Penumbra feedback session 2

Untitled from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

For a full analysis of all feedback sessions, check out my evaluation prezi and listen to our audio version which is very detailed.

Prezi evaluation:

Audio presentation:

Qualitative Feedback, main short film

In order to get the best product possible feedback is a must.

We had finally finished our production and was very excited to show it to some potential consumer for the first preview of our short film Penumbra.

Penumbra Audience feedback from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Before we showed the video to them myself and Blaine had written down some questions that we wanted to ask the audience to acquire useful information when exhibiting our product but also finding out about our target audience, if we had correctly targeted our film and if the content fulfilled the needs of this audience.

Because the film is very much inspired by David Lynch with very interesting visual signifiers posing complex questions within the audience that are not always that easy to follow, we wanted to find out if the audience could follow the narrative and if they couldn't, were they the active consumers that we correctly targeted our film at, making them want to discuss the film with others to swap ideas trying to deconstruct and follow the film. This would then come under the two step flow categorization of audience that myself and Blaine wanted to target and you can view my analysis of this target audience if you follow the link below:

Research into target audience

Overall receiving feedback on our film was a great way in overall analyzing if we had accomplished our goal and made a film suitable for its target audience fulfilling a niche within the market.

Qualitative feedback poster and Review

Feedback is a vital part in ensuring you have created a product that the consumer desires and that your product full fills this niche. In order to be sure that we have succeeded this, we acquired feedback through a mixed age range from our target audience to give us a great range of answers to our questions.

We interviewed six different people and they gave a range of answers both positive feedback and some constructive changes that could be made.

I have posted three out of the six videos below:

Magazine and poster feedback 1 from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Magazine and Poster feedback 3 from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Magazine and Poster feedback 5 from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

The questions we asked we both about the content of the subsidiary products but we also asked questions about the what would be the best place to exhibit both of them. Obviously our magazine review page was already going to be exhibited within empire magazine, but we had an empire magazine there which enabled us to ask questions involving the layout and tone of the review to find out if we had done our job and both written in the style that empire use as well as making our page look like an empire feature.

The feedback was very good and we acquired a lot of potential information we could use when exhibiting our products an which places were best to do so.

We also asked questions involving what their expectations were after looking at the poster and we then asked similar questions after they had watched the film to find out if they thought the poster gave the right connotations or wether they thought they had been misled.

Over all the feedback session was great and both myself and Blaine learned a lot from the feedback and could adjust the products with their constructive criticism comments if we felt it necessary.

Quantitative feedback analysis Blaine's blog

Both Blaine and I constructed a questionnaire to acquire information about potential consumers demographics which will help us to understand where we could advertise our short film, but as well as just finding out about their demographics we asked very guided questions about our subsidiary products, which would then help us within the construction process of both our poster and review. After analyzing the questionnaire results, the graphs show specific elements that consumers want to be included within these subsidiary products.

Blaine has provided some evidence of the results and analyzed what we have concluded from them.

To view Blaine's post follow the link below:
http://blainekenneallya2media.blogspot.com/2011/02/quantitative-audience-research-analysis.html

Classic movie posters and designers

Because we have to create a movie poster I thought it would be good to look at some classic movie poster and their designers.

Posters have been a strong form of advertising that many companies have adopted through the history of film production and advertising. There are many different aspects of a poster that can catch the eye of the consumer or intrigue them into the search to find out more.

The construction of a poster is not a simple task, there would be many people from a creative background, technical support and creation of the poster, researchers, Drawing artists and manager making sure that everything was above board and no rules and regulations were broken. This restrictions are a lot tighter to date but greater technology has been developed, bigger budgets are available consumer culture has changed and this has overall stemmed to new ways to advertising your film and make consumers aware of your product.

These very classic posters are just a small example of the wide range of posters that people created and how they connect with their target audience.

The E.T. and Blade runner posters were both created by John Alvin a very respected poster artist and has worked on over 200 posters.

The Clockwork orange poster was created by Philip Castle and many interpretations have been formed about the meaning behind he poster and this just shows the impact a poster can have upon your audience.

