Note To Moderator

Hello and welcome to our AS-level Media blog! Thank you for taking the time to look around!

The best way to navigate around our blog is to use the labels that can be found on the right hand side of the page. When you get to the bottom of the page, please click the 'older posts' button as unfortunately we could not fit all of our posts on one page.

Under the 'Research and Planning' label, you will find evidence of all the research, planning and development work we did as a group during the pre-production, production and post-production stages of our project.

In order to see exactly what each candidate contributed to this process, we have also included individual contribution labels names for each group member. All research, planning and development posts contributed to by the named candidate will appear when you click that label.

Each member of the group has also completed their own evaluation, although we have collaborated to produce some content. You can access our responses to the evaluation questions under the individually named Evaluation labels.

Our finished film opening sequence is at the top of the blog, and each candidate has posted their preliminary task video sequence as part of their answer to question seven of the evaluation.

You can also filter through our posts by labels or date and there is a blog archive if you want to look through chronologically.

You will also find a link to the class film blog which contains links to the other group blogs from our school.

Once again, thank you very much for taking the time to look around our blog. We really hope you enjoy looking at our work!

From,
Matt Romo (candidate number 1660), Ellie Brackpool (Candidate number 0100), Georgie Thoupos (Candidate number 0835) and Maisie MacGregor (Candidate number 0506)

Closing Post

We have finished all of our coursework so this blog is now closed!
Feel free to keep browsing, but we will not be posting any more.
 
Thanks
Matt, Ellie, Georgie and Maisie.

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

The title of our film is 'Consequences'. It is a British drama film focusing on the protagonist 'Dan' and the struggles he faces being a teenage boy in London. The other character introduced in our film opening is Dan's girlfriend 'Lucy'.
In order to produce a successful product, we had to research into the drama genre for the four concepts of film production; genre, narrative, form and style.

Genre
Our film is a British drama, mainly focusing on teenagers.
Here are some films of similar genre:

Kidulthood

Attack The Block

This is England

We used these inspirations in order to find out more about the forms and conventions of our chosen genre, and then chose to focus on specific conventions based on them.

Conventions of similar films:

• Urban British setting
• Male protagonist
• Relationship between male and female
• Protagonist caught up in disruption 
• Themes of trouble/crime
• Realistic appearance (lighting, mise-en-scene)

This is how our we created our characters and setting according to the forms and conventions of a real British drama film:




Form and Style
We wanted our film's appearance to be of a similar style to that of the TV drama 'Skins' and British film 'This Is England'.
The intended effect was to make our film opening as realistic and relatable as possible while satisfying the audience's expectations of quality as well as forms and conventions.

We did this through the use of:

• varying shot types:
  
  
  
  
  
  • diegetic sounds eg. footsteps running, knocking on door
  • natural exterior lighting:
  
  
  
  
• plain simple titles; plain white fading in and out:

This Is England titles vs. Consequences titles

Consequences running sequence

Trainspotting running sequ

The content of our opening
was supposed to be shot in the style of the British drama film Trainspotting; using the same sense of pace, movement and action through the running sequence.

Narrative Structure
Often, films conform with Todorov's theory of narrative structure:

However, our film will challenge this theory by beginning with a flash-forward of the disruption, before returning to the equilibrium that would come chronologically first.
This is similar to the way that 'Battle: Los Angeles' begins by throwing the audience into the action leaving them asking various questions about how and why this sequence happened. This creates intrigue and interest which is what we intend to do with our opening sequence.

In order to create a build-up of tension, leaving questions unanswered, we used Barthe's theory of enigma codes. We started the film with the disruption of Dan running away, leaving the audience to question who he is, what he's done and where he's running. We continue to leave questions unanswered, leaving the opening on a cliff-hanger in order to engage and interest the audience.

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

In our film opening we have focused of the representation of gender, and of that, age.
The following Prezi explains how we have chosen to represent our two main characters, Dan and Lucy.


