Friday 22 April 2016
Friday 15 April 2016
Wednesday 13 April 2016
Evaluation: Part 6: Technologies
Part 6: Technologies:
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?:
Through creating this film opening, I have ended up using many different types of technology, most of which I had never used before and therefore gained and built a whole new set of skills. For example, Blogger was a website that I had never used before and was therefore looking forward to getting to use and understand it. Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows users to connect and create an audience through their blog posts. This meant that Blogger was the perfect website to document our work and process of creating our film opening, which is why we were asked to publish it here. I started off this process never having used Blogger before, and therefore found myself a little confused as I had to come to grips with the website. To help understand the site I played around with the layout of my blog, changing it to a layout I felt was more suited to me. I also added a welcome post to help me understand and practice my blog post writing and creating skills on Blogger. This helped me to gain a better understanding of the site and allowed me to learn how I can edit my posts in different ways: changing positioning of text, underlining and changing fonts, adding in pictures (and other media) and changing the size of them, changing text size and making it bold and italic, changing font colours, adding in links to other websites, adding in bullet points, etc. Gradually, post by post, my understanding of Blogger grew which helped me to make my posts look more interesting, established and professional. This process has therefore allowed me to gain a better understanding of the website and how it works.
I also used YouTube during the course of this
project. This wasn't a website that I used too much, however it was
needed for uploading videos we had created to document our process in
creating and researching our film opening. YouTube was a website that I
was familiar with beforehand, however I had never uploaded a video to
YouTube before creating this film opening and therefore was using it in a
different way and from a new perspective than before which consequently led
to me gaining new skills. Videos we uploaded to YouTube included, a
video based on different camera/ editing shots (to help us understand
these better for when it came to filming), our preliminary opening scene
video, our audience focus group questions and answers relating to their
feedback on our finished opening scene and our audience focus group
questions and answers video relating to what people thought of our
initial ideas and conventions they believed to be seen in romance/ drama
films. We did occur some problems when trying to upload some of these
videos to YouTube, particularly the video on our audience focus group
answering our questions relating to feedback on our finished opening
scene. When importing this video into YouTube, we initially were
importing it as the wrong file, so we had to change this to make it
correct. Also, when we then came to uploading this video onto YouTube,
the video was stuck on being 0% processed. Therefore we had to re load
the page as the processing was stuck and it eventually uploaded itself.
This allowed us to learn from our mistakes, meaning that we wouldn't do
this next time.
YouTube is a piece of technology that allows smaller institutions such as Warp Films to help establish their institution and build viewers for their films. This follows Chris Anderson's theory of the Long Tail which suggests that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. This therefore suggests how independent institutions who create unique films for niche audiences will be more in demand as the theory predicts that
demand for products not available in traditional stores and markets is potentially as big as for those that are. Subsequently showing how with advancing technology, websites such as YouTube, and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, allow smaller companies to engage directly with their target audience and build an interaction and interest from consumers. As websites as these and soft such as Final Cut Pro allows a shift from the consumer becoming the prosumer showing how there is a change in the media world from the value chain, where products were only made by large conglomerates such as Time Warner and distributed straight to audiences, to the social network which is a complex system that now allows producers and audience to be mixed.
To present my research, I used Prezi to create presentations to clearly show what I have found. Prezi is a website that I had previously used before this project, however I hadn't used it as much/ in as much detail beforehand. Therefore, this project aloud me to experiment with different presentation templates, adding in new slides and editing the order of the slides, experimenting with the size and font type, etc. It also allowed my work/ research to look aesthetically pleasing and exciting to look at as this is something that it does much better then other presentation devices such as Microsoft Powerpoint.
