Retribution opening scene

Researching the genre: Genre conventions and audience pleasures

Evaluation: Part 7: Reflection

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.

Here is a screenshot of the Blogger blog that I have created

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.

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.

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.

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.

Evaluation: Part 3: Institutions

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.

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. 

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.

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 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.

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.

Evaluation: Part 1: Forms and Conventions

Part 1: Forms and Conventions:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?:
When coming to decide on what genre we wanted our film opening to be, I initially studied a few films of various genres to see which one I/ we wanted to do as a group. Eventually, when looking at all of our individual research we came to the conclusion that we wanted to create a film opening of the hybrid romantic drama genre. This is due to it being the preferred genre that we generally watch as a group therefore we thought that it would be more interesting to study this than the others. When researching the conventions of this genre, I looked at both romantic and drama films as separate genres, and also as the same hybrid genre. To do this research I watched and analysed the film openings of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ and ‘Love Actually’ for the romantic genre, ‘Dallas Buyers Club’, for the drama genre and due to the fact that it covered the same main topic that our film does (HIV) and ‘The Notebook’ for the romantic and drama hybrid genre. Other members of my group also researched the same/ similar films and we then put our research together. We analysed these film openings in order to gain knowledge of what the audience is expecting to see and what conventions offer the desired gratifications. I also researched the mise en scene signifiers and the audience theory for a romantic film, as well as researching and analysing the semiotic and enigma/ Barthes codes relating to the romance/ drama hybrid genre and researching romance/ drama genre conventions and audience pleasures. Additionally, as a group we carried out a survey to help us determine what people stereotypically expect/ want to see when they watch a film of our genre, which we got from people who are a range of different ages and genders to answer, as well as asking a more specific audience focus group questions relating to our genre and film ideas to help identify what they expect/ want to see from our opening scene.

Here, for my research, I created Prezi's analysing the film openings of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ and ‘Love Actually’ for the romantic genre, ‘Dallas Buyers Club’, for the drama genre and due to the fact that it covered the same main topic that our film does (HIV) and ‘The Notebook’ for the romantic and drama hybrid genre. As well as creating Prezi's on Mise-en-scene, semiotic and enigma codes,  audience theory and genre conventions and audience pleasures all relating to our specified genre. 

Here, it shows how we carried out a survey to help us determine what people stereotypically expect/ want to see when they watch a film of our genres (romantic/drama), which we got from people who are a range of different ages and genders to answer. Here you can see some of the questions and answers.

Here, it shows how we asked a more specific audience focus group questions relating to our genre and film ideas to help identify what they expect/ want to see from our opening scene.

Here is the video of us asking our specific audience focus group questions relating to our genre and film ideas to help identify what they expect/ want to see from our opening scene.

