Eval Q6

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

Recording Hardware:
We used - DSLR camera -


Before starting media studies, I had never properly used a recording camera before so I had to learn the different aspects of it. We underwent activities as a class using these cameras such as a swede and prelim. With both activities I had the role of cinematographer, and carried this role onto our actual media product. I mostly learnt the basics through trial and error. Through the entire process of filming our opening, I learnt new things along the way. It allowed me to play around with the depth of field and manual focus creating very professional scenic shots. For the actual making of our production, I had the role of  the cinematographer so learning about the DSLR camera was vital. It was important that I understood various different terminology and knew how to apply this terminology. I learnt various bits through trial and error. An example of this is lighting - due to that fact we shot our film opening over different days, the lighting was different. I didn't pay much notice to lighting as the weather was relatively similar, but in fact we soon found our that lighting had a massive affect. There was in fact a clear difference in lighting. So I quickly learnt how to change the lighting to look right. I also quickly picked up more about depth of field and came to grips with what looks affective and what doesn't. I found that because depth of field has an impact on both the aesthetic and technical quality of a picture.

Sometimes you’ll want to use an extensive depth of field in order to keep everything sharp. A classic example is when you’re photographing a landscape, where generally the most desirable outcome is to capture detail from the foreground to the horizon. Other times, a shallow depth of field will be preferable. It enables you to blur background and foreground details, causing distractions to melt away and allowing you to direct viewers to the focal point in a picture.

SD card-

I also had never before transferred material from an SD card onto a computer, never mind Final Cut, so this was also a new but gradually simple experience. With the help of others, I quickly became confident when doing this.

Tripod-
The tripod was a piece of equipment used throughout our film. A very large majority of our shots were shot on the tripod making it a very vital piece of equipment within our project. The tripod is extremely simple to use but extremely important as its vital the shots are steady and smooth. There is very minimal explaining required when talking about the tripod due to its simplicity. If we didn't have access to a tripod we would have had to film handheld, which would had given us unsteady, shake shots. However for some shots handheld filming was used. These handheld shots were intact more difficult to edit and therefore the tripod helped to speed up the editing process proving to be beneficial. 

Boom mic- 
A boom mic is the piece of equipment we used to record our dialect. This was the first time we had approached this piece of equipment. I wasn't in fact in charge of the sound but I helped to set up and am fully aware of how the apparatus functions. Like the other apparatus, we learnt through trial and error. It took us a few attempts to get the mic close enough to the actors without getting the mic in the shot. We had to vary our shots so the mic didn't enter any shots. The boom mic was very useful to us as it recorded our speech on a loud bridge over water very clearly.

Garageband-
This is the software we used to create our soundtrack for our film. Previously I had only played around with garageband but had never created a final product. Generally garageband is very complex and takes time to adjust to this complexity. At first I found garageband very difficult and couldn't quite get to grips with it. I began by using basic tools such as the trim tool, position tool, blade tool etc.. Our film required a rather complex soundtrack due to the situation. We thought that the music is a major aspect to our particular film as it creates certain types of emotion to the viewer. Our soundtrack involved remixing the song 'to build a home'. In order to do this more complex tool had to be applied. We had to change the bpm (beats per minute) in order for the two different beats to mix and run smoothly. The beats per minute could be changed on the top bar. Another complex but conveniant tool that I learnt to apply was the flex tool. This allowed me to change the bpm without changing the pitch.
This was vital when mixing the two beats into each other. The beat that was mixed into the song was a loop found. Loops are short looping sequences of beats/sounds. These were very simple to use. the whole point in mixing these two contrasting beats is that in our film opening there is a jump between two characters and their situation/environment. We wanted a slow, slightly depressing sound overplaying Michaels situation as we wanted to create a upsetting mood. We then tried to replicate a more grime sound whilst overplaying Kieran. This software has been extremely useful in the making of our film opening as it provided us with a large variety of pre-recorded music, meaning we didn't have to record our own music. This saved us a huge amount of time.

Blogger-
This was affectively our text book for media as it was what we recorded all of our progress on. It was also the first time I had ever used blogger. At first blogger seemed like a complex thing to use, but soon realised it was very simple and efficient. Blogger also allowed me to receive feedback from teachers and others.