The Eraserhead poster created by Ben Barenholtz and director david lynch is just an example of how simple but effective a poster can be depending on your target audience and what you as the producer want to convey.

Marketing strategies have changed dramatically through the years but film posters still stand strong. Modern Posters have an exceptionally high standard and reputation for being extremely enticing with amazing concept art and stunning visual pleasures but at the other end of the spectrum they can also be very simple and very ambiguous. Many films do not just produce one poster anymore they create and original poster for the film but as the release date slowly becomes closer they release substitute posters creating world wide interest within audiences and build the excitement up until the release date.

I have found a really good website that hosts many images of posters called http://www.impawards.com/ and for some great examples of films that create more than one poster to create excitement within the potential consumers follow the links below for Inception and Tron Legacy which have over 15 exceptional posters each.

http://www.impawards.com/2010/inception.html

http://www.impawards.com/2010/tron_legacy.html

Editing techniques

Within our film we want to add some post production effects to the visual style of parts of our film to help convey the narrative structure and other parts to make the visual style have a greater impact upon the audience. When editing our film we will be using, final cut express and this is new editing software to both myself and Blaine. We both have experience in using and utilizing the editing software of Imovie as well as this we both have some experience in editing within Sony Vegas knowing the basic editing skills and how to apply some effects and titles.

In order to make our short film professional we wanted to learn how to use Final cut, this is not saying that it wouldn't look professional if this editing software was not used but this is the software that is widely used within the movie production industry and to learn a new skill that could be applied in any future job is a great step in moving from school work towards potential products that may be consumed and bought by the general public. we set about arranging a short session with the new technician at school because has experience in using the software and could talk us both through the basics that we need to know and he may possibly know how to apply some specific after effects that we would like to include as well as some composition changes.

When we met up with the technician there where some specific elements that we wanted to learn.
We wanted to work out how to change the huge and saturation, as the composition change will create an explicit distinction to the change of chronological order as the flashback and his quick childhood/symbolic memory will be in Black and white.
This is a very easy effect to create as there is a pre-set colour manipulation tool which can be used to automatically change the shots to black and white but if we wanted to sharpen up the contrast or add a tinted colour then this can easily be done within the colour manipulation settings.

We also wanted to know if we needed to create a mask over a certain object to change the colour of this object and this object only. We want to use this after effect to put emphasis on a red rose when a finger is pricked in the main protagonists quick symbolic memory that occurs each time he absorbs the pain of others.
After filming some quick test footage that we could try and manipulate we played around with the editing tools and found that you can put emphasis upon a certain object by just changing the contrasts of the colour's, the huge and saturation and the colour corrector tool that is within the software this can give of a good effect that we may want to use.



Another way could achieve what is known as the 'Sin city effect' when the certain colour's are emphasised and brought into the viewers focus. Within the extras of the Sin city DVD some of the editing techniques are included and the way that they achieve this effect was by using a green screen which we could try and do. To view a short segment of sin city to see the well renowned Sin city effect in action watch the video below:



The final effect that we want to include is the layering of clips. We want to use this effect to represent a young girls channel of thinking as she stares out of a window, deep in focus. We want to have a the shot of the girl as the main clip but then we want to layer multiple clips over the top of her parents arguing to represent the troubles she may have at home and how this is effecting her. This can be done in two ways:
The first way can achieve this effect by using simple transitions of the multiple clips. If you change the opacity of the clips, feather the edges and possible add some motion blur the quick transitions will create the effect of the girls thoughts and this will be emphasized by the dominant static shot of the girl after we have slowly zoomed in on her head as a signifier to the audience that what follows are her thoughts.
For an example of the overlaying effect watch the video bellow:



The second way is to change the opacity of the overlaid shots and to have them featured within the space situated within the shot of the girl. If feathering is added then this could stop the overall shot looking very regimental but depending on the content of the argument it may be too small and overall have this regimental look which would be very unprofessional as well as boring for the audience.