Final Cut Pro was one the main pieces of technology that I used and hugely developed my skills on over the course of creating my film opening. This is mainly due to the editing process being very time consuming as it is something that needs a lot of looking over, refining and changing. To begin with, I had no previous experience with using Final Cut Pro and therefore felt a bit overwhelmed when it came to editing our footage, especially as I did the majority of our editing and it is quite a complex editing programme to work with. There are many different sections of Final Cut Pro that I developed knowledge in over the course of the project. Firstly, I learnt how to import footage into Final Cut Pro, and after importing it how you then have to drag over the footage that you want to use into the main section of the programme as this section allows you to edit it. From here I learnt how you crop and split the footage (if needed to), which you do by dragging in whichever side/ part of the footage you want to get rid of. Also, I learnt how to edit the footage together, which you do by putting each clip side by side on the main bar of Final Cut Pro. Here, I organised the order we wanted our footage to be in which I did by dragging/ moving each clip to the correct order. I also worked out how to overlap footage on top of each other and how to import sound into Final Cut Pro (which you do by dragging the sound file from iTunes into the programme) and overlapping it with our clips to allow us to have non digetic back ground music and voice overs. Also, learning how to edit the sound by cropping it and fading it in and out and the beginning and end to give it a subtle transition into the following sound. Similarly, I learned how to edit the sound from footage, which you have to do by double tapping the footage until a drop down box of just the sound appears and then I edited out the section of sound we didn't want. I also made the sound louder/ quieter in certain clips so that all of the digetic and non digetic sounded at the same amplitude as each other throughout. I additionally learnt how to add in transitions, we used the 'Fade to colour' transition, which we used multiple times within our opening. With this you pick the transition you want and drag it onto the main section of the programme where you can then change (if you want to) the length of it. It is a similar process when adding in effects on top of footage, which I also learnt to do. Here you pick the effect you want, we went with 'Bokeh random' for our flashback scenes, and you drag the effect onto the video clip you want it to change, where you are then able to edit the intensity of the effect (which I did). I also gained skills on including text and titles. I added a main title at the beginning of the opening scene with our film name (Retribution) on it, which I changed the length, spacing between each letters and transition (out) of. I also added text over the top of our clips in the opening title sequence to include the name of everyone involved in creating our film opening. Here, I worked out how to edit the text by changing the font (which we changed to "Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro') and the colour (changing it to white), positioning (which we made different for each title) and size (changing it to 63). Furthermore, I gained skills on overlapping footage on top of each other. We wanted to have a shot of a couple holding hands over the top of a shot of Henry in the church praying for forgiveness. We made the clip of the hand holding translucent so that you were able to see both clips together. Overall, I would say that Final Cut Pro is the piece of technology that during this experience I gained the most skills from and learnt the most about.
Web 2.0 is another piece of technology that I used when creating our production. Web 2.0 is the name describing World Wide Web sites that emphasise user-generated content and usability and was created by Tim Lee. Therefore, this includes websites such as Blogger, Wikipedia, Google, etc, that I have used through all aspects of creating and researching for our production. As previously mentioned, I already had some knowledge using these websites, however my knowledge widely expanded and grew from this experience, particularly with Blogger. Web 2.0 is now available due to growing rise in new technology as it has majorly expanded from the original Web 1.0 software. Before Web 2.0 e-media pages were created and edited only by specialists and were very costly however because of Web 2.0 it now allows the consumers to become the producers, again becoming prosumers, allowing them to create their own media for a small amount of money as well as what they are producing being available to view worldwide, globally allowing people to become much more aware of what is happening in the world and gaining new skills. Due to this, Web 2.0 largely helps people like us as well as institutions to promote and view their media (films) on websites such as YouTube, therefore allowing media to be available to a wider audience. This allows smaller institutions such as Warp to be promoted easily. Additionally, it allows the audience to be in control of what they watch as they are able to watch what they want, when they want to. Unfortuantly, because of the rise in Web 2.0 and other new technologies such as Netflix and iTunes, people are able to download films easier from home, which subsequently means that cinema ticket sales decrease.
Finally, another piece of technology that I used was the filming equipment, which included a DSLR camera, a tripod and a microphone. I had extremely little experience with all three pieces of technology, therefore I also found this fairly hard to work out how to use initially, although I did eventually come to grips with the technology, and felt that I gained new skills whilst doing so. I learned how to work the camera, establishing what button did what function, eg. play back, record, fast forward, etc. Something that I found problematic when filming our scenes was how the camera often appeared wonky and also wouldn't always focus on what we wanted it to/ went out of focus a lot. However, we learnt to persevere with it until the footage looked how we wanted it to. I also learnt how to do focus pulls with the camera which is a creative camera technique in which you change focus during a shot and usually involves adjusting the focus from one subject to another. As well as learning how to show the depth of field, which is the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in acceptably sharp focus in a shot. We also used a microphone to create our opening, which proved slightly problematic. Initially we didn't have a microphone and therefore the sound on our footage sounded grainy and quiet, with lots of background noise. However, when we eventually got one, this very much improved our sound although we did unfortunately still occur some background sound which we later had to try and edit out. All of this technology is now available to us through a rise in new technology. This rise allows us to use new, high tech equipment that is able to do much more. To conclude, through using this technology I developed camera and sound skills which were very beneficial to me.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?:
Through creating this film opening, I have ended up using many different types of technology, most of which I had never used before and therefore gained and built a whole new set of skills. For example, Blogger was a website that I had never used before and was therefore looking forward to getting to use and understand it. Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows users to connect and create an audience through their blog posts. This meant that Blogger was the perfect website to document our work and process of creating our film opening, which is why we were asked to publish it here. I started off this process never having used Blogger before, and therefore found myself a little confused as I had to come to grips with the website. To help understand the site I played around with the layout of my blog, changing it to a layout I felt was more suited to me. I also added a welcome post to help me understand and practice my blog post writing and creating skills on Blogger. This helped me to gain a better understanding of the site and allowed me to learn how I can edit my posts in different ways: changing positioning of text, underlining and changing fonts, adding in pictures (and other media) and changing the size of them, changing text size and making it bold and italic, changing font colours, adding in links to other websites, adding in bullet points, etc. Gradually, post by post, my understanding of Blogger grew which helped me to make my posts look more interesting, established and professional. This process has therefore allowed me to gain a better understanding of the website and how it works.