This Voki is a self-characterisation of the protagonist Dan:



We chose to make our protagonist a conventional teenage male in this way in order to make him a relatable character for our target audience while making him realistic and believable, conventional of the genre.

As well creating representations of individual characters, we wanted to represent British youth as a whole. Rather than representing our characters in an entirely negative way, for example involved in drugs and partying like Skins, or drug-dealing and gun crime like Kidulthood, we wanted to create an entirely realistic representation of British youth. Therefore, our film will have a broad appeal within the 16-24 market as people from different backgrounds will relate. This representation does have some negative factors such as the crime Dan is involved in, however it is supposed to show that teenagers can get involved in these issues without intending to. Our intention is for our film to create a better understanding of British youth rather than a criticism.

One of the main factors we focused on was relationships. We wanted to present young relationships in a realistic way, showing not only how important they can be to teenagers, but also the negative impact they can have when there are problems.

Jay & Claire's relationship in Kidulthood

Positive side of Freddie & Effy's relationship in Skins

Negative side of Freddie & Effy's relationship in skins

Lucy and Dan clearly care about each other (Consequences)

However, Dan's problems have a huge impact on Lucy and this causes tension in their relationship

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Due to the fact that it is a low budget British independent movie, our film would be a co-production between production and distribution.

Production
Our production company is called GEMM Productions.

GEMM Productions is a British independent production company aimed at 16-24 year old male and females as they fulfill a large proportion of the cinema market. We aim to produce films with more challenging and interesting themes than those produced by big-budget studios, focusing on drama with possibilities of comedy or thriller. Our Production company is similar to Film4 which has co-produced many British films including Attack The Block, Submarine, The Inbetweeners Movie and This Is England.

Financing 
Our film would be financed by the BFI Film Fund who 'work to discover and develop new talent and to support the production of a wide range of films that will enrich British film culture and define Britain and its storytellers in the 21st century, for the benefit of audiences at home and abroad'. Therefore, we think due to our film's indie British style and content, we would qualify for funding.

Distribution
We researched various studios and looked at their involvement in the distribution of films.
Here is a mood-board of possible distributors for our film:

After having researched distribution companies, we realise that it would be best to use a distribution company that has distributed a number of films with style and content similar to that of ours. In addition, having great involvement in the British independent film industry would be essential.

Therefore, we decided that our film would be distributed by StudioCanal.

StudioCanal is is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world, therefore are incredibly successful. Our film would probably be distributed by the smaller StudioCanal owned distribution company StudioCanal UK (previously named Optimum Releasing). This is because it has successfully distributed various British drama films similar to ours, for example Attack The Block, This Is England and Submarine. 

Exhibition
If our film was distributed by StudioCanal UK it is likely to be shown in the cinema. Our target audience of 16-24 year olds are amongst the most prominent cinema goers in the UK, making a theatrical release crucial to the success of our film (see table in Production). However, due to the fact that its a fairly low-budget independent movie we feel that it would have most success initially being shown in independent cinemas in order to appeal to our core audience. Some examples of these cinemas are:

Hackney Picture House

The Phoenix, East Finchley

Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds

If our film was to be a success at these smaller cinemas, we feel that it could be shown in larger cinemas such as Cineworld, Vue and Odeon.

Our film would be shown in 2D as it is low-budget film and the appearance, due to the genre and style, would not benefit sufficiently from the costs of showing it in 3D. In addition, our audience would not expect an independent British drama film to be shown in 3D.

After the success of the cinema, we feel that our film has the potential be shown on Television. It is most likely to be shown on Film4 or Channel4 as other independent films have succesfully been exhibited on these channels:

Due to the increase in revenue from film on television, we feel that showing our film on television would be highly beneficial to us. Overall, theatrical and television exhibition has had the highest proportion of revenue over the last few years implying that these are the two best platforms for exhibiting a film, as shown in this graph from the BFI statistical Yearbook 2013:

Marketing
Our film would be marketed to our national audience through a simplistic marketing campaign, taking advantage of below-the-line advertising. Due to the majority of our audience being in the urban youth demographic, our marketing would most effectively take place in cities. Similar to the way in which StudioCanal distributed Submarine, we would create one simple poster that would become a memorable image for our film. This would be seen at bus stops and train stations around the main cities in the UK, for example on the London underground. Due to our low budget as an independent film, the poster would not be seen on a large scale, for example on billboards.

