Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?  

To find out more about our target audience of 16-19 year olds, I interviewed a number of people from this age group to carry out a more in depth analysis of their typical hobbies, film watching habits and more.  

Evaluation 4

Evaluation Question 3

'The Greater Good' Film Opening

Here is our final version of our film opening 'The Greater Good'

The Camera Work - Shot types, angles and post production effects

Firstly, we researched into the typical camera work that occurred in psychological thrillers. We did this by watching a series of Psychological thriller films to expand our knowledge on the codes and conventions and to give us an insight to the different shots and angles used to create an appropriate atmosphere. 

Seven: 
- Out of focus shots
- Disjointed angles
- Flashing images
- Unsteady, hand-held camera work
- A combination of fast and slow pace shots
- Unclear images
- Unusual and diagonal angles
- Jittering credits
- All camera shots are close ups
- Same shot repetition
- Coloured washes of majority of the shots
- Limited camera movement within a shot
- Cameras angled specifically to capture      
  certain shadows

Black Swan: 
- Opens with a long continuous shot to 
  build tension and create atmosphere
- Fading transitions
- Close up shots
- Sepia wash
- Pace quickens as it progresses
- Switches from in focus to out of focus
- Fairly steady camera work
- Slanted angles 
- Continuous idea throughout opening
- Unclear what drawing is being created




To conclude...
Overall we decided to combine what we had found out from our research, along with incorporating our own ideas to create the angles and shots needed for our opening. We experimented with different angles when filming which is evident in out final opening as we included a variety of the successful shots. When in the editing process, we made sure to create a variety of short and long cuts and to add a series of washes to the shots to ensure that we fitted the codes and conventions of a psychological thriller. 

Foley Sound

Despite already finding sound effects that are perfectly fitting to our opening, we felt that if we could better any of the sound effects by creating them ourselves we would. This is why we decided to research Foley sound. 

What is Foley? 
Foley effects are sound effects added to the film during post production. They include sound effects such as foot steps, rustling, crockery clinking, paper folding and doors opening. 

How is it done in professional films?
Foley is usually performed by Foley artists. Ideally they stand on a Foley stage, an area with a variety of possible surfaces and props, in a Foley studio, s specialised sound studio. They Foley artists can clearly see a screen which displays the footage they have to add sound to, and they perform their sound effects whilst watching the screen for timing. The actions they perform can include walking, running. rubbing clothing, handling props and breaking objects, all whilst closely observing the screen to ensure their sound effects are appropriate to the vision on screen. 

Why is it called Foley?
The technique is named after Jack Foley, who established the basic modern techniques still used today. Like most terms that are named in honour of people, it is always spelt with a capital F.

Here is a video linked, demonstrating how Foley is carried out in a Foley Studio:

Foley Sound

Film Distributors: Paramount Pictures

A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for the marketing of a film. The distributor may set the release date of a film and the method by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing: for example, directly to the public either theatrically or for home viewing.

When researching a film distributor to distribute our film, we had to take many things into account to select the perfect one. We researched other films in the Psychological Thriller category to see who they had used to distribute their films:

Se7en - New Line Cinema
Memento - Summit Entertainment
Black Swan - Fox Searchlight Productions
The Prestige - Touchstone Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures
Shutter Island - Paramount Pictures
Psycho - Paramount Pictures

How would we advertise our Film?

A key aspect of a film becoming successful is advertising it to your target audience. As our film is aimed at a target audience of 16-19 year olds, I believe the best form of advertising would be via social media and on public transport billboards. 

The benefits of advertising through social media is 16-19 year olds are active on most forms of social media and with features such as the share button on Facebook it would make it easy for us to get the word around about our film. Also, because we are a low budget film, social media is a free way of advertising our film as it is spread from person to person by word of mouth. 

The benefits of advertising through public transport means is that 16-19 year olds are the met common users of public transport, particularly busses and trains for journeys to school or work. Therefore, if we advertised on the sides of busses or on posters at train stations, people would be sure to see them and be made aware of the release. 

Scripting

For our film opening, we required a distressed phone call from the victim to the police. For this, we had to research into how a real life phone call to the police as we wanted it to be as realistic as possible. We looked at a variety of you tube videos, however we found these unsuccessful as they were focused on prank calls to the police and were very unrealistic. 
We then looked online to see if there were any scripts for the police automated voice, however we were unsuccessful in finding any here either! 

Fortunately, another media student at Weald's dad is a police officer and deals with distressed phone calls on a day to day basis. So, we organised a talk with Hannah's dad and he gave us guidelines of what to say and what the police automated voice would ask. This was a huge relief as we had struggled to find anything accurate and reliable online to create out script by. 

Taking into account all the information we were given, this was our final script used in our film opening: 



*Phone ringing sound effect*

Automated 999 voice: Which emergency service do you require?

Victim: Police, please

Automated 999 voice: Can I take your name and the address you're calling from?

