Construction: Dropping Paper

My group and I were inspired by a scene in the concert documentary, Don't Look Back when Bob Dylan is shown dropping cue cards whilst his song, Subterranean Homesick Blues is played in the background. If we decide to include a scene similar, we will interpret it to convey Eve's needs in order for her to achieve gratification but is unable to receive due to her limited wealth. 

Poster Analyse

Construction: Adobe InDesign

In todays lesson I used Adobe InDesign software and experimented with different features it offered. This allowed me to construct a stronger understanding on the way the program works and what options it allows me to use in order to achieve the poster I'd hope for. The image below is a screenshot of the progress I made during the lesson; although it isn't appealing, it was my first attempt on InDesign and was a blank document that enabled me the opportunity to experiment.

Research: Poster

In today's lesson I studied and analysed posters such as, The Book of Eli and Edge of Darkness. With help from my group, I worked on the institutional information displayed at the bottom of the poster, it includes the names that are credited to the making of my film, Welcome to Eden. Towards the end of the lesson I drafted my first idea for the composition and framing of my poster.

Construction: Props (Room To Rent Poster)

The idea behind this poster is advertisement by the character, Ular Kadir who owns this monstrosity and is renting out a room for someone. The room is rented by Adam & Eve who struggle to survive financially and the cost is just about within their budget. However, the costs are considerably low to build the idea that Ular Kadir is a lonely and desperate character. The poster was created in great detail via Photoshop. 

Character Profile: Eve

Eve is the girlfriend of Adam, and alongside Adam lives as the room tenant of the house owned by Ular. Eve is intrigued and endulged by Ular's behaviour, he tempts her and is the reason for the downfall in her relationship with Adam. She is a modern representation of Eve from the Genesis story from the Bible of 'Adam & Eve'. Similarly with Adam, Eve is made to look indigent and beggarly which is the reason for her being tempted by Ular. The huge contrast between Eve and Ular will make the audience suspect an underlying desire for her to try something more affluent and fruitful.

Character Profile: Adam

Adam is an impecunious and underprivileged character which contrasts with Ular Kadir's prosperity lavishness. Adam is usually seen wearing downmarket clothing that represent and emphasise his deprived character. However, Adam is a motivated and driven by the desires of Eve and will do absolutely anything to fulfill her needs. I ensured Adam was a character that was created so that a male audience were able to relate to him through ways of normality and behaviour. Adam has very few privileges in his life but only cares about his once perfect relationship with Eve.

Character Profile: Ular Kadir

Ular Kadir is the male antagonist for my film, Welcome To Eden. Ular is the owner of the house that Adam and Eve rent a room in (The Garden of Eden). The appearance of Ular is extremely flamboyant showing off a lot of wealth along with his eccentric character. The character is based around the snake in Genesis and we had to make him a mysterious and unnerving member of the film; the words Ular and Kadir both have snake connotations. The glasses play a huge role in hiding his identity.

Construction: Equipment

I have a large variety of equipment to use to get the best results from the filming my group and I are doing for our film Welcome To Eden. The equipment I have been using includes:

- Nikon D5200
- Nikon DX 35MM Prime Lens
- Rode VideoMic Pro
- A GorillaPod Flexible Tripod 
- Camera Attachable Light System

Planning: Theoretical Frameworks on Narrative

VLADIMIR PROPPS 

 Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Soviet folklorist and scholar who analysed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.

Propp suggested that every narrative has eight different character types, such as:

The Villain - Fights the hero

The dispatcher –one who sends the hero out, and makes the villain’s evil known

The (magical) helper –the sidekick who accompanies and helps out the hero

The Princess or the prize – the reward for the hero, what he is trying to save or acquire, usually to the villains dismay.  

Her father – gives the task to the hero and identifies the false hero.

The donor – prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object

The hero or victim/seeker hero – reacts to the donor, weds the princess.

False hero – takes credit for the hero’s actions, or try’s to marry the princess. 

 Where short films differ from full-length feature films, obviously in the length but also they have a twist so characters are not always who you think they are there roles may shift in the course or the narrative a hero might turn out to be a villain or vice versa. This is true in our film as the characters are not what they seem at first. 

There are likely to be a short range of characters in a short film like mine and so it’s unlikely to find the range of characters, as in Propps complex plots. My short film for example has four: the hero, the Villain, the princess/prize and the false hero. 

Propps theory  is useful to us, as we have clearly have distinguished character profiles. Although in our film we reverse the roles in the audiences eyes making the original hero into the Villain. At first the audience see "the player", appearing to leave love notes scattered around a library for 'the princess', attempting to lure her in, but this is soon exposed as false when the reveal of the real hero. This play on roles is effective in a short film as the audience do not have long enough to form a connection to a character. 

