Initial Footage/Test Footage

Below is a video I uploaded to Vimeo from iMovie. It is some initial footage I did with Heidi playing the role of Clare. The purpose of this filming was to give her some practise with the role and to see how she felt playing it. Overall, this small amount of footage fits together well and I think it went really well. There are some black outs during it where some footage is missing, but as this was only test footage it isn't really too much of a problem.



Reflective Comment: 
This test footage was very useful as it gave both me and Heidi some practise with our roles. For me, it allowed me time to get used to the phone I am filming with and also the tripod positioning in my room. For Heidi, it gave her some practise with acting and gave me confidence that she can perform as the character of Clare well. Full filming will be completed soon, with a date soon to be set.

My Characters

As the filming phase of my production gets closer, I've decided to do a post on who will play the role of my characters, and why I've decided to use them.

Heidi Cooke as Clare (main character):

Heidi is playing the main role of Clare. Although Clare is the main character, throughout the film she does not actually say too much, because most of her conversations are had online and her quietness helps build her character. Because of this, the role of this part doesn't represent too much of a challenge as the main aspects relate to staying serious throughout rather than having long conversations with people. Heidi agreed to play this character and we plan to do some test footage soon to make sure she is capable of playing Clare.




Mandy Coe (my mum) as Clare's Mum:

My Mum is playing the role of Clare's Mum. To make this character as realistic as possible, I had to use someone of a suitable age. Using one of my friends would have worked but would not have made much sense as they wouldn't look old enough to act as Clare's Mum. Because of this, I spoke to Mum about the role and she agreed to take on the character. More speech is involved with Clare's Mum's role, so like with Heidi I plan to do some test footage to give my Mum practise and mainly to ensure she is capable of becoming this character the way I need her to.




Me as Tom/Murderer:
Tom's character is not very prevalent throughout my film. He is seen once in his bedroom with a hood covering his face and on his laptop talking to Clare. He is also seen at the end running over to Clare's dead body. Because of his little prevalence, I didn't see the point in finding someone to cast as him, due to the fact they would only be needed for very small amounts of filming. I've decided to act as this role, and to also play the murderer who stabs Clare in the alley. During the scenes I'm in, I'm going to use members of my family to help operate the tripod and camera in the correct way to ensure that the scene still works well even without me in control of the camera.

Reflective Comment:
This post moves me closer to my filming phase now I have came to a decision on who will be my actors and why. I think that I cast the right people for these roles, and even if I didn't the test footage I plan to do will help me understand whether or not I need to consider re-casting at all. Also, if my role as Tom and the murderer does not work I have people on standby who can step in if needed. I think this post was done well with the right amount of detail as to why these people are playing the roles in my production. To improve, I could have possibly included some test footage within this post but I plan to do a separate one containing this.

Lighting Experiments

My bedroom is where most of my production will be filmed, so I decided to experiment with some lighting. I only have one lamp that I can use to do this, so this is the key light in terms of three point lighting. I couldn't change the brightness of this light, so instead I changed the angle at which it points into the scene. Below, you can see a slide share with three different pictures with the lamp at three different angles. In my production, my main character will be laying on the bed on the laptop.

The first picture in this slide share shows the lamp shining onto the scene in full view, lighting up pretty much everything. Considering the theme of my film, this type of lighting is not suitable as it doesn't create much of a dark sinister atmosphere. The second picture is more darker which looks better, but the third is the lighting I've decided to go with. To create this, I turned the light of the lamp so it was facing more of the wall, meaning that a small glimpse shines only on where my actress will lay. Because she will be on the bed, no visible shadows are created so I do not need a fill light. The darkness in her room can also relate to pathetic fallacy to represent her mood and help create the scene.

Reflective Comment:
The experiment was very good and needed in preparation for my filming. Experimenting with lighting at different angels and with different levels of brightness has helped me to create and visualise how this scene will unfold. I plan to begin filming soon and create this scene in this lighting. Test footage is planned to best posted soon to see how this goes.

Lighting Techniques

For the filming of my piece, I must consider how I will utilise the lighting to help change the look of my different scenes. To think about this, I've started to look at the term 'three point lighting'. I used a website called 'media college' to do this, which provided me with the pictures below and helped me to understand the term. The link can be found by clicking here.

Three point lighting:
This is a standard method that involves three different points of lighting: key light, fill light, and back light.













Above is the the key light and the main light. It usually has the most influence on the look of the scene, and is placed to one side of the camera to so that one side is well lit and the on the other side a shadow is created. For my filming, it is likely that I will use at minimum a key light to help create shadows in some places and to create actual light in others. I am planning to experiment with this soon.

This light is known as the fill light, and is placed opposite the key light to fill any shadows that it creates. This light is not always needed if the shadows that are created by the key light are wanted. This light is not usually very bright as its main purpose is to fill shadows. For my filming process, I doubt I will use a fill light, but if when I'm experimenting I find that a key light creates unnecessary shadows then I may consider using a fill light to stop this.