Victim: My name is Anna Parker. I live at 13A, Elm Lane, Cowden, Kent

Automated 999 voice: What's the emergency?

Victim: There's someone following me. I've tried to report it for weeks but no one is helping me. Please can someone actually do something now, I can't take it anymore!

Automated 999 voice: Are you safe? Or re you in immediate danger?

*Phone disconnects sound effect*

Classification: BBFC

When discussing our target audience, we also had to decide from this what the certification of our film opening was going to be. Our target audience we had decided on was 16-19 year old teenagers, so we based our certification research upon this:

We knew immediately that we weren't reaching to a younger teenage audience therefore we immediately ruled out the 12 rating as we believe we could not include a variety of codes and conventions by setting it this low, seeing as our target audience is 16-19 years. 

We went onto the BBFC website and researched into the different age classifications.

- No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year 
   olds and above.





In a 15, you may see: 

•   strong violence
•  frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').
•   portrayals of sexual activity
•   strong verbal references to sex
•   sexual nudity
•   brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence
•   discriminatory language or behaviour
•   drug taking

- No theme is prohibited at 18. Adults are free to choose their own entertainment provided the material is not illegal or potentially harmful, so it is possible some themes tackled at 18 may be offensive even to some adult viewers.

In an 18 you may see: 

•   very strong violence
•   frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***') and / or very strong language (e.g. ‘c***’)
•   strong portrayals of sexual activity
•   scenes of sexual violence
•   strong horror
•   strong blood and gore
•   real sex (in some circumstances)
•   discriminatory language and behaviour

From our research, we decided that we would rate our film with the 15 classification as it meets the guidelines of a 15 set by the BBFC however is not as strongly offensive as an 18 can be. It addresses issues of 16-19 year olds and therefore is capable of being a 15. 

The BBFC: 

First Draft Review

Here is a commentary of our first draft film opening. In this commentary we discuss the changes that we are going to make before our final piece, these decisions are made based on the responses we received from peers that watched our opening and filled out a questionnaire. This video enabled us to point out the parts of our opening that either did not work, or were not effective enough at portraying our genre or our narrative. 

we had trouble uploading to you tube so we will sort the video out asap, but it is on the macs

SHER Productions Logo

Our Name:

We have now began to think about production names and logos for our media group. We had brainstormed a number of possible name both meaningful and random. 

We decided on SHER Productions; this is because SHER is the first initial of each member of our groups names so we felt it was relevant, and we had managed to create a twist on the word 'Share', to make it meaningful and relevant to our media task as we share our final product with you.

Our Logo:

We then started designing and coming up with possible logos for our group, 'SHER Productions'. We wanted something simple, yet eye catching that people would recognise.  

This was our final logo design we had all decided on. The colours were bright and bold and the shapes behind we felt reflected that of a camera lens or flash affect. The slogan at he bottom, "sharing media with the world" ties in with our name and fits for a production company well. 

Paramount Pictures Logo development 1914-2012: 

For inspiration we had looked at a number of production company logos, including Paramount Pictures, and how their logo had changed overtime to fit with current trends. Below is a video timeline of the Paramount Pictures logo development. 

Film Review: Black Swan

To aid our research, we thought that doing a film review would widen our knowledge and would encourage a deeper study of a psychological thriller:

Black Swan stars Natalie Portman as Nina, a delicate, overly mothered dancer with the New York City Ballet who goes into a state of mental breakdown when she lands the dual roles of the White and Black Swans, Odette and Odile, in a production of ‘Swan Lake’. Aronofsky has gone for a very unrealistic approach when representing the girls damaged mental state – and the ballet’s own story and themes – in everything from an invasive, swirling camera angles and shots, to the loud and creepy music used in most scenes and dark colours used to contrast the innocence of Natalie when she wears a white tutu.

It is not clear what’s real or not in Black Swan as there is no indication to what is mental thoughts and what is real life. Aronofsky’s approach to psychological drama makes other psychological thrillers that we have evaluated look very timid and unpowerful. He doesn’t go for a gradual reveal of insanity, instead, right from the start, we see Nina tearing off impossible amounts of skin from her fingers and hear awful cracks and snaps as she exercises her feet.

Throughout the film we see Nina's damaged psychological state becoming more and more obvious and aggressive. We see Nina’s legs bending and snapping, just as she hallucinates while looking at the walls of the flat she shares with her ultra-protective mother, played as a witch by Barbara Hershey. Her other nemeses are a newly retired dancer (Winona Ryder) and a pretty new colleague (Mila Kunis). Our view of both is entirely distorted by Nina’s breakdown as she struggles to play both swans and defy Thomas’s (her dance teachers) concerns that she’s too pure to play the more evil role.

The film’s endless pulp elements like the stabbing, drugs, blood and strangling are tempered by the innocence of the story’s context – the classical ballet music, dancing, costumes - and the films strong momentum. Aronofsky has taken a disturbed psychological state and displayed its effects and Nina's feelings visually. He’s more concerned with expressing Nina’s madness and reflecting it in the world about her than in making any sense of her character or the life of a dancer. It is overall a very powerful and disturbing film that displays all the common codes and conventions of a psychological thriller.



