Film magazine

Film pitch

Storyboard

Jamie Garton A2 Media

Friday, 16 December 2011

Story board

Questionnaire results

 All the particapants we asked were aged 16-21 years old as they are our target audience. Almost all of the particapants said that their favourite genre was either comedy and horror. This helped us as it is reasonably easy to put elements of comedy and horror into a social-realism film. Not very many of them watch independant films which makes it harder for us to promote it as it is unlikely that many of them would be interested. A lot of people go to the cinemas at least once a month but they always go to mutliplexes which isn't helpful as ours wouldn't be shown in one. They all feel that teenagers are portrayed in the wrong way in the mdeia so we are trying to change that by showing them as strong and independant.

Questionnaire

Who are you?

1.    Age      16-21         20-40         40+

2.  Gender   Male  Female

3.  What is your favourite film genre? (And why?)

4.  How often do you watch independent films (college films)?

5.  How often do you go to the cinema a month?

6.  What cinema do you go to?

7.  Who do you go with?

8.  What is your favourite music type?

9.  Do you watch films online (illegally)?

10.       Do you disagree with the way teenagers are portrayed in the media?

Magazine analysis, film poster analysis and audience mood board

Film poster

The photo we used for the film poster in is black and white because it depression and hard times. We have placed the tagline 'Love Will Tear Them Apart' inbetween the three main characters to emphasise the meaning. Danny is looking down at his brother to show his supremecy. The critic used is from our film magazine 'Down 2 Earth'. We also used British Independant Film awards to rate the film as it is very prestigous and would help raise number of viewers. Danny is dressed smartly to show he cares about his appearance and could be quite vain where as Jack is shown to be wearing casual wear to show that he doesn't care aobut his appearance. He is also dressed in all black to challange the codes and conventions of social-relaism as the Jack who is the protaganist is wearing black and Danny, who is the antaganist is wearing white. Robyn is looking down to show she is lost and doesn't know what to do.

Film magazine

The film magiazine which our front cover will be on is called 'Down 2 Earth'. It is a film magazine that focuses on social-relaism films aimed a younger genration audience. We have chosen this name as it describes the films that are in its' content as social-realism films are about real-life matters. The actress in our photo for the magazine is a different girl to the one in the trailer as we had to change actresses as we found she wasn't reliable enough.

Finished product

Our audience

Our target audience is 16-18 year olds from a typical English working-class background. We looked into various aspects of their lives, including what music they liked etc. We have done a mood board to represent all these things. We have chosen this target audience as we feel they will be able to relate to the film i.e the domestic feuds. We handed out a questionnaire to see what they expected from a social-relaism films and which ones they liked.

Music

The music for the trailer is mainly piano as pianos show feelings and expressions of the soul, in this case, it is showing the depression and the hurt felt by the main characters. In the film Sweet Sixteen achieve the same thing but they use a sad song to show the boy's emotion.

Filming

We have now completed the filming. It took more time than we initially planned to do all the filming as one of our actors was ill for a week and other things got in the way. We didn't have to use many props. The most significant prop was the pretend bag of cociane where we wrapped up a paper bag. A reoccuring image is the fact the two main characters are always wearing very different clothes even though they are brothers and come form the same background. The older borther wears smart clothes whereas the younger brother is always shown is 'chavy' clothes.

Sweet sixteen trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWEpdJ8zcXI

Sweet sixteen is similar to our film as it is about two male friends (in our case brothers) bonding. It is set in a very working class area of Scotland where life is hard and the main character is having to live with his sister as his Mum is in prison and he falls out with his step-dad because he wouldn't sneak drugs into prison for him.

The first shot of the trailer is of the two lads together. The setting looks like a typical British town as it is dull and gloomy. There are wearing sportswear and a cap to represent their class. There is a voiceover of the tape he sends to his mother when she is in prison and in the background you can hear 'I'll stand by you'. At this part of the trailer it seems to be uplifting and show hope. There is a shot of a baby which represents innocence and shows he has something he loves. There is then a shot of him shaving with his sister and her friend laughing at him. This shot shows that he is starting to become a man and also that there is a sign of happiness in the house he is living. There is then an estabalishing shot of a caravan by the lake in the country with one of the lads saying 'Paradise man'. This is quite ironic as not many people would see it is as paradise but these lads see it as somewhere they can escape to.
The title then comes up and the music then changes to upbeat drums and strings to show tension which is used to show an interruption in the happiness and they are brought back down with a bang. There are then numerous shots of him with older men who look like nasty piece of work. It is binary oppositions as he looks young and naive where as they look old and experienced. This shows him being out of place and out of his comfort zone. There is then a shot of him with a knife with fear on his face. This is showing him coming of age as it is a masculine and intimadating symbol. There a quick jump cut to him running away which is ironic as it shows the complete opposite of the last shot. The titles come up again then the music once changes to 'I'll stand by you' but in this case it is used differently as he is stood alone on the phone to his Mum and they both seem upset and she tells him it is his birthday which also symbolises him coming of age.

