a true hero which will allow our production to be against the normal conventions.

Friday 27th November

Today, I completed the prop and costume ideas on www.bubbl.us and I also emailed Jenny about filming our focus group exercise in an English room, whilst Hubert did some more sound research and Will planned out a focus group email which is ready to send out, but we are waiting for the confirmation from Jenny. Also we decided what research and planning tasks we will do each to complete the work. Our aim is to finish this by at least next week.

Costume and props ideas

This planning has been useful because it has enabled us to have a clearer idea of our ideas. However, in terms of this, our impulsive and selfish protagonist did not wear Army trousers because we decided to use jeans instead to provide recognisable pleasures for a formal mainstream target audience. Also, we never used the bread because the shot that showed this action was ineffective and we discussed whether to incorporate a bin, but we found that this discovered the messy connotations and decreased our practical space-we were already struggling.

Theoretical research: Narrative theory

Wednesday 25th November

Will carried on with analysing our final online questionnaire, whilst Hubert and I came up with questions for our focus group for an interview on Monday lunch.

Tuesday 24th November

In this lesson I took on the role of completing the narrative theory, however my mac did not have have enough battery so this meant that I had to stop completing this and go onto something else. So Will and I decided to discuss the flashback and we checked out one of the toilets in our school as a possible location and we came up with the conclusion that it will work. As a group we decided upon some of the props we will use and the costume of the main character. We are keen on creating a humorous protagonist (similar to the new 'Deadpool' from the trailer) however, we will not completely focus upon this because it may loose the Thriller aspect and it won't necessarily provide the audiences with pleasures.

Theoretical research: Auteur theory

Theoretical research: Genre Theory

Monday 23rd November

Today, Hubert did sound research, Will began analysing our final audience survey and I have nearly completed my genre theory, but I just need some more information. We have decided that we are aiming to finish of most of the research by this week, next week we will focus upon audience and after that the filming and planning stage. Obviously we will come back to improve everything though.
We also discussed the issues with the locations, because even though we only require a simple empty room with a mirror and possibly a toilet we are finding it hard to find an appropriate place. However, we have back-up plans that won't be as effective but they are still similar to what we desire.

Form research (Will Guy)

Deadpool's influence

This trailer is beneficial in the way that it has offered our production company another way of representing our protagonist. This weekend, i was watching this trailer and i suddenly thought that it could work if our character was like this because this is non-conventional and will add humour as well as audience pleasures. I came up with the conclusion that 'Deadpool' was a cool, lazy, cocky and relatable male, so i believe that if our character includes these aspects he will be successful and likable. Nevertheless, we have decided that we do not want to go into this with too much detail else it will subtract the Thriller aspect and we are aware of the fact that humour is hard to produce. But we think that these characteristics and non-conventional aspects will ultimately be successful and we have a similar target audience to this moving image.

Media Glossary

Media Glossary

 

 

 

 

As I desire to improve my media knowledge within key terms I have done research through different exam boards and websites to develop. Here are my findings:

