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

Title: Christopher

Plot synopsis:

Follows a 17 year old boy suffering from OCD and social anxiety as he meets a girl in his university class, and shows how their relationship affects them both.

Genre:

• Rom-com drama
• It could be argued that our film opening is also of the coming-of-age genre, as it revolves around difficulties young people face and how they learn to deal with them.

To discover the conventions of the genre, we researched films that were relevant to our topic matter, such as:

It's Kind Of A Funny Story
(Anna Bowden, Ryan Fleck, 2010)

Adam
(Max Mayer, 2009)

50/50
(Jonathan Levine, 2011)

Perks Of Being A Wallflower
(Stephen Chbosky, 2012) 

See the Prezis below to view some of our findings about the conventions and how we used, developed or challenged them:

Character conventions

Notes on the above presentation:
'Quirky Female Character' - Often the character is similar to the lead male, in having some type of disorder or issue, (Jennifer and Noelle), we decided to create a binary opposite to our lead male.

Below is the link to Building Blocks:
http://freeplaymusic.com/volumedetail.aspx?volume=1456

Notes on prezi above: Titles:
We tried to ensure that our titles remained as conventional to the genre as possible (as shown in the prezi), as we wanted them to connote the genre properly. As shown with Struck By Lightning, the titles conventionally:

• Have a simple font
• Are black or white (simple colour scheme)
• Are positioned so that they don't interfere with the shot

Simple font, White, Put in corner so doesn't distract
the audience

Conforms to conventions:
White, Simple font (New Cicle) to connote genre, positioned
so it doesn't distract the audience

SCRIPTING:

We decided that the dialogue should be slightly humorous (with his reactions), but also highlight his social anxiety. We discovered that both It's Kind of A Funny Story and Struck By Lightning did this, contrasting serious situations with slight humour.

The script for 'Christopher', Naomi's obliviousness to Christopher's discomfort highlighting his OCD and her quirky personality, 'Oh look at that! (laughs)' shows that she doesn't mind this, whereas he says '(straight-faced) Yes... it is', the pause connoting the difficulty of this situation for him.

The script for 'It's Kind Of A Funny Story'. As Craig is about to jump off the bridge, his father says 'But we've spent a lot of money on that bike', slightly humorous with the ludicrousness of the father, but also highlighting that his parents are ignorant of his condition, saying he's 'pretty selfish'.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

In terms of narrative structure, we decided to use Todorov's theory of Equilibrium -> Disequilibrium -> New Equilibrium.

How this is applied to our FILM OPENING
Equilibrium: Christopher's OCD habits








Disequlibrium: Meeting Naomi








New Equilibrium: Naomi and Christopher walk off together, indicates the beginning of a friend/relationship







Our Overall Film Narrative Structure
Equilibrium: Christopher's routine of dealing with his OCD, showing his regular habits

Disequilibrium: Christopher meets Naomi. Relationship develops and her family disapprove.

New Equilibrium:

Naomi and Christopher get back together, her family and friends come to like Christopher. (Typical happy ending, conventional of the genre)

Other Narrative theory that we have used:

We also use Barthes' Enigma code theory, creating questions like:

• Why does Christopher have OCD? 
• Why the number of times that he does everything? i.e 3 taps of the shoe
• What will end up happening with Naomi and Christopher?

As well as Levi Strauss' theory of 'Binary Opposites':

• Christopher with social anxiety and OCD
• Naomi who is socially confident, outgoing, slightly childish
• Challenges convention that love interests must be similar, i.e. It's Kind Of A Funny Story, Silver Linings Playbook

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

The main representations we focused on were:
Gender - representing males as having emotions and issues rather than the stock 'jock' character
Age - representing youths as quite intelligent and positive rather than rowdy, rude and unpleasant
Mental health - representing our character



(Prezi above: Created by Audrey)

Gender:
The video below talks a bit about how we wanted to represent gender

Notes on the video above:

Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower:
- Has clearly represented mental health and emotional issues

We made our character go against the jock stereotype by:

• Having OCD/Social anxiety issues
• Dressing him in clothing that is quite smart, rather than sporty.