 |
| Here is a screenshot of the Blogger blog that I have created |
YouTube is a piece of technology that allows smaller institutions such as Warp Films to help establish their institution and build viewers for their films. This follows Chris Anderson's theory of the Long Tail which suggests that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. This therefore suggests how independent institutions who create unique films for niche audiences will be more in demand as the theory predicts that
demand for products not available in traditional stores and markets is potentially as big as for those that are. Subsequently showing how with advancing technology, websites such as YouTube, and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, allow smaller companies to engage directly with their target audience and build an interaction and interest from consumers. As websites as these and soft such as Final Cut Pro allows a shift from the consumer becoming the prosumer showing how there is a change in the media world from the value chain, where products were only made by large conglomerates such as Time Warner and distributed straight to audiences, to the social network which is a complex system that now allows producers and audience to be mixed.
To present my research, I used Prezi to create presentations to clearly show what I have found. Prezi is a website that I had previously used before this project, however I hadn't used it as much/ in as much detail beforehand. Therefore, this project aloud me to experiment with different presentation templates, adding in new slides and editing the order of the slides, experimenting with the size and font type, etc. It also allowed my work/ research to look aesthetically pleasing and exciting to look at as this is something that it does much better then other presentation devices such as Microsoft Powerpoint.
 |
| Here are many screenshots of our editing process, for which we used Final Cut Pro to create. Here you can see how we have edited our clips together in chronological order and overlapped them with non-digetic background music/ a voice over of a sermon. |
 |
| Here you can see that for this flashback scene I had to add an effect on top of it to make it seem more obvious that it is in fact a flashback. Therefore I added the effect 'Bokeh random' on top of this clip and others to create the sense of a flashback occurring more obvious to the audience. |
 |
| Here, I edited text over the top of each clip we have included in our opening title sequence. Also, on top of that I edited non-digetic background music, a transition between each individual clip to make the title sequence seem more continuous and our film name right at the beginning of our opening scene. |
 |
| Here, you can see how we have created a montage section in our opening scene to present Henry quickly reflecting/ flashing back to happier times in his life. This is to present the significance of him and his boyfriends relationship as this occurs just before he recieves his results. To create this, I edited four clips down very small so that they each only showed for about a second. This also has non-digetic background music on top of the footage as well. |
Final Cut Pro was one the main pieces of technology that I used and hugely developed my skills on over the course of creating my film opening. This is mainly due to the editing process being very time consuming as it is something that needs a lot of looking over, refining and changing. To begin with, I had no previous experience with using Final Cut Pro and therefore felt a bit overwhelmed when it came to editing our footage, especially as I did the majority of our editing and it is quite a complex editing programme to work with. There are many different sections of Final Cut Pro that I developed knowledge in over the course of the project. Firstly, I learnt how to import footage into Final Cut Pro, and after importing it how you then have to drag over the footage that you want to use into the main section of the programme as this section allows you to edit it. From here I learnt how you crop and split the footage (if needed to), which you do by dragging in whichever side/ part of the footage you want to get rid of. Also, I learnt how to edit the footage together, which you do by putting each clip side by side on the main bar of Final Cut Pro. Here, I organised the order we wanted our footage to be in which I did by dragging/ moving each clip to the correct order. I also worked out how to overlap footage on top of each other and how to import sound into Final Cut Pro (which you do by dragging the sound file from iTunes into the programme) and overlapping it with our clips to allow us to have non digetic back ground music and voice overs. Also, learning how to edit the sound by cropping it and fading it in and out and the beginning and end to give it a subtle transition into the following sound. Similarly, I learned how to edit the sound from footage, which you have to do by double tapping the footage until a drop down box of just the sound appears and then I edited out the section of sound we didn't want. I also made the sound louder/ quieter in certain clips so that all of the digetic and non digetic sounded at the same amplitude as each other throughout. I additionally learnt how to add in transitions, we used the 'Fade to colour' transition, which we used multiple times within our opening. With this you pick the transition you want and drag it onto the main section of the programme where you can then change (if you want to) the length of it. It is a similar process when adding in effects on top of footage, which I also learnt to do. Here you pick the effect you want, we went with 'Bokeh random' for our flashback scenes, and you drag the effect onto the video clip you want it to change, where you are then able to edit the intensity of the effect (which I did). I also gained skills on including text and titles. I added a main title at the beginning of the opening scene with our film name (Retribution) on it, which I changed the length, spacing between each letters and transition (out) of. I also added text over the top of our clips in the opening title sequence to include the name of everyone involved in creating our film opening. Here, I worked out how to edit the text by changing the font (which we changed to "Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro') and the colour (changing it to white), positioning (which we made different for each title) and size (changing it to 63). Furthermore, I gained skills on overlapping footage on top of each other. We wanted to have a shot of a couple holding hands over the top of a shot of Henry in the church praying for forgiveness. We made the clip of the hand holding translucent so that you were able to see both clips together. Overall, I would say that Final Cut Pro is the piece of technology that during this experience I gained the most skills from and learnt the most about.
