Note to Moderator

Dear Moderator,

We would like to thank you for taking the time to look through and assess our blog, in order to navigate through the blog please use the labels located on the right hand side of the page.

By clicking on the "Research and Planning" label you will see evidence of our Research, Planning and development work that happened during the pre-production stage. The "Construction" label directs you to evidence of both production and post production for our project.

As well as these two labels, we also have labels for the individual contributions by each member of our group. By pressing these labels you will see which parts of the project the members of our group made contributions to, some posts may be contributions by a single candidate where others had input made by multiple candidates.

To go straight to the evaluation for each team member press the label that says "Evaluation: (candidate name)", this will direct you to that specific candidates answers to the 7 evaluation questions.

As you can see, under our blog's banner at the top of the blog is the final cut of our opening sequence, as well as this each member of our group has posted their version of the preliminary task as a part of question 7.

Unfortunately we were unable to fit all the posts in our blog onto one page, so if you get to the end of the page just press the "older posts" button to be directed to the next page containing more posts.

You can filter our posts by labels or date, and there is a blog archive if you want to look through chronologically. 

There is also a link to the class' film blog on the right hand side of the page, which contains links to the blogs from other groups from our school, as well as our individual blogs.

Yet again we would like to thank you for spending your precious time looking around our blog, we hope that you enjoy looking through it as much as we did making it.

From,
Josh Stevenson [0796], Abiramy Logeswaran [0480] and Chrystal Li [0470]

Closing Post

All of our coursework is finished and as a result, this blog is now closed. No more content will be added, but feel free to continue looking through it.

Regards,

Josh Stevenson,  Chrystal Li and Abiramy Logeswaran

Q1: In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Our film, Pulled From the Rough is a romantic drama featuring themes of morning, loss and recovery. Our film uses and challenges some forms and conventions such as stereotypical characters, the genre, style and narrative structure. This was because we wanted our film to have enough reality.

Genre

Our genre is Romantic Drama and these are some of the conventions:

This genre tends to have the protagonist in conflict with themselves or another character.

Jess is angry at Alex who is only trying to help her

They usually feature a challenge that must be overcome. In our film the challenge is for Jess to deal with the loss of her boyfriend and be able to move on with life.

The stereotypical romantic drama will explore different forms of love like love at first sight, unrequited love  and tragic love.  Our film deals with the love that Jess has for her dead boyfriend and the love Alex has for her.

Alex is energetic while Jess is apathetic

Claude Levi Strauss was the theorist of binary opposites:

• Optimistic vs Depressed
• Energetic vs Apathetic
• Boy vs Girl
• Life vs Death

 

Narrative Structure

The narrative structure of most films follow Todorov’s narrative theory  

Equilibrium is negative in our film. Jess is withdrawn from society after the death of her boyfriend.In our sequence she is shown to have substance abuse of alcohol.

Alex introduces the disruption as he urgingly encourages Jess to go to university at the start of the new semester.

Through the rest of the film the journey to resolution is a rocky path as Jess gets into further problems like turning to drugs for comfort. Alex has to keep looking out for her so she eventually is on the path to recovery.

Restored order occurs as Jess has fully recovered from her jaded self and dealt with her loss and appreciates her friends for supporting her.

The new equilibrium is when Jess realises that Alex loves her and they start going out.

Some of our inspirations from Struck by Lightning, Now is Good, PS I Love You and One Day.

 

 Barthes - Enigma codes

Why is Jess upset with Alex?

What is the Jess' relationship with Alex?

What is the off screen event that they are talking about?

Form and Style

The music that we used helps convey the emotions of the characters to the audience, since romantic dramas depend a lot on emotions.



The titles we used were simple like many other indie films.

For our main title we chose the font called "Noir-Et Blanc" since the letters are extended  We thought that this represents the theme of reaching out and being helped up. It also fits in with titles that inspired us such as Remember Me and One day. The difference would be that our title is in mixed cases. It still fits in as it has a bold white outline that stands out with the contrasting black fill and black background.

Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Considering the difficult themes in our film, we weren't able to completely adhere to stereotypes and archetypes. Our main protagonists beings Jess and Alex, both belong to social groups of British uni students who are young adults.Jess belongs to the social group of an arts fan while Alex belongs to a gadgets interested group however Alex's technology interests are not displayed in the opening sequence.

Jess:

Jess is withdrawn and stays in bed

Holly mourns over her husband's death (PS I love you)

Alex:

Jeremy Irvine from Now is Good (2012)

Alex

  Gender Representation:

Jess is a metaphorical damsel in distress in the sense that she depends on her friends to help her get through the mourning of her boyfriend.

This clip from Now is Good (2012) portrays the aspect where the male protagonist is caring about the female protagonist. He tries to calm her down which is how Alex tries to look out for Jess in Pulled From the Rough.

