Lesson Summary

In todays lesson we gathered and summarised the questionnaire results and put them into an audience profile. I took the percentages from each question and explained why each of these these results benefit our group and help us create our 2 minute opening sequence.  The results cover genre of music to be included to what film genre everyone we asked preferred.

Audience profile research summary

Findings of our online questionnaire :   30 people filled out our online questionnaire, this has helped us to choose what elements to incorporate in our 2 minute intro. 

First of all we discovered that 17 out of the 30 people we asked were between the ages of 16 - 20, from this we have discovered that our film should have the certificate rating 15. The next majority age group that we had was 11- 15. The second thing we found is that the genders we asked were split down the middle, 15 of the people were male the other 15 female. This 50/50 split in gender was good for us as our results wouldn't be biased and we would therefore be able to see what each gender likes. The next thing we discovered that greatly benefitted us is that 60% (18 people) preferred comedy over any other genre of film, because we are doing a comedy film opening sequence this gives us great confidence as based on our results more than half of the people we show the opening sequence to will enjoy the genre. Furthermore 50% of the people we asked said that they watch films often, however 43.3% of people said they only watch films sometimes. Something we found that is quite interesting but isn't necessarily needed for  this project is where people see advertisements most regularly. We found that 86.7% of people we asked said that they find the majority of their media texts through the internet and that 83.3% of people see advertisement through TV. Finally we discovered that 66.7% of people we asked said they preferred the music genre rock over any other, this gives us a good idea of what genre of music to put in our 2 minute opening sequence. 

These results we gathered were very general and only give us a rough idea of what to base out opening sequence on. To get better results we would have to ask more people and ask and record more indepth questions.

Treatment feedback

Today we pitched our idea for our two minute opening sequence, along with our opening sequence we pitched the plot of our film,  the key concepts we wish to keep and the one concept we want to challenge.

The
   

Focus group

Questionnaire results

These are our final results collected from the questionnaire we created.
Questionnaire Responses

TV drama research - Misfits

Who made the show?
Howard Overman



What channel is it on?
E4



What time is it on?
Misfits is usually aired at 11PM after the watershed period.



What is the sub-genre?
The sub-genre is comedy, the show also incorporates elements of thriller.



Who is the target audience? 
The target audience is mainly the older teenage generation probably 16-25 because of the language used and concepts put across.



What was the narrative?
A group of five teenagers are caught in a storm that gives them superpowers that range from immortality to making people sexually aroused on contact. The group then find themselves in prediciments where their powers help them resolve the situation, even if it's not the out come they wanted.



What/who was being represented?
Teenagers are the main group of people being represented. Whats intresting about Misfits is that teenagers are viewed in a negtive and positive manner. The group of teenagers are viewed negativly because they are doing community service throughout the first two series because of crimes they have commited. However because the group have superpowers they take it on themselves to save other people if they ever need the help.  

Focus group research

Focus Group Letter


Today we wrote a letter, as shown above, to invite people to our focus group presentation on the 5/12/11 at 3:30pm.




After we wrote the letter we decided to outline a variety of questions we would ask our focus group. These questions would have to give us an in-depth look into why people like comedy films and what draws them to that specific genre of film time after time. Some of the questions we discussed are listed below;


What is it about this genre that you enjoy?
Would the opening sequence make you want to watch the rest of the film, and why?
How could we make the film more appealing to our target audience?
What would you judge the target audience to be?
Would the film appeal to you?
What would you like to see in a comedy film?
What would you do in order to challenge the conventions of the genre?

Audience profile research questionnaire-Comedy

The survey below is a questionnaire that will help us with research for our chosen genre, Comedy.
Click here to take survey

Hangover opening scene analysis

http://youtu.be/BAc_Z442voA 

Directed by:  Todd Phillips               Release Date: June 5th 2009

The opening sequence consists of four men on the outskirts of Las Vegas phoning a woman and explaining that they managed to loose her fiance in Vegas the night before at the stag do. It then cuts to two days before the situation that you originally see occurs and you are quickly introduced to four main characters Dough, Phil, Alan and Stu. You then see that they are leaving to go to Vegas for Dough's Engagement party.

One main genre convention that you see in the opening sequence of The Hangover is the occurrence of a problem. This problem is the main plot to the film but it is revealed within the

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis

Initial Idea for comedy plot

Title:  The dirty business

• A guy is unemployed and his best friend is the manger of a successful business
• The friend gets the guy a job.
• The former unemployed guy progresses through the ranks of the business untill he  is  vice chairman.
• The boss becomes ill and his friend takes over the business and changes it.
• The boss then recovers and wonders why the business has changed.
• The two friends argue and go there sperate ways and contiune with their respective businesses.
• The businesses start to fail so they put their differences aside and start the old business up.
• They then become lifelong friends.