Generally, from the research we were overall able to determine the main signifiers and conventions that our genre has. For the setting people generally expect to see and recognise it through seeing big urban cities (such as New York, Paris, etc), restaurants, a work place, at home, in a park and somewhere with beautiful scenery. Overall, our film opening doesn’t largely meet the expectations of our audience through use of the setting and therefore this is an area in which we will be challenging our audience. However, we have included a scene with the main couple of our film in a park and therefore we won’t completely not be meeting the expectations of our audience. When relating to the plot of romantic/ drama films, conventionally viewers expect to see two people meeting and falling in love, however eventually an obstacle obstructs their pathway which often results in them falling out, although they will eventually make up at the end of the film, resulting in a happy ending. Within our film, we are generally following the conventions that people expect to see. After the opening scene of our film, we would have made the it flashback to when the main couple first meet and show them falling love (with this only being a small section of the entire film). The opening scene alludes to how the film will include an obstacle (HIV) stopping them from having an entirely happy relationship and will consequently lead to them falling out and their families finding out/ falling out with them as well, which will be the main plot of the film. If we were creating the entire film, we also would have it ending with the couple eventually reuniting, although this won't be entirely happy as they die. We also collected research on the mise en scene that is stereotypically associated with romantic/ drama films. For props, these include chocolates, flowers, jewellery, presents, etc. However, our film opening won’t be including these as the love between the couple we are presenting will be shown as more realistic with a somewhat destructive nature rather than romanticised. When looking at the costumes commonly worn, the men tend to dress quite smart (in suits), especially if they are in a restaurant for a date, or they dress quite casually for the day time, wearing regular clothes so that they are relatable to their audience. For women, they tend to wear dresses and heels (for looking smarter and sometimes for looking casual as well), and will dress casually in the day, however will generally dress quite femininely to appeal to a majority of viewers. As there are little female characters in our opening, we wont be meeting these conventions, however we will be dressing our male characters in every day, casual clothing to appeal to the majority of our viewers. With the lighting that you would conventionally expect to see, it is usually very soft and natural to make the atmosphere appear as romantic, comfortable and realistic as possible. We have used only natural daylight to light our footage and are therefore again, conforming to this practice. This instantly introduces a romantic and soft feel to the scene. When thinking about the sound used, it is usually soft tender music in romantic films to represent the tenderness and sensitivity of the relationship and often to represent the characters personality or even the time period it is set in. The music is key as it helps to create the mood and suspense throughout the film and creates a key sense of the type of film and genre. For dramatic films however, the music can often be slightly more intense to build drama and increase the atmosphere in the scene. Our opening includes a mixture of the two stereotypes seen in each genre, with it being fairly soft piano music, however when the drama increases in the scene, the amplitude of the music tends to increase parallel to it. When relating to the camera shots/ angles used, lots of two people shots are often added to represent the nature of the relationship between the main couple, which is something we have included when they are in the same scene. However we also have many other types of shots (eg, close up, medium, wide shot, etc) to add in a variety. Other aspects of our film that came up when researching, include that the main couple is usually straight and the film is usually aimed at a female audience. Both of these factors we have very much challenged as our film is based around a gay couple. This somewhat challenges our research because from the results of our survey, people said they would prefer to watch a heterosexual couple however, the majority also said that they would watch a film with a gay/ lesbian couple in it as well. Therefore we concluded that having a gay couple as the main focus will allow people to be more open minded. This shows us breaking the usual plot that most films follow and challenging our audience. Also, as our film is not wholly based around the romance of their relationship and more around the problems that they face (HIV), this film is not only aimed at a female audience, but a male audience as well, especially with the main characters being male.

When looking at what media theorist's had said about how they feel genre's are presented in films, Steve Neale states that, "Genres are instances of repetition and difference, and difference is essential to the economy of the genre." From this, Steve Neale is saying that a film and its genre are defined by 2 things: how much it conforms to the general conventions of a specific genre or how much it subverts the genres stereotypes and conventions. To summarise, a film must encode various genre signifiers and conventions to allow the audience to recieve gratifications as a sense of recognicion and community whilst appealing to the target demographic. Having said this, it must not be excessively packed with stereotypes and predictable themes to the extent that it becomes a clone of other product of said genre. To link this theory to my media product, the opening scene of our film 'Retribution',  I would say that my film opening mostly conforms to the conventions of romantic drama through use of music, lighting, camera shots, the way in which an obstacle (HIV in this case) stands in the way of their relationship, etc, however, we have not conformed to the conventions completely, thus allowing individuality in our opening.

When coming to create our opening scene, we firstly created a story board to plan it out which was useful for helping us plan out what genre signifiers we would include in the opening. We created an initial one and then a more detailed one to help us plan in detail what we wanted to include. It is useful to include genre signifiers in our opening as it allows the audience to understand what genre the film is from the beginning of it which may be helpful for them to know whether it is a film they will be interested in watching. Within our opening we needed to include elements of drama and romance to allow the audience to know what our genre is. For the romance side of the genre we included two scenes of Henry and his boyfriend together, in which they are holding hands in both, to allow the audience to understand the context of their relationship. Holding hands is a subtle and simple romantic gesture therefore it allows the audience to understand their relationship in a subtle way. To include elements of drama in our opening we brought in the main dramatic element/ subject point that the film is based around: HIV. To add the subject of HIV into our opening, we included shots of Henry walking into the doctors surgery, Henry looking nervous whilst waiting for his appointment, him looking at a poster of HIV, him being called and led into a doctors room and finally him receiving his results and looking very upset and nervous after receiving them. Therefore, by including these scenes we have made the audience feel worried for Henry’s fate which allows empathy to be felt towards him, thus creating drama.