Final Cut-
Final cut is the piece of software that allowed us to edit our shots to then create a finalised product. Before the making of our production, I had used final cut briefly when making our swede and prelim. I found final cut very difficult to begin with as there are many different aspects of it that can be learnt. To begin with I used the basic tools and appliances such as the elect tool, blade tool, hand tool, zoom tool etc.. A majority of my final cut experience was learnt through trial and error. After mastering these basic tools, i then moved on to slighly more complex tools such as the speed altering tool, crop, transitions and effects.  We sped up our final shot and the train passing to give is a time-lapse affect. We also had to crop a few clips where the boom mic accidentally entered the shot. Due to our genre of film being social realism, our film opening didn't need much editing. Social realism contain very little editing to create a more realistic approach. Social realism films will focus on aspects such as cinematography. Most of our editing involved putting the shots together and varying the length of the clips.

Eval Q5

How did you attract/address your audience?

With this evaluation question I have decided to present it in the form of annotations on our final cut. An example of an annotation:

We didn't create any poster, trailer, websites or social media pages. These are key areas of the distribution of the film as it creates awareness to the target audience. If we had been given more time, we would of done these things to help with the success of our film. Most films have trailer, poster etc..

Included is how we have attracted our audience by using:

• mise-en-scene
• music
• voiceover
• character
• locations
• titles
• framing
• shot types
• depth of field

Eval Q3

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

Film distribution is the process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marketing strategy for the film, the media by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing, and who may set the release date and other matters.

Genre of our film: Social Realism

The big six distributors:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Sony Pictures Entertainment

Paramount Pictures

Universal Pictures

Walt Disney Studios

20th Century Fox

The Big Six
These are the top 6 distributors. They are known as the big 6 and own the largest shares in the film distribution industry. They are also conglomerates and own many subsidiaries. However, despite the fact they own the largest shares  in the film distribution industry, we would not chose them to distribute our film as they would not be suitable. This is due to the fact they only work with high budget films containing well-known actors/actresses and not small, low budget, indie films.

Suitably for Big Six
The Big Six focus on movies that appeal to a global audience and therefore their films appeal to a majority of consumers, so that their gross is a large sum. Due to the increased number of people who will go see it, this strategy would be used when making a tentpole film. Genres that appeal to a mainstream audience tend to be romance, comedy and action. Social realist films appeal to a niche market (a minority of the market containing specific wants and needs) and therefore don't make a large gross compared to others.

Suitable for us (indie filmmakers)
Due to the fact our film we are a low budget, indie film company. This affects who will be willing enough to distribute to us. One of the 'big six' companies would not fund our film as they seek large amounts of profit and success which we wouldn't be able to provide. They also provide large amounts of money to films they are distributing in order to make more money back. British, social realism films don't have large budgets so it would be unnecessary to be distributed by one of them. However, Studiocanal are an example of a distribution company that tend to distribute to low budget, indie film makers. Studio Canal have distributed to films such as

Conclusion
In conclusion we have decided to go with Studio Canal as they are a successful distributer with a long history of distributing Indie films. They also have a past of working with lower budget films for example Billy Elliott, who's budget was £5m and distributing them globally not just in the Uk. Warp may have been a good distributor for us however Warp is a self distributer therefore it is very unlikely for them to pick up films that they have not produced, meaning that they probably wouldn't work with us.

StudioCanal also distributed Submarine, as we already know they did a very good job and therefore have previous experience with handling a film that is very similar to ours. Therfore we have chosen to go with StudioCanal.

Eval Q4

Who would be the audience for your media product?


Target Audience:
For our film opening, we have identified our primary target market as males of the age of 15+. This is also based on the fact that the two main protagonists are male. The 2 central protagonists are of different age with different personal issues which may address different audiences as they can relate to these problems.  Recent research shows that '15-24 year olds made up the largest proportion of the UK cinema audience, at 31%.' This is beneficial towards the possible success of our film. 