After learning all these skills we now feel very confident that we can make our short film to a very high standard.

Film review analysis

After reading reviews for the social Network a recently released film directed by David Ficher in both 'Empire' magazine and 'Total film' magazine, I have gathered an idea of the underlying tone of each review and the individuality of them both making each magazine distinct from each other and this helped me to gain ideas and an understanding of how to write a review catered for your target audience.

The target audience of Empire magazine is predominantly male orientated between the ages of 16-30. The reasoning for such a wide range of target audience is that many reviews are writing based rather than picture led , this means that many younger readers can see the well chosen cinematic images and read the review and star rating to then come to their own conclusion about a film which is great but the detailed reviews that present a stream of consciousness style of writing focus upon the film using complex film terminology that not any movie lover and teenager would understand, it gives very detailed and accurate information on actors and directors also touching of their past films when mentioned comparing and contrasting them giving the audience an overall picture of the film and how it is compared to some of the directors/actors other films which then enables the reader to make self generated connections and opinions on how good the film will be if they have seen the films that are referenced.

Now to focus on the demographic side of the target audience we have already established the age range but I believe that the audience fits into the B,C categories of the Acorn system and that they would be reasonable upper class with disposable income to spend on luxuries such as a £3.99 film magazine for personal enjoyment as well as guidance on what films to see in the cinema (another luxury) or DVD to purchase (another luxury).

Empire:

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=136853

The demographic side of the target audience for Total film magazine is much the same as Empire, but the tone of the review is very different. Reviewer: Damon Wise of Empire, creates an extensive review of The social network giving detailed information about the film/actors and director whilst not telling the story. His thoughts and opinions are made aware and Reviewer Andy Lowe of Total film in my opinion is very biased in his opinions leaving little room for others to make their own decisions, this can be seen by many as a good quality as this is a man that lives and breaths film so his opinions must be extremely valid but others may say that it effects peoples own judgement and leaves no room for their own conclusion. The review is much shorter and does focus upon the narrative, telling it a bit too much in my opinion but others may disagree. Total film also uses film terminology and does not use any witty language like Empires review includes.

Total Film:

http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-social-network

Overall these two reviews offer a different style in writing that myself and Blaine can use as example when writing our review. The variation also gives us many different ways we can write but we want to find out which style of writing our target audience would prefer before we construct the review.

Target audience for our short film poster

CAP- Committee of advertising practice helps to regulate advertising codes which are set to protect consumers against advertisers that do not comply with the rules. This is the overall message that can see above their mission statment.

"The Advertising Codes contain wide-ranging rules designed to ensure that advertising does not mislead, harm or offend. Ads must also be socially responsible and prepared in line with the principles of fair competition. These broad principles apply regardless of the product being advertised.

In addition, the Codes contain specific rules for certain products and marketing techniques. These include rules for alcoholic drinks, health and beauty claims, children, medicines, financial products, environmental claims, gambling, direct marketing and prize promotions. These rules add an extra layer of consumer protection on top of consumer protection law and aim to ensure that UK advertising is responsible.

The ASA administers the rules in the spirit as well as the letter, making it almost impossible for advertisers to find loopholes or ‘get off on a technicality’. This common sense approach takes into account the nature of the product being advertised, the media used, and the audience being targeted."

For our poster advertisment we will have to abide by these rules and regulations that are set by the comittee of advertising practice. I have thouraghly read through the codes on their website and here are some examples of the general sections. Each one has its principle outlined a definition of its meaning and the rules that are set under the specific heading.
There are also specific category sections that also have many rules within them, many sections relate to other sections and have links to other regulatory websites with their rules which you also have to abide by like the National lottery if you are advertising gambling.

When creating our poster we will have to make sure that we do not break any codes set by the comittee of advertising practice because consumer legislation has to be thought of and kept to a high priority. The content within the poster will have to mimic the target audience that we are advertising towards, but must not offend potential consumers of the advertisment.