This screenshot and the one below show our detailed drawn storyboard which we created to present how we would encode our production with genre signifiers and to plan out what shots and scene we would film.

Here is a screenshot from our production of Henry and his boyfriend holding hands to introduce the romantic genre of the film.  Below is also a screenshot from our final production but instead it shows the doctor giving Henry his results to introduce our main subject point (HIV) into the film and to include drama genre signifiers into our opening.

This is our initial storyboard that we created to give a basic idea of the order of our opening scene.

We also needed to consider narrative elements when producing our opening. We have given the audience background information through using a flashback and voice over of a sermon being read to show how Henry is religious however in a happy relationship with another man, showing how he is rebelling against his religion, and therefore presenting our use of exposition. We have also used included an obstacle and referential code which we have done by introducing the HIV storyline in our opening. As this is an illness it includes scientific and medical elements which will be discussed in more detail later on in the film, consequently making it a referential code. Similarly, by the audience seeing Henry receiving his results, they are presented with a dialouge hook and a hermeneutic/ enigma code as we never find our whether Henry has or hasn't contracted HIV and this is something that will only be found out as you continue watching the film. This consequently draws the audience in to the story line and additionally the characters. The hermeneutic/ enigma code, and referential code are two of the Barthes 5 narrative elements that we also had to consider including in our opening scene. We have also included a symbolic code through the shot of them holding hands as it symbolises their close romantic relationship which will later cause tension and drama in each of the boys lives, particularly with their families. We have not overly used the proairetic/action or semantic codes in our opening scene however we do intend to use them more later on in our film to make our film more exciting and deeper.


We very much challenged audience gratifications in a number of ways, many of which I have previously mentioned.  However a main way in which we did this was by making the main couple of our film gay. We decided upon this choice as we believe that gay/ lesbian couples aren’t used enough as the main relationship in films/ TV and therefore wanted to try and break this. Also, we made the main subject/ topic of our opening on HIV. This goes against audience gratification as some viewers may find it uncomfortable to talk about or see it happening. Which is why it is quite a taboo subject and isn’t talked about openly enough, therefore we have decided to include it as the main point of our film. We feel as though more people need educating on the subject of HIV and that barriers of it not being talked about need to be broken down. However, we have also followed audience gratifications through having a young couple of a similar age in love, and showing their journey together. The plot of the film follows typical conventions, as well as the nature/ background of the couple and the way that they generally look and appear. Overall, although we have in some ways met audience expectations and fulfilled their gratifications, we have also largely challenged them and offered something new and unique for them to view, which makes our film stand out from others.

Retribution Focus Group

Editing our film opening

Following on from February the 15th, we have since been editing our film opening every Tuesday after school between 3:40- 5 and every Friday during period 1. These dates have included February 23rd, and 26th, and March 1st, 4th, 8th, 11th and 18th. We have also edited our footage on the additional dates of March 10th during periods 1 and 2 and during period 3 on March 16th as these were media lessons in which we were able to edit our footage in.

We began by trying to make the flashback part of our film opening seem like a flashback without it being too obvious or subtle. To do this I began by adding in a 'fade' effect at the beginning of the flashback and the same 'fade' effect at the end, making them the same length at the beginning an end too. This happened on February the 23rd. However, before choosing the right transition to include, we had to watch them all to see which one worked the best and made our opening look the most continuous. Then on February the 26th and March 1st I watched all of the effects on Final Cut Pro to determine which of them looked best on our flashback so that it was obvious to the audience that Henry was having a flashback but not too obvious/ cheesy. We decided on the effect called 'Flash' as it showed the footage looking distorted which symbolises how Henry's memories aren't fully clear to him as he is remembering something that happened a little while ago. When adding this effect in, I reduced the amount of the effect that was on each clip to make it look less over powering. However, this was slightly tricky to do as I had to make sure it was at the same amount on each clip in the flashback.

