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

While we had previous experience with most of the technologies we used to construct our opening, I had only really used the basic elements of it (e.g. with editing software Adobe Premiere Pro). For this project I learned how to use technologies in more complex ways to ensure our film looked as professional and high-standard as possible.

Hardware

1. Camera

The camera was equipped with a tripod and a shotgun mic:

2. Tripod 

The tripod was essential to keep our shots steady and was easy to adjust so we could get the right height and angle. It also wasn't too difficult to take on location when it was folded up and put away in the tripod bag. 

3. Shotgun mic

The shotgun mic looked like this:

I learned how to attach it to the camera, but there wasn't much else to learn from it since once it was attached we didn't have to do anything else. 

4. Lighting kit

(we didn't use the lighting kit for the test shoot)

Software

We used Adobe Premiere Pro for both our planning and post-production. I had used this before when we made our preliminary task, but for this project we used it to achieve a lot more because we had higher standards. 

Pre-production: the animatic

We used Adobe Premiere Pro for the first time on this project when we made our animatic.

We have already posted our animatic on this blog (http://latymermedia2013filmgroup3.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/reflections-on-animatic.html), but it's here again:

Premiere Pro allowed us to easily place the photographs on a timeline. This made it easier when it came to the rough edit as we could simply place clips where the animatic shots were. Also, using this software we could get an idea as to what the opening would look like in a way that we couldn't have done if we had simply made a storyboard/shootboard.

Post-production: editing

The layout of Premiere Pro was, for the most part, easy to navigate.

The timeline had multiple tracks, which made it easier when editing because we could easily edit each shot individually, and could place shots we weren't sure about on another track before moving it back. We learned how to select and capture clips and could drag this footage from the top-right corner onto the timeline. We also learned how to create bins, which helped us to organise our footage.

We benefitted from hardware when editing, too - the computer we used had two screens so we could keep watching what we had done in full screen, to see how it looked so far.

For grading and colour correction we used Procamp and three-way colour corrector. We had used Procamp briefly for the preliminary task but we had never used three-way colour corrector before.

Three-way colour corrector

ADVANTAGES

1. Allowed us to grade the shots so the colouring was better - as a result they looked more professional and more conventional of the genre

LIMITATIONS

1. Time-taking

2. It was difficult to get the colours to be exactly the same for each shot, because the lighting was slightly different in each shot

Despite the difficulties, I learned about the importance of grading footage as our opening shows it really made a difference:

Before grading

After grading

We learned how to edit sound using Adobe Audition.

I did not understand this at all, so Brandon did most of the sound editing.

ADVANTAGES

It was useful for recording Christopher's voiceover, which we recorded after we had edited the footage together. Brandon could watch the opening at the same time to ensure that the voiceover matched with the right clips: 

LIMITATIONS

Our main problem was the sound in the conversation at the end. We needed the audience to hear the dialogue. Unfortunately, the background noise was far too loud and not continuous - in one shot you can hear an accordion playing in the background and in the next shot it isn't there. Although we tried to fix this problem we realised there was nothing we could do. 

If we were to make this again, I would make sure that we would shoot somewhere quieter if we had to film outside.

What I found challenging with the technology (hardware and software) was remembering how to use it.  After it was explained I would get confused and immediately forget, but it wasn't really a problem because Brandon could explain it again.

Planning, production and post-production: communicating
It was essential that we communicated as a group to ensure that we both knew what we were doing and what needed to be done. If our group had been larger it would have been useful to start a Facebook group for sharing information, but since our group had only two people it was perfectly fine to communicate just by text.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you think you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?

Our preliminary task:


Our final film opening:


The preliminary task involved filming and editing a character entering a room and exchanging dialogue with another character, focusing on the principles of continuity to create a seamless narrative. This was good preparation for creating our film opening, as we understood the basics of how to film and edit a sequence that made sense.

Pre-production
The preliminary task was good practice for planning:

Preliminary storyboard

Preliminary shooting schedule

From this I gained a better understanding of ways to plan a film, which was useful when creating our opening when a lot more effort went into planning:

Storyboard: this one is more detailed than for our prelim - different colours are different shot types, so we could ensure a variety of shot types and have a clearer idea of our film before shooting

Shoot board, using shots from the animatic - this included actors/props needed, location and how long it would take so we knew exactly what would be needed for each shot

Floor plan, so we could be aware of space - more important in the actual film brief due to lighting kit as well as camera

As well as this and the animatic we had several drafts of a script, props lists, a location reccie, more research into music, audience etc. and a test shoot and rough edit. Through this I learned how intensive and time-consuming planning can be and how much is required for a project to be successful. I realised how much thought goes into filmmaking before any of the production takes place.

Production

For the preliminary task there were some issues with match on action:

As you can see, Brandon's arms were folded in one shot and open in the next. We wanted to avoid this kind of error in our opening and so we made sure for the film brief that we would plan not just the actors' dialogue but their body language too.

The gif above also demonstrates shot-reverse-shot and over-the-shoulder (OTS) shots. The prelim showed us that this was a good way to shoot conversations, which was useful when shooting our opening:

Doing the preliminary task, we learned about the importance of continuity e.g. the 180-degree rule and match on action, and I learned how to edit a sequence that flowed and made sense.

Post-production

Adobe Premiere Pro was used for both the prelim and the main film brief, but we used it to do a lot more for the final edit.

In progression to the final product I learned how to use most of this editing software (except Livetype - this was done by Brandon). Editing our film opening gave me a better understanding than the prelim of not only how to use this software but how much effort is required for the film to be of a high standard.

I also learned about the limitations of editing - you can't fix everything in post-production. The test shoot showed us that if you break the principles of continuity (we had broken the 180-degree rule) there is no way to fix this in editing:

Breaking the 180-degree rule

Another limitation I became aware of is how we were unable to fix the problem of background noise. This is frustrating because our opening seems less professional as a result.

If I were to re-do the project, I would:

- Shoot the dialogue between the two characters in a better location so our film would not be too affected by background noise

- Be more prepared for the fact that the project takes up a lot of time

- Understand that the final product, no matter how much effort goes into it, will most likely not be completely perfect and so not be so stressed about this

- Try and gain a better understanding of how to use Adobe Audition and Livetype rather than rely on Brandon to mostly work on sound and titles

- Get audience feedback throughout the project and then use this to give us more ideas on how to appeal to them

Overall, however, I think our project was successful. The opening did, for the most part, appeal to our audience, we didn't break the rules of continuity in the final shoot, it made sense and apart from the sound at the end, it was of a (hopefully) high standard. It was also successful in the sense that it gave me a much better understanding of the filmmaking process and a greater appreciation for how much effort goes into filmmaking. In future projects I will already know and understand the planning and production process and so because it won't be an entirely new experience, I will be able to improve this and know what to expect. 

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.