The final light from the three point lighting is the back light. As you can see from the picture, this light behind the other two and is not used to provide a direct light. Instead, its purpose is to provide definition and subtle highlights around a characters outlines. This can help separate the character from the background to create more of a three dimensional look. For my piece, I do no think this back light will be needed, however when I begin experimenting I may see if it creates more of an effect on my characters.

Reflective Comment:
This piece of research was very useful and needed with the filming process coming up. I think that these types of lighting will be used by myself when I'm setting up a scene ready for filming. I think I covered each area of the three point lighting well and considered if they would be useful for me. To improve this task I could have included some pictures of my scenes with the experimentation of these lighting techniques, but I do plan to do that some time in the future.

Risk Assessment

I am planning to film soon, and so I've decided to carry out a risk assessment on any possible hazards:

Reflective Comment:

This post was something that I needed to do before I can actually get around to filming, and although there aren't many hazards, it was still very needed. As you can see, I covered all of the main things I could think off. Most of my production is filmed inside my house, so the risks are very low, and the small amount of filming I do outside still doesn't present much of a risk.

Representation of Gender in the Media

To further develop my characters, I decided to look at the traditional representation of different gender roles in the media, and also more modern ones and how they challenge these conventions. I did an Emaze presentation on this, it is embedded below:

Reflective Comment:
Doing some more character development was really useful leading up to the filming process, as it has meant I can understand my characters more and further visualise them. To make this presentation better, I could have included more examples of other films that meet the traditional conventions. However, I think that I covered the main areas needed and looked at how my film will either meet or challenge traditional conventions of gender roles.

Equipment List

Below is a slideshow of the short equipment list for my filming process:



Reflective Comment:
I don't have that much equipment needed for my filming process, but this post was still necessary for me. I think that I covered each area of the equipment well and talked about why I'm using it over another piece of equipment or software, and I also talked about how I'd found a way around the problem with a tripod for an iPhone.

Film Magazine Review In Depth Analysis

After analysing film posters in more depth, I decided that I should do the same with my other ancillary task of a film magazine review. To do this, I create a slideshow just as before, which is embedded below using Google Slides (please view in full screen)

Reflective Comment:
This post has helped me gain more of an understanding of what a film magazine review should include, and how they should be written. An obvious improvement of the slideshow would be to anaylse more magazine reviews, but each of them have different layouts with the same conventions, so I felt it would be more beneficial to anaylse one in depth with the text, and talk about how mine will be designed.

Film Poster In Depth Analysis

To ensure that I focus on my ancillary tasks as well as my main task, I decided to create a slideshow looking at film posters in more depth, and considering how mine will look. Embedded below is the slideshow I made through Google Slides.


Reflective Comment:
It is important for me to focus on my ancillary tasks as well as my main production, and so this post helped me move forward in the development of ideas for my film poster. It also helped make my blog more interactive by having a different form of software embedded on my blog. To make this slideshow better, I could have looked at even more films. However, I think that the 3 I picked were good as they are all of a different genre and anaylsing more films didn't seem necessary.

Props

For the filming of my production, there will be certain props that I need to help enhance the realism of my film. Below, I've embedded an Emaze I did that goes through each prop I will need and talks about what they represent and how they will help the overall quality of my film (please put full screen):

Reflective Comment:
Going through the props I need for my production brings me a step closer to being ready to film. Using Emaze to do this has also helped make my blog more interactive. I analysed the main props well and talked about semiotics and what they represent. To make this presentation better, I could have gone into more detail on the last slide about general props, but I think that it was best to just cover the main ones I need with the most detail.

Costumes

When it comes to filming, I need to make sure that I have sorted all of the necessary costumes that my actors will need to play their roles successfully. As you can see from my character development (here), I only have 3 main characters, and a side character of a police officer who appears briefly at the end. Below I have looked at these characters and talked about the costumes I will use for them with pictures for examples.

• Clare: Because of Clare's character, I won't really need any specific costumes for her, and will quite easily be able to use clothes that I or my actor already owns. To show her lack of effort with herself, I'm just going to dress her like a typical messy teenager in basic trousers and an over sized hoodie. This will show that she is not really bothered about what she looks like and has no intention to make any effort. The image below is from Google Images, and gives some sort of idea into how I imagine my main character looking. Black isn't the essential colour for her, I simply just want her to look quite messy and also quite confined. In relation to semiotics, that symbolises her as being trapped and sealing herself out from everyone else.

• Tom: This character's costume isn't too vital as he won't actually be seen much. However I want to portray him to be just like Clare and symbolise him as being trapped and attempting to shut everyone else out. I think that wearing hoodies as clothes helps show this because wearing your hood up over your face comes across as wanting to hide yourself from everyone else. As you can see from my script (here), Tom is seen during the film on his laptop with his hood up, so again like Clare I will dress this character in similar clothes. Having both of these characters wearing similar clothes and representing the same thing will help the audience understand why Clare trusts him so easily. An image below from Google helps me to visualise this character. Like Clare's costume, these clothes will be easy to get a hold of and won't require any new purchases.