Web 2.0 is another piece of technology that I used when creating our production. Web 2.0 is the name describing World Wide Web sites that emphasise user-generated content and usability and was created by Tim Lee. Therefore, this includes websites such as Blogger, Wikipedia, Google, etc, that I have used through all aspects of creating and researching for our production. As previously mentioned, I already had some knowledge using these websites, however my knowledge widely expanded and grew from this experience, particularly with Blogger. Web 2.0 is now available due to growing rise in new technology as it has majorly expanded from the original Web 1.0 software. Before Web 2.0 e-media pages were created and edited only by specialists and were very costly however because of Web 2.0 it now allows the consumers to become the producers, again becoming prosumers, allowing them to create their own media for a small amount of money as well as what they are producing being available to view worldwide, globally allowing people to become much more aware of what is happening in the world and gaining new skills. Due to this, Web 2.0 largely helps people like us as well as institutions to promote and view their media (films) on websites such as YouTube, therefore allowing media to be available to a wider audience. This allows smaller institutions such as Warp to be promoted easily. Additionally, it allows the audience to be in control of what they watch as they are able to watch what they want, when they want to. Unfortuantly, because of the rise in Web 2.0 and other new technologies such as Netflix and iTunes, people are able to download films easier from home, which subsequently means that cinema ticket sales decrease.
Finally, another piece of technology that I used was the filming equipment, which included a DSLR camera, a tripod and a microphone. I had extremely little experience with all three pieces of technology, therefore I also found this fairly hard to work out how to use initially, although I did eventually come to grips with the technology, and felt that I gained new skills whilst doing so. I learned how to work the camera, establishing what button did what function, eg. play back, record, fast forward, etc. Something that I found problematic when filming our scenes was how the camera often appeared wonky and also wouldn't always focus on what we wanted it to/ went out of focus a lot. However, we learnt to persevere with it until the footage looked how we wanted it to. I also learnt how to do focus pulls with the camera which is a creative camera technique in which you change focus during a shot and usually involves adjusting the focus from one subject to another. As well as learning how to show the depth of field, which is the amount of distance between the nearest and farthest objects that appear in acceptably sharp focus in a shot. We also used a microphone to create our opening, which proved slightly problematic. Initially we didn't have a microphone and therefore the sound on our footage sounded grainy and quiet, with lots of background noise. However, when we eventually got one, this very much improved our sound although we did unfortunately still occur some background sound which we later had to try and edit out. All of this technology is now available to us through a rise in new technology. This rise allows us to use new, high tech equipment that is able to do much more. To conclude, through using this technology I developed camera and sound skills which were very beneficial to me.
Evaluation: Part 4 and 5: Audience Identification and Appeal
Part 4 and 5: Audience Identification and Appeal:
Who would be the target audience for your media product, and how did you attract/address your audience?:
We have given our film a rating of 15. This is because our film contains sex, drugs, swearing and violence due to it being a film based on HIV/ AIDS and including a gay relationship which we will show sexual scenes about. Also, our film will show scenes with drug use as one of our main male characters comes from a family who uses drugs (this is how the HIV/ AIDS is contracted initially). Additionally, we will also include scenes with violence, an example of this will be when the family of our main male character, Henry, who comes from a strong Christian background, find out that their son is gay and has contracted HIV/AIDS, these scenes will also include swearing. We feel as though our film will be mostly targeted towards people who are in their teens (15+) and early twenties. This is due to results showing that in America approximately 1.1 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with more than 50,000 becoming infected with HIV every year and twenty-five percent of them being between the ages of 13 and 24. Therefore, to help raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and hopefully prevent it from spreading, we will be aiming our film at this age group. Also, when looking at other films of a similar nature, such as Dallas Buyers Club, they were also had a 15 certificate therefore we decided to give our film this too.
When contemplating which audiences and demographics
our film will be best suited for, we thought that our film will mostly
be applicable to the demographics, free spirits, funseekers and armchair
rebels. Free spirits are laid back people, who reject the ideas of
marriage, shopping, cosmetics, children and capitalism. They are
interested in social matters and care about the environment. Over half
of them are male and are teenagers. We think this will appeal to them as
they are interested in social issues and drugs are a pressing issue of
todays society that teenagers need to learn about from a young age.
Additionally, AIDS is a big issue that isn’t really talked about but largely affects teenagers, and we
hope that from watching this film it will give them information on the
subject. We think our film will appeal to funseekers because they work
hard, play hard and spend hard. They also consume more media then other
groups, therefore are likely to watch a film based on key issues. We
believe that armchair rebels will watch our film as because they are
likely to consume drugs and are young, with an average age of 15.