Age Representation

Jess subverts her age stereotype as having unstable less serious relationships as she really cares about the boyfriend who died as their relationship was long term (two years). This is a positive representation as she is shown to be more mature.
Her character subverts the party animal age stereotype. This is a positive representation of 19 year olds as she is not being reckless and is responsible.

Class and Status

This fotobabble shows that she is in the university student class. Jess is interested in literature and she is organised. She also has stacks of books around the room which shows that she used to  predominantly spend money and time on the Arts.



The arts student stereotype is also challenged by Jess because she doesn't leave her room and she doesn't concentrate on studying. This is a negative representation of university students as she is distracted by the death of her boyfriend.

Alex is a lively science student hence he fits his enthusiastic stereotype and is ready to go through his day of hard work. This is shown as he also imposes this upon Jess who is the opposite of him. This is a positive representation of uni students as it depicts them being dutiful and happy.


The core audience will appreciate Jess's challenges of age stereotypes such as not being a party animal because they can question her quiet withdrawn attitude.They will enjoy the clash of the opposites as they will understand the Alex is only caring for Jess and they will hope that Jess's relationship with Alex will improve. They may relate to Jess's serious character as this is a more realistic representation of a female uni student.

Q3: What Kind of Media Institution might Distribute your Media Product and Why?

Our film has got niche appeal therefore it is suitable to be independently produced and distributed in a national release.

Production:

Our production company is called Frozen Productions.

• Specialise in Romantic dramas
• Create indie films from small budgets
• Usually produce films aimed at core cinema demographics, 15-24 year olds.

Distributor:

We chose Entertainment Distributors to distribute our film in national cinemas and on DVD and bluray.

Entertainment Film Distributors:

They are the UK’s leading distributor that was founded in 1978.

They operate in the UK and Nothern Ireland and on different platforms.

Main Genres: Drama, Comedy, Thriller, Action, Romance 

110 Drama titles E.g. Lassie

48 Romance titles. E.g. Silver Linings Playbook

Other successful films: Around the World in 80 days, Run Fatboy Run, Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

The Weinstein Company, the distributor of the American film, Silver Linings Playbook, originally planned an unusual wide national release. However they then decided to build up the release by releasing in few US cinemas which finally amounted to 700 cinemas in USA.

 

 

Release Strategy:

  Please click on the image to navigate through my release plan.

My release plan drew inspirations from Silver Linings Playbook as well as keeping the British target audience in mind.

Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

We are mainly targeting British audiences as this is independantly produced and  distributed and would have less appeal to foreign audiences. The London Accents and iconography seen later in the film is relatable for domestic audiences.

 

Core Audience:

They are 15-24 year old females such as Jane, our voki character.

They like films like 500 days of Summer, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Slumdog Millionaire. They enjoy television shows like My Mad Fat Diary, Made in Chelsea and Friends. They like films that provide diversion (uses and gratification theory) from their life and like to view the world from a character's perspective.

Our film is relatable to them as they will be going through similar situations as the characters in this film such as living independantly from their parents and having access to alcohol. They are likely to have also experienced loss and relate to Jess's situation. The storylines of the films they watch can sometimes be aspirational as a way of helping them deal with any problems that they usually have.

Secondary Audiences:

They include 15-21 year old males such as our voki, Connor.

15-21 year old males enjoy films like Sky Fall, Inception and 21 Jump Street. They like TV shows like Big Bang Theory, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. They usually want entertainment (Uses and Gratifications theory) like good looking actresses or Special Effects to be in the films that they watch.



They also are the parents of teens (40+) skewed to female, like our voki, Jenny. 



They like films like Anna Karenina, Philomena and The Help.They also enjoy TV shows like Eastenders and Doctors. Parents try to watch films that supplies their surveillance needs (uses and gratifications).
Our film provides partial insight into a teenager’s life, depicting how fragile a teenager can be at the worst of times. Our story-line includes teenagers overcoming challenging circumstances so the parents may percieve our film to be a guide showing possible ways to handle these events, should they arise in their lives. 




Other Issues:
Censorship limits the audiences we could target and a much older audience like pensioners. They will not want to watch a film with profanities. Our classification will be 15 as Pulled from the rough will contain references to drugs and strong language.

Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Our genre appeals to our core target audience.

Wordle created from the audience's suggestion of themes of our film

Survey Responses from Survey Monkey

Male and Female Opinions on our film taken from the survey monkey Questionnaire

Female audience generally enjoyed and engaged by the opening sequence of our film. Alex's character was generally well received by male audiences, one respondent says "What the Alex did for Jess is good". The data proves that some of our audiences didn't remember or couldn't hear the names of our characters. Many guessed that the themes involved depression and relationship. A minority of an audience also mentioned the themes of domestic violence which may have been an assumed answer to our enigma codes. Most of the responses indicated that it was clear that our core audience are teenagers and young adult females. The responses show that our audiences responded well to the matching head on door shots.