• Clare's Mum: This character is seen at the start of the film sitting on her sofa, and at the end of the film when she is being told about Clare's death. For both of these scenes I plan to have her in the same clothes, simply to show her lack of effort with herself. I want the clothes she wears to be extremely scruffy and old, and to portray her as being a bad Mum as much as possible. I think that having her wearing something simple like a dressing gown will work, because it will show that when Clare gets home from school at '16:00', her Mum still hasn't made the effort to get dressed. The idea is that Clare's Mum really does not care about her, and hasn't really made any effort to bring her up, hence why she see's nothing wrong with meeting up with a stranger through the internet. The dressing gown below is an example of what she will wear.

• Police Officer: At the end of the film, a police officer will come to Clare's door to tell her Mum about her daughters death. To make this scene appear as realistic as possible, the costume here is very important. I'm going to get someone older to play this role, and will look more at this in my next post on actors. For the costume itself, I will dress the actor in a suit which they will hopefully already own. The suit will be black trousers, white shirt with a black tie. Then, in order to make it clear to the audience that this person is a policeman, I'm going to use a police officers hat. The general conventions of an officer telling a family member someone has died is the idea of them holding their hat in their whilst they knock on the door.  My Dad is a police officer, and is looking into getting hold of a hat I can use for this one scene. I'm awaiting permission. 
  

Reflective Comment:

The planning is coming along well for my production with the script, location, and costumes now all been thought about. I think I did this post very well and talked in depth about each character and what I want their costumes to represent. To make this better, I could have shown my actual actors in their costumes, but I haven't quite sorted this out yet. My next post will be about my actors, and will include profiles of who I've decided to use and why.

Script Writing

I've decided that the next logical step is to write a script for my film so when I talk to my actors about their roles I can go through exactly what they need to say. I was going to use a website called Celtx to do this, but I can't quite figure out how to use it for free instead of needing to pay. Because of this, I'm just going to write it onto a word document and print it out. The pictures of my printed script can be seen below. One of my other A Levels is Creative Writing, which means I am very familiar with the layout and structure of a script:

As you can see, in the script I included the speech that happens in the chat room, because without them the script may have been a bit bare. I think that the script itself is very good and goes through the film well, outlining what happens and what is said. I may come back to it and add parts or remove them when it comes to filming if some parts seem too short or too long.

Reflective Comment:

Completing the script was something I'm very glad I've gotten done. This may be a first draft or the finished version, depending on how the filming goes when using this script. I think its structured well and includes general conventions that a script would have (INT. EXT.). To make this script better, I could have included more details in the descriptive part, however I think the amount I included was good and covers the main areas of the film well and successfully. I think this script will be good for my production.

Possible Locations

My film plot can be seen by clicking here.
By familiarising yourself with this plot, you will probably realise that their aren't a large number of locations used. I'm going to use my house to show Clare on her laptop, which is easy for me. When it comes to her meeting up with Tom in the woods, I'm going to struggle with the lighting as I do want it to be dark to create a more sinister atmosphere, but due to the lack of lights in the actual woods it is probably going to be very hard to achieve and do well. Because of this, the location I may use could be an alleyway with a street lamp in it. This would mean the lighting would be easier because the actual area of filming would be lit up. I'm going to visit both of the locations in the dark and assess which one would be better for me. Below, you can see pictures of my the woods (Mousehold) which I obtained form Google Maps, and a possible alley way that I went out and took myself, in case the lighting in the woods fails.

I honestly think that I will end up adjusting my plot and using the alleyway as a meet up point for Clare and Tom instead of the woods, simply because the lighting will be much better and will make the quality of my film a lot better. The woods is probably a better idea in terms of location and would work in the daylight, however I think that a murder scene in the daylight wouldn't create the same fear and tension as it would in the dark. I will decide later, but the alley will most probably be used. Looking at the idea of semiotics (the study of signs and symbols that create meaning), I can relate the locations to this study. For example, the location of an alley way in the dark represents the idea of danger and lack of safety. Also, an alley way in the dark is usually seen as being quite scary and somewhere that people wouldn't want to go. This can also help build my character as it represent her naivety and the lack of understanding she has of danger due to the lack of care her Mum has shown her over here life.

Reflective Comment:
I've known in my head where the locations of my film were going for a while so it was good to get these ideas into a post. I think that having two possible locations for the murder scene of my film is actually a good thing because it gives me the variety and freedom of choice to decide which one works better in terms of the atmosphere and lighting. To improve this task I could have actually gone out to take some photos of the woods in Mousehold. However, I couldn't see the point in making the journey when I can get the images through the internet, and I did go out to the alleyway and use my iPhone to take the pictures.