1. Bedding Music (radio)=Instrumental music played behind dialogue/action/speech, generally in live programmes. Often used to identify purposeful repeated segments for example in News Reports.
2. Billboard=A large, outdoor display board used to display advertising posters.
3. Media Convergence=A process whereby progressively fewer individuals control shares of mass media, instead Companies converge to produce the best outcome and so it is easier to achieve targets.
4. Cross-head=A centred sub-heading.
5. Cut=Transition from one shot or audience sequence to the next, either joining or separating scenes.
6. Distribution=Process of making sure feature or short film is available to screen in a film festival, cinema and onto DVD. It is preceded by the production stage and followed by the exhibition stage.
7. Edit=Footage that a Director does not wish to include is cut generally using software like Adobe Premiere, Final Cut or Garage Band.
8. Ethics=This deals with the specific ethical principles and standards of the mass media including the internet. It can cover a wide range of topics from Newspaper intrusion to explicit advertising,
9.  Exhibition=A feature or a short film is screened for the public, and it is preceded by production and distribution. This is the final stage.
10. Feature film=A long film which is usually exhibited in cinemas, often between 80-180 minutes in length.
11. Framing=The process by which the Photographer, Director or Camera operator chooses what to include in the shot. This is linked to Mise-en-scene.
12. Franchise=A series of films, TV games or other media products based on similar storylines or backgrounds. For example, Star Wars is found in Film, TV, website, games and toys. If a media product has a spin off or a sequel this is when it starts to become considered as a franchise.
13. Genre=Style or type. For example, sci-fi.
14. House style=The name given to the overall design concept applied to a magazine, website or media company. It can include the use of particular: fonts, colours, typography, idents, layouts, logos and images etc. This style helps the media text to differentiate between other competitors.
15. Ident=A symbol or a sequence associated with a media production. It can be found as an image, a short video sequence, a logo or an audio. It helps to identify who is responsible for the product.
16. Interactive media=This refers to products and services on digital media systems which responds to the Uses and Gratification theory by presenting text, graphics, animation, video and audio.
17. Jingle=A short and catchy piece of music or phrase associated with advertising and promoting and also to embed a message in audiences minds.
18. Logo=A sample image including the name of a product or company to identify it. This is a key element of house style.
19. Media conglomerate=A large multinational company for example, Walt Disney or Time-Warner.
20. Mise-en-scene=This is connected to framing. It regards to what is included within a shot. It contains: colour, expression, type of shot, props, setting, lighting, sound and costume.
21. Narration=Any spoken voiceover in order to set the scene, describe action or link sequence.
22. Niche audience/market= A niche is a fraction of a total audience or market, which is a small audience who have specific preferences and tastes.
23. Opening Sequence=This is the first part of a film, usually including or leading up to a credit sequence and it sets the characters, story (equilibrium.) Normally it ends on a cliff hanger or a moment of tension in hope that the audience will be attracted and fascinated to carry on watching.
24. Primary research=This consists of research to collect date. It can be done through questionnaires, surveys, focus groups or interviews.
25. Scene=A dramatic unit consisting single or several shots, within the same setting and period.
26. Secondary Research=This involves the collection and analyses of existing research.
27. Schedule=This includes the planned-time to complete pre-production and production processes. This is normally the first thing to be done during pre-production.
28. Script=This includes the lines of dialogue and directions to make it easier for the actors to understand the Directors perceptions and ideas.
29. Short film=This is produced to be shown at film festivals or on television, ranging from 5-60 minutes in length.
30. Shot=A single photograph or a single take from the Directors perspective.
31. Signposting=The technique which is used to establish the location at the beginning of the scene using visual or audio elements. This involves the establishing shot.
32. Slogan=A catchy and memorable phrase usually used as a jingle and to form the house style.
33. Storyboard=This is a visual development of the script which is often completed by the director so that he can make it clearer to the camera operator or the production team the vision of the shots. It will include elements of the mise-en-scene as well as camera movements, length of shot, types of shot and sound.
34. Synergy=combined action by two or more media groups/texts to exceed the sum of an individual in order to succeed a target.
35. Titles=The opening credits of a moving image with the title of the production company, an ident and the higher ranked cast and crew. Also including images from the associated product or appropriate themed music. The length often differs for example films like Watchmen or James Bond have quite long title lengths.
36. Treatment=A short outline of a media production designed to give a client or a production team the basic idea based on the brief. They are usually descriptive through sketches, images, mood board e.t.c. in order to sell the idea.
37. Voice-over=Any spoken narrative or description which is non-diegetic. Often used in the opening sequence to inform the audience of the setting.

Friday 20th November

I have decided that I will constantly update my blog with different media key terminology so that I can have a checklist of what to include and to help me develop my glossary knowledge.

Technical research: Directing Skills

I have uploaded this work on Directing Skills, however at a later date I will add videos and more information on the UK Film Council.

Mainstream Audiences

I sourced this information from http://www.uktribes.com/tribe/mainstream. It has been useful because it has allowed be to understand personalities and desires characterised by these different audience sub-groups. Additionally, this research enabled me to class our formal target audience into a particular mainstream audience. In this case, Daniel Neary, a older teenager has been categorised in the 'Chavers' sub-group.

Technical research: Acting Skills

Technical research: Editing (William Guy)

Theoretical research: Audience theories

Wednesday 18th November

In this lesson, Hubert did sound research, Will carried on with form research and i have nearly completed audience theories. I just have to complete Two-Step Flow.

Moodboard

This 'moodboard' research is essential because it highlights the key themes within our plot, in order to engage the audience, or to perhaps build the anticipation of our opening. I think that this research is also useful since it begins to address the moods and atmospheres present, developing our understanding of what conventions will be crucial.  Plus, for me, this moodboard has developed my visual understanding and view of our opening, in the way that I can picture the emotions and action that we should incorporate, rather than our planning just being theory based and written. Therefore, this creates a sense that this research has actually been very crucial even though it does not affect our understanding of previous Dystopia or Thriller films or increase our knowledge of key media terms and conventions.