Bright, but not overly eccentric colours

Age:

The video below talks a bit about how we wanted to represent age

Notes on the video above:

We tried to change the stereotype by having a character that was quite reserved and shy, as well as quite smartly dressed.

Misfits - An example of the angry, rude representation that we want to challenge

Mental Health:
The video below talks a bit about how we wanted to represent mental health

Notes on the video above:
In order to represent young people suffering with mental health issues as capable and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness, we decided to use the routine shots, to:
1) Highlight his OCD, the close framing showing the clinical nature with which he implements his OCD habits, while the voice over states his OCD without making it sound over-dramatic or negative
2) Show that he is capable to look after himself, rather than the typical mental health stereotype of depending on others, or being very violent, i.e. the Joker from Batman, 'Me, Myself and Irene'

The Joker - 'a schizophrenic clown'

Hank Evans (Schizophrenia) - Angry, Rude, Violent

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

Our film is an independent low-budget film, so we decided that to fund our project, we would have to use a studio branch like Fox Searchlight, or search for independent funding, as not many institutions would be interested in funding or distributing our film due to it being the first feature film of our production company.

The Production Company:

Funding:
We decided to use Fox Searchlight Pictures as they have funded several similar films, such as Ruby Sparks and Ruby Sparks.

Distribution:
We initially thought of either having 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment or The Works distribute our film.

We chose to have The Works distribute our film because:

• Extensive background with the distribution of independent UK films, such as 'The Knot'
• More realistic that they would want to distribute our film as they are experienced in distributing indie films around the UK, i.e. Kill Your Darlings

Marketing Strategy: How would The Works reach our target audience?

Due to our very small budget, the marketing strategy would consist mainly of below the line marketing, if not entirely. For example, we would use social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and perhaps Instagram to promote our film, by posting teaser trailers, BTS and cast interviews on YouTube and linking them to our social networking pages. This would appeal to the target audience as it:

• Is very interactive
• Allows them to become involved in the production of the film
• Keeps them up to date with information about the film i.e. release dates
• Is available anywhere due to smartphones and tablets having internet connection

As with Adam, it is possible that Fox Searchlight Pictures would host our trailer on their Youtube page, which would extend our reach massively due to their extremely large audience

Perks of Being A Wallflower Facebook page: Interactive content, audience can leave their own comments, creating a community for the audience

Release Plan:

We decided that our film would have a limited UK theatrical release, most likely in independent cinemas, but possibly in chains like Cineworld, Vue, or Odeon in order to increase our potential reach. There is a possibility for international release, but because of the suburban UK setting rather than inner city, it may not appeal internationally. 

The film would first have an exclusive London release in the Cineworld chain, as having these nationwide would be too expensive, but we would release it in independent screens throughout the UK, still focusing on London as it is the setting of our film and will therefore the audience will relate to it more, for example:

• The Phoenix cinema in East Finchley
• The Everyman in Belsize Park
  The Lexi cinema in Kensal Rise
• The Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds

It would be in these cinemas for a week, unless demand is higher than expected in some areas, in which case we might be able to extend the showing period. After this, we would partially sell the rights of our film to LoveFilm and Netflix, so that we still retain some income from these platforms, and because they are two trusted streaming companies, so our film would have a large potential audience after it's cinema release.

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

We wish to target quite a niche audience, as our film is independent and is more likely to appeal to niche audiences than the mass audience that studio films appeal to.

Our Core Target Audience:

• 16 to 24 year old, UK, males and females, no specific ethnicity (see prezi for more details)

Our Secondary Audience:

• UK families, with children aged 12+ (see  prezi for more details)

A table by the UK Film Council showing that the 15 to 24 year old market accounts for 29% of film audiences in the UK, proving that our audience are the most prolific cinema-going age group, and that our film will have a wide potential reach when in cinemas.

Who our audience isn't:

• 16 to 24 year old males and females who enjoy blockbuster, sci-fi and action films with loads of special effects
• UK families who have children who enjoy the special effects films, and dislike films that lack this
• Non-UK residents: although we would like this to appeal internationally, we do not specifically wish to target the international audience.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

We used gratification theory in order to try to attract/address our audience:

INFORMATION:

Our film informs our audience about serious issues, just as our influences have done (Perks Of Being A Wallflower, Struck By Lightning).