Film Magazine Review Initial Ideas

This post will look at some initial ideas for the film magazine review as the second ancillary task for my A2 course. Again, I don't want to spend too long on these tasks as they don't award me as many marks as the final production will. Having said this, I still want to ensure that I do these tasks to the best of my ability to earn maximum marks. Below are some film magazine reviews I've looked at online, and like the poster I have listed some of the typical conventions from the reviews.

To find these posters I also went onto Google images and typed 'film magazine review', and above is the screenshot of the first pictures. They are of a mix of different genres, because I just want to start by looking at the typical conventions of the reviews:

• Either a big picture or lots of little ones from the film are shown either around the writing or in the middle of the page.
• The reviews typically are read across two A4 pages (A3 landscape).
• There are usually quotes either from the film, actors or directors.
• Title of the film in a large bold font to stand out.

Looking at the conventions has allowed me to understand how I should lay out my film magazine review. I plan to follow these conventions when making mine, but adapting it to suit my type of film. For example, because I'm aiming my production at a modern younger audience, I could include a lot of website addresses or social media links for people to follow as the younger generation will be more heavily reliant on technology and the use of social media in their day to day life.

Reflective Comment:
Like the initial ideas for the poster, this was a good starting point for the magazine review. Again, this post appears brief and without in depth detail, but like the poster it was just intended to be a base starting point to talk about the starting research I have done. I plan to analyse how a film magazine review is done in more detail soon and do some research into the best way to create my own.

Film Poster Initial Ideas

I've now started to look at my ancillary products, and began thinking about what kind of things my poster needs to have to meet conventions. Because the poster and magazine article aren't worth as many marks as the main production, I don't want to spend as long on them. However, I must still plan them well and think about how to gain maximum marks on them.

As you can see from the screenshot above, there are a series of different posters from a variety of different films with different genres. To find these posters, I simply went onto Google images and typed in 'film posters'. These are the first ones that came up. From looking at these, I can note down some conventions that occur on each one:

• The main character/s are nearly always on show as the centre of the poster.
• The background of the poster usually relates to the main location of the film.
• The font style is considered and used in relation to the themes and genres of the film.
• The actors named who featured in the film are somewhere on the poster, along with the release date of the film.

For my poster I'm going to match these conventions, as well as adding something to try and make people realise my film is modern just from looking at it. Because the plot from my film is built around the conversations my main character has with someone online, I'm going to look at including some sort of computer related image onto the poster. Below, you can see one of the posters for the film 'The Matrix' and 'Untraceable', which is all about the idea of computer coding. I could use something similar on my poster to represent the use of computers in my film.

Reflective Comment:

As a starting point for my ancillary tasks, this post was very needed to begin talking about the initial ideas and research I'd come up with and done to begin thinking about the poster. Although this post appears quite basic, I only intended it to be a rough idea on some of the things I had thought about with the ancillary tasks. My next plan in relation to the poster is to decide exactly how I'm going to create it and carry out some research on the best ways to do this.

Reflective Blog Entry

During the week we had away from sixth form due to half term, I spent some time adding reflective comments to a lot of posts as well as improving on them as much as possible. When we return tomorrow, I'm going to start with some initial ideas for my ancillary products of a poster and film review. My plan is also to sort out my actors, create a post with the probable location I will use, and also create a script for my film. Generally, their will not be a huge amount of speech as most of the development of characters will be done through conversations had online, but their will still be some I will need to include, and I will probably include what is said in the online chat room in my script.

Short Film Textual Analysis

I've decided to look at some already existing A2 media films to gain some inspiration and some possible ideas. One film that I found featured something that I thought worked really well, and would fit with my film because of the modern theme. The whole film itself does not relate much, but one scene in particular does. The whole film is embed below with a screenshot of the scene I like:





















As  you can see from this scene, the computer screen he is looking at is visible on the screen. Its a camera angle from inside the computer, showing the characters face as he works. I think that for my production, this would work really well because my main character will be spending a lot of time talking to a boy in a chat room, and a lot of character development will be built around these conversations. However, I have absolutely no idea how to do this, and so a lot of research would be needed to look into how to edit a piece in this way. As the editing process approaches, I'm planning to carry out a lot of research on these type of editing techniques to see what could work for my film.


I also went on to look at another A2 film. This one doesn't relate to my film in terms of the plot, but most of it has been filmed in the dark and the lighting still remains good, so it relates to mine in that way.

The genre of this film appears to meet mostly thriller, with the girl being followed home by a random person. This is how I want mine to turn out, and so watching films similar to them has helped me picture mine. I'm going to have to do a lot of research into the lighting to ensure that if I do record my film in the dark it can still be seen. Also, the general feel of this film is good, and makes it all appear very sinister and strange. This is exactly how I want mine to turn out, and so creating a dark theme is very necessary.

