RESIT: G321 Evaluation Q5 - Attracting Our Audience Through the Use of Media Techniques

Attracting Our Audience Through the Use of Media Techniques

For our G321 film opening project, we incorporated specific media techniques in order to attract our audience including Mise en Scene, camera angles, sound and editing techniques.

Mise en Scene

An example of when we used Mise en Scene to attract our audience was the use of props in Stacey's room. Because they did not go hand-in-hand with her personality and stood out as nerdy and lame, they created a sense of curiosity for the viewer and lured them into the storyline of the film.

Camera Angles

We used plenty of close-ups and and extreme close-ups in our opening to focus the viewer's attention on a specific area. We purposely used these shots on the props and objects that our characters interacted with to feed our audience information about the characters and their liftestyles. By introducing the characters we established a connection between the viewer and the protagonists, which in turn attracts the audience to the film.

Sound

We cut out the majority of diegetic dialogue and sound in our opening to enhance the atmosphere created by the non-diegetic music. The music we used was up-beat and lively, and created a positive and happy mood for the audience. In collaboration with Mise en Scene, camera angles and editing techniques, we used subtly used sound as a way of attracting our audience.

Editing

One of the best editing techniques we used in our title sequence was the four-way split screen. This was evident in our film's feedback and the reception we received after the first showing of our clip. We chose to use the split screen as it showed that our film would be busy and filled with lots interesting scenes. We found that our editing techniques were successful and contributed towards attracting our target audience.

RESIT: G321 Evaluation Q7 - My Personal Progression

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My Personal Progression from the Preliminary Task to the G321 Film Opening

Between the Preliminary Task and the final AS project, I have developed both my creative and my analytical skills. I have learnt basic media techniques and terminology, and expanded my knowlege through learning from the practical mistakes made in the Preliminary task. The areas I have mainly improved on are:

• The importance of Mise en Scene, camera angles, sound and editing
• Using media terminology
• The importance of planning
• Targeting an audience and why it's important
• Using the equipment and Final Cut Express

Before the Preliminary Task, I learnt how to analyse media texts in terms of Mise en Scene, camera angles/movement, sound and editing. We also learnt about semantics how these media techniques can determine what messages the audience receives. Although I understood the importance of these aspects, it didn't really occur to me to incorporate them into my Preliminary task.

Learning how important it is to include media techniques into the work was my most important form of progression. Although it seems like an obvious thing to do, my mentality was to keep theory and practical work separate and learn the media course in 2 halves. It wasn't until after the Preliminary task that I realised that the two sides support each other and are meant to mix together in order to achieve a well-rounded knowledge of media.

Mise en Scene, Camera Angle, Sound and Editing

Before the Preliminary Task, I learnt how to analyse media texts in terms of Mise en Scene, camera angles/movement, sound and editing. We also learnt about semantics how these media techniques can determine what messages the audience receives. Although I understood the importance of these aspects, it didn't really occur to me to incorporate them into my Preliminary task.

Learning how important it is to include media techniques into the work was my most important form of progression. Although it seems like an obvious thing to do, my mentality was to keep theory and practical work separate and learn the media course in 2 halves. It wasn't until after the Preliminary task that I realised that the two sides support each other and are meant to mix together in order to achieve a well-rounded knowledge of media.

Through the evaluation of our Preliminary task and the preparation for our G321 film opening, I learnt that Mise en Scene is incredibly important in terms of semantics, creating a particular atmosphere through colours and lighting and how props can reflect a character.

In the Preliminary task, the antagonist of our piece was wearing a bright pink robe. Although we did not intend to, the colour held connotations that his character was feminine. Our intention was for his character to come across as nutty and strange, but because we didn't consider semantics in the Preliminary task, our clip gave the audience the wrong impression. This is a prime example of how I've progressed, as I now understand the importance of using these media techniques and semantics in my own work.

I also learnt that choosing the right camera angles can have a huge effect on the tension of a shot and how much the audience engages with a particular character, that sound is particularly important for creating tension and setting an atmosphere and that editing plays a huge role in the pace of a scene and the amount happening at a time.

Using Media Terminology

Although I have always tried to use media terminology in my work, my media vocabulary has expanded since the Preliminary task and I've learnt how important it is to use the correct terms in order to get my point across.