Taken from data on our survey on surveymonkey

Both these charts show that our film attracted most of our audience. 50% of this data is from our core audience. 40% is from both our secondary audience while the 10% is from other target demographics.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We used a camera, shot gun microphone, individual microphones, headphones, clapper board and Adobe premiere Pro to make our sequence.

I found using the camera really exciting as it was a lot of responsibility. Having a small screen meant that most of the time I was in control of the composition and movement of the camera although I adhered generally closely to the shot schedule.

I also liked being able to experiment with editing the sequence by adding new sequence and fine editing the clips to add a different view point on the narrative. I then would ask for approval from the rest of the group and we would sometimes add the new idea into the actual opening of Pulled from the Rough.


The clapperboard proved very useful for editing. It allowed us to quickly identify shots and be able to reference them correctly.

We used Adobe Premiere Pro for non-linear editing which consisted of two video and two audio tracks so we could alternate the clips between them.

To create our institutional titles we used LiveType on the Apple Mac. I found using the Mac quite difficult as I wasn't familiar with it. This caused the making of our titles to be slower as I had to sort things out when they went wrong.

These technologies used together allowed us to produce a seamless sequence that suspends the audience’s disbelief. Technology played a huge role in our communication such as the use of our facebook group and Whatsapp conversations. This meant that we mostly had our decisions recorded so there was time saved. I frequently used my phone to take pictures of notes and material so I could still work on planning while I was not near a computer. 

Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our prelim taught me many skills that helped us make our film opening:

I worked with Josh Stevenson, Harry Kettenis and Juliette Wileman to create our preliminary sequence. Our brief was to film a continuity sequence involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite character with whom he exchanges dialogue. Our thriller involved the storyline of a strong antagonist asking a worker if a task has been done. We shot our sequence in the foyer and classroom in the media block.

Preproduction:

 

• We made notes on the shots that we planned to take.
• Later in our film openings we were able to type up the plans that we made and revised them when our ideas developed.
• We created storyboards and shootboards so we could be organised like we were in the prelim.

Animatic:

This was our animatic at Josh's house. From the making of this, we realised that we needed a lighting set and needed changes to dialogue and some camera angles.

Test Shoot:

  From the test shoot, we realised that we needed a bigger room to get the camera movement that we wanted. We also needed to further recitfy dialogue for character development.

 

Production:

 

• When filming match on action shots, I learnt that the crew should keep a note of where a character changes actions so this can be replicated correctly in other shots of the same action. 
• We also had to maintain this on our film opening shoots. We used pencil marks to mark the positioning of the door and objects. 

Post-Production:

We were able to practice the continuity rules during the prelim. I understood the significance of the 180 degree rule so I then knew where to place the camera in relation to the subject.

• I learnt that I could use the audio level bar on the timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro to increase the match of the audio of differently framed shots.
• This was useful as our sequence followed varied shot composition so the sound and volume was different however the audio bars enabled us to adjust the audio of the footage hence making seamless sound transitions.

Using LiveType to make Titles

• I learnt to use the razor tool to split clips on the timeline and add keyframes on shots.
• This was useful as we split clips to adjust audio such as adding background sound to make the sound consistent.
• We also split video such as turning the light switch on as we had different grading settings.
• We used keyframes to adjust certain parts of the dialogue which were too quiet to understand initially.

•  I learnt how to demonstrate a variety of continuity rules.
• These were improved further in our film opening.

• We didn't grade in the prelim so we found it time consuming and difficult in our film opening.
• We didn't use LiveType in our Prelim so it took us longer to get used to the software and using the Apple Mac.

Communication:

• Our opening sequence group needed to discuss planning, production and post production. We used various means of communication such as our facebook group, whatsapp conversations, emails and any platforms that we could find. In between edit sessions we would update eachother on what has been done and what needs to be done via post its and messages. 

We were given a small time scale to plan, film and edit our prelims. I think this also taught us how to work fast to deadlines. It allowed us to refamiliarise ourselves with the editing software, Adobe Premiere Pro.

Throughout this project I have become more confident with using technology to create the film opening. I have learnt more about institutions through the research that I did to find suitable institutions for our film. I have the continuity rules memorised as a result of carefully checking while storyboarding, filming and editing. The progression through this project has helped me improve my film making skills as a result of the practice, production and feedback during the project. I enjoyed it and I hope people enjoy the film opening I made as a product of my knowledge.

Q1) What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product was a film called 'Pulled From the Rough'. Our film is a romantic drama that explores features of mourning, recovery and friendship. We used the stereotypical conventions of a film and the romantic drama genre as well as challenging the conventions.