In addition to the poster and similar to Submarine, we would have one main trailer available to view online, posted on the StudioCanal UK Youtube channel. This would be shared on our Facebook page which would be the main hub of our film's marketing, sharing all interviews, reviews and any other promotional opportunities directly to our audience of 16-24 year olds in the UK.

 

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

In order to produce an effective film opening, it is important to have a good idea of audience and audience's needs and gratifications. We chose to focus on 16-24 year old males and females, not only because we fall within this demographic and so have a strong understanding of their needs, but also because they are avid fans of the drama genre. Due to the fact that our film is very British-based and is an independent film, our target audience will be national rather than global.

Our core audience will be 16-24 year old males in the UK

Here is a mind-map of our Core Audience:
  
Our audience will be predominantly middle class because the protagonist is supposed to relate to the regular middle class teenage boys of the UK. However, the element of crime could relate to a wider audience of lower class teenagers who are involved in gang crime in the UK. Therefore, our film will appeal to most young people around the UK in different ways. They are also likely to be situated in cities such as London and Manchester in order to relate to the city/streets context of the film. Therefore, our film will be predominantly marketed in the main cities of the UK. For example, we will create one simple film poster, placed at bus stops and train stations for example on the London Underground. This will ensure that we are using our limited budget most effectively to reach our target audience.

word-map of core audience's interests and lifestyle

Our secondary audience will be 16-24 year old females in the UK

 

Here is a mind-map of our Secondary Audience:
 
The type of females we are attempting to target would be relatively feminine and interested in typical things such as clothes and make-up. However, the challenging convention of Lucy being strong and powerful enables us to either target strong girls who can relate, or girls who aspire to be like Lucy. This broadens our female marketability to different types of girls.

word-map of secondary audience's interests and lifestyle

Other Audiences:
From reading about audience distribution in the BFI Statistical Yearbook 2013, I have realised that the 45+ age group have become increasingly prominent cinema-goers. Therefore, I concluded that perhaps we could have included some content to appeal to a tertiary audience of 45+. However, we did aim our film at the second largest age group of cinema-goers.

 

Our film could appeal to those outside of our target audience group as a way of informing them about young people's lives in the UK.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Audience appeal was at the heart of our research, planning and production. We understood that our audiences' needs and gratifications should be constantly considered throughout the project in order to create a successful film opening. Our core audience was 16-24 year old males and our secondary audience 16-24 year old females. 

This slideshow demonstrates how we created our film opening in order to attract & address our Core and Secondary audiences:


We constructed our characters in order to appeal to our audiences in the same way that the films and programmes we focused on did. We wanted to create a protagonist similar to the character Freddie from Skins, who the audience would like and feel empathetic towards while relating to his issues. Some comments on a fan-made video of Freddie included 'I really like Freddie, he is sweet and a very nice person' and 'My favorite character from skins, definitely!'

Lucy was constructed in a more aspirational way; creating a character that girls would feel empathetic towards due to her trouble with Dan, but also someone who is strong and passionate, a quality that some girls would aspire to have. This is similar to the character Mini from Skins; she is a conventional teenage girl but can be strong and powerful when she needs to be.