If cinema going habits are tabulated according to age group it appears that there is a steady rise in frequency from the earliest age to the 16-19 age group. Thereafter there is a steady decline, which is particularly sharp between the ages of 30 and 39, when the claims of parenthood are probably most exacting. Among persons aged 60 or over, only 11 per cent attend the cinema once a week or more often, and it is worth noting that this is a smaller percentage than in the age group 0 to 4. - Uk frequency of cinema visits 


A wide range of genres appealed to women, whereas men were drawn to films with a strong action element. The film contains thug-like behaviour and violence which attraction male attention. Despite this, a secondary target audience of females may be attracted based on the emotional theme related to the older protagonist. The age range for our target audience is 15-30.


BBFC Rating:
For our film opening, we have decided to rate our film a 15. This is based on the fact it contains violence, drug use and discriminate language or behaviour. This means that No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a 15 rated video. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age. This enables us to add features relating to our genre of social realism


Age-
Normally in a social realist film the age rating is 15 and above. The is primarily because the target audience they are trying to promote their film too, is an older audience. They tend to aim for an older target audience due to the untypical storylines that youths wouldn't particularly appreciate or understand. There is also the point that there is usually heavy amount of violence, sex, drugs etc... that adults wouldn't want their children seeing. And so the rating legally has to be a 15. Another aspect of age is the use of teenage characters. This is shown in 'This is England', 'Ill manors' and 'Billy Elliot' for examples. This use of a teenage cast appeal to a teenage audience as they can relate to certain characters and understand the characters. Although in some cases films are rated 18 so teenagers cant watch it e.g 'This is England'.

Gender-
Gender is another important aspect as a social realism film must try to attract both a female and male audience. Films often do this by creating feel and emotion. For example, Tyrannosaur uses a predominantly violent male protagonist which promotes the film to men but also adds romance to promote a female audience too. This can be very beneficial to the success of a film as it opens up the amount of people going to see the film.

International Appeal-
In terms of success and popularity internationally, social realism films don't tend to do too well worldwide. This is due to the unknown actors, locations etc... Social realism films appeal to those who can understand and relate to the conditions and type of culture that is portrayed in these types of films. We feel that our film wouldn't appeal internationally based on these statements. Even upper class people typically aren't attracted to social realism films due to the lack of relation, let alone foreigners.

Eval Q2 (Prezi)

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

My press can be accessed by pressing this link.... ( Prezi )

Eval Q1

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

Social realism is a genre of film that focuses on topical issues alive in modern society which is represented by different ideologies. Themes such as money, drugs, prostitution and sex are quite usual in modern contemporary social realist films as well as class, religion and political views. These themes are very popular today but not all were involved in the early social realism storylines and films.

Common Conventions of Social realism films:

• Use of unknown, teenage actors - 'The sixteen' and 'This is England' all have main characters that support the social realist genre because they are between these ages. The actors could be anyone which makes it realistic.
• Social class - this is a very important form and convention as most social realist films deal with the working class like 'Billy Elliot' and 'This is England'.
• The locations - social realism film are usually set around a council estate or run down areas of different cities, but also can be a nice neighbourhood.
•  Usually a social realism film deals with issues like drugs, sex, poverty, prostitution, homosexuality, alcoholism and crime. Social realism films usually involve political views and religious views e.g 'This is England' and the hatred for Maggie Thatcher.
• Semi Improvised scripts - Sometimes directors such as Ken Loach use semi-improvised scripts to make the film have a more realistic feel and dialogue. He used this in the film Kes' and 'Sweet Sixteen' 

 

Location Shooting-
By using locations rather than the studio, it makes the film seem more true to real life for the audience to watch. An example of this is in 'Fish Tank' as it uses an actual council estate within the film. British social realism films are filmed on actual, real life locations such as parks and council estates and not in made up sets in studios such as Hollywood Studios. Our film opening uses this convention as our entire footage was shot in real life locations. Our locations included a council estate in Ben Rhydding, a dark bridge in Burley and Ilkley Cemetery.

Dark bridge in Burley

Council estate Ben Rhydding

Non-professional Actors-

 British Social Realism films use non-professional or unknown actors as it adds to the realistic look. Also, many British Social Realism films cannot afford popular, Hollywood actors to be in their films as the budget is usually quite low. For example, Katie Jarvis (main character in Fish Tank) was spotted in a train station arguing with her boyfriend. In this aspect our film definitely applies to this convention as our actors have no acting experience or training. 