PERSONAL IDENTITY:

The audience is not alienated by our representations as they are as realistic as we could make them.
They are used to the UK setting, so may enjoy recognising the areas, or just seeing a London setting.

INTEGRATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION:

Our film causes the audience to empathise with Christopher, so would hopefully make mental illness less taboo, so people would not feel afraid to search for help.

Ideally, rather than making fun of people for habits like these, the audience will learn to understand people with OCD.

A summary of the way in which we want to appeal to the audience

ENTERTAINMENT:

We aimed to appeal to the audience by:

• Creating interesting characters, who they enjoy watching and following

• Having a love story as a form of escape for some of them, or reminiscence for the older audience

This shot of Naomi and Christopher walking off, with the fade, is meant to connote the beginning of their relationship. This would provide entertainment for the audience as they can relate to or aspire to it.

We also used enigma to entertain the audience and make them watch the rest of the movie, as they would want to know:
- Why does he have OCD?
- Will he get over it in the course of the film?
- Will they get together?
- Will something go wrong?

IN WHAT OTHER WAYS DID WE ATTRACT/ADDRESS OUR AUDIENCE?

Some of the ways we attracted/addressed our audience in our film opening are:

• Conformation to genre: the music is typical of the genre, similar to Struck By Lightning, therefore the attracts the audience and they can immediately identify the rom-com drama genre. Also, the use of the 'school-boy' character is conventional in films with our target audience, used in 'It's Kind of a Funny Story' and 'Perks of Being a Wallflower', so appeals to our audience.
• The editing pace is relatively slow, with pan transitions and long shot durations, meaning that it's quite a relaxing watch and that the audience do not have to pay excessive attention, they can easily watch the film opening. This is also conventional of our genre, 'Adam' using long shot durations during it's opening sequence to ease the audience into the film
  
• Titles: the titles do not distract the audience from what is going on, so appeal to them, making the film easier to watch by requiring less concentration
• During the journey sequence, we use wide and long shots to establish the UK setting in order to attract the UK audience. In the background of one of our shots, we have an iconographic red London-bus, connoting the setting and attracting the audience (see below)
  
• Close-ups and Mid-Close-ups during routine shots: Highlight the OCD element of our film for the audience, while also putting them alongside Christopher's daily life, building a relationship between them and Christopher.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK:

When we asked people to fill out a survey after watching the film, it offered us some insight as to whether or not we were appealing to our target audience. 

One of our main fears was that either the audience would not understand that there were mental health issues portrayed in the opening, or that the sound quality would break their suspension of disbelief and make them dislike the film.

The picture to the right shows that our male:female ratio was about equal, so we've been relatively successful in ensuring appeal to both genders despite the genre.


The graph below also showed that 100 percent of the people we asked were from the UK, showing that we successfully targeted the UK audience.

This graph shows that our audience had a range, but were mainly 16 to 20 years old. This means that we can't be sure if our secondary audience of British families would have liked the film opening, as we only have one person above 20 who partook in our survey.

We asked the audience what they liked and disliked about our film opening, and if they would watch the rest of the film. Below are a few of the responses I found interesting, and that helped me to identify changes that could be made to improve the film opening.

I quite liked this response, as it pointed out the voice-over clarity, which I had previously thought was fine. Upon re-watching, I realised that the voice-over wasn't entirely clear, so this feedback helped me in judging my finished product, and that in future, checking this thoroughly is something that will need to be done.

I found this quite helpful as sound was something that we knew of, and proves to us that if we were to redo it, we would need to ensure better sound quality

18 out of the 19 people who did our survey said that they would want to watch the rest of the film, so we can deem that it would be mildly successful if that ratio is representative.

In hindsight, it would have been good to put an option to allow the one person who wouldn't watch it to tell us why. That way, we would know if it was because of our product, or their tastes.

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

Throughout the project, we have used many different technologies. In this project, we used hardware (a camera, tripod, shotgun mic, headphones and a lighting kit) as well as software (Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Audition and LiveType.)