More on the representation of our characters here

Music
After researching film openings, we realised that music was a very important part of construction. We researched music and soon found out that dubstep/drum&bass are becoming increasingly popular among the 16-24 year old audience. We wanted a song that would not only appeal to our audience, but also attract them by creating a sense of pace and drama. Here is the song that we chose:


I feel that our film opening attracted and addressed our audience incredibly well. However, there were a few things that could've been improved in order to increase audience appeal. For example:

• include more action in order to make it more exciting and appeal more to boys
• make the female less dominant as this could put male viewers off, and adheres to audiences' expectations
• emphasise the type character our protagonist is, for example by putting a focus on gangs, as he does not have a very clear characterisation

In addition to our core and secondary audiences, I feel that we could attract other audiences, for example:

• those who enjoy independent films/film-making
• fans of British drama in general
• those outside of the relatable audience group who want to be informed by the content
• those outside of the relatable audience group who want to experience escapism

In order to see how successfully we attracted and addressed our audience, we shared our video on Facebook and asked people to fill in a short feedback survey. Overall we received very positive feedback which showed a clear understanding of the story-line, intended audience and type of production.

Here is a selection of our positive audience feedback:


Here is some analysis of our audience feedback focusing on gender:

However, some of our audience didn't correctly pick up on the genre of our film, for example:

After analysing our audience feedback as a whole, I feel that we appealed to our two main audiences incredibly well. However, the confusion over genre implies that we should have included more conventions of the drama genre in order to portray this sufficiently, for example the use of mise-en-scene.

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

Our film is a British Drama called "Consequences" which features Matt as the male protagonist (Dan) and myself as the female protagonist (Lucy).

As a group, we made several informed decisions regarding the use, development and challenging of the conventions within our genre of British Drama. Our sequence includes a fairly even balance between the conforming to and challenging of these conventions.

Genre Conventions

As well as movies of the British Drama genre, as a group we found several British TV Dramas which were significant in the research and planning process of our film opening. These TV Dramas were just as inspirational as our movie references when researching genre conventions. I have therefore made reference to both movies and TV Dramas in the mind map below.

Out of the British Drama conventions in the mind map above, we chose to incorporate:

• Teenagers getting into trouble - the protagonist (Dan) is involved in some kind of encounter where Lucy's brother, Ryan, is fatally injured.
• Urban locations - our sequence is set in Walthamstow
• Crime & violence - Dan is involved in violence which is not directly shown in out opening sequence
• Relationships - Dan and Lucy 
• The independence of teenagers - no authoritative figure 

Lighting

British Dramas tend to be naturally lit to create a gritty feel. We wanted to imitate the lighting used in 'Skins' as we found that it best suited the style of our film. 

A scene from Skins

The scene is well lit with natural light

Shot Types

British Dramas contain lots of varying shot types. We mimicked this in our sequence.

The Prezi below shows examples of the range of shot types in our sequence compared with similar shots from other real media products of the British Drama genre.

Titles

Our titles are simple yet effective as they do not draw away from what is occurring throughout our opening sequence. We went with a simple font because, after researching real media texts such as This is England, Misfits, Kidulthood etc. we noticed that British Dramas don't tend to use overly elaborate fonts in their title sequences.

This is England

• The titles are in capital letters which makes them stand out. 
• The font and colour of the titles do not detract from the shots within the sequence.

Kidulthood

• Although the titles are placed in extremely noticeable spots within the sequence, they are fairly small so do not distract the viewer from the animations. 
• The titles are in capital letters and the chosen colour is grey which makes them easily seen but they do not detract from the sequence. 
• The font is simple.

Misfits

• The font colour is white which makes them stand out from the background
• The font is fairly simple and the letters are in capitals

Consequences

(our own titles)

• Each title sequence which we researched used capital letters for their titles so we did the same
• We chose to use white as the colour of the titles as it made them easy seen however this colour does not detract from the shots
• The font which we decided to use is similar to that of Kidulthood as it is simple yet effective and each letter is easily readable

Narrative Structure

One of our options was to follow Todorov's theory:

However, we decided against using this and instead went for Barthe's theory of enigma codes. This theory was much more well-suited for our opening sequence as we wanted to begin with a flash-forward. The use of Barthe's theory resulted in the creation of excitement and suspense within our opening which is exactly what we wanted.