Will and Paul have been Friends since year 7, Paul went on to become the manager of a prank company that ships products worldwide. Will has been unemployed since he got kicked out of school in year 10 because he urinated on a teacher who told him he would never amount to anything. Paul decides to give Will a job as an office assistant for the lowest ranking sector of the business and gets fed up of being treated badly so injures the head of the department in a hope that he is promoted. Will gets promoted and slowly works his way up the company ladder untill he is vice chairman and Paul falls ill. Will takes charge of the company and changes it to a joke pornographic film company. Paul returns a year later to find out what has happened to the company and Will and Paul argue and split there own ways with their own companies. Both companies begin to fail so the two partner back up and create both companies that gain worldwide critical acclaim.

Peer Assessment

My idea for a gangster film is that there are two gangs in the 1960's that occupy an industrial town. The two gangs are constantly fighting with each other because of their different ethnicities one gang is Italian and the other is Russian. Halfway through the plot the police start to attempt to eliminate the gangs, The gangs then decide to join forces when both of their "King pin's" are killed. The gangs then proceed to defend their territory against the police and once they do that successfully the gang decides to unite once and for all.

My group decided that my idea was good because it keeps to the key conventions of the gangster genre. Also it changes one key convention in the story, when the two gangs unite which is a rare site in the genre.

Gangster Movie homework

An idea I have for a gangster film that is based on one of the openings we watched is a rival between to gangs in the 1960's based in America. The rivalry is taking place between two foreign gangs the Italians and the Soviet Russians. The film will involve a lot of offensive language to show the classic gang culture, both gangs will also have american/Italian or Russian accents this is to show the gangs background. The city the two gangs occupy will be mainly industrial and both gangs will be importing workers from their own home countries. Half way through the film the gangs will unite and try to fight of the police who are trying to drive both gangs out of the city. Finally the gangs declare a truce and become one bog gang after the two "king pins" are eliminated by the police.

Five things I need to do to keep this genre similar to classic gangster films are;

1. I will keep the typical offensive slang language to represent the violence of gang culture.
2. There will be violence in the film which shows the difference in class between the gangs and citizens of the city.
3. I intend to keep the element of fear within the film to show why gangs are able to get to where they are.
4. I want to keep the title screens the same to keep to the classic genre e.g. the white writing on the black background.
5. The last element I will include that keeps to the classic genre are the tragic stories of the people in the gangs for example it is always shown that people in gangs had a bad life so thats why they ended up where they are.

The one thing I will change that would make this concept different from other films is the unification of gangs to prevent the destruction of both of them.

Prelim Task evaluation

As a team I think we worked well and everyone had strengths in different areas. For example I wrote the script and Dean and Damien created the camera plan, which demonstrates where the camera is facing and at what angle. This system worked well because it allowed all the planning to be done in a fast and effective way. However even though we got all the planning done quickly we didn't start filming until the next lesson because we were unable to get a location to film on and someone to film with. Next lesson we filmed all the parts we needed in about an hour and a half, Damien and I filmed the majority of parts and we both got a second opinion off of Josh and Dean so to make sure everyone was happy with the work.

After all the footage was filmed we entered the editing process and the 

first thing we did was arrange all the clips into the correct order. After we got the film in the right order we inserted the sound, I chose I believe in miracles by Hot Chocolate and Dean chose the song Bump and Grind by R Kelly.  After these were inserted and cut down by Josh we inserted the transitions and effects, one effect we used was called "romantic" on iMovie.

We met the majority of the brief we were given, the key points of the brief were;
The film should be 30 seconds,
There should be elements of dialogue,
A door needs to be shown being opened,
180 degree rule needs to be in place,
Shot reverse shot needs to be used,
Finally match on action needs to be encorporated.
As a group we met all of these apart from the time of the task, Our footage ran over the time limit by 45seconds. (As demonstrated below)

An example of match on action.

We managed to get the 180 degree rule by recording a conversation between the two characters twice but from different angles. E.g. over the sholder of "George" and over the sholder of "Mary". Match on action was more difficult to film as it required more coordination between the acter and the cameraman this is because we had to experiment the filming from different angles to see what was the best angle to shoot at. However once we had done this we were pleased with the result.

The one major thing that I would change if we were to do this again is meeting all the requirements of the brief. This means that we would make our work shorter. Another thing I would change is the amount of time everybody had at doing different things for example Damien and I had more time filming compared to Josh, but he had more time editing than everyone else.

Prelim Task when Mary met George

Preliminary update 1/11/11

Today we wrote the script and created a plan for the camera, where it's going to be and the types of shots going to be used. We made sure that we included the 180 degree rule, shot/ reverse shot and match on action in our plans. On Thursday we plan on filming all the footage and start the process of editing.

Preliminary task script

Guy: Hi you must be May?

Girl: And you must be George?

Guy: So where did you grow up?

Girl: In Dagenham, my parents split up when i was born though. What about you?

Guy: Weird, that happened to me as well.

Girl: We've got a lot in common.

Guy: Its uncanny.

Girl: I know, It's almost as if we're brother and sister.

Guy: Whats your last name so I can save it to my phone book?

Girl: Adams.

Guy: That's mine too.

Girl: If we got married no one would have to change their last name.