Therefore, as they take drugs, they may be more likely to watch a film
concerning the topic of drugs. We also thought that leaders might be a
group that would possibly watch our film as they frequently go to the
cinema, therefore may watch our film if the topic interests them.
We believe that the key audience for our film will be women. We think this as our film includes romance, which stereotypically we would associate with women enjoying. However, we do hope that men will also be largely be interested in watching the film too as the main characters are male, therefore this may appeal more to them as they will hopefully see it as more relatable. Additionally, we believe that our film will mainly appeal more to lower classes as the issue of HIV/AIDS stereotypically affects lower classes as they are the main class that we would involve with drug use and poverty.
If these social groups enjoy our film, then they may also enjoy other films of a similar nature such as Dallas Buyers Club, An Early Frost, Parting Glances, etc, which are all films based on HIV/AIDS, with some also including a gay couple/ person as the main focal point of the story. They may also enjoy watching films based around other illness and that are of the drama genre, for example, Still Alice, The Theory of Everything, Extraordinary Measures, etc. Or films of the hybrid romance, drama genre such as The Notebook, Titantic, Pride and Prejudice, etc. In the UK, research has shown that between 2010-12, films of the drama genre was what the majority of UK film institutions were making, with around 20% of all UK films being in this genre. Consequently meaning that around 28% of films released in UK cinemas are of the drama genre between 2003-12. This shows how we are following the stereotypical British film genre and creating a drama film.
When considering how we are going to attract and appeal to our audience, we thought about Blumier and Katz’s Uses and Gratification theory of 1924. This had four main points, including:
• Diversion (escapism)-audience using media as an emotional release, diverting them from everyday pressure
• Personal relationships- audience needing companionship with a known TV character(s) or programme(s) as well as the interaction with others who watch it
• Personal identity- comparing one’s own life to a characters life (relatable) therefore gaining perspective on one’s own life
• Surveillance- being given the opportunity to see what else is happening in the world
These points are all things we had to consider when creating our opening scene and planning our plot for our film as we want to keep our audience gratified. For giving our audience a diversion from their every day pressures, this film is good at focusing on someone elses’ life disasters, therefore distracting the viewer and giving them an emotional release as this film has a very emotional and turbulent plot, with violence, upset and even a death at the end. When gaining a personal relationship with the character and film, we have done this through making our characters relatable to the viewer. Although this may not be happening to them (although if it is then it is very relatable to them), the characters are very ordinary people, showing that it really can happen to anyone and allowing the audience to connect with the characters. Similarly, although viewers may not have HIV/AIDS, this storyline can connect with people’s own personal identity as they may have been through a life threatening illness or even had turbulent, ruff times with their partner and therefore from watching this film, they may have gained perspective on life and subsequently realise what they need to do in their own life now. Finally, when relating to surveillance and seeing what else is happening in the world, this film/ film opening very much does that as it allows the audience to be educated on HIV/AIDS, something that they may have known little about before, and therefore allows them to gain knowledge and understanding on this subject, thus influencing them to see what else is happening in the world.
Additionally, we also considered Dyer’s Utopian Solutions to help attract and appeal to our audience. Dyer’s Utopian Solution states that, “The notion of entertainment as in some sense utopian- expressing ideals about how human life could be organized and lived -is implicit in what the most widespread assumption about entertainment, namely, that it provides ‘escape.’ Entertainment offers the image of ‘something better’ to set against the realities of day-to-day existence.” It also studies 3 main reasons why audiences choose to consume media:
1) social tension
2) inadequacy
3) absence
When considering how our film opening/ film will provide an ‘escape’ for viewers, as previously mentioned when considering Blumier and Katz’s Uses and Gratification theory, our opening gives the audience a diversion from their every day lives/pressures and the ‘social tension’ that they feel, as it focuses on someone else’s disasters in life, therefore distracting the viewer and giving them an emotional release. Our opening/ film may also show them something ‘better’ to focus on other than ‘the realities of day-to-day existence’ as, particularly near the start of the film, where the relationship between Henry and his boyfriend is blossoming, this presents to people a happy relationship which may provide a happy escape for our audience to view and allow them to enjoying themselves, potentially lifting them from an ‘absent’ feeling. By watching the film, the viewer may also feel as though they are becoming involved in the plot as they loose their self in it, therefore making them feel less ‘inadequate’.
This is our audience focus group questions and answers
As the main age group of the audience we are aiming our film at is predominately late teens and early twenties as this age group is mostly targeted by HIV/AIDS, we asked 3 people in this age bracket what they thought of our opening scene. We also predominately asked the questions to women (2 out of the three people we asked were women), as the film is of the romance genre which women usually prefer to watch over men. When asking them what they enjoyed about our film opening, one person said that they believed it to be a ‘really good representation of the gay community’, which is helpful to hear as we are hoping to target and break discrimination’s and stereotypes of the gay community through this film. Therefore if our audience feel that we are presenting the gay community realistically, this is very positive. When asking them ‘What specific parts did you like?’, we gathered responses such as, ‘The doctors waiting room scene was really good’ and ‘I liked it when the camera panned across the grave yard’. This feedback is good to hear as it shows our presentation of Henry’s present and past is being positively received and that people have liked the different shots and settings we have chosen. Overall, feedback from our audience focus group tells us that our opening is very ‘professional’ and that all three audience members would be interested in watching the rest of the film. This shows us that we have been successful in targeting our main age group as well as appealing to both males and females.