What is social-realism?

Social-realism films are very often about working-class life in Britain and give us a story that many of us find it easier to relate compared to a hollywood blcokbuster. There are often very blunt and rarely have a happy endings; it shows us a slice of life. They usually have a low-budget so don't have special effects and the equipment mainstream films have. However, the resources they use are often effective as the genre is very popular in Britain. In recent times, social-realism films have been dominated by Ken Loach with films such as 'Sweet Sixteen' and Shane Meadows with his infamous 'This is England'.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We have used mobile phones to take pictures of our work. We found this useful as we didn't need to do all of our work online. This is effective as our mood baords can be bigger on paper and it is clearer. We used Apple Macs to edit our trailer which helped us greatly as it is very self explanatory and easy to use. We found that using photoshop for our film poster and magazine helped us aswell as it is very detailed and advanced. However, we did have problems we used as the battery life on them was very short so we could only do little bits of filming at a time and then we had to keep charging it up.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We had very positive feedback to our trailer from our peers and teachers. We found that the music we used gave the trailer a lot more emotion and helped them empathise. A lot of people commented on the tagline 'Love Will Tear Them Apart' and found quite clever and amusing which I think would help boost viewings.We were also complimented on the fact the camera work was very steady even though we didn't use a tripod which shows that one isn't always neccesarily needed. We have been told that the text we used was very important as it let them know what was going on and they might have been struggling to know what it was about otherwise.
However, we have learned that we should film our shots for longer then we actually need to as we found that the last shot would be better if it went on for longer.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The three main characters are present in all three tasks which helps the audience have familiarity with them. However, there is a different actress in the film poster and the magazine to the film as we has difficulty as we found she wasn't reliable enough. We have used conventions of social-realism films in all three of the tasks; the film poster is in black and white to show depression which links in nicely with the film as thew colours arevery dull as a lot of the filming is on the streets. The shot for the magazine portrays the boys to be quite laddish as those pose is quite promiscous. This will help atrract the audience as we hae found that this is what they look for. The production website link is present on all three of the tasks which is good way of advertisement.  The tagline (Love Will Tear Them Apart) is present in the film poster and the trailer which we have used to attract the audience because of the link to Joy Division.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have analysed numerous trailers and I feel that our trailer has challanged forms and conventions of the genre. For example, we havn't used much dialogue in the trailer but used a piano piece over the top to create tension. We have used text to help show the stroyline eg. 'Two Broken Brothers'. This makes up for the lack of dialogue and so the audience know what is going on. We used the tagline 'Love Will Tear The Apart' which is a twist on the song 'Love will tear us apart' by Joy Division. This will help give the audience familiarity as our target audience are likely to know that song. This will inspire them to go watch the film. There is a quite clip of the two brothers fighting in our trailer which can be seen as a convention of social-realism. For example, it is present in the 'Sweet Sixteen' trailer. There is a shot of me up against a fence looking out into fields. We have used symbolism here as it suggest that he is trapped because of the baby and he is looking out into the open world. Drugs can also be seen as a covention of social-realism fillm which is present in our trailer where Danny deals cocaine to another boy. This is showing that he has turned to crime. The last three shots are quick cuts of each of the the main characters. It shows how each of them is dealing with the stress of the pregnancy. The first shot shows Danny drug dealing which shows that he doesn't seem very affected by it. The last two are of Cora then me who are both sat down looking depressed. This leaves the audience worried about their welfare and will make them wnat to go watch the film to see how it ends up. The film poster also challanges the codes and conventions as Danny is wearing white which represents purity and innocence but we know he is the antaganist and is very sly whereas Jack is wearing black to show darkness but he is actually quite innocent and hurt.

Update

In the past two weeks, we have started filming our trailer. It has beeen a struggle as one of our actors has been ill so it halted the process. We also have a photo for our poster and have the layout on photoshop so we just need to upload the photo and edit it on. I have researched other socail-realism film posters and have analysed the 'This is England' one and decoded it.

Social-realism posters

Social-realism posters are often very blunt and simple pictures, usually, of the main characters with plain expressions on their faces which can often represent suffering. The colours are often dull; mainly blue. This denotes coldness and hard times.

Binary oppositions

Binary oppositions

Binary oppositions are characters/things that go against each other through narratives.

For example

Good vs evil
White colours (showing purity) vs Black colours (showing darkness)
Cowboys vs indiands
Masculine male vs less masculine male
Law vs criminal

Example in film - Gandalf (good) Vs Saruman (bad)
If you have seen the film you will notice saruman is a bad reflection of Gandalf. This relates to my film as the two boys are brothers and the younger brother is the good sibling and the older brother is the bad sibling. We also have parents and the children as binary oppositions. Here, the parents are representing authority.