The main advantage of having very clear cut roles in a short film is that audiences need to grasp the character very quickly within the first minute but they characterscannot afford to be over simplistic because that might mean sacrificing the chance for enigma or the twist.

LEVI STRAUSS:

Drama is about conflict.

opposites can be equally powerfull-creates the tension 

the interest of the powerful forces that clash 

all naratives could be reduced down to binary opposites 
hero vs villain

conflict propels all narrative 

conflict can only end with resolution 

This applies to us in our film as there is the conflict between who is the nice guy and who deserves the beautiful girl. Although we do not directly have the 'nice guy' and the 'player', have direct conflict with one another, but the clash is highlighted upon with the 'player' taking credit for the 'nice guys' notes, as well as him changing his personality on the date with the 'princess' and becoming rude.  

As we have to come to a conclusion of this conflict, the reveal of the true and worthy 'nice guy' is revealed, to both the audience and the girl herself.

ROLAND BARTHES

Has created five different code, but I have looked into two that have links and parallels that would work with my short film and short films in genural. 

 

 Hermeneutic code- CSI solving idea getting clues hasn't been explain fully needs solving resolving all links all loose ends need tying up mystery unraveled to makesatisfied audience. What drives narrative our desire to see the mystery explained. 

Proairetic code- domino effect this leads on to this which causes this. Explains plots which are a series of linked events where an action leads to another action.  The audience is curious about the result of each event what is going to happen as a result of what just happened. 

 Our film has a proairetic code, as each scene effects what happens in the next. It does this in terms of character relationship, setting and how the audience feelabout a certain idea or character.

TODOROV

Equilibrium status quo things as they are stable 

then something happens- dis equilibrium unbalance someone corrupts something else state of confusion.

have to deal with the problem- acknowledgment

resolve the problem -Resolution

 New equilibrium 

Poster Analysis

F IS FOR FAKE

In today's lesson I watched a video tutorial on editing by Tony Zhou of Every Frame a Painting. It discusses how to edit effectively.

Planning: Shot List

Planning: Call Sheets

Treatment: Google Docs

My group and I have used Good Docs software to present our treatment. It is a efficient way to communicate and alter our treatment as a group and cooperate on our laptops when we're not together.

Audience Profile

Planning: Time Management

My group and I have discussed the importance of organising our time better to ensure we achieve efficient and productive work when we are all available.

We have agreed to work on our trailer from the 16th October until the 25th October.

Planning: New Trello

This is the Trello I created to help organise my planning for my trailer I am going to make. It gives me a To Do List to accurately follow so that I don't forget anything vital during the process. 

Research: Audience Exit Poll

These pie charts are my exit poles I have investigated. I have looked at data from films that are similar genre as the trailer I am making. The genre of my trailer is a combination of thriller and romance. By looking at this data from the audience who watch this genre it will help me understand more about my audience and how I can target more of a specific age group more efficiently with effective promotional tools.

Planning: Treatment

In class today I followed a presentation by The University of Birmingham and FutureLearn. Frank Ash, a creative consultant who has taught storytelling and creativity techniques to groups of people across the BBC and further companies. It is vital to focus on audience: what will interest the audience? How will the narrative develop? 

Frank Ash advices film makers to nail down their ideas into two ways: produce a Topline and a Big Question. 

We will aim to define in our treatment:

The Topline: a young couple, Evie and Adam, appear to be blissfully happy together but the girl starts to become dissatisfied with her lot in life as she is envious of the many possessions and holidays that her wealthier friend, Snakey boasts about. She pressures her boyfriend to rob a sports shop, started shoplifting and started to find it easy.

The Big Question: Will "Adam" turn himself in and will their relationship last? 

Research: Audiences

AUDIENCE: A KEY CONCEPT 

Media texts are all produced with a audience in mind, an audience will always remain a key part of the equation. Each media text produced is planned with a particular audience in mind and the television producer must explain to the broadcasting institution (e.g. BBC or ITV) who are the likely audience for their particular programme. Whereas, the media producer has to know who is their potential audience and they need to know as much about them as possible.

TYPES OF AUDIENCE RESEARCH

There are different ways of profiling audiences’ such as using socioeconomics, demographics and psychographics. 

Demographics - this defines the adult population largely by the work that they do labelling them by using a letter code to describe income and status of the members of the each group. 

