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.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In order to create our media product we had to use and develop our skills and knowledge of various different technologies. Some of which we had used before, others being completely new to us. I found the software the most useful and interesting learning experience, and I now feel very confident and knowledgeable of the programs that we used.

Hardware

We used the Canon Legria HV30 camera to film our opening sequence. We had used this camera before so we were very experienced and knowledgeable of how to use it.

Here are some positives and negatives of using this camera: 

click picture to enlarge

With the camera came a basic tripod which we had previous experience in using. This was incredibly easy and portable to use, and became essential to our sequence. For example, in this wide shot we needed the tripod to keep the shot level:

However, due to the fact that the tripod was quite stiff, it was difficult to take successful pans and therefore led to some shots having to be done hand-held which we did not intend to use. This made some camera movement unintentionally jumpy/shaky, as seen below:

shaky hand-held pan

In addition to this, we used a shot-gun microphone which was placed on top of the camera. Initially in the practice shoot we filmed some shots without using this microphone; there was a very noticeable improvement in the sound quality with the microphone as opposed to without. However, the microphone did tend to pick up a lot of background noise, for example the sound of wind or pedestrians, which meant it took longer to edit the sound mix in post-production.

Some hardware that we had never used before was the Arri Lighting Kit. Before using this, we had a short tutorial on how to use it safely and effectively. After having the tutorial, it was up to us to experiment with the lighting kit during the practice shoot in order to ensure that we knew how to use it effectively for our final shoot. From using this lighting kit, we learnt that lighting can greatly affect the quality of shots, especially interior ones.  
Here are some positives and negatives that we experienced from using the lighting kit:

click pictures to enlarge

The lights came with some filters available to use. After having tested these out, we decided that we did not need to use them for our opening sequence as we wanted a natural appearance to the shots, conforming with the style of similar products for example Skins. In addition, we knew that we could apply any effects that we wanted later in the grading part of post-production.

Despite our success with the lighting kit, we did face the problem of placing it successfully in the small room. In this shot, one of the lights is actually visible in the corner of the shot:

Software
In order to edit our film opening, we used Adobe Premiere Pro. As I had used this program multiple times before, I was relatively confident in using it.

Timeline on Adobe Premiere Pro

However, I soon discovered that I had been using this software on quite a basic level. I learned how to grade our footage in a more in-depth way than I had done before, using the three-way colour wheel. This meant that we could carefully create our intended grading effect while ensuring that all footage had the same kind of appearance and style. This is how we graded our shots:

Grading (click here to enlarge)

One of the most the most useful skills I learned was how to make titles fade in and out, giving our titles a more professional look. This was done by changing the opacity % at different stages of the title's appearance, as shown below.
The editing is shown on the left and the effect of this can be seen on the right:

Most of our titles were created on adobe premiere pro, however, we created two of our titles using Adobe After Effects. This program was entirely new to me so learning how to use it greatly improved my technical skills. The following title was created by going through the shot frame by frame and drawing a mask around the text in each frame. This made the title disappear as the character runs past:

We also used LiveType to produce the title 'GEMM Productions' and our film title 'Consequences'. This meant that we could apply interesting effects to our titles rather than just fading them in and out. LiveType was very easy to use as it worked in a similar way to the other programs, based around a timeline.








Facebook:

Facebook proved incredibly useful throughout our project. We used it as one of our main ways to communicate with each other when not in school.

How we used Facebook to communicate as a group
(click to enlarge)

We also used Facebook to promote our film and attain audience feedback via Surveymonkey. This proved an especially useful platform as it enabled us to directly target our audience because a large majority lie within our peer group.

Facebook Promotion

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

Production

Our production company is called GEMM Productions. GEMM productions is a UK based, British independent production company who distributes filmed aimed at the biggest cinema-goers (16-24 year olds). This production company is similar to Film4 who also produces many British independent films such as This is England. GEMM Productions is very different to studio production companies as it aims to produce films which rely more on an interesting plot than on special effects and impressive star names. Therefore, GEMM production tends to produce films of the drama or comedy genre. 

Distribution

After researching several different distribution companies, we found that Studio Canal was a highly suitable company to distribute our film.

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

Our film 'Consequences' is a British independent drama film with a sub-genre of crime, although this sub-genre is only suggested and not actually shown in the opening. While planning our film, we researched genre, narrative, form and style conventions associated with British drama, and in our opening we both conform to and challenge them.


Genre
In our opening there is a balance between British drama conventions that we conformed to and conventions that we challenged

Convention	Media text reference	Used or challenged?
Themes of crime	Bullet Boy – shows young characters involved in crime Let Him Have It – follows the protagonist through the after effects of his crime and arrest	Used Although crime is not actually shown in our opening sequence, it is made obvious the Dan is in serious trouble after being involved in illegal activity
Themes of Romance/relationships	Brighton Rock – the plot is based around the relationship between a gang member and a woman he meets	Used Our opening shows the romantic relationship between the two main characters
Deals with sensitive issues (racism, sexism, drug abuse, physical abuse, etc)	Trainspotting – deals with drug addiction East Is East – deals with racism	Challenged In our film opening we decided to focus on the main elements of the story which are the characters’ lives and the crime they get involved in, so we didn’t include any of these more sensitive types of themes
Urban setting	Kidulthood – set in west London which can be seen behind the character Attack the Block – set in south London, an urban environment	Used Our sequence is set in a house and the streets of east London
Focus on working class	Fish Tank – Mia lives on a council estate, from a working class background This Is England – characters from a working class background	Challenged Our film focusses on the lives of teenagers from middle class backgrounds

Narrative

• Our opening sequence follows Todorov's narrative theory in the following way:

• Todorov's theory continues with a resolution and new equilibrium, and although this is not shown in the opening it comes later in the film. This type of narrative is common in many films of the drama genre, such as Attack the Block and Submarine.

• Enigma codes were also used in our opening to set up questions like:
• What exactly happened to Dan and why is he in trouble?
• Who is Dan running from?
• Who is Ryan?
• Who is knocking on the door at the end?
• Similar questions are set up in the opening of Trainspotting as the audience ask questions like 'why are the characters running from the police?'

Opening scene of Trainspotting

Form and Style
The form and style of a film is important for conveying the genre and feel of the film. We established our form and style using grading, titles and shot types.

• After looking at other British drama films and TV programmes including Skins, Misfits, and Trainspotting, we decided on the features for our grading (shown below), as they seemed to be typical of the drama genre

• Our titles are white, plain and simple, and fade in and out, similar to the titles used in British drama film This Is England. The titles are effective in crediting those involved in making the film, but at the same time to not take too much of the viewer's attention away from what is happening in the film.

• We used varying shot types to make the sequence interesting and keep the audience's attention. This included:
• Establishing shots
  
• Close-ups
  
• Wide shots
  
• Over-the-shoulder shots