Who would be the target audience for your media product, and how did you attract/address your audience?:
We have given our film a rating of 15. This is because our film contains sex, drugs, swearing and violence due to it being a film based on HIV/ AIDS and including a gay relationship which we will show sexual scenes about. Also, our film will show scenes with drug use as one of our main male characters comes from a family who uses drugs (this is how the HIV/ AIDS is contracted initially). Additionally, we will also include scenes with violence, an example of this will be when the family of our main male character, Henry, who comes from a strong Christian background, find out that their son is gay and has contracted HIV/AIDS, these scenes will also include swearing. We feel as though our film will be mostly targeted towards people who are in their teens (15+) and early twenties. This is due to results showing that in America approximately 1.1 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with more than 50,000 becoming infected with HIV every year and twenty-five percent of them being between the ages of 13 and 24. Therefore, to help raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and hopefully prevent it from spreading, we will be aiming our film at this age group. Also, when looking at other films of a similar nature, such as Dallas Buyers Club, they were also had a 15 certificate therefore we decided to give our film this too.
 |
| Here is a group of teenagers 15+ and people in their young twenties from a mixture of genders. This is who we will be aiming our film at. |
We believe that the key audience for our film will be women. We think this as our film includes romance, which stereotypically we would associate with women enjoying. However, we do hope that men will also be largely be interested in watching the film too as the main characters are male, therefore this may appeal more to them as they will hopefully see it as more relatable. Additionally, we believe that our film will mainly appeal more to lower classes as the issue of HIV/AIDS stereotypically affects lower classes as they are the main class that we would involve with drug use and poverty.
If these social groups enjoy our film, then they may also enjoy other films of a similar nature such as Dallas Buyers Club, An Early Frost, Parting Glances, etc, which are all films based on HIV/AIDS, with some also including a gay couple/ person as the main focal point of the story. They may also enjoy watching films based around other illness and that are of the drama genre, for example, Still Alice, The Theory of Everything, Extraordinary Measures, etc. Or films of the hybrid romance, drama genre such as The Notebook, Titantic, Pride and Prejudice, etc. In the UK, research has shown that between 2010-12, films of the drama genre was what the majority of UK film institutions were making, with around 20% of all UK films being in this genre. Consequently meaning that around 28% of films released in UK cinemas are of the drama genre between 2003-12. This shows how we are following the stereotypical British film genre and creating a drama film.
When considering how we are going to attract and appeal to our audience, we thought about Blumier and Katz’s Uses and Gratification theory of 1924. This had four main points, including:
• Diversion (escapism)-audience using media as an emotional release, diverting them from everyday pressure
• Personal relationships- audience needing companionship with a known TV character(s) or programme(s) as well as the interaction with others who watch it
• Personal identity- comparing one’s own life to a characters life (relatable) therefore gaining perspective on one’s own life
• Surveillance- being given the opportunity to see what else is happening in the world
These points are all things we had to consider when creating our opening scene and planning our plot for our film as we want to keep our audience gratified. For giving our audience a diversion from their every day pressures, this film is good at focusing on someone elses’ life disasters, therefore distracting the viewer and giving them an emotional release as this film has a very emotional and turbulent plot, with violence, upset and even a death at the end. When gaining a personal relationship with the character and film, we have done this through making our characters relatable to the viewer. Although this may not be happening to them (although if it is then it is very relatable to them), the characters are very ordinary people, showing that it really can happen to anyone and allowing the audience to connect with the characters. Similarly, although viewers may not have HIV/AIDS, this storyline can connect with people’s own personal identity as they may have been through a life threatening illness or even had turbulent, ruff times with their partner and therefore from watching this film, they may have gained perspective on life and subsequently realise what they need to do in their own life now. Finally, when relating to surveillance and seeing what else is happening in the world, this film/ film opening very much does that as it allows the audience to be educated on HIV/AIDS, something that they may have known little about before, and therefore allows them to gain knowledge and understanding on this subject, thus influencing them to see what else is happening in the world.