Ideology and stereotypes in our 3 main characters

Ideology and stereotypes in our 3 main characters

Girl - Teenage pregnancy, sex before marriage, cheating on boyfriend etc. All these characteristics Go against the traditional views we have on stereotypical teenage girls and even women.

Younger brother- Caring, timid, sensitive, however smokes cannibis - Not particularly masculine characteristics.

Older brother - Ladies man, thinks he's a hard man, likes to stand out and be ahead of other males. smokes cannibis, drinks alcohol most weekends. Aggressive, angry, strong - Very masculine properties.

Younger brother and older brother are binary oppositions.

Todorovs narrative theory in visual

Todorovs narrative theory in visual

Ideology

Ideology is the system of belief in our society  These beleifs dominate our media. This is called dominant ideology. Dominant ideology is ideology that is accepted and understood by most of our society as part of our expectations in our culture. For example getting married before children. These examples are not always realistic beliefs in our society due to development in our culture but our media still potrays these beliefs. Children before marriage beleif relates to our film as the main plot is about an underage girl becoming pregnant. Teenage pregnancy is looked down on majorly in a modern day british society, however it has been a popular thing over recent years. Here is a more detailed explaination of ideology by Stuart Hall discussing racist ideology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ot-LpRVQog

Narrative theory

Narrative theory

In media terms, narrative is the organisation given to a series of facts. The human mind needs narrative to make sense of things. We connect events and make interpretations based on those connections. In everything we seek a beginning, a middle and an end. We understand and construct meaning using our experience of reality and of previous texts. Each text becomes part of the previous and the next through its relationship with the audience.

Represenation

Representation in the media

Representation is the message something portrays. For example a picture of a woman in the kitchen could represent that stereotypically women are always in the kitchen. Sometimes representation of some things are questioned as different people would interpret things in a different way.

Here is a professor called stuart hall talking about representation and the media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTzMsPqssOY

Storyline

Story line

3 main characters.
Two brothers - one 15 one 18
one girl - 15 - Younger brothers girlfriend.
All working class.
Older brother goes behind younger brothers back by having sex with his girlfriend.
The younger brother has always been the favourite sibling out of the two, older brother was jealous, always put down by feeling not good enough, so he had it away with the younger brothers girlfriend to get revenge.
Girl finds out she is pregnant. tells the boyfriend.
Younger brother (boyrfiend) notices his older brothers jewllery at girlfriends house. finds out the girl has had sex with him.
Brothers have a huge fight at home about it, breaks family apart, brothers get kicked out of their house. living on the street, sometimes at their freinds. stealing food from shops.
Brothers meet in the street, have a second fight and grow apart.
TWIST - Girl has slept with another guy but hasnt admitted it.
None of the brothers turn out to be the dad. The other guy is, family squash their differences and are happy families.

Codes and conventions

Codes and conventions of social realism

Friendship groups

Urban estates/slums

Police & Law

      

Riots

Marriage

 

                                                         

Towns

    

Racism

Drugs

Protests

Pregnancy

Drugs

Violence (family and on the street)

  

Family

Government

Goverment and law

This is England

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jkv2bRFgQ

Saturday night Sunday morning

This film has inspired us as it is one of the first social-realism films. Also, it is set in Nottingham which is where we are from so it has more meaning towards us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj00nZszmW4&feature=related

Propp's theory

• PROPP’S THEORY –Vladimir Propp’s theory was formed in the early twentieth Century. He studies Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. He did not state these characters were all separate people e.g. the provider could also be the helper. There are only 8 different character types and only 31 things they ever do. Once you have identified the character type (e.g., the hero) it’s easy to guess what they will do (save the maiden, defeat the villain, marry the maiden or whatever) because each character has a SPHERE OF ACTION. This is easily relatable to films and programmes today.

Todorov's theory

TODOROV’S THEORY – Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative).

Narrative theory

In media terms, narrative is the organisation given to a series of facts. The human mind needs narrative to make sense of things. We connect events and make interpretations based on those connections. In everything we seek a beginning, a middle and an end. We understand and construct meaning using our experience of reality and of previous texts. Each text becomes part of the previous and the next through its relationship with the audience.

Representation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTzMsPqssOY


Representation is based on the interpretation of information; the interpretation can be formed from one's background and experiences. Bad representations can have a 'snowball effect' and get bigger and bigger and result into a moral panic.  This means that representation can often be a biased view which often occurs in the media with young males. In our film our main characters represent young working class males. Although they had bad habits, they are shown not to be heartless unlike the media portrays. This goes beyond the steroetype and shows more depth in a character and shows them to be more human than the media portrays.

Intro

I will be making a social-realism film with Jamie Garton and Danny Hegarty about working class life for teenagers in Britain. It is about two 17 year old boys who both get themselves into serious problems. One of the boys impregnates a 14 year old girl and the other gets involved with drugs. This leads them both being homesless as they both get kicked out of their house.