Tuesday 17th November

Today i have nearly completed audience theories, but i have Two-Step Flow and part of Reception Theory left.

Friday 13th November

I am slowly completing the Acting and Directing skills, but positively we have had more feedbacks from our Audience survey, yet we are waiting for feedback on our second and latest ident.

Wednesday 11th November

I went on to my Directing Skills, using sources from the internet to write on a word document what skills you need to be a successful Director.

Monday 16th November

Today, we analysed some student genre research and I carried on with my Directing skills.

Tuesday the 10th November

On the 10th November, during the night Will added our latest Ident to our blog, which we have sent out to various audiences for feedback and he also wrote about the decisions why.

New ident (Will Guy)

Will made a second version of our Ident based on our feedback from our teacher and our team. It shares the same representations and connotations as our previous Ident, but we have made the typography smaller and placed it all below the box to connote that our ideas are all coming from a key theme of 'a futuristic world within a lawless society' and because we thought that it looked tidier. Will also removed the glow from around the text to make it flatter and cleaner following stereotypical current design trends where designers are flavouring a flat design over a 'Skeuomorphic Design.'

Wednesday 11th November

Over this week, we carried on with our technical research individually, whilst we developed our ident with an explanation using media terms like typography. I also included the Uses and Gratification theory in our Thriller convention research mainly focusing upon diversion to suggest that the movies should be naturalistic in order to engage the audience. We also carried on with our technical research individually, whilst we developed our ident with an explanation using media terms like typography and i also included the Uses and Gratification theory in our Thriller convention research mainly focusing upon diversion.

Tuesday 10th November

Today, we carried on with our technical research individually, whilst we developed our ident with an explanation using media terms like typography and i also included the Uses and Gratification theory in our Thriller convention research mainly focusing upon diversion.

What should the post-production stage consist of?

·         The footage will be edited many times, until the final footage is complete.

·         The sound post-production would re-record the dialogue and use Foley sound recording to complete the diegetic sounds.

·         Music would be added and all of the sound will be mixed.

·         Major US productions would preview the movie to see audience responses.

·         A distribution deal will be arranged, likely involving Universal distribution for mainstream films or a smaller distributor, for example Arrow films, to distribute mostly independent productions. However, the distributer can often depend on what sort of genres it often converges with.

·         A marketing strategy will be devised with an outside agency targeting the anticipated audience. This will include a cross media of posters, trailers, DVD covers, radio advertising giving a sense of synergy which is appropriate for certain demographics. For example, trailers are better for the younger demographics, whereas radio advertising would be more influential and beneficial for older demographics.

·         A premiere and a saturation run would be arranged for a bigger film, while a smaller film may be exhibited at a film festival to gain reviews and publicity, and maybe nominations or awards before it is released in the cinema.

·         Vertical integration of the company controlling, marketing and exhibition of films.

This research was effective as it developed my individual knowledge ready for the other sections of my exam at the end of the year and has also increased my understanding of the marketing and distribution stage. Nevertheless, most of this does not apply to our opening production.

What should the production stage involve?

• Multiple takes of the shot e.g. from different angles to see the change in perceptions and visual meanings.

• If there is no locations suitable available, set designers will make it look authentic for the historic period.

 

• The rushes will be reviewed, which gives the director and producers a chance to see whether they were successful.

• CGI will begin for special effects sequences.

• It should provide the audience with media products they desire and should provide them with gratifications that they expect.

This has again been influential because we understood that we should try out different angles and shots to recognise which ones are the most effective and it has enabled us to understand this stage more. Additionally, we have realised that we should always apply and consider theories, such as: Propp's and Todorov's theory and the 'Uses and Gratification' theory. For example, we included an anti-hero and followed the five stages of Todorov's narrative discovery.

What the pre-production stage should normally consist of?

• Script development to ensure that the script is completed to its best ability.
• Setting the budget.
• Hiring department heads for things like production design.
• A shooting schedule would be drawn up which is likely to plan just a couple of minutes shooting over a 12 hour day.
• A Location Manager will begin to look for locations which might be suitable for the film and consider what changes might be needed and what permission might need to be negotiated. This can sometimes be expensive.
  • A Casting Director would be appointed and stars will be approached, agents contacted, screen tests and auditions held in a hired space over a period of time.
• Equipment will be hired such as cameras and lighting, vehicles would be arranged for transport.
• A Music Director would begin to organise and experiment with a score.

This research has been beneficial because it has developed my knowledge of a professional film, during this part of the production chain, whilst I have also understand what sort of targets we should be aiming for.