Additionally, we also considered Dyer’s Utopian Solutions to help attract and appeal to our audience. Dyer’s Utopian Solution states that, “The notion of entertainment as in some sense utopian- expressing ideals about how human life could be organized and lived -is implicit in what the most widespread assumption about entertainment, namely, that it provides ‘escape.’ Entertainment offers the image of ‘something better’ to set against the realities of day-to-day existence.” It also studies 3 main reasons why audiences choose to consume media:
1) social tension
2) inadequacy
3) absence
When considering how our film opening/ film will provide an ‘escape’ for viewers, as previously mentioned when considering Blumier and Katz’s Uses and Gratification theory, our opening gives the audience a diversion from their every day lives/pressures and the ‘social tension’ that they feel, as it focuses on someone else’s disasters in life, therefore distracting the viewer and giving them an emotional release. Our opening/ film may also show them something ‘better’ to focus on other than ‘the realities of day-to-day existence’ as, particularly near the start of the film, where the relationship between Henry and his boyfriend is blossoming, this presents to people a happy relationship which may provide a happy escape for our audience to view and allow them to enjoying themselves, potentially lifting them from an ‘absent’ feeling. By watching the film, the viewer may also feel as though they are becoming involved in the plot as they loose their self in it, therefore making them feel less ‘inadequate’.
This is our audience focus group questions and answers
As the main age group of the audience we are aiming our film at is predominately late teens and early twenties as this age group is mostly targeted by HIV/AIDS, we asked 3 people in this age bracket what they thought of our opening scene. We also predominately asked the questions to women (2 out of the three people we asked were women), as the film is of the romance genre which women usually prefer to watch over men. When asking them what they enjoyed about our film opening, one person said that they believed it to be a ‘really good representation of the gay community’, which is helpful to hear as we are hoping to target and break discrimination’s and stereotypes of the gay community through this film. Therefore if our audience feel that we are presenting the gay community realistically, this is very positive. When asking them ‘What specific parts did you like?’, we gathered responses such as, ‘The doctors waiting room scene was really good’ and ‘I liked it when the camera panned across the grave yard’. This feedback is good to hear as it shows our presentation of Henry’s present and past is being positively received and that people have liked the different shots and settings we have chosen. Overall, feedback from our audience focus group tells us that our opening is very ‘professional’ and that all three audience members would be interested in watching the rest of the film. This shows us that we have been successful in targeting our main age group as well as appealing to both males and females.
Evaluation: Part 2: Representation
Part 2: Representation:
How does your media product represent particular social groups?:
In our film opening we have represented many social groups including men (taking up the majority of our cast), women, gay people, teenagers and Christians. The social group of men is the most general group that we have included, which we have done through the main character, Henry, being our male lead, as well as his boyfriend being male, and a patient in the waiting room being male also. We have challenged stereotypes of men in our film by making the main male characters in a loving relationship with each other. Therefore the stereotype of men being in heterosexual relationships and being extremely masculine is challenged here. To present how we have challenged this we have included medium and two people shots of the couple walking towards the camera holding hands and sitting on a bench holding hands, to present to the audience the nature of their relationship, using a conventionally romantic setting to set the scene: a park.
This is also how we have presented the fact that our main couple in the opening are gay. This relationship is presented as extremely meaningful and important to the protagonist (Henry) as he is seen as thinking of his relationship with his boyfriend in a flashback, through the shots that I have previously mentioned. To present this as a flashback we included an effect called 'bokeh random' to differentiate it from the rest of our opening and represent the change in time. We also added a fade to colour transition at the beginning of the entire opening to show how Henry is having a flashback. The same shots of him and his boyfriend are again shown just before Henry receives his results, to present the significance that the relationship has to him. However, this time we edited them in short snappy segments (in a montage with other shots) to show it as a quick reflection on the happier times they've shared together and present to the audience how he is thinking of these memories at a very worrying time for him. This is done to emphasise his boyfriend's meaning to him. Our presentation of the gay community challenges stereotypes, as many may perceive gay people to be flamboyant, feminine (in all aspects), etc. Our characters challenge this as Henry is a normal boy from a slightly posh family and his boyfriend is from a ruff background therefore doesn't adhere to the stereotypes previously mentioned. Although, his boyfriend does adhere to the stereotype of gay men taking drugs, as this is the reason that they have contracted HIV in the first place, therefore we have included this stereotype.
Young people are presented in our film
opening with the main couple being young (they are teenagers). As well
as young people being in the waiting room at the doctors surgery.
Typical stereotypes relating to young people is that they are all thugs,
addicted to social media, selfish, promiscuous, etc. We have reinforced
some of these common stereotypes, specifically that young people are
promiscuous and thugs. We have presented them as promiscuous by our main
couple being young and having a sexual relationship, which perhaps,
some may argue that they are too young to have. Also, we have somewhat
reinforced the stereotype of young people being thugs as Henry's
boyfriend comes from an underprivileged, chavvy, drug using background,
which although this doesn't necessarily class him as a thug, it may
suggest this to some viewers. We have presented him in this way through
his choice of clothing/ costume, as he is wearing a hoodie to suggest this. The way we have presented young males links with Stuart Hall's way of thinking, who was a cultural theorist and focused on influencing racial
thinking in the UK. His theory of representation circulates around the
two perspectives of; challenging ones original views, and fitting within
the 'regeimes' of representation. Therefore, we have somewhat challenged but also fitted with stereotypical views of people in this social group.