Reflective Comment:
This task was very useful as it allowed me to look at products that are similar to mine. The first short film helped me to gain inspiration about how to best modernise my film. The second one was good to look at in terms of the lighting, because its something I'm worried about and watching a film utilise the lighting so well gave me faith that in can be done.

Assessment Criteria

This is the assessment criteria for our coursework:

Level 4 16–20 marks 

• Planning and research evidence will be complete and detailed;
• There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience; 
• There is excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props;
• There is excellent work on shot-lists, layouts, drafting, scripting or story-boarding; 
• There is an excellent level of care in the presentation of the research and planning;
• Time management is excellent.

During the course of the year, I will need to constantly refer back to this to ensure I am meeting the criteria to progress my grade.

Text Message Editing Techniques

For my final production, I'd really like to edit text messages/online messages onto the screen just as you can see from the images here. Because my film has a very modern theme, I think that this feature would enhance that modern theme and make the young audiences relate to the film more. It would also be very useful when it comes to the character development of Tom, the boy that Clare meets online. By the messages he sends her appearing as an extra on the screen, rather than having to show her laptop screen, the audience will also be able to see her reaction to each message as they are sent. Although this is a good idea for my production, the process of doing it well could be challenging. From looking online, I've found that one of the best ways to do this is through Adobe After Effects.

However, this is not a free tool, and would cost a fair amount of money to do. Because of this, I'm going to look at doing it in more simple ways, such as through iMovie. Having said this, I don't want to do it without it looking real, so when the editing process comes around I plan to look in more detail about ways to do this.

Reflective Comment:
Coming up was this idea was something that has helped my visualise my film in my head a lot more. I'm really keen to do more research into this when it comes to the editing process, and will definitely look into how I can make this happen in my production. To improve this task, I could of included some of the research I did into the Adobe programs that help make these text effects possible. Having said this, I did mention in the post about the Adobe After Effects and the cost, I when I come back to do more in depth research on this editing technique I will be sure to include it then.

Hiring Actors

For my production this year, I had originally planned to hire actors from a website online called StarNow. However, after looking into the website I'm come to realise that you need to be 18 years old to apply to hire actors, which is obviously a problem for me as I'm not 18 years old. Below is a link to the terms and conditions from the website along with a picture that states the requirement of being 18.

                                       http://www.starnow.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/

Obviously this is an issue for me and has set me back slightly. To get past this, I'm going to start speaking to people I know about possibly acting for me. I will do another post later on as an update on who will be featuring in my production.

Character Profiles

Now that I have the storyline of my production planned out and I understand it in more detail, I've decided to move on and talk about the characters that I plan to have in my film and how I want them to be portrayed.

The film will focus mainly on one character, but there will still be others that play a big part in the development of the story.

Main Character:
The main character is a girl who I've decided to name Clare as of the descriptions in my storyboard. She lives with only her Mum. Because she is the main character and has some terrible stuff happen to her, I want to portray her as being a very vulnerable and weak character. The stereotype of her being a female adds to her vulnerability as in films female characters are generally looked at as being more weak, although I think this role could have worked with a male actor but I've decided to have it lead by a female. To show her weakness, I'm going to make it very clear that she doesn't have a good relationship with her Mum and is generally a very miserable and alone character with nothing to do in life. Therefore, she spends most of her time on her laptop where she eventually meets someone online and her naivety causes her to agree a meet up.

The main films I looked at that relate to mine were Unfriended (2015), and Trust (2010). The main female character in Unfriended isn't really shown as being vulnerable and weak, and is only made to look it by the horrors that happen to her in the film. However, the main female character in Trust is shown as being very naive just as I want my character of Clare to be.

In Trust, 14 year old Annie gets a laptop for her birthday and begins talking to people in an online chat room. Soon she begins talking to a boy she believes to be a similar age to her, but meets up with him to find he is a 30 year old man who ends up ruining her life. I've never actually seen this film, however from reading the plot description online it seems that some of the inspiration for my film actually was used in a similar way in Trust. I plan to watch this film in the upcoming weeks as it could give me some ideas on how to present her female character in a vulnerable way. Obviously the character I will create will be different to the character in Trust, but because they play a similar role in the trust they put in a random person online, research into how this character is portrayed could be very useful.


Susan (Clare's Mum):
Clare's Mum isn't a vitally important character, but I must ensure I portray her in the correct way in order to show the audiences the kind of relationship she has with her daughter. This will further develop the vulnerable character of Clare, and make her situation seem worse because of the lack of connection she has with her mother. To do this, I plan to show Susan sitting around all day doing practically nothing whilst Clare goes to school and comes back. There will be a lack of dialogue between these two to further show the lack of connection they have with each other. This will be most effective at the end of the film because when Clare is murdered, Susan will feel even worse as a Mum because she was never there for her. This will also make her death more sad, and hopefully have a greater effect on the audience.