HARDWARE:

Camera: Canon HV30 (with headphones (Sennheiser) and Shotgun Mic)

This shot in particular was difficult to get because of the slow auto focus

The shotgun mic and headphones were useful as they:

• Were easily attached to the camera
• Helped us to ensure good sound quality
• Fit easily into the camera bag

However, the shotgun mic did pick up background noise during the conversation shots, which makes the audio in our opening sound quite jumpy and unpleasant. 

Tripod:

This match-on-action was helped by the stability offered by the tripod

Also, the tripod allowed us to take shots from high angles much more easily than when we tried it handheld, for example in the shot below:

The tripod was placed on the bed, with both myself and Audrey holding it to stabilise it

Lighting Kit: ARRILITE, 650Watt

We learnt how to set up three-point lighting, and were taught how to adjust light levels to make the shot look both natural, and clear.

The lighting kit was useful because:

• It helped to remove the shadows on Christopher's face, and make it seem less amateur
• It reduced the amount of colour correction we needed to do in post-production

However:

• It was difficult to transport to and from school
• They became hot very quickly, creating a health and safety hazard
• There were a lot of wires because of the lighting kit, also presenting a safety hazard
• As there were only two of us in the group, it was difficult to simultaneously check what the shot looked like and try to change the lighting, as either I had to go out of shot to fix it, or Audrey had to go away from the camera

Test shoot footage of the first few shots (without lighting)

First few shots (with lighting)

SOFTWARE:

Adobe Premiere Pro:

We used this to edit together our animatic, test edit, and final opening. 

While using Adobe Premiere Pro, we were taught how to: 

• Create bins
• Select and capture clips
• Adjust sound levels
• Colour grade using ProcAmp and Three-Way-Colour-Corrector

Adobe Premiere Pro interface

Advantages:

• Multiple video tracks, so getting match-on-actions was far easier than if we'd only had a single video track
• Multiple audio tracks: allowed us to add voice-over and soundtrack easily
• Lots of transitions/effects already set up and ready to use - We trialled a few before selecting the fade
• Instant ability to preview the sequence - helped us to make adjustments easily
• Easy to use once you're used to it

Disadvantages:

Colour correction was difficult, as we had no previous experience and the interface was slightly confusing

Three-Way-Colour Corrector

Video had to be rendered to see it in full quality, so with after-effects added to the pan, the sequence had to be completely rendered before it showed properly in the window

Panning transition - partly sped up in Premiere Pro, and in After Effects

Adobe Audition:

We used Adobe Audition to record the voice-over for our film opening. We learnt how to:

• Set up the microphone input
• Select what file type we wanted to save it as
• Import the file into Premiere Pro

Advantages:

Adobe Audition (left monitor), alongside our sequence

• Simple controls, just press record to start and stop the recording
• Able to playback immediately
• Allows noise reduction
• As it only took up one screen, we could watch the sequence at the same time as recording the voice-over

Disadvantages:

• Slightly confusing to set up what file type you want at first
• Noise reduction ended up making clips sound mechanical and had to be cut from the sequence and re-done

TECHNOLOGY FOR COMMUNICATION:

In order to communicate with Audrey, we used texting, and also communicated via her sister's Facebook.
This was useful as it meant we could constantly update each other on progress, what needed doing, and any issues or problems that either of use encountered.

Example of our use of technology to communicate (texting)

OTHER TECHNOLOGY USED:

Other technology used includes:

How this post looks while editing it in Blogger. This was originally meant to be below the point about Blogger, but when I tried to move it, it began to change the formatting of the whole post. However, it is still very easy to update, with the bugs being very minor in comparison.

• Blogger: Used to post information about our film, and it's progress. Often encountered difficulties such as gimp coding, but easily up-datable and allows labels for posts, meaning simple navigation.
  
  
  
• YouTube: Research into film openings, and also to post our own. This was good because it has a lot of video clips for us to look at, but this was also inhibiting as it was often cluttered with irrelevant videos.

  

  Using YouTube allowed our film opening to be put in a playlist with the other film openings, and also allows the public to easily view it.

• Freeplaymusic.com: Used to research and select a soundtrack, helpful as you could search for keywords as well as by genre and tone.

We searched Freeplaymusic.com using words like happy, upbeat, and acoustic until we finally stumbled upon Building Blocks (used as our soundtrack)