For detailed information of on the codes set by CAP follow the link below to their website were downlodable version of the regulations are avalible:
http://www.cap.org.uk/

Now that we have the codes and conducts to follow, we can start to focus on the content of our poster and who the poster will be predominantly aimed at.Blaine has already constructed a post about semiotics within taditional film posters
and he is going to construct a post on the visual content that we want to include as well as some example texts that we may want our film title to be as well as some different texts for some credits. Above is a picture of the Psychologist Abraham Maslow's 'heirachy of needs' this motivationall theory wich was included within his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” the theory is based upon the basic human needs that then build up to more complex needs such as self actulisation this motivational theory structure is used within many business corporations. However John Antonios has applied this theory to social media and the way that audiences have responded it is Similar to Maslow’s pyramid, in the social media counterpart we have to complete our “basic needs” before moving up to our “social needs” ultimately reaching our social optimization. This can conseqently help us to distribute our poster on various social networking sites and this use of Wee media proves how the heirachy of needs works.

Abraham Maslow also constructed a theory of 'how advertisements use human needs' This theory looks at where companies place their television and print adverts to make the maximum impact upon their audience and how adverts work to attract the audience to the product. The theory is based on typical human behavior that focuses on satisfying Certain basic types of needs.
The advertisements may address the consumer directly: for example 'Do you like watching great films, well watch this one' or you can advertise in-directly to your consumers for example making a situation in your advert that people can see themselves in or by creating an ambiguous and intriguing poster which will respond to their need for fulfilment, and consequently will make them want to find out more about the poster and overall the film it is advertising. This then links to the 'reception theory'/active consumer under the effects model.


Below are the nine most common basic human needs that occur most frequently within advertising.

Need to survive- Used by advetisments for food, drink, housing etc.


Need to feel safe- Advertisments for insurance, loans and banks promise security and freeedom from threats.


Need for affiliation or friendship- Adverts that focus on lifestyle choices like diet and fashion use people's desire to be popular. They may also threaten them with failure to be liked or fit in.


Need to nurture or care for something- Advertising which shows cute animal and small children brings this out in the viewer.


Need to achieve- Advertisments that are linked with winning, often promoted by sports personalities, tap into the need to succed at difficult tasks.


Need for attention- Advertisments for beauty products often play the need to be noticed and admired.


Need for prominence- Advertisements for expensive furniture and diamonds may use people's need to be respected and to have high social status.


Need to dominate- Advertisments for products like fast cars offer the possibility of being in control through the product.


Need to find meaning in life- Advertisments for travel or music may appeal to people's need for fulfilment.


When constructing our poster we will need to take into account both the demographics' of potential consumers as well as the psycho graphics. These two prominent categorization methods will be vital in making sure that our poster reaches the largest possible range of potential consumers, in order to make them aware of our film. Maslow's theory of targeting basic human needs will also come into consideration when drawing up some plans for potential posters and getting feedback for them.

Analysing and choosing a target audience for our short film

First of all what is a target audience? My understanding of a target audience is that it is a specific group of people that have been identified as an intended consumer of your product, advertisement or message.

There are many different ways that people within society are stereotypically categorized. The grouping of these people is a tool used by many corporations to gather basic information about this 'group' of people and the best way to make them aware of your product.
I am studying business studies so I would like to think that I am educated within this area.
There are two prominent ways to categorize your target audience. One is called, demographic; this describes the person's sex, age, family size, education, income, and social class. The audience's demographic can be learned through a populous or another survey.

The next category is the psycho graphics of a potential audience. This information is based upon lifestyle and/or personality. This may be more difficult to then deconstruct because the information is not black and white but this information is easier gauged in analysis of activities, interests and opinions.

After you retrieve the information needed regarding your audience, you will have a better idea who will want your product but equally important, who can afford it.
This then makes it easier to advertise your product or create a product that a specific target audience want due to a niche in the market. If you know your audience then it is easier to create your marketing strategy or product to cater for their direct needs.

We had to do extensive research into target audience for our 'film noir' production that we created last year. For our Short film we need more up to date analysis of peoples personal preferences as a target audience theory so we have looked at some updated theories that we will be using to categorise our target audience. The quantitative or demographic method will still be used as the acorn system is still a very effective way to group people based upon their income.