Our opening sequence is a flash-forward which consists of the male protagonist running to his girlfriend's house where she is, at first, very confused as to why he has arrived in such a panic. He eventually informs her that he has been involved in some kind of group/gang related incident where her brother, Ryan, has been most likely fatally injured. 

• The beginning of our sequence is inspired by the opening of the British Drama, Trainspotting. Although our opening is a running sequence and Trainspotting's is a chase sequence, we shot and edited our sequence in a similar way to how Trainspotting is shot; with lots of different shot types cut together using choppy editing.
• Our running scene is very enigmatic as the audience doesn't know what the protagonist is running from. Enigma codes are also present in Trainspotting's opening.

Trainspotting

Consequences

• The disruption in our opening sequence is caused by 'Lucy' discovering that 'Dan' has been involved in a serious crime. British Dramas often include some kind of dispute between two characters. 
• We looked at the way that Skins portrayed teenage couples, e.g. Nick and Franky, arguing and used what we learnt in our argument shots.
• The argument between 'Dan' and 'Lucy' follows the classic narrative pattern of an argument. It begins calm, then 'Lucy' gets very angry and the scene develops into a heated argument however by the end the pace of the argument slows and Dan manages to silence Lucy (even if it is by telling her that her brother has been fatally injured).

Skins

Consequences

• There are only two characters (a boy and his girlfriend) in our opening sequence however these two characters are present in countless British Dramas e.g. Finn and Sam (Waterloo road), Alisha and Simon (Misfits), Effy and Freddie (Skins), Nick and Franky (Skins)

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

As a group of teenagers, we are well aware of the way that young people are depicted within the world we live in. Therefore we decided to deal with both the stereotypes of teenagers and gender stereotypes within our media product.

Overall, our opening sequence conforms to the conventions of youth culture whereas it challenges many gender stereotypes present in modern day life.

Age
Misfits and Kidulthood present young people as trouble makers. We used these film/TV references to create the plot of our opening sequence which consists of the male protagonist being involved in a crime which leaves the female protagonist's brother fatally injured. Misfits and Kidulthood also portray young people as very independent and, in Misfits in particular, we are never introduced to any of the characters' parents, in the same way that 'Lucy' and 'Dan' appear to be very independent.

A scene from Misfits

A scene from Kidulthood

Gender

We wanted for our female protagonist to challenge many of these stereotypes to create a new take on a female character. Whereas, we wanted our male protagonist to conform to several of the male gender stereotypes. This would mean that both of our protagonists were strong-willed and dominant, creating a relationship of equality.

Female protagonist: 

We wanted to incorporate a teenage female character in our opening sequence. Rather than conforming to all of the stereotypes of British teenage girls, we wanted to challenge some of these stereotypes. "Lucy's" strong-willed and almost aggressive character challenges the stereotype of females being weak and vulnerable.

Examples of the type of character who inspired our choices regarding the character of "Lucy":

Mini McGuinness (Skins)

Bossy, independent, determined but still girly

Alisha Daniels (Misfits)

Has a lot of attitude, doesn't listen to orders but has a feminine appearance

Lucy (Consequences)

Dresses casually, has a feminine appearance, 

independed, strong-willed

Male protagonist:

We wanted our key focus of the opening sequence to be a teenage boy who conforms to almost all of the stereotypes of this kind of character. Our protagonist is a troublemaker, athletic, masculine and lacks much emotion.

Examples of the type of character who inspired our choices regarding the character of "Dan":

Nick (Skins)

  Has a good sense of humour, likes to go out partying,

  gets into trouble, likes girls, likes to impress his friends

Bolton (Waterloo Road)

Ladies man, gets into trouble, sociable, into stereotypically

masculine activities e.g. football

Dan (Consequences)

Athletic, has a girlfriend, dresses casually, 

good sense of humour, likes to go out with 

friends.