Social class-

In a social realism film, the social class of the characters are usually working class living in working class environments. For example ill Manors was filmed in a lower, working class area of London. Our film matches this common convention as our  central protagonist is a working class teenager. Certain stereotypical working class activities take place in social realist films such as drug use, violence etc.. Our film contains this common convention. Contrastingly, Our film goes against the common convention of social class too a certain extent. Our other central protagonist is in fact upper class which is unusual to see in a social realism film. You often see wealthy but bad men in social realism films such as ill manors and top boy, but they aren't used in the way our upper class man is used.

Soundtrack-

With regards to the music that overplays our shots, it follows to conventions of a social realism film. Stereotypically, I have matched the genre of music to the social class of each protagonist. The opening starts with a slow piano song which is in fact the instrumental of 'to build a home' - this slow paced piano can be associated with upset and empathy, and also piano can be stereotypically seen as an upper class sound. I then mixed a 'grime like' beat into the piano. Grime is stereotypically seen as a lower class genre of music, as it originates from lower class areas. The beat introduced attempts to present a grime types of feel when overplaying Kieran's scenario. In many social realism films grime music is a huge part of them. Within social realism films we often witness gang violence and the culture that surrounds this. Grime/rap music is a part of this culture and is uses very regularly in these types of films that are set in this date. For example Ill Manors' whole soundtrack is created by Plan B (famous rap artist), Kidulthood and Adulthood use a lot of rap/grime. Our soundtrack also consists of slower music (piano) which is also used vastly in social realism films such as Tyrannosaur. Tyrannosaur is a sad, moving film and the music in it matches that them. Which is what we set out to do in our film. So in terms of music, I feel that our film opening matches this convention.

Titles-

With regards to titles our film follows the conventions of social realism. This is due to the simplicity of the titles being in a plain white font. These titles also follow the conventions of a documentary which from the off set places emphasis on the 'realism' element of the film as the film is trying to provide a realistic interpretation on the working class and middle class lifestyles within Britain. The titles use however a nice transition to allow a sense of professionalism and fluency within the opening of the film.

Target Audience-

Social realism target audiences can vary dependant on the plot of the film, protagonists, region, etc... But films that we feel are similar to ours have a primary target audience of males from the age of 15-30 (which is the same as ours) - this target audience is a common convention of social realism films. Our secondary audience consists of females and people of 50+. Females may be attracted to our film due to the use of emotion and people over the age of 50 may be appealed due to the use of an older protagonist (people can relate). Some social realism films such as Tyrannosaur may attract a female and older audience due to the same reasons ours might do. 

Audience Feedback - Rough Cut 3

This is another clip of audience feedback from our secondary audience of female over the age of 40. This once again helped us identify how we could improve our opening to appeal to a wider audience.

Audience Feedback - Rough Cut 1

This is audience feedback of our first rough cut from my mother who is aged 50+. She is part of our secondary audience and helped us identify how we could improve our opening from a secondary audience point of view.

Audience Feedback - Rough Cut 2

This video of audience feedback is Milo' father who is aged 50+ which is in fact our secondary audience. This clip allows us to identify any anomalies with our opening and helps progress to create a finalised product. Gives us an insight into our secondary audiences opinion.

Audience Feedback - Final Cut

This is our primary audience in terms of age (15-30) watching and evaluating our film opening.

Film Influences (COMPLETE!!!)

Target Audience and BBFC rating

Target Audience:

For our film opening, we have identified our primary target market will be males of the age of 15+. This is also based on the fact that the two main protagonists are male. The 2 central protaganists are of different age with different personal issues which may address different audiences as they can relate to these problems.  Recent research shows that '15-24 year olds made up the largest proportion of the UK cinema audience, at 31%.' This is beneficial towards the possible success of our film. 
A wide range of genres appealed to women, whereas men were drawn to films with a strong action element. The film contains thug-like behaviour and violence which attraction male attention. Despite this, a secondary target audience of females may be attracted based on the emotional theme related to the older protagonist. The age range for our target audience is 15-30.