To view my A.s blog post for the Qualitative method of grouping a target follow the link bellow:

http://tompalmerasmedia.blogspot.com/2009/10/target-audience-qualitative-measurment.html

To view my A.s blog post for a Quantitative method follow the link bellow:

http://tompalmerasmedia.blogspot.com/2009/10/target-audience-acorn-system-research.html

Media analysts have developed several effects models which can be seen as 'theoretical explanations of how humans ingest the information transmitted by media texts and how this might influence (or not) their behaviour.'

Effects models are still not a 'sure thing' because indisputable evidence that audiences will always react to media texts in the same way has not been found but the effects models are a new detailed categorization method that myself and Blaine can use to establish our type of potential consumer and the relationship between audience and text.

-The hypodermic needle model:
The intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.
-Two-step flow:
The people with most access to media, and highest media literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model.
-Uses and gratification:
People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.
-Reception theory:
The meaning of a “text” is not inherent within the text itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural background and life experiences.
-Obstinate audience theory:
This theory assumes that there is a transactional communication between the audience and the media. The audience actively selects what messages to pay attention to. The Zimmerman-Bauer study found that the audience also participate in the communication by influencing the message.

Both of these theories help myself and Blaine to then come to a conclusion about our type of target audience. The acorn system helping use work on the demographics and the effects model giving us an idea of our audiences psychological needs. We can then use this information to develop our understanding about our target audience and what they expect to see within a film and what would blow them away.

Blaine has found a great way we can acquire this information via
primary research, Google provides online questionnaire software called 'Google forms' which you can use to create,view and analyse your questionnaires for some more information on Google forms follow the link bellow:

http://ncmstech.pbworks.com/w/page/30753446/GForms

We can both now acquire relevant information that can be used to establish our target audience which is the next step to creating our short film.

Scene 1 location and potential camera shots

Most writers, film directors and script developers have a preference for one style of writing over another. Some writers are more interested in developing complex, interesting, and quirky characters. Others indulge in eye catching visual effects or heart pumping action.
Myself and Blaine are very interested in very complex narrative based films which are predominantly character driven and this is to a certain extent what our short film will consist of. We have taken inspiration from many films that follow this style. Blaine's posts on sources of inspiration and Directorial techniques to consider as well my posts, Inspiration for our short film, True leaders of film and Three inspirational films from our teacher extensive DVD collection show our interest in this style and how we were inspired by these films and their unique styles.

Our film will strongly focus on the emotional development of the main protagonist and due to this being our main focus we want the cinematography to be very minimalistic, giving off a great sense of realism but also to accentuate that the main protagonist is just a real man in the real world, any over elaborate visual effects will digress from this sense of realism as well as the over attention to detail as it would then not portray the real world but an idealised version. This links with the postmodern theorists that we are learning about throughout the A2 course and how they believe the media portray an idealised world to us and this is another post-modern asset that our film includes, we want to portray the real world.
Both Blaine and myself have discussed the visual style of our film in great detail and my fellow director has written a post on cinematography: the look of our film which gives an overview of our discussions as well as some great examples for you to look at.
Above is just a very simple picture of a location which could be used within our first scene, it would be the place were the main protagonist wakes up, the protagonist would be centralised within the shot on the path laying down.

These four shots give you an example of the overall location that we want to use. The graveyard will be the opening location and because it is a very morbid but surreal place it will add to the ambiguity of why the main protagonist is their. The shots above are some examples of some establishing shots we could use before you see the protagonist on the floor, these establishing shots will set the mood of the film as well as providing a picture the audience can paint of the general surroundings that the main protagonist is in. Like myself and Blaine said the shots we used will still be thought about and look great making sure we portray the message that we want they will just not be overly visually stunning due to the realism we want to create.