For the sound, after we had initially chosen what background music we wanted, we changed our minds and instead thought that it would be better to have two different songs for the opening sequence and main section of our film opening. We took to Youtube looking for more royalty free songs and found two new ones that we thought fitted the theme of our film opening well. Therefore we took our the old song out and added in two new ones, one called 'Royalty free sad slow guitar dramatic music- free download' and one called. We saved these songs as mp3's and imported them into iTunes from which we then dragged the music over onto Final Cut pro. Here, I edited the music down to the correct length and positioned it in the right places. Then, I edited the sound, making the ending of the first piece of music gradually get quieter and then making the beginning and end of the second piece of music get gradually louder/quieter so that the transition between each of the different pieces of music is fluid and the music at the ending of the clip doesn't stop suddenly and instead gradually ends.

However, there was still a lot more editing to be done where the sound was concerned. We still needed to record, upload and edit our sermon, Levictus 20:13, for our flashback scenes, which proved difficult to do. We recorded our sermon a total of three separate times which all were problematic for different reasons. when recording our first sermon, the microphone wasn't working properly therefore the sound of the man speaking wasn't clear enough and there was a lot of background noise. Also, the person who recorded our sermon couldn't pronounce some of the words correctly and stuttered at certain points, therefore we decided to scrap this recording and try again. We then re-recorded our sermon with a different person and this time recorded it on my phone. The recording of it went well with no background noise and the speech sounding fluid however it proved difficult when getting it from my phone onto the computer. Therefore, we then re filmed it again on Milly's phone with a different man, which again, the recording of the actual sermon went will, but there were still difficulties when trying to upload it onto the computer. Eventually however, we ending up getting the second recording onto the computer through emailing the recording and saving it in a different format to what we had previously tried. This format allowed us to save the recording into iTunes and then drag it onto Final cut pro. When we had it on there I then had to edit it so that it sounded right. To begin this process I cut the voice recording down slightly so that there wasn't background noise at the beginning and end of the recording. Then I positioned it so that it was in the correct place, starting when our character Henry is looking worried just before the flashback begins and ending just before the end of the flashback when Henry and his boyfriend are holding hands laughing the park. Next, I made the sermon get gradually louder at the beginning and gradually quieter at the end so that it didn't sound too harsh when the speaking started and stopped. Because we had someone speak the sermon who wasn't involved in the creation of our opening before, we added his name to the title sequence in the same font/ colour as the other names. Next, I had to sort out the volume of the sound that was going on whilst the sermon was playing. To do this, I split the background song into two sections so that before the sermon started the sound was louder and then when the sermon and the results were revealed the sound was quieter so that you could here what was said. To change the level of the sound I moved the volume bar on the sound recording up/down until it sounded as though it was at the right volume.

We then re watched the entire opening scene and realised that the sound when the results are about to be revealed were still not right. Therefore we realised that this needed editing, particularly when the doctor said 'Do you have any questions?' as before she speaks there was a long of background noise. We then had to re watch this particular clip a few times, each time cutting a little bit more of the sound out. To cut our the sound I doubled clicked on the clip which aloud the clips to expand itself and show the video footage and sound recording as two separate things. This meant that I was then able to cut the sound out without cutting the actual clip out as well. Therefore we re watched the scene multiple times until we were sure that as much of the unwanted background sound was cut out as possible, however there is still unfortunately some left. We also edited volume levels on some of the clips where the results are able to be revealed to make them all the same volume as each other because before we had done this the digetic sound of people speaking was much louder in some clips than others due to the microphone being closer to them.

We then decided to add some more clips into our opening to improve it. We filmed a clip of a tock clicking which to do we had to put our camera with our tripod on it onto a table so that the camera was level to the clock. We then imported the footage of the clock into Final cut pro and edited it so that the clip was shorter and so that we didn't have the parts of the clip where the camera was re focusing, wonky, and/or there was lots of background noise. When I had edited the footage to the right length, I then put the clip just before the flashback had started and also just after it has ended to resemble how Henry was having a flashback and his mind was taking him back in time and then back to present day. In the second clip of the flashback, we added in a non-digetic sound of a clock ticking. To do this we watched royalty free lock ticking sounds on Youtube and when we found one that we all liked we saved the sound into iTunes and I imported it onto Final cut pro. I then edited the length of the sound and tried to position it in the scene so that the sound of the clock ticking was in time to the video of the clock actually ticking. This proved problematic as it was hard for the two to match up however it was eventually achieved. Also, I edited the volume of the clock noise so that it was relatively loud.  I believe that by adding in this sound it emphasises the fact that Henry had a flashback and it makes the audience sympathise more with him as it shows how anxious and worried he really is.