Age-
Normally in a social realist film the age rating is 15 and above. The is primarily because the target audience they are trying to promote their film too, is an older audience. They tend to aim for an older target audience due to the untypical storylines that youths wouldn't particularly appreciate or understand. There is also the point that there is usually heavy amount of violence, sex, drugs etc... that adults wouldn't want their children seeing. And so the rating legally has to be a 15. Another aspect of age is the use of teenage characters. This is shown in 'This is England', 'Ill manors' and 'Billy Elliot' for examples. This use of a teenage cast appeal to a teenage audience as they can relate to certain characters and understand the characters. Although in some cases films are rated 18 so teenagers cant watch it e.g 'This is England'.

Gender-
Gender is another important aspect as a social realism film must try to attract both a female and male audience. Films often do this by creating feel and emotion. For example, Tyrannosaur uses a predominantly violent male protagonist which promotes the film to men but also adds romance to promote a female audience too. This can be very beneficial to the success of a film as it opens up the amount of people going to see the film.

BBFC Rating:

For our film opening, we have decided to rate our film a 15. This is based on the fact it contains violence, drug use and discriminate language or behaviour. This means that No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a 15 rated video. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age. This enables us to add features relating to our genre of social realism. 

What might I see in a 15 rated film or video?

•   strong violence

•  frequent strong language (e.g. 'f***').

•   portrayals of sexual activity

•   strong verbal references to sex

•   sexual nudity

•   brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence

•   discriminatory language or behaviour

•   drug taking

Music - Influences

As a group, we came to the conclusion that music and sound was a large factor of our film opening. This is due to little amount of dialect in comparison to the mood. It is vital that the mood is portrayed within our music as it isn't done within dialect. With our finalised music, we managed to create a remix of the song "build a home" using garageband. Due to our differ in characters, the music was difficult to contrast to fit the setting. Many social realism films use grime and rap music for their soundtracks such as ill Manors, top boy, kidulthood, adulthood etc... Being a social realism film also, we decided to try and follow this convention by introducing a grime-like beat. We also used a slow piano instrumental ('to build a home') to create empathy towards Michael (protagonist). Social realism films also use slow, empathetic music to create an emotional setting. (Example - Tyrannosuar). Garageband was the software used to create our music. During this process of using garageband, I became a lot more comfortable with the software.

'To Build A Home' - cinematic orchestra 

Social Realism (Conventions and History)

Conventions:

Social realism is a film genre which focuses on giving the audience a true indication of what life is like. Film makers such as Shane Meadows, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh. Social realism films may include drugs, violence, crime etc...

Social realistic films portray attitudes and life factorsoccurring at that period in time. They often representworking class characters living through a struggle andgenerally exhibit them as a protagonist. Often, thedirectors of social realistic films want to depict a typeof social injustice, such as: economic hardship,discrimination or political injustice. The main forms and conventions are; the use of unknown actors. This supports the social realism genre because the actors could be anyone which makes it realistic for the audience. Social class is a highly important convention of social realism films as most social realism films deal with the working class like Billy Elliot directed by Steven Daldry and This is England directed by Shane Weadows. The locations also link to this social class convention, as most locations are set in working class areas. Involving council estates, run down areas etc... Typically, a social realism films would deal with issues like drugs, sex, crime, poverty, prostituion and general criminal activity. In regards to age, the common convention for social realism films is to use young actors as their protagonists. For example, 'This is England', 'Kes', 'kidulthood', 'top boy' all use teenage protagonists.

Common Conventions of Social realism films:

• Use of unknown, teenage actors - 'The sixteen' and 'This is England' all have main characters that support the social realist genre because they are between these ages. The actors could be anyone which makes it realistic. 
• Social class - this is a very important form and convention as most social realist films deal with the working class like 'Billy Elliot' and 'This is England'. 
• The locations - social realism film are usually set around a council estate or run down areas of different cities, but also can be a nice neighbourhood.
•  Usually a social realism film deals with issues like drugs, sex, poverty, prostitution, homosexuality, alcoholism and crime. Social realism films usually involve political views and religious views e.g 'This is England' and the hatred for Maggie Thatcher. 
• Semi Improvised scripts - Sometimes directors such as Ken Loach use semi-improvised scripts to make the film have a more realistic feel and dialogue. He used this in the film Kes' and 'Sweet Sixteen' 

History:

Warp Films are a prime example of a production company that incorporate social realism into their films. Films such as This is England, Dead man's Shoes, Tyrannosaur, Four Lions,  all involve a working class setting.