The Importance of Planning

In our Preliminary task we did not plan as thoroughly as we could have, and it was evident on my individual blog and on the group blog. This resulted in confusion for anyone who watched our clip as they did not understand what was happening in the text and what it was about. 


The planning stage we missed out was what message we wanted to send our audience and how we would do this. Our intentions for our clip were clear to us, but we did not consider how we should make our clip so that the viewer understands the concept of the film as well. This was a major planning flaw that I encountered during the Preliminary task, and I learnt how important it is to plan our film properly to prevent this mistake from happening again.

Targeting an Audience and Why It's Important

For our Preliminary task, we did not target a particular audience and our film ended up appealing to a very small selection of people. We knew this from the feedback our clip received, and the majority of respondents found the text confusing and difficult to follow.

After learning more about target audiences, I learnt that if I have a target audience during the planning stage, I can shape the contents of the film around what would appeal to them and create a much more structured and organised film. The reason target audience ties in with organisation is because it sets a foundation for the film content that can be developed.

Using the Equipment and Final Cut Express

Prior to the Preliminary, we experimented with using the camera, tripod and dolly. Because we understood how to use the filming equipment, we chose to to develop our knowledge of editing equipment after the Preliminary.

We went from using iMovie to Final Cut Express for our G321. I enjoyed experimenting with the program and playing around with effects. After I became more confident with Final Cut, I actually found it more straight forward than iMovie and much easier to use. I'm glad I understand how to use this program as I can use it to edit and manipulate my next film.

RESIT: Ideal Audience Member Moodboard

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I have created a mood board based on my ideal audience member. Looking at existing film characters, appearance, role models, life experiences, interests and relationships, I have created a detailed example of a typical audience member who would be able to enjoy and fully engage with the film.

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Appearance

My ideal audience member is quite young and stylish, but also casual and laid back. This applies to their dress sense, hairstyle and personality. Anything from T-shirts to heels goes, but they should have a good sense of humour and enjoy comedy films. It's also important that my ideal audience member can either relate to the characters or relate to the high school setting of the film.

A: Existing Film Characters

If I were to choose who my ideal audience member would be like based on existing comedy film characters, I would choose a combination of of characters, including Harold & Kumar, Jim from American Pie (1999) and Seth, Evan & Fogell from Superbad (2007).

The reason I chose these characters is because they all live typical lives, but get involved with extraordinary situations such as drug and crime related incidents. This relates to the idea that my ideal audience member should live an average life that contains comical elements.

B: Role Models

The role models of my ideal audience members would be Russell Howard and Jack Whitehall. The reason I chose these comedians is because their style of comedy is quite immature and uncouth, which relates to the sense of humour used in our film. Both comedians are also young and dress casually, which my typical audience member would be able to relate to.

C: Life Experiences

Our film would include unusual life experiences involving women, crime and embarrassing situations.  The ideal audience member for our film would be able to relate to these events through experience and socialising. It's important that our audience members understands the occurrences in teenage life so they can connect with the characters and storyline of the film.

D: Interests

One thing that the characters in our film and our audience members should not see eye-to-eye on are interests and hobbies. Because the characters of the film are nerdy and social rejects, our audience members should find their lifestyles and interests laughable.

E: Relationships

Like all films, our comedy would contain relationships, both romantic and hostile. In order for our ideal audience member to engage with the film, they would be able to relate to these relationship types and understand the feelings and emotions associated with these connections.

RESIT: Character Profiles

We have created character profiles for our 4 main characters who will be starring in our film. The purpose of this was to distinguish each character's personality and to assign each one a set identity, allowing us to use our imagination in how we will portray each character to our audience.


Each character comes with a name, a role in the film, an age, hobbies, likes, dislikes and a short description about them.

RESIT: G321 Initial Ideas

To show our thoughts and ideas for our G321 Film Opening and how they developed, I've created a spider diagram mapping our decisions and processes. I will explain each stage in detail using the correct media terminology.

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We always knew we wanted to produce the opening to a comedy film. Because all of the past students chose the horror genre, and the majority of my classmates followed the same path, we chose not to follow the crowd and go in the opposite direction with a comedy.


At first, we wanted something very unique and niche, and started looking into black comedy conventions and storyline ideas. We looked into films such as Hot Fuzz (2007), In Bruges (2008) and Fargo (1996).