Tom (Chat Room):
Tom is the character that Clare meets in an online chat room. His character will be mostly developed through the conversations they have in the chat room. I haven't planned at how I'm going to edit my film yet, but in order to develop his character without actually meeting him, I have to make sure that the conversations they have online are clear to see for the audience. In terms of his actual character, I'm going to try and make it clear to the audience that he is lying about what he is saying, but Clare is too naive and broken to realise, and the attention he is giving her is so new to her. By doing this, the audience will straight away take a dislike to him, and be equally as shocked when he emerges from the woods to find Clare's dead body.

Police Officer:
The police officer appears at the end of the film to tell Clare's Mum that her daughter has been found dead. His role isn't very big or important, and we won't actually be able to hear what he's saying as sad music will be playing over any dialogue.

Reflective Comment:
Creating in depth character profiles from my production was a very enjoyable thing to do and has moved me further forward with the planning of my film. As you can see, I analysed a similar product in relation to my main character (Clare), and also created profiles for the other characters that will feature. Analysing the film 'Trust' was very useful. Because it is a similar film with fairly relatable events, I looked at how the main character in that is shown and used that to develop Clare. To improve this task, I'd of like to look at more similar products, and plan to add a post on this later on.

Reflective Blog Entry

Last week went well and I made a lot of progress, however there are some things that didn't go so well. The update I posted on my film plot was a good thing to get done as it meant I now have a full understanding of what will happen in my film. It meant I could move on and begin a storyboard that didn't go so well. I did it was a lack of detail and description so it is just a very very rough version of a storyboard. I'm not going to remove it from my blog as it is good to look back on and compare when I eventually get my proper storyboard done. As you can see from the reflective comment on my storyboard, I'm going to improve it greatly by making a new one with actual locations and characters and camera angles.
For this week, I'm planning on improving some of the secondary research I've done and perhaps doing some more in greater depth. After that, I'm going to begin developing some characters for my film.

Rough StoryBoard

Now that my film plot is fully updated and I've decided what will happen, I decided to create a rough storyboard to the six main parts of the film. Due to my lack of drawing ability, the pictures on the storyboard are very simple and just stick men. However I think this works as it is only a rough start to the storyboard. I hope to improve this in time and replace the drawings with actual pictures of what will happen with real locations.

Scene 1: Clare is lonely and vulnerable, looking for anyone to connect with.

Scene 2: Clare meets someone online called Tom, and she instantly feels loved and needed by him.

Scene 3: After days of talking she agrees to meet up with him, She is very excited.

Scene 4: Clare goes to meet up with who she thinks is Tom, but someone else emerges with a knife and stabs her.

Scene 5: Clare is laying dead on the floor when Tom actually appears from the forest and finds her.

Scene 6: The police arrive at Clare's house to break the news to her Mum. 

Reflective Comment:

This was a very basic storyboard and is no where the final piece of storyboard work I will do. Although the detail in this is very brief, it has helped to make the story clear to me and I can now visualise what is going on well. In the upcoming weeks, I'm going to create a new storyboard with actual photos of the locations and characters in them. 

Film Plot Final Update

After doing some research on narrative theories and having time to apply this to my film, I've decided to do this blog post explaining exactly what is going to happen in my film so that I can move on to creating storyboards and looking more in depth at the ancillary products.

The narrative theory I decided to best apply to my film was Barthes theory, as it focuses around an enigma (mystery) which is best suited for the type of film I want to create.

The theme of my film is going to be very modern and specifically aimed at the youths of today's generation, because they will understand the references made throughout the film and also what happens.

The genre of my film is mostly thriller, with a mystery being created around the story line. It may have aspects of horror but will mostly focus around the unexpected things that happen, rather than making it scary.

The film itself will follow a girl who will be the primarily main character. I've decided to name her character Clare. She will be shown at the start as being quite a lonely character, and having no friends and nothing to do with her spare time. As a result of this, she spends all of her free time on her laptop, where she begins to join online chat rooms to talk to people. After a while, she meets a boy on this chat room website called Tom, who treats her really well and makes her feel needed and loved. Due to the lack of love and care shown to her from people, this is a shock to Clare and she is very happy. Tom is also happy, and asks Clare to meet up with him in the woods soon to have a walk together, and she agrees straight away, desperate to see him. She arrives in the woods expecting him to arrive, but she is instead greeted by a threatening looking character in a black hoodie. He approaches Clare and brutally stabs her. He then runs away into the woods. The audience will most likely expect this character to be Tom, the boy she was talking to online, but it is in fact not. Tom then emerges from the woods ready to meet Clare, and finds her dead. The scene will then fade out and show a policeman sitting down with Clare's Mum to explain the news of her death.

Reflective Comment:
This was a very needed post in order to move onto other aspects my film. I think that I included a good amount of detail here, and it gave me a complete understanding of what will happen in my production. With this now done, I can move onto developing the characters I've mentioned here and look at how similar products portray these characters and how they are shown in other films.

