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.