New background music for our opening scene

After re watching our opening scene, we decided that it would be best if we found two separate songs for it. Therefore we went onto Youtube to look up 'Royalty free sad songs'. Instead of only choosing one new background song for our opening, we chose two which we didn't initially plan to do however we found two songs that we believed worked better. The first image shows the song we chose for our title sequence and film name introduction and the second image is the song we chose for our main film opening. The second image shows the background song that we have used for the main section of our film opening.

Hollyoaks episode notes

I watched a Hollyoaks episode (Tuesday 26th January 2016), in which a girl, Jade, finds out she has cancer. Although this is not exactly the same as our storyline,  believe that the two are quite similar and this episode helped to give our group ideas on how we could film/ change our opening to improve it. This is due to the doctors surgery scenes and the way in which she is told the results and has flashbacks are all similar to how we originally had planned our opening.

Below are my notes from the episode:
- Shot of her close up walking into the doctors surgery (Looking nervous)
- Tracking shot of her walking into the doctors surgery
- Medium shot of her sitting down
- Shows her looking around the room nervous
- Looking at doctors anticipating her results
- Hears her name called
- Looks shocked
- Holds hand of friend/ sister for support
- Shot of her walking into doctors room
- Looks at the clock-time passing
- Hand holding from dad to show support whilst she still nervously looks at clock
- Doctor has to take call from someone quickly- done to drag out finding out the results- builds anticipation and nerves
- Looks at clock again with extreme close up shot of the bottom half of the clock
- High pitch noise and shot of her crying follows- exaggerates her nerves- all stops when the doctor finishes her phone call- later on in the episode we realise that this shot is done to show how time had stopped for her and she is imagining all that happens after this moment:
Everything is happy for her after this moment as she is imagining it all:
- Is told her tests are clear- everyone’s happy
- Tells everyone else- all hugging her and happy for her
- Looks at magazine about luck (lucky charm bracket)- happy music in the background- everything is looking hopeful
- It’s her birthday so she happily attends her party- surprise party, presents, everyone there, etc
- She receives the bracelet she saw on the cover of a magazine from her boyfriend
- Troubles occur- helping friend- problems sorted
- Back to enjoying her party- gets a present of adoption
- Everything’s resolved and is going her way
Beginning to come back to present day however not fully:
- Starts to get flashbacks and hallucinations- realises all isn’t as it seems- still happy though as she tries to ignore it and enjoy her party
- Looks around the room at people smiling and begins to hear the high pitch sound she had previously heard
- Gets more flashbacks of nurses at the doctors surgery- looks nervous- imagines her doctors at her party as the dj (hallucinations)
- Goes outside with her boyfriend to try and stop it all from happening and becoming real- she says ‘bad things only happen if you let them’- this foreshadows how she is trying to prevent herself from hearing she has cancer and imagining only good things- allows the audience to begin to piece together the clues (this isn't all really happening)
- Talks about wanting to live life to the full and wanting to fit everything into this day- again, foreshadows how she might not be able to live a full life as she has cancer (ironic thing to say)
- Says that she ‘knew the results would be negative as life wouldn’t do that to her’- repeats that she ‘loves life’- again all ionic and foreshadowing the future- shows jade trying to convince herself subconsciously that she hasn't got cancer
- Kisses her boyfriend and everything appears happy and perfect for her
- Suddenly her boyfriend notices she’s dressed in different clothes- she looks down and she is wearing the clothes she was in the doctors surgery (medium shot)- shows her beginning to come back to the present day
- Her boyfriend disappears- she begins to become confused, looks around, starts running- hearing high pitch sound again that was previously heard before she hallucinated
- Goes to where her party was and no one is there- sad music begins- starts to hear people talking with flashbacks of when she was happy at the party
- Hears doctor saying ‘jade’ in a muffled voice as she still isn't fully in the present day with zoom lense shot of her standing still but the background moving (changing from the hallucination to present day)
- She is crying and saying ‘no’ as she realises what’s happening- she’s been dreaming that she hasn’t got cancer and has had a happy birthday
- Sees the doctor stood in front of her at her party venue- still not fully in present time
- She hears the clock ticking with the doctor continuously saying jade  in a muffled voice still and jade is crying and shaking her head as she can't believe what is happening
- The scene then completely flashes back to present day with the original close up shot of the clock ticking and the doctor clearly saying 'jade' now
- The doctor says ‘do you understand what I’m saying’ with a close up shot of jades face looking sad
- Sad music is played in the background to exaggerate the misery and sadness of the scene
- Shot reverse shot of doctor and jade used to show how the doctor has just told her about her results- Jade looks to her dad for support and she looks sad
- Jade says ‘yeah, I have cancer’ whilst looking distraught, and the episode ends