Reflective Blog Entry

This week has been very successful for me and I've managed to get quite a bit done. I looked at narrative theories and considered how they could relate to my film, and also created a questionnaire which allowed me to carry out some primary research and get some responses from people about the production of my film. For the next week I'm going to develop my plot further and come to a complete decision and what will happen and create a blog post about this. I then want to go further with this and attempt to create a storyboard as best I can that shows what will happen in my film.

Target Audience Primary Research

Here you can see the survey I created through the website SurveyMonkey. This website was very useful to create a survey as it was very easy to use and allowed me to develop each questions just as I wanted. It is embed below:
Create your own user feedback survey

My survey results are what I expected. The results are embed in a slideshare below:
There was a mixture of males and females who filled out the survey, which doesn't effect my desired target audience as the film I'm planning to make will be suitable for both.

For my second question about age, the main people who filled out my survey were aged 15 - 18, which is ideal as this is who I plan to aim my film at as they are the more younger generation. There was also then a mixture of people aged between 19 - 21 and 22 - 25, and very few between 26 - 30. People of these ages could enjoy my film, but as I'm planning to aim it more at people who are 15 - 18, it is good that these were predominantly the users who filled out my survey.

For my next question, I asked whether or not the people had seen the film Unfriended, or FriendRequest. I decided to ask this as these two films are the closest things I could find that relate to the film I'm planning to create. Both of these films are aimed at the younger generation of people, so the question worked with the relation to people aged between 15 - 18. The results for this question showed that more people had seen Unfriended, but a lot of people had seen both. There were then some people who hadn't seen either, who I think were definitely the older people who filled out my survey as these films are not aimed at them. I would think that most of the people aged between 15 - 21 had seen these films which is good because it means they must of shown some interest in the content.

I then asked them how they rated either of these films if they had seen it, and the majority of people rated it 3 stars, with a few people rating it higher. This shows that not many people thought these films were much more than average, which could mean that the content or ideas of these films aren't enjoyed as much by the younger generation. This is useful for me because it means I know now that the content and ideas of my film have to be good and original to be rated by my audience.

My final question asked if people would be interested in watching my film which would be very similar to these ones and containing modern day characters. Most people said maybe rather than yes. There were a few who said no, but I can assume that they were the older people who weren't interested in these type of films as they are not aimed at them. The fact that most people said maybe shows that they are not completely interested and so again I would really need to develop the plot and ideas of films to make sure they are worth watching.

Target Audience Primary Research from Coey1611

Reflective Comment:
This was a key piece of research for me and really helped shape the desired target audience I have. I used a lot of different forms of presentation software in this (SlideShare, SurveyMonkey), so its also helped make my blog more interactive. The task itself proved what I already knew that the type of film I'm planning to make will be primarily enjoyed by the younger generation. Analysing survey results helped me to see how many young audiences were interested in modern films involving the use of social media, and how in demand they are. If I were to improve this task, I'd of liked to include more questions to further break down the interests of my audience. Having said this, the questions I did ask were good enough to find the key research I needed.

Demographics and Psychographics

Below is a SlideShare we looked at in class together that helped me greatly in understanding the terms 'Demographics' and 'Psychographics'. Below the SlideShare is the way I've related these two terms to my production.

As you can from the third slide on the SlideShare, there is a demographics table that ranks different audiences into different categories (letters A-E). On the fourth slide, it then talks about how the thrillers can be aimed at any of the categories in the demographics table as they don't have a set audience. Because my film is mostly a thriller (partly horror), I think this could apply for it. However, because of the content that will feature in my film and the fact that I'm specifically aiming it at a younger generation, categories A, B, and C1 are likely to not be included as they are more older people. Instead, categories C2, D, and E will most likely feature the people I'm aiming my film at as these categories feature the more younger generation rather than an older one. Specifically category E, as they are 'unemployed students'.

Moving on in the SlideShare, slide six has a psychographics table that divides audiences into different categories. From looking at this table, I think that the main categories that suit the audience of my film could be 'aspirers', 'explorers', and 'strugglers'. All of these are aimed at more of a younger generation which suits the audience of my film.
The 'aspirers' could be my main audience as they talk about the way they seek status and are focused on image and appearance which is predominantly young people. However, this category probably doesn't best suit the audience for my film.
The 'explorers' are all about energy and experience, and how they value adventure, I think this is more suited for the audience as my film as these things mainly describe the younger generation, typically students who are the main people I want to aim my film at.
The 'strugglers' are people who seek escape and have a lack of education and intelligence. Some of these people could be part of the younger generation and so it could work as an audience, but I think that this category could also feature a lot of people from a much older generation and so I don't think this is best suited for my film.
Overall, I think the 'explorers' are the best suited psychographic category for my film as they relate to the students I want to aim my production at mostly.

Reflective Comment:
This task was very useful for me as it allowed me to further narrow down my audience and categorise them. Having said this, I've known for a while who I plan to aim my film at so with this task it was just a case of deciding which one worked best rather than picking a new one or considering different ones. If I were to improve this task, I would consider how other audiences might enjoy my film, but like I've said, this wouldn't be too beneficial to me as I have already chosen my target audience and narrowed it down completely.