(George and Mary laugh together)

Let the right one in holiday homework

1) I do not consider myself a fan of the horror genre, the main reason for this is because many of the horror films I have seen are similar to each other so you therefore know what the outcome of the film/show is going to be rendering the viewing a bit pointless. Also I am unable to find horror films scary because I understand that the main "evil presence" is usually just an actor in a suit or CGI added on in the editing stage.

2) The trailer encourages you to watch the film because of the small amount of the plot it gives away, the plot shows two children becoming friends and falling in love. However the trailer reveals a twist which is that the girl, Eli, is a vampire. This small part of the plot that is revealed is something out of the ordinary for the horror genre, love is never part of the key plot in horror films and because a film has taken that emotion and incorporated it into a film such as this it has introduced something new, and most of the time people wish to see something new and fresh.

3) Familiar conventions;

Eli the vampire sustains her appearance and youth when she drinks blood however the fact that she only has the appearance of a 10 year old gives a different approach to this also she unwillingly kills people to drink they're blood. These two factors offer a difference to the normal conventions we are used to seeing , we generally assume vampires are evil but yet in this film there is a child who takes the blood of others because she has too not out of choice and we would consider a child good not bad.

b) Another familiar convention that is showed in Let the right one in is that vampires can not be in direct sunlight we see a different take on this in the scene where a woman who has recently been turned into a vampire asks a doctor to open the blinds and she bursts into flames, we usually think that vampires burn and turn to ash or stone when they are in contact with sunlight, not erupt into a fire ball.

4) The sense of being of an outsider is represented through the way that Oskar has no friends throughout the film only Eli, also others take pity on him such as the bullies friends. As well as Oskar having no friends we also see that he has no confidence in himself when he pretends to stab the boy bullying him but in reality his just stabbing a tree. However this confidence grows when he becomes closer to Eli as we see Oskar going to the gym, possibly to impress Eli, and he hits the bully in the face with a stick. We also see that Eli is an outsider more out of necessity than anything else we see she wears normal clothes the majority of the time, however she never wears any shoes probably because she is unable to feel the cold also the fact that she is a vampire and is unable to go out in the daylight and play like a normal child doesn't help her fitting in.
5) Despite the fact that Eli is a vampire I think she seems like a nice child if you just subtract the undead thing. The reason I think this is because she offers advice and comforts Oskar when he's in need of it, in addition she isn't afraid of trying new thing like when she tries one of Oskars sweets. However even though I like Eli I didn't like Oskar mainly for the reason that when he finds out that Eli is a vampire he starts insulting her which is a stupid thing to do. Also I feel that Oskar is far to easily pushed around by everyone and I think his life would be better if he stood up for himself.
6) Aspects of narrative that appealed to me was the casualness that everyone had for example when the murders start happening Oskar's mum sends him to live with his dad until the murderer is caught or the murders are stopped but in the build up to Oskar moving he asks his mum if he can play outside and his mum just replies don't leave the front.
7) I can't imagine the film without Eli being a vampire as I am unsure what the plot of the film would be if she wasn't a vampire it would just seem pointless without the twist in the story.
8) Because of the domestic view of vampire life we get we are encouraged to be scared of the vampire figure reasons for this are when you see Eli's dad like figure go out and kill for her you see how casual he is about it and it looks like he is just going out to work when he is packing. Also we see the strength of Eli when she kills a fully grown man in the subway which again feeds fear to us. Furthermore Eli kills her dad like figure when he is in hospital which again gives us a sense of fear because of the lengths she will go through to stay alive. However we also see that Eli has a compassionate side that she reveals around Oskar which decreases the amount of fear we have for the vampire figure.
9) Eli's father both conforms and diverts to the typical stereotype of the vampire, we see that he loves her but also that he fears her equally as much. Furthermore with the way that he is portrayed you understand that it isn't he who is in charge but Eli his daughter. I feel this is an exaggerated view of the normal father daughter relationship as fathers stereotypically are laid back when it comes to giving their daughters what they want. Because of the way that Eli's father lives Eli is able to live with the one small comfort that somebody is still there for her, that is until she kills him.
10) I felt that the relationship between Eli and her father was teetering dangerously we see this we he returns home empty handed without any blood when he is almost discovered killing an innocent man, Eli slaps her father and storms away leaving the father in pity thinking about the life he has chosen, this gives the audience a sense that Eli is dangerous to be around and we sympathies for Eli's dad. However a scene that contrasts this is the scene just before she kills him where she is at the hospital window and looks deeply concerned for her dad and looks at him with love and thankfulness because he has stuck with her for however many years they had been together. This makes the audience feel sorry for both characters and we wish that they could both live normal lives without having to secretly murder.

Moral panics and the mass media

Moral panic is where something occurs which panics a society and creates fear for a certain group of people. Usually the media tends to inhance the fear in the society because of the disproportional view of certain types of the media.
I looked at the increase in student university fees and how this has discouraged students between the ages of 11-16 to think about attending university due to the large increase in fees. I also discovered that all English universities intend to charge a minimum of £6,000.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jun/27/universities-low-income-students-targets