Episode analysis:
I believe that the episode is shot in this way to present Jade's thought process and show how she was in denial for the whole episode. This episode presents the journey that Jade herself has gone down when finding out that she has cancer and how she has tried to convince herself that it's not really happening to her and that everything will be alright. It has been presented through hallucinations so that the audience is able to follow her thought process as well and understand how she feels. The episode cleverly ends with her fully realising she has cancer as she says 'I have cancer', which is done to end the journey of her wondering/ finding out whether she does/ doesn't have cancer and to instead begin the journey of her coming to terms with having it and dealing with it.

How the episode links to our film opening:
From this episode I believe that we will be able to take some things from it. We could include a clock and loud ticking noises in our film opening as well to emphasise the nerves that Henry will be feeling and how time slows down when you are finding out life changing news. This also adds tension and drama to the scene. We also could end our scene in a similar way of the doctor saying 'Do you understand what I'm saying' and Henry replying, 'Yes, I have HIV'.  This again adds drama and clearly shows how the rest of the film will be the journey of Henry accepting and dealing with his HIV and how those around him will deal with the news. However, when comparing our opening to the Hollyoaks episode, there are some similarities which we have already included in our film opening. Both have sad, dramatic background music to build the tension as well of close up shots of the patient looking nervous as the wait to hear the results. Also, they both have flashbacks of happier times as they are trying to forget what their futures may hold for them. Additionally, they are both set in similar scenes, eg, doctors surgery, doctors room, etc.

Creating and editing our film opening

We firstly began the process of creating our opening scene by filming the scenes for it. We filmed on multiple days: the 2nd, 6th, 11th and 12th of February. We also tried to film on the 10th of February, however when we went to film the scenes, our location was occupied and we therefore weren't able to. From this experience we were able to learn that we needed to check ahead next time to see if our location would be free. 

We began our editing process whilst we were still filming our scenes. To begin it, we started off by editing a couple of our scenes in Final Cut Pro in our media lessons. However, when we came to editing, we realised that many of the clips we had filmed were not good enough for us to use. This was either due to the clips being out of focus, the lighting being dark, lots of background sound/ sound being quiet or the camera being wonky. We also had problems with our microphone that we were only able to sort out at a later date. So we therefore decided to re film these scenes which we later did when we had a large filming session on February the 12th. However, because of this, we had little to edit and therefore edited the few clips we had and put them in chronological order so that when we came to import our other scenes it would be easier to create our opening scene. 

On February the 15th, me and Milly came into school between 9-2 to edit the majority of our opening scene. We began by importing all of the footage we had accumulated, which we had on two seperate memory cards. We imported this footage into iphoto to begin with, instead of Final Cut Pro so that it wasn't confusing when coming to editing it and we could decide what specific clips we wanted before we started editing the footage in Final Cut Pro. We then re-watched all of our footage and chose the clips we wanted. As we had taken many videos previously, we had a lot to re-watch and decide whether we wanted to keep or get rid of them, therefore this took a long time to do. When we had chosen what we wanted, we dragged the clips into Final Cut Pro. We then had to re-watch each clip and edit it down to what we wanted. To edit it, we cut out any mistakes that we had filmed, or any movement/ sound we didn't want in the scene. When editing our opening title sequence, we edited each clip so that they were all about the same length. This is because we wanted it to be continuous and because we needed to include the names of everyone involved in our opening scene, and by making all of the clips the same length, this meant that each person was given equal credit. However, we did make the opening clip the longest as we did not have enough clips for each individual person and therefore made the first clip double the length of the others. 