We also found this video which further outlines the film and encourages debate about the successes of the film and compares it to other films by the same director, Darren Aronofsky:

Advertising our Blog

We decided that to attract an audience for our Media group we would use a variety of social media. Social media sites have become all the more popular since the introduction of smart phone apps such as instagram, twitter and Facebook so this is where we chose to post about our blog and production progress. 

We chose twitter and instagram as they attract an audience of teenagers and young adults, similar to the target audience are aiming at in our film opening. Also, by having a Facebook page we can advertise our work to all our friends and family and invite them to gain frequent updates about SHER Productions. 

On our instagram page we can post visual updates. So far, we have uploaded filming progress as we had begun the filming process. These include a number of our test shots when experimenting with different types of lighting and focus. 














The twitter page is our main method of advertising SHER Productions as it is quick and simple to attach photos and links. Therefore, we can link twitter users to our Facebook posts and instagram pictures and videos, in turn, increasing peoples awareness of SHER. The hashtag craze allows us to hashtag relatable words to our post which widens our audience and opens up our page and film to millions of twitter users worldwide. 

Picture Mood Board

Along with our spider diagram mood board we created following a discussion, I created a picture mood board to summarise our ideas and visually represent our thoughts and ideas. We will use this mood board along with the other one to stick to the codes and conventions of a typical psychological thriller and to give us a guideline of what we should includes with reference to shot types, colours and lighting. 

The mood board when looked at uses dark colours with splashes of red and neon green to indicate the sudden electric drama that is found in psychological thrillers. The mood board also displays a number of examples of films we watched for inspiration with our opening. 

Psychological Thriller Mood-board

We created a mood-board to gather and demonstrate all of our research and ideas for our film opening. It allows us to gain a better understanding of our chosen genre, so that we stick to its conventions. We focused on the genre in detail as we decided to pursue this as our final genre.

Themes

eyes - focus

truth and lie

memory

reality

a psychological state

narrative - conflict in the mind

existence/purpose

human conciousness

identity

fascination with death

intelligence

Typical ideas

complex narrative

focus' main character psychological state

sub-genre of thriller and horror

music relates to drama

elements of mystry and drama

discovery

reality, perception, mind

makes you think

first person existance

Camera Work and Editing

camrea graphic match

multiple cuts

POV shots

/close ups

Our Ideas

children

webcam phones laptop ipad

multiple people

controller deserted

ordinary clothing

contrasting colours

natural makeup

lighting key/back

Examples

Inception

Shutter Island

Black Swan

Dream House

Hide and Seek

Seven

Psycho

6th Sense

Deciding our Genre: Psychological Thriller

After much deliberation, we decided that we would do  Psychological Thriller film opening. We did also did research on many genres and we concluded that this one would be most fun to film and plan and that we would enjoy creating a psychological thriller the most, as it would challenge us. Firstly, we would have to come up with a thoughtful storyline which would challenge our imaginations, then we had to research all the codes and conventions to try and create a successful and realistic psychological thriller. We were all up for the challenge! 

Genre: Romance and Romantic Comedies

Film Opening Features

For our 'Typical Features of a Film Opening' task, we had created a Prezi and wanted to record a voice recording to comment on each of the features. We found a webiste that gave us a step-by-step guide on how to attach a voice recording to a Prezzi in iMovie...

After many attempts and encountering many problems, we decided against attaching a voice over. However we then went on to find a video step by step guide of how to embed a prezi onto a blog post: http://www.screenr.com/864

Representation of Men and Women in Magazine Advertisements

In our Media research, we looked into different representations of both genders in magazine adverts and campaigns. Below is our recorded findings when looking through a Glamour Magazine. 

The female was shown in a provocative and sexual manner, holding an apple to show a 'sweet or sour' persona. The man however, is represented as a strong and dominating character holding a trophy to promote men as 'champions'. 

Our Plan

Once we had been given our coursework groups we worked together to create a flow diagram of what we think we are going to need to do before we can start filming. This gave us an idea of the sort of tasks and experiments we need to carry out in order to create a storyboard and ultimately create our film opening.

1. Research different film openings to get ideas and aid us picking a genre

2. Narrow down favourite two genres

3. Research genres in detail

4. Brainstorm possible plot ideas

5. Re-watch film openings for preferred genre

6. Pick a favourite genre

7. Begin script outline for whole film to narrow down for opening (motifs)

8. Storyboard plan

9. Perform testshots

10. Create a time table plan (filming)

11. Find actors, props and scenery

12. Re-write neat and final story board

This is simply a rough idea of how our schedule should work as we are anticipating that we will come across difficulties that would hinder our progress or force us to change our order. We have only had our preliminary task to go by. therefore we are going by this to base our schedule upon.