Narrative Theories

To develop my plot further, I've analysed different narrative theories and looked at how I could use them in my film. To do this, I created a Prezi that talks about the different theories I looked at and if I could use them to change my plot or innovate it.

Reflective Comment:
This task was very helpful for the development of my plot, and made me consider different ideas and different directions that my plot could go in. Using Prezi was also very useful as in each slide I could talk about different narrative theories and have a conclusion at the end to sum up with which best relates to my film. If I was to improve this task further, I would of liked to rewrite my plot several different times with different narrative theories being applied to each plot. However, I don't think I'd of benefitted from this much as I've already decided on the exact type of narrative theory I want to use for my production, so rewriting it with different ones would of been a waste of time.

Reflective Blog Entry

This week has gone fairly well and I've managed to carry out some secondary research for the audience of my film. However, I am not where I want to be, and so next week I will make sure I do some primary research on audiences as well as looking at possible narrative theories to help me develop the plot of my film further and to be more confident with the ideas that I am doing. I would also like to start to consider my ancillary products and look at the conventions I must follow in detail.

Target Audience/Relatable Films

To analyse the potential target audience of my film and look at similar films, I created an Emaze presentation. It is embed below:

Reflective Comment:
This was a big task in the build up of research I did and helped massively with the development of characters and the plot. By analysing similar films to one I want to create, I was able to see how the characters in these films are portrayed to be weak and vulnerable which was then used as an inspiration when I began developing my characters. The YouGov profile I used within this Emaze was also very useful and helped me gain a real understanding of my target audience and exactly who I'm aiming my film at. To improve this task I'd of liked to gone into more depth on Pete Buckingham's theory, and I will hopefully be able to find the time to do this.

Film Plot Update

After presenting my pitch to the class about my ideas for my short film, I've actually had some more ideas and decided to change the plot of my film slightly. As I mentioned in the pitch, I want to make my film modern so it is more understood by a younger generation, and to do this I'm going to involve the use of social media in my film. The film will follow a teenage character who begins to talk to someone on their computer that they've met through an online chat site. They will then arrange to meet up with this person and then realise that it is in fact not the person they've been talking for the last few days. They will then be murdered or attacked by this stranger. I think that this plot will work better for the audience I want to aim my film at, as the theme of it is very modern because it involves the use of social media which is more of a normality for teenagers then older people.

Reflective Comment:
This post was the next logical step for me in order to make my blog progress. I'd of liked to have included these ideas in my presentation to the class about my initial ideas but I didn't have time to add them. Adding this post now means I can go into doing research into films similar to the one I want to create and start to develop my plot in more detail.

Reflective Blog Entry

This is my reflection on my first week back at sixth form and how my ideas have progressed. I will do one of these reflections at the end of every week to analyse what still needs to be done or anything that needs improving on.
I am happy with how the first week back has gone as I've completed the two presentation tasks that were set. They were the analysis of media artefacts and a pitch to the class on my ideas for this year. I think that I did both of these tasks very well and included the right amount of detail with both presentation. My goal for next week is to fully decide on the plot of my film, as well as start to do some research into the target audience I will be aiming my film at with some primary and secondary data.

Pitch Presentation

I created a presentation on Emaze that gives an overview of my starting ideas for my A2 task. It talks about what brief I've decided to do and some initial ideas that I have.


Here you can see me presenting my pitch to the rest of the class and answering some questions on certain aspects of my film and also developing the plot.

MAH01994 from Josh Coe on Vimeo.

Reflective Comment:
This task was a good starting point for my ideas. The Emaze I created allowed me to go through each part of my production and talk about what I'd thought about. Presenting it to the class was also useful in terms of feedback, as you can see from the video I was asked questions but my teacher and classmates which allowed me to talk about developing some of my ideas and also considering some of the problems I may have. To improve this task, I'd of liked to have gone into more detail about the plot of my film, however at the time I wasn't entirely sure about what I wanted to include, but as you can see from the video, I did talk to the class about some ideas I'd had prior to presenting my slideshow.

Analysis Of Media Artefact

For the first presentation of A2 media, I analysed the American TV show 'Sons Of Anarchy', and created a presentation using Emaze to do this. The presentation has been embed below:


Reflective Comment:
This task was a good introduction to the A2 course, and I actually really enjoyed it as I got to look in depth at one of my favourite TV shows. It gave me a good understanding of how much detail goes into a media product, and all of the planning that is involved beforehand. I also gained a more in depth understanding of looking at the target audience for a particular TV show, as well as the routes of exhibition and distribution which all adds on to the things I learnt last year. To improve this task, I could of gone into more detail on some of the slides, and also looked more at the merchandise they offer. Having said this, I think I did this task well and included everything well.