Psychographics - This is a way of describing an audience by looking at the behaviour and personality traits of its members. They are a particular type of person and makes an assessment about their viewing and spending habits. Young and Rubican is an advertising agency that invents a successful psychographic profile known as their 4C’s Marketing Model, the 4C’s stand for: Cross, Cultural, Consumer, Characterisation 

EXIT POLLS

The BFI carries put exit polls to engage audience response at film screenings. 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
We learn about higher order needs using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Once people needs that relate to safety and the physically environment, such as: food, drink, shelter and warmth are met, people then are in the position to aspire and aim higher and culture meets a lot of 
these needs. 

WHY AUDIENCES CONSUME TEXTS: THE USES AND GRATIFICATIONS MODEL

We look at different models of audience behaviour. The uses and gratification model of audience behaviour (Blumler and Katz, 1974), explains some of our higher order needs. 

During the 1960s, the first generation to grow up with television became adults, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming media texts. Audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways. 

In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:

Surveillance

Correlation

Entertainment

Cultural transmission

Individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes:

Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.

Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life

Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts

Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

TWO STEP FLOW THEORY

Katz and Lazarsfeld assumes a more active audience that suggests messages from the media move in two distinct ways.

Firstly, individuals who are opinion leaders, receive messages from the media and pass on their own interpretations in addition to the actual media content.

The information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience, but is filtered through the opinion leaders who then pass it on to a more passive audience.

The audience then intervene with the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.

This theory appears to reduce the power of the media, and some researchers concluded that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpret their texts. This led to the idea of active audiences.

THE MEDIA EFFECTS MODEL (HYPODERMIC SYRINGE MODEL)

This theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. It suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data.

The Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciousness of the direct audience, e.g. the experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by the media producers. It assumes that the audience are passive. This theory is still quoted during moral panics by parents, politicians and pressure groups, and is used to explain why certain groups in society should not be exposed to certain media texts, for fear that they will watch or read sexual or violent behaviour and will then act them out themselves.

STUDIES USED TO SUPPORT THE EFFECTS MODEL

- Children watched a video where an  adult violently attacked a clown toy called Bobo Doll. 

- The children were then taken to a room with attractive toys that they not permitted to touch 

the children were then led to another room with Bobo Dolls

- 88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour that they had earlier viewed. 8 months later 40% of the children reproduced the same violent effect

Research: Jurassic World Marketing Campaign

Trailers are one weapon in the arsenal of the publicity campaign of outdoor media. Decisions are made early on about when marketing campaigns should start and end for the release of a new film. They try to see what innovative formats can make the release stand out from the rest. 

For example, in the research for Jurassic World, they knew there were certain motivators like people getting indulged by the large dinosaurs at London Waterloo station. They knew that an interactive thrilling adventure would get people involved and excited. 

The strategy was to take audiences back to the original Jurassic Park idea and make each trailer break a spectacle with significant impact. They desperately wanted to portray the idea that the concept of dinosaurs are still considered "cool" so that they could not only attract their original audience but also attract a new audience. 

Jurassic World's campaign got a vast amount of publicity from their London Waterloo marketing idea. Their expensive and risky marketing phenomenon at London Waterloo station got more headlines and mentions than a premiere would; there were 21,500 registered Twitter mentions dedicated to the release of the movie. 

In the lesson, I also studied the Television Spot that was directed by Colin Trevorrow. The TV Spot was UK based, and was released on 7th May 2015, with a duration of 60 seconds. The TV Spot is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organisation which conveys a message, typically to market in this case the upcoming movie.

How can you hook in the audiences of the original film? 
- Jurassic World includes familiar characters and dinosaurs so that the original audience are still attracted to the film. 
- There are familar names of producers as well; for example, the ex-director Steven Spielberg plays the role as a producer for Jurassic World and this will again lure into the original audiences. 

What is innovative? 
- Jurassic World includes lots of new innovative ideas within the film itself. On the TV Spot, we see a circular pod-vehicle travelling through the park surrounded by animals. 
- The new species of dinosaurs are much more intelligent and harder to deal with and they make this clear in the TV Spot as well. 

Does it give release dates? 

- it shows the release date throughout the whole TV Spot in the bottom right hand corner. 

Research: Codes & Conventions

Research: Film Education

The Film Education website provided me with the ability to create my own mini trailer using a variety of clips from the A Good Day To Die Hard film, directed by John Moore. I was giving the option to choose and decide which clips I wanted to involve and which clips I didn't want. The Film Education website also provided me with two documents at the bottom of the page that have given me helpful advise and guidelines into making a legitimate trailer. This has proved to be a beneficial activity as it gives you the chance to experiment and also simply learn with the editing and decisions when creating a trailer. 