Another idea that we had was to have a two shot of a couple of graves, one of them being rendered down a little and he other either relatively new with some flowers next to it. This shot will juxtapose the two types of graves showing that one is frequently visited with fresh flowers placed upon it and generally being clean, but this will then be emphasised by the rendered grave or grave with no flowers signifying the difference between them. we want to then use a close up shot of the rendered grave making sure that the name is in focus and centralised within the shot, this will mean nothing at the time but it will be referenced later within the film.
We also played around with the shadows around the graveyard which made the visual look of the shot very aesthetically pleasing, this part of the location could be used for the protagonist to walk through, he would also create a shadow and with the glare from the sun there would be minimal detail on him so he would look basically like a shadow. we wanted to uses this part of the grave yard because it has no path and this would be a great place to bring in the theory of semiotics that Blaine was deconstructing for one of our ancillary products. We want the protagonist to walk on the grass but respectfully not walk at the heads of the grave stones where many people would create a visual outline of where the body is. This would show and act as a sign of respect and would correspond to the protagonists selflessness nature. This would be a very simple way to incorporate semiotics within our short film but it would show that we are thinking about the production of our film in great detail.
This is a picture of the road just outside the graveyard. We managed to create a very good image on camera incorporating the light of the sun that beams down onto the road where the protagonist will walk. The darkness at the side will emphasise the beam of light that the protagonist appears to be walking towards. the outline of the protagonist will only be visible as he walks down the road to end the first scene. When taking this picture I thought about our underlying style that we wanted to include, film noir, which will also be portrayed within the flashbacks of the protagonist. This then meant that we had to think about the chiaroscuro within some shots to conform with the conventions of film noir.

Within this picture I was trying to re-create the glare from the sun that blinds you if you look towards it, so I faced the camera towards the sun just over the trees to reconstructed the visual image of the protagonist opening his eyes to be blinded by the sun. This did work to a certain extent but the image is not bright enough to re-create the effect on screen but I think we will have to create some artificial light to help create this effect on camera or we could add an effect on within the post production process.


Whilst we were walking around we came across an archway of trees which created a very mysterious walkway which we could try and use within our film. I thought about this later on in the day and I realised that if we did use this archway then it wouldn't be conforming to the minimalism that we want the cinematography to portray.

Over all after taking these location shots it has boosted my confidence within our chosen choice of location, first of all because we acquired permission to film within the graveyard. But whilst looking around and taking pictures I began to create the movie within my head, planning out every shot and detail that we would include and it all started to piece together.

Our choice to use the graveyard for our first scene I think will create the first enigma within the audiences mind. 'well why is this man here, on the floor?' I think it will give the correct ambience that we are looking for, which is to have a familiar location that the audience can relate to because this will add to the realism but they will have no idea why the man has woken up their and due to the overall mysterious and spooky feel that a graveyard includes it will add to the ambiguity of the whole film and can create many questions that the audience are left with still un-answered which corresponds to the postmodern active consumer that our film is aimed at.

These images are just locations shots and do not convery any of the camera shots and angles that we want to use within our film. This will be done within our pre-production testing with the main protaganist within the film and this will be filmed , uploded and analysed shortly afterwards.

Follow the link below to view this post:

Pre-production testing scene one, graveyard.

The 'Empire' of 'Total film' reviews

For one of our subsidiary products we need to write a review of our short film, that could be featured within a magazine. But which Magazine?

Empire magazine

Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. It is the Uk's leading film magazine with over a circulation of 190,000 consumers a month.
As well as film news, previews and reviews, Empire has some unique features, which are generated both by themselves as well their readers and if popular they become regular features within the magazine. Some regular features are:

The At Home section covers DVD news and releases; Empire's editors consider this section to be of sufficient quality to term it a magazine in itself, which is also relevant to the growth and importance of the DVD market, where sales can often outstrip that of box-office.

Pint of Milk section presents celebrities' answers to silly or unusual questions, including the question "How much is a pint of milk?" This is intended as a guide to the Chosen Celebrity's contact with reality, and as such can be more informative than a direct interview, often reporting some surprising responses.