Thriller films

As a Thriller one of the biggest conventions is to create suspense! Therefore, all of these Thriller's are conventionally successful because they use many narrative pleasures, such as: climax's and anti-climax's. From this research, I understand that it is necessary that we follow these expectations. In relation to our final opening, we used this narrative pleasure, mainly through the cross cutting between the present day hallucinations and the flashback. I think that we develop this through the fast-paced editing and the effect that Will was able to find and use.

Production ideas on the 4th November

Ident (Will Guy)

Will made this box animation in blender and the spotlight was created using a bump map effect in Sony Vegas.

We chose the colour green because it is represented as a neutral colour, so the audience will not be limited to any gender, allowing a wider audience. This colour also has positive connotations with the words "go" and "good" which are examples of words our production company would like to be associated with. The typography is a large sans serif font which makes it easy to read, establishing a clear brand identity and helping it to attract the audiences attention. This could be linked to the Uses and Gratification technique because the audience would be able to make a choice whether they watch this film for entertainment, personal identity, social solidarity or surveillance. he box motion makes it appear to grow which connotes that our group is developing into a production company through our ideas or our team work.

Pilot Survey results and analysis (William Guy)

This primary research has been beneficial as it has increased our amount of date, so that we can understand the audience expectations and preferences more. For example, the significance between whether more of the audience are male or females has been a vital conclusion in whether we should aim/target males or females. As we found that the higher proportion of respondents were males, we will include more violence. Yet, we will still consider in attracting the female formal audience of an older teenager.

Madonna copyright (Hubert Osinski)

Our original production idea was to challenge several conventions through random changes in sound and atmosphere. Our mood changing songs was meant to be "Like A Prayer" by Madonna, but we failed to receive the copyrights necessary for us to use it as a part of our product. The beginning of our film creates a conventional Dystopian atmosphere of an abandoned location; we've used ambient sound effects such as thunder to use as little melodic sound as possible. After a really chaotic title sequence of the film, after the black out the lighting is edited to create a warm-looking atmosphere, in order to challenge the concept of what it's like outdoors (cold and dangerous). The anti-hero was meant to be a non-conventional which would make direct reference to the audience and break character depending on the situation that he is in. The whole purpose of using the song was for it to create a change in the mood of the film and challenge the genre of a serious dystopian thriller. This idea failed to work as to my surprise we never received the expected response from Madonna's managers.

Dystopian Films

All of these films have clear similarities in the way that they explore futuristic settings through different issues or themes. For example, they explore the psychological negatives of a future world, like hunger or inequality.

Monday 2nd November

In this lesson, we continued our shot list, Will took on an individual job of analysing our Pilot survey results, whilst we researched some soundtracks. We have decided that there is going to be a juxtaposition of Madonna's song 'Like a Prayer' with the opening shots, to connote the protagonist's relaxing and laid back characteristics. I have partly completed the Influential figures, however i am still yet to embed links of YouTube clips e.t.c.

Thriller Conventions (Hubert and Hayden)

We have decided that we will focus upon including many quick and close-up shots of the protagonist to connote his expressions and to represent his characteristics. This would also follow the typical conventions because the younger demographic will likely be persuaded that it is true events and how it could occur to them.

However, we have chosen to subvert the convention of continuous suspense because we want to juxtapose the sound with the image, therefore the chosen non-diegetic music during the first shots will be lively and more upbeat.

The thriller conventions could be linked to the uses and gratifications theory because often it would be watched by many different demographics for diversion, so that the audience can escape from reality and direct their mind to something entertaining and different.

Thriller films trailers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLGx5YT6sOg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG3-GlvKPcg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG3-GlvKPcg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iaYLCiq5RM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpKaB5dvQ4g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThhDTBbMc0M

From these trailers i have found that the best way to create tension is through mostly non-diegetic sound because it will connote the moods and help to build a crescendo. This was responsible within our product because we made sure that the non-diegetic main sound was beneficial towards our production and enabled us to get the best out of the action. As well as this, we took careful consideration into choosing this as it had to build tension as well as allowing the audience to focus on what they could see, not hear.
Diegetic sound benefited our product. For example, we used ambient sounds of birds singing that was effective because despite the fact that we wanted to create a sense that most of nature was dead, there was still proof of birds. This also led to a natural feel and seemed to provide recognition and social solidarity as the audiences would consider why they could hear this ambience. Another example was the use of Foley sound when the character was heavily breathing at the end of the title sequence. This again created realism and connoted that he had been running, possibly from the human eaters.