After we had edited the clips to how we wanted them, we then put them in chronological order. With the opening sequence scenes at the beginning, followed by the doctors surgery, church, flashback, and doctors surgery scenes again at the end. We then re-watched the entire scene to check that we didn't need to re-edit any scenes that we hadn't properly edited before and to check that it was all continuous. When we had done this, we found that we were beginning to see continuity in our opening scene for our film as it was beginning to come together.   

After this, we started to work on getting our opening title sequence looking how we wanted it to. We added in each name of everyone that was involved in creating our production. We went and looked through multiple different text edits and then looked at different fonts. Eventually we chose what we wanted, and then decided on the colour and size. We chose the Helvetica font for our text and we made it white at a size 63 font. We went and did the same font, size and colour for each name and as we did this, we positioned each name of everyone who was involved in creating our film opening on the clip in the correct place. We made sure that each piece of text was put on screen for the same amount of time and that it all worked with the clip that it was placed over (eg. the text came in and ended when the clip did).

Next, we worked on the sound for the video. We started by importing our background music which we had already previously saved/ imported onto itunes. When we had done this, we edited the music down so that it was the same length as the scene. Then we re watched it and realised that there was still a lot of background sound on clips that we didn't need sound for. So we went through each clip and took the volume of the majority of the clips off, leaving the clips that had sound of digetic voices in. 

Then, we included our film name at the beginning of the opening. We chose a font that we thought was best suited to our film and edited it by changing the colour, size and letter spacing. Our film name is in a white text with a black background which we chose to coincide with the white and black theme that is in our ident and also the white font that is in our opening title sequence that displays the names of everyone who was invloved in creating our film opening. We also edited how it entered and exited the page by adding in a fade effect. We then started to add a fade in/out effect to other parts of the film opening that needed it in order to allow it to make more sense. 

BBFC creation

To create our BBFC sign to put at the beginning of our film opening we began by googling BBFC images that we could take to use. As we could not find one with an age rating the same as our film (15), we instead chose one with a 12A age rating.

To change the rating to fit our film, we then had to use photoshop to add a 15 age rating sign over the top of the 12A one. We googled 15 rating signs, picked one and cut out the white background of it in photoshop.

We also made it smaller and moved it to fit over the 12A sign in order to fit our BBFC properly. We then used the text option in photoshop and typed in our film name 'Retribution' on the line where the film fits. Finally, we added it in to our film opening using Final Cut Pro, to go straight after our ident.

HIV factual video notes

Notes:

• HIV on the rise in young gay and bisexual men in america: 13-24 year old men who have sex with other men, 132.5% rise in HIV between 2001 & 2011

• 22% increase in new HIV infections among these men between 2008 & 10

• 13-24 year olds account for more than 1/4 new HIV infections in the US in 2010

• Rising due to riskier sexual activity in younger men & anal sex

• New drugs- attempts to snip it out of the person completely

• People learning how to live with it

• Most likely contracted with male on male sex

• When men have sex with men they are less likely to use a condom than when they have sex with women (70+%- women, 45%-men)

• Men who have sex with other men and have injected illegal drugs in themselves have 20% chance of contracting HIV compared to 3% when it is a man and women having sex

• Information, education and young people knowing that they should/ how to protect themselves is needed more (beyond gay community)

Here are some bar charts with useful statistics relating to our film taken from this video:

Initial background music for our opening scene

When considering the sound we wanted to include our opening scene, we decided that we would want non-digetic music that sounded quite sad but also dramatic to coincide with the atmosphere of the scene. We did also look at other types of music, but decided that this type would best suit the atmosphere of the scene that we wanted to create. as a group, we ended up choosing between the three songs shown below in the screenshots. Eventually, we decided to use the music titled 'Emotional sad piano music | touch (download and royalty free'. This is because the way in which the music is quiet to begin with but gradually the amplitude increases slightly, should work well with the scene as this is similar to the way in which the tension of the scene increases due to the flashback scenes and results being seen. Additionally, this music sounds sad but also dramatic with links with the theme and feeling we hope to generate in the scene. Overall, we felt that this song was the best choice in background music for our opening scene.

Location

Our first location is Didcot Girls' School in which we have set up a fake Doctors surgery and waiting room:
Here are the images of the waiting room area:

Here are the images of the doctors surgery/ room:

Here are the images of the church (we will predominately be filming inside):