Each magazine includes a "Spine Quote", in which a relatively challenging quote is printed on the spine of the magazine. There are usually some obvious and obscure links from the quote to the main features of that month's edition. Readers are invited to identify the film source and the links to win a prize.


If you want to visit Empire's website and have a read of some of their great movie reviews and unique features then follow the link: http://www.empireonline.com/

Total Film

Total Film is also a British film magazine. It is Empire's main rival due to it being the United Kingdom's second best-selling film magazine offering film and DVD news, reviews, and features, but nevertheless it still has phenomenal circulation. The magazine was launched in 1997 and is published by Future Publishing.
Each month, a range of features are included: from full-length interviews with established and upcoming actors and directors, to major film previews and reviews, as well as top 100 lists of the greatest films ever made as well as specific titles such as best narrative and cinematic experience. These are all then illustrated with film stills and profile shots constructing the foundation of the magazine. All issues contain The Total Film Interview — which is an in-depth chat with a celebrated actor or director, along with a critique of their body of work and a rating of each major film to date.

If you want to visit Total Films website and have a read of some of their great movie reviews and unique features then follow the link: http://www.totalfilm.com/

These two highly respected and consumed magazines provides great movie reviews that myself and Blaine can read and get inspiration from in order to construct our film review but it also provides a target location for our review, which would then entail making our review to an industry standard and to the standard for these magazines which will be hard to achieve but we will give it a go. If our short film was the be reviewd and fetured within these magazines, this would be great way to get our film noticed, as the target audience for our film would be the same target audience that read these magazines therefore potential consumers would become aware of our film. This is a definate option that we will aim for but awsell as this we also want to feature our film within a free magazine that you can pick up when you go to ODEAN cinemas.

This magazine is free to millions of readers that go to the cinema which makes this a very effective way of making potential consumers aware of our product but also a very good place to feature a review which can then bee seen by critics and educated consumers who can then come to their own conclusion about our film.

Bellow are two movie reviews for the recently released, The social Network and this will provide a comparison of the two main magazines and their approach to writing film reviews and their overall ratings as this will then provide us with some ideas for he style of our review:

Empire's review of The Social Network:
http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=136853
Total Film's review of The Social Network:
http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/the-social-network

The British Board of film classification

The British Board of film classification was set up in 1912 and is an independent,

non-goverment organisation that brings a degree of classification to films.
A film is classified by the BBFC to give viewers a understanding of the content a film will include, the classification is just a guidline that helps you to make your own mature decision but for younger people it is a guidline for their carers.

A film is first viewed by a group of examiners and is then stripped apart to catergorise sections of the film which fall into different age classifications. The producers then have the choice to change parts or keep the film the same but have the suitable age classification that is given. Some producers and some narrative do want blood, sex and violence, which then will consequently have a higher age classification.

For example a 12 or 12A may contain content that could be unsuitable for children under the age of 12. An example of a 12 could be You, me and dupree which contains scenes that may be unsuitable for children under 12.


Another example could be an 18 which would contain very graphic scenes so cannot therefore be viewed by people aged lower than 18 because they may me disturbed by the content. An example of a film with a classification of 18 could be saw.

Myself and Blaine are creating a short film. Do the same rules and regulations apply? I hear you ask. The answer to this is, yes. I did wonder if the was any change within the classification regulations between short films and the conventinal feature length film but there isnt which in my oppinion is very logical because a short film is just a variation of a film the same audience will consume them so the same rules therefore should apply. This means that the content of our film and poster will have to reflect the classification specifications of the target audience that we choose.

To view further information on film classifications click the link bellow.
BBFC Website:

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/general/index.php

Three inspirational films from our teachers extensive DVD collection

After pitching our film, our teacher had a better understanding about what we wanted to produce (suggesting the pitch went well!!) and she found us three films from her endless collection of DVD's to watch, which had some similar elements which we suggested in our pitch but as well as this, she gave us two films that are based around different cultures. One is Apocalypto, directed by Mel Gibson a very famous film director chooses to film Apocalypto in Yucatec Maya language which distances the audience from the film because you are clueless to what they are saying, yes you can add subtitles but the way that the film is professionally directed utilizing techniques which make the visual narrative stand out and tell the story more enables the audience to watch the film and follow the film easily but due to the language barrier the audience imagination becomes part of the viewing experience which both me and Blaine think is a very good way to get the audience involved and this is defiantly a technique that we will research further and try and incorporate within our short film.