Genre:


Moves away, keeping distance

 Since our film genre is romantic drama, the main conventions  we stuck to included:

 - Conflict between the main protagonist with themselves or  another character.

 In our case, the conflict is what challenges the main, which is  the death of her boyfriend. This controls her feelings, causing  her to feel separate from the world.

Many romantic drama films explore different types of love, including; 'love at first sight', unrequited love and tragic love. In our film we explore the love of past relationship (Jess towards her dead boyfriend) and unrequited love (Alex's love for Jess).

We used Claude Levi-Strauss' binary opposite theory in our film to emphasise the differences between the two characters:

Alex                                                                                                                       Jess

-Optimistic                                                                                                             -Depressed

-Boy                                                                                                                      -Girl

-Energetic                                                                                                              -Apathetic

Narrative Structure

We followed the classic narrative pattern of Todorov's Theory:

Forms and Style

Comparison between Remember Me's film opening(Allen Coulter, 2010) and our, 'Pulled From The Rough'

The music we used as the background score, helped convey the emotions of the sequence.

We used 'Up'(Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, 2009) as a reference. Despite it being a cartoon, it was able to make their audience feel the emotion of the characters without any dialogue, which we wanted to do in our film opening.

(start at 03:21)

In terms of editing;

-For our titles, we used a simple font to make sure the audiences attention was not directed away from the drama going on in the sequence. As well as following the independent film style.

As for the final title of the film, we used a font called 'Noir-Et Blanc'. The way the font extends at the tips connotes a reach for something. In our films case, a reach for help or a reach for love. Just having the outline white, instead of with a white fill still emphasises it as much, it also subtly hints a sense of coverage of emotions.



-For the grading, we use David Mullen's 'The Quiet' as a reference.

Dark grading in our film opening

The Quiet

In the dark night scenes in our film opening, we wanted to indicate a sense of Jess' emotion via the grading. We had to tint it blue to show that it was in the dark but also to connote her depression as well as using the music to back up the feelings.

Q2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening sequence, we focussed on the representation of gender, age and race, we tried to comply with the stereotypical representations to allow the audience to relate to it as well as challenge some conventions, despite the challenging theme.

Gender:

Nick from New Girl

• Boys:

    

Schmidt from New Girl

-Usually represented as sex-obsessed and rowdy, such as Schmidt from New Girl.
-However in our film opening, we have represented Alex as a caring gentle friend like Nick from New Girl. We filmed our opening sequence in a bedroom and had Alex knock before coming into the room to check on her; showing his worry for her well-being and her education.

-Romance between two main characters: At first, Jess and Alex seem to be just friends, but we have hinted that Alex has a romantic interest in Jess. This happens in many films and television shows, like New Girl. At first Nick is Jess' close friend, then later on in the series, a romantic relationship is formed between them.

Skyler White from Breaking Bad

• Girls:

Jess snaps at Alex

-Usually represented as the more emotional and unstable character like Skyler White from Breaking Bad, which we have followed to keep the character realistic and relatable, also due to her 'trauma' she is put in this state of mind. We represent her as emtionaless at first, with her monotone clothing, but then as she interacts more with Alex, she becomes more unstable and in the end, snaps at Alex despite him only wanting to help.




Age

The youth in the society are branded as ignorant, antisocial and rude. Many drama follow this stereotype, for example, 'Misfits', which represents the 'youths' in a negative way.

-In our film opening, we have two representations of the youth.
Alex, is portrayed as a caring friend that just wants to help Jess carry on with life, and help pick her back up.

A similar character is Finn Nelson from My Mad Fat Diary. He is caring and still makes mistakes but tries to be understanding, while the girl he likes is having troubles.


Jess is the stereotypical teenage girl and she is the 'damsel in distress' character, with her distress being the passing of her boyfriend.

A character that we used as a reference included Rae Earl from My Mad Fat Diary as well. When Rae was going through her worst stages, she would isolate herself to avoid any contact with people. Also the way she thinks that her friends don't understand what she's going through.



To make sure the audience were able to identify that she once used to be a normal teen, we had the regular props that a regular female student would have in their room.

Items places around the set

 The youth is also represented as irresponsible, which in this case is being shown through Jess neglecting her studies and not attending her lectures.

Q3) What Kind of Media Institution might Distribute your Media Product and Why?

The 2 major companies are the production company and the distributor. These are mainly based on the film's genre.







We would apply for 'Funding for first-time directors' from the British Film Industry(BFI) to receive a grant. We would not be able to suffice from just the grant received, therefore we would use some of our own money to contribute to the film making as well as creating fund-raising events, like cake sales. Despite that being maybe tedious but we could also use the events to advertise our film.

Release Plan:

(Click the image below to go to the release plan)