We
have also presented Christians in our film opening with Henry being one. This is shown through the wide angle shot of him walking into the
church and praying in front of the cross and the high angle shot of him
praying (whilst kneeling on the floor). Our opening somewhat reinforces
common stereotypes about Christians as you would expect them to have very strict
beliefs and follow them, as well as praying often. We have presenting
Henry praying, therefore reinforcing the idea that they pray often.
However, we have challenged the idea that they have strict beliefs, as sex
before marriage and sex with another man is something that is not agreed
with and extremely frowned upon in his religion, therefore showing him
rebelling against his own religion. We have presented his rebellion by
showing the scenes of him in church but also by having a sermon as a
voice over in these scenes. The non digetic voice over reads a sermon
about how the religion is against gay relationships, therefore making it
clear Henry is doing wrong and challenging the stereotypes.
Our opening presents the social group of women as professional and authoritative, particularly in the workplace. We have only two female characters in our scene, with one being an extra in the waiting room and the other being a doctor. As she is a doctor, this breaks the stereotype of women not being able to have an established profession and often being seen as dumb and inferior to men. We have dressed our doctor in fairly smart/casual clothes. We have done this to show that they have authority over the other characters however as our production isn't set in a hospital, we didn't feel it necessary to dress her in a stereotypical doctors outfit.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?:
In our film opening we have represented many social groups including men (taking up the majority of our cast), women, gay people, teenagers and Christians. The social group of men is the most general group that we have included, which we have done through the main character, Henry, being our male lead, as well as his boyfriend being male, and a patient in the waiting room being male also. We have challenged stereotypes of men in our film by making the main male characters in a loving relationship with each other. Therefore the stereotype of men being in heterosexual relationships and being extremely masculine is challenged here. To present how we have challenged this we have included medium and two people shots of the couple walking towards the camera holding hands and sitting on a bench holding hands, to present to the audience the nature of their relationship, using a conventionally romantic setting to set the scene: a park.
This is also how we have presented the fact that our main couple in the opening are gay. This relationship is presented as extremely meaningful and important to the protagonist (Henry) as he is seen as thinking of his relationship with his boyfriend in a flashback, through the shots that I have previously mentioned. To present this as a flashback we included an effect called 'bokeh random' to differentiate it from the rest of our opening and represent the change in time. We also added a fade to colour transition at the beginning of the entire opening to show how Henry is having a flashback. The same shots of him and his boyfriend are again shown just before Henry receives his results, to present the significance that the relationship has to him. However, this time we edited them in short snappy segments (in a montage with other shots) to show it as a quick reflection on the happier times they've shared together and present to the audience how he is thinking of these memories at a very worrying time for him. This is done to emphasise his boyfriend's meaning to him. Our presentation of the gay community challenges stereotypes, as many may perceive gay people to be flamboyant, feminine (in all aspects), etc. Our characters challenge this as Henry is a normal boy from a slightly posh family and his boyfriend is from a ruff background therefore doesn't adhere to the stereotypes previously mentioned. Although, his boyfriend does adhere to the stereotype of gay men taking drugs, as this is the reason that they have contracted HIV in the first place, therefore we have included this stereotype.
 |
| In the film G.B.F, the gay character is presented as very flamboyant and has feminine traits, this is a stereotype that we are trying to break in our film. |
 |
| Here in the images above and below we have represented three key social groups, men, young people and the gay community. We have used a medium shot (above) and a wide angle shot (below) to represent their relationship with each other and them as individual young male characters. The costumes we have used are very casual and stereotypical of males of their age in this film genre. |
 |
| Here is an example of what some people may stereotypically think of when they think of teenage boys, or teenagers in general, thinking of them as ruff, chavvy thugs. We are somewhat reinforcing this stereotype as Henry's boyfriend come from an underprivileged chavvy, drug using background, however, this doesn't necessarily class him as a thug, which is something that many people forget. |
 |
| Here is a screenshot from our final production of Henry praying in a high angle shot, showing him kneeling on the floor. This is done to present his religious beliefs and how he often prays for comfort/ guidance. |
 |
We have also presented the social group of women in our final production which you can see from this screenshot. We have presented them as being professional and successful, with our main female character being a doctor. We have dressed her in smart/casual clothes to present how she holds authority over the other characters however haven't dressed her in a stereotypical doctors outfit as our production isn't set in a hospital.
|
 |
| Here is the outfit of a stereotypical female doctor. |
Our opening presents the social group of women as professional and authoritative, particularly in the workplace. We have only two female characters in our scene, with one being an extra in the waiting room and the other being a doctor. As she is a doctor, this breaks the stereotype of women not being able to have an established profession and often being seen as dumb and inferior to men. We have dressed our doctor in fairly smart/casual clothes. We have done this to show that they have authority over the other characters however as our production isn't set in a hospital, we didn't feel it necessary to dress her in a stereotypical doctors outfit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)