The other is also directed by Mel GibsonThe passion of the christ, which both me and Blaine also watched and this film dramatizes the last 12 hours of Jesus' life and the visual experience becomes the dominant story teller for an audience such as ourselves due to the cultural differences.



These two films by Mel Gibson will act as great examples of were the visual story has to be excellent in order for the audience to follow the narrative and after watching these films myself and Blaine feel that we have gained good knowledge of this technique and how this could effect our short film if we chose to incorporate such techniques.
The last film that we were given to watch was Dead mans shoes, directed by Shane Medows and the reason for this film being relevant to our short film is the way the director can exhibit the most uncanny and bizarre events, within reality and realistic locations through the use of very well written dialogue and characterisation to make the audience think that that is normality.



Blaine Keneally has created a very analytical post on the films that we watched, follow the link bellow for a more depth deconstruction and extracts of the films:
http://blainekenneallya2media.blogspot.com/2010/10/directorial-techniques-to-consider.html

Whilst I was searching for a picture of the film Apocalyto I came across a review of the film and some views of a critic. They had very negative views of the film saying that the visual effects and cinematography were good but altogether the narrative just made him keep looking at his watched due to the fact he was bored.

"Here is a movie that immediately grabbed me almost from the word go. And then its grip loosened and loosened until I just didn't really find myself caring anymore"

After reading this I just couldn't disagree more with his views and that the man fighting to save his families life and unborn child offers a truly gripping narrative exploring the idols of selfishness and courage.
But this is my opinion and he is entitled to his.(even if it is wrong/I'm joking)

To view his views of the film follow the link bellow:
http://www.stomptokyo.com/reelopinions/2006/12/apocalypto.html

Initial ideas pitch to potential consumers

This is our first presentation giving you an insight into some of the ideas we want to incorporate into our short film. We did research on what a short film conventinally consists of, a bit of history about them, some typical genres and narratives as well as pitching to our class (the bottom end of our potential age bracket for consumers)what our interesting narrative would be aswell as some music that could be used.
We want to make a very psycological short film which explores the actions of others and how the very helpfull and selflisness citerzen can often go unoticed.
To view our 20 minute pitch (ironic that the pitch is longer than the final product) watch the video bellow kindly uploaded by my co-director. Blaine Kenneally

Project Pitch from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

Inspiration for our short film

These are the video's that show some very good camera shots which I would like to incorporate into our short film, the first video is from 'Awaydays' its about a two young boys who join a football gange and basically kich the living day lights out of other football gangs the film was just like any other football factory film, a bit repetative but there is a shot right at the end of the film which grabbed my attention i think it is a very artistic shot and with the long periode that the shot stays the same the audience has time to stop and think which i like very much. The shot is between 00:57 - 1:07 eventhough the shot isnt that long the slow motion of it makes it seem longer aswell as this it also has a dramatic effect upon the audience due to the extreame close up of his face bleeding and his pain within. which I really liked when I was watching the film so myself and Blaine would like to put our own artistic twist on the shot and use it within our film.This secound video is an extract from the film 'Funny games' and this film is very unique with its filming style, their are many static shots within the film which regualy exeed 30 secounds but they were all framed shots with no movement, sometimes no-one is in the shot and only background noise can be heard and sometimes the shot stays the same whilst the actors moves around within the same shot. I couldnt get enough of it when you cannot see a convisation but you can hear it especially when their is blood in the shot and they are talking about how they just killed someone. This just gripped me to the screen as i was constantly guessing and trying to hear things that the killers would say but i couldnt turn round and look agt them and in my oppinion this was simulating the kidnapped hostages who cannot move but are always trying to find some information to give them the upper hand. This shot is from 8:29 - 9:15