But after some brief research, we found that it would be difficult to distinguish a comedy opening from a black comedy opening in such a short duration of time without incorporating blood or violence. We also knew that if we used blood or violence, the genre could be mistaken for horror. For these reasons, we chose to move on from black comedy and began to research into comedy films.


After looking at film examples, such as Superbad (2007), Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Step Brothers (2008), we knew that we could create the opening to a mainstream film that targets a mass audience while keeping a unique and original comedy style. This was great news for us as creating a mainstream film and targeting a mass audience gave us more to research and talk about in the evaluation stage.


One of the main similarities we found in all comedy title sequences was how the characters were introduced. Unlike other film openings, we found that comedies had a tendency to introduce characters more thoroughly through things like interests, habits and lifestyle. We decided to use this generic convention in our own opening sequence.

All three of the films we looked into followed this pattern. A great example of a film that introduces the character, and how the storyline began, is Step Brothers. Both of the protagonists are introduced separately, and we learn where they live, what they enjoy and what type of character they will play in the film.


After deciding on a genre, we started to look into who our target audience would be and what would make them attracted to our film. Because comedy is a major genre, we knew that our target audience would be expansive and that our film would appeal to a mass group of people.


We then turned back to research, and began looking at films such as American Pie (1999), Role Models (2008) and There's Something About Mary (1998).


The reason we chose these 3 films, and the previous 3 films, is because once we knew that we wanted to create a comedy film opening, we also knew that we wanted to use an immature/teenage comedy style. This was based on the reason that we did not want to produce an '18' film that contained frequent swearing and explicit adult content, and we did not want to produce a family film, such as a 'G', 'PG' or '12'. For this reason, we chose to certify our film as a '15', which mainly targets teenagers and young adults.


After looking into these 3 films, we found that they were all certified '15' films, and used a very similar style of comedy to the one we intended to use in our own film. This confirmed our film certification, and we then moved on into the topic of attracting our audience.


We wanted to appeal to our target audience by presenting our film as entertaining and funny. As a group, we discussed how to do this and came up with two main ideas: our audience can laugh at the film, or laugh with the film. We knew that if our audience were to laugh at the film, our style of comedy would venture down the 'parody' or 'satire' route. Because these comedy styles did not coincide with our original ideas, we knew that our other option was to create a film that our audience would laugh with, the difference being that the style of humour is inoffensive and innocent, as opposed to mockery and disrespectful comedy.


The style of comedy we chose was 'screwball', which derives its humour from bizarre and surprising situations and characters. Because we knew this would connect to our characters and themes, we began to discuss our next decision.


Applying our target audience ideas, we decided our main theme should be high school and geeks. We knew from our research that a lot of film characters' personalities matured during high school, and decided to make a film based on the typical hierarchy and personalities found in the learning and personal development stage. We also chose this theme as it went hand-in-hand with our thoughts and ideas of who our characters should be.


The last piece of the puzzle was choosing our characters, and seeing as most of our planning was finished, our characters were obvious. Inspired greatly by Superbad, we chose to have 3 protagonists. The main characters we chose to incorporate into our storyline were your stereotypical geeks, each character a social reject in the high school environment. We decided that one of the 3 geeks would be overweight, as it would enable us to mix an element of dark humour into the film.


We also needed to create an antagonist for the sake of narrative theories and creating an engaging storyline. We wanted to associated our antagonist with an unconventional twist that would only be revealed at the end of the film. We hatched up this idea to challenge generic conventions and create something even more unique.


After some careful planning and detailed research, we wound up with our final characters and advanced into the making of our G321 Film Opening project.

RESIT: Props for Our G321 Film Opening

RESIT: Our Film Opening Titles and Conventions

To challenge generic conventions, we decided during the editing of our 2nd rough cut to change the order of the title sequence. Instead of our film title appearing at the beginning of the opening, we've chosen to display the title at the end of the opening.

This idea was inspired by the film Step Brothers (2008), where the film title does not appear until the very end of the opening scene.

Step Brothers Opening Scene

Although film openings are not generally associated with this title format, the sequence works successfully in this example as the opening uses clear generic conventions and contains content that prevents the audience from interpreting the opening as a trailer, such as the storyline and introduction of characters.

For our film opening, we also plan to challenge this generic convention by using it in our piece. We believe that by using the same techniques, our film could also pull off this convention. We also believe it would benefit our piece as it would make it unique and original.