Click here to view my trailer

Research: Brainstorm

This is a screenshot of the mind map I achieved with my group discussing our potential ideas for our trailer. The right side of the mind map displays the positive and happy side of our trailer, all the sweet and romantic events the couple do together whilst they are in a happy relationship. Whereas the left side is shows the dark and negative side of the story where a plot twist will feature; the two highlighted bubbles in blue and red are the ideas we had that cause the trailer to have a sudden flip in genre and pace. I used a tool named Mindmup that was helpful to achieve an online mind map of my trailer. 

Research: The Perfect Guy

The Perfect Guy from Harvey Gillett

Planning: Trello

Click here to view my Trello

I have created a Trello account to help myself keep on top of my work and improve my time management and organisational skills.

Research: Short Films

You can view my Slideshare of RHINOS by clicking here

You can view my Slidehsare of My Mother's Motorcycle by clicking here

BRIEF

We have decided to choose Brief 2. A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with: 

• a film magazine front cover, featuring the film 
• a poster for the film 

Initially, we had planned to make a short film but once we planned as a group our film idea we decided it would be more effective in a trailer form. I have made two short film analysis' but am now looking into analysing trailers. 

RESEARCH: ME & YOU

During my independent study, I looked at a short film called Me & You. The short film was directed and written by Jack Tew and is clearly a film dependent on a gimmick. Me & You is a sublimely well-executed gimmick; in this case, we watch an entire relationship unfold from a single vantage point that was of an overhead view of a young man's bedroom. 

But, beyond sex and sleeping the storyline isn't as naughty as that location might indicate, we see a sincere relationship develop between a young man and women. As the relationship changes and evolves, so does the bedroom which fills with a collection of things lying in an untidy state; simply changing from neatness to cluttered chaos. The state of the bedroom cleverly reflects the wellbeing of the relationship and we see both progressively get worse. I found it astonishing how despite the fact that this is a film focussed on two characters whose faces we can barely perceive, I managed to grow and build an attachment to their journey and was engulfed into their story. 

Me & You combines both humour and heart; it also helps that the film was appealing to look at with thanks to David Wright whom took charge of photography directing and manages to cram a lot of visual phenomenons into its single angle. The lighting plays a huge role in the movie showing the variety of times in the day coming through the window as well as the light from the games console and laptop. 

RESEARCH: NEXT DOOR

Yesterday in the lesson, I watched a short film called Next Door. The short film was directed by Drew Mylrea and is a fresh addition in high-definition to the post apocalyptic science-fiction genre. The short film is filled with some impressive, low budget effects and is an exciting exercise in both storyline and tone. The short film lasts just 12 minutes, but it achieves both heart and laughs from the martial law scenario film. 

Next Door is a smart, science fiction comedy about a government collapsing on itself. It features totalitarian police regimes, terrorism where you'd least expect it, and an insight into an entrepreneurs lifestyle through the idea of creating "mugs on mugs". The short film is absurdly engrossing through polished special effects and visual effects and computer generated imagery (CGI) although the plot is rather hectic and haphazard. 

Drew Mylrea manages to gain full control of the audiences attention by creating an exciting science fiction piece that has a hint of familiarity in terms of a small love story but then turns the audience expectations on it's head. We see the Nevin fall in love with his neighbour, who happens to be a recognised and most-wanted terrorists and because of love Nevin exits his comfort-zone; but then after all he opts for comfort over risk.      

RESEARCH: HIGH MAINTENANCE

In today's lesson I watched a short film called High Maintenance. The short film was directed by Phillip Van and the writer was Simon Briggs. It is about the near future, a women whose robotic husband fails to meet her standards returns and upgrades him for a better version with standards that she now fails to meet. The title of the film is cleverly processed as the term 'High Maintenance' can be used to describe a male or female partner who has higher than normal expectations and has a greater requirement for affection or attention. However, 'High Maintenance' is usually a term used to describe technology that needs a lot of work to keep in good condition and in this case the movie combines both definitions. 

The storyline is engaging and generates enigma with a plot twist towards the end of the short film. High Maintenance builds audience thought where we begin to assume only the males are robots and that the women dictate the outcome. But then there is a plot twist at the end that shows her husband turn her off with a flick of a switch, this clearly states that both male and females are robots. The plot twist builds suspense and prolongs the audience's interest. 

The short film includes techniques that would be considered intentional and clever, such as at the commencement of the short film there is an amplified sound of the couple eating their dinner but the chewing and clattering sound of the cutlery hitting the plate is purposely made uncomfortably noticeable. The purpose is to highlight the awkwardness and tension of the scene making it obvious there is abnormality about the scene.