MAIN Post 12.7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back on both my preliminary task and the main task, from The One Mistake to Behind Blue Eyes, I think there has been an improvement. If I had to choose 3 key points from then until now that I've developed and even improved on they would be as follows below this paragraph.

1) The positioning of the camera when filming the characters has improved from the preliminary task to the main task.

From the picture on the left, it shows the difference in the camera position.
The bottom picture from The One Mistake and the preliminary task shows the camera is too high and not at the eye line level where it should be at, whereas from the top picture and the main task, the camera is placed at eye line level and therefore looks much better.


2) The beginning of the filming in the preliminary task isn't as good as the main task, it's improved from then until now.

The picture to the left shows the beginning of Behind Blue Eyes and The One Mistake. The beginning of The One Mistake simply begins with a black screen showing the title and then a long shot of the character in the corridor. Whereas the beginning of Behind Blue Eyes is with the music coming straight in and panning shots of the equipment and opening credits.

There is an improvement here as even though the preliminary task didn't need to have an opening sequence like the main task did, the beginnings have still improved.

3) The location of where we filmed has improved from back in the preliminary task to the main task.

The picture on the left shows the locations used in the main and preliminary task. I'd say from the preliminary task to the main task the choosing of the location has been improved. In the preliminary task the location wasn't that good as the library was noisy during filming and didn't match the story line as well as the main task does with its locations. The locations of the main task work very well as they are conventional and clear/easy to work out where the girls are.

MAIN Post 12.6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From the very beginning of the main task we have been using different technologies and throughout we have simply used more. Below is a diagram of all the technologies I've used in this task and what I've learnt from using them.

BLOGGER
The first main technology I used was on the internet and it was the blogger. Every piece of work done during this task I put onto blogger by simply creating the posts and uploading the information needed. From blogger I learnt how to upload my pictures onto the site and how to upload videos for people to watch.

POWERPOINT
The next piece of technology I used was microsoft powerpoint 2010. This helped me in creating pictures, such as the one above at the top of this post. What I learnt from using powerpoint was how to save the images I'd created or put together as JPEG files. This is simply done by saving it as a different format.

CAMCORDER
In this task the camcorder was obviously an essential piece of technology used as this is what captured the footage of our opening sequence. I learnt a lot from using the camcorder as I was continuously looking through the camera getting the right shots to match the shot list.

FLIP CAMERA
This piece of technology was used in the main task to record the audience feedback videos. From using this I learnt that flip cameras can be used to record voices and then edited to here just the voice.

ADOBE PREMIER
This piece of technology, adobe premier, was again an obvious use as we edited our opening sequence together whilst using this. From this I learnt how to add special effects such as cross dissolves and I also learnt how to get the music in sync with the action happening behind it.

YOUTUBE
Another technology I used was youtube, this was because it showed the video clips of all the audience feedback videos and the final finished opening sequence of Behind Blue Eyes. What I learnt from youtube was how to embed a video from that site onto blogger. This is done by copying the embed code and pasting it onto blogger, unfortunately however, this didn't work for some reason when I tried to on my blog.


From all the technologies I used I think I learnt a lot and they all helped in making the final media product my group and I made.

MAIN Post 12.5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience through our USP, this is the friendship that Sophie and Paige both have, as shown in the pictures below they are always together.

The friendship between Paige and Sophie helps target the target audience as the people watching can relate to the friendship they have. The audience at home can relate by them having a friend they are extremely close to and know they have been through problems with them so can understand Sophie and Paige.
In order to get audience feedback on our film, we wanted to ask a range of people along with our target audience. Our target audience are people aged 15- late 20's and we asked people in this age range as well as a couple who were older.
We asked several people if they'd come watch the opening sequence of our film and then give us feedback on it, we managed to ask quite a lot of people. We aimed to try getting more of the target audience to actually find out what our 'typical' target audience might actually think about it.
We showed short filmings, roughly groups of 3, and then some people watched it individually, and we did this so we could get a grasp of everyone's opinion and what they thought of the film.

 

From looking at the BBFC website and all the different rating they have, that are 'U', 'PG', '12', '12A', '15', '18' AND 'R18', I can use these pieces of information to suggest what BBFC rating our film would get.

The BBFC Categories

I think the rating for Behind Blue Eyes would be 12/12A Film , this is because of several reasons. Firstly it's because of the fact that in Behind Blue Eyes there is discrete sexual activity between Alan and Sophie, but it is only discrete, therefore it would be inappropriate to rate this as a U (Universal) Film or a PG (Parental Guidance) Film. The second reason is because it wouldn't be rated as a 15 Film because these films have a primary purpose (when showing sexual activity) for sexual arousal or stimulation, this isn't the case in Behind Blue Eyes, as the film would only show small, discrete sexual references between Sophie and Alan.

This may help in attracting our target audience as they'll know the film is rated a 12/12A therefore they'll feel able to go see it without worrying about trying to get into a 15 rated film or not. By our target audience realising its a 12/12A they'll feel more mature as they're able to go the cinema and watch a film that's rated 12/12A knowing they're 15 and the film is a more 'grown up' film as if children wanted to see it they'd have to go with their parents.

MAIN Post 12.4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our target audience are people ages 15-late 20's. They are our target audience as from our questionnaire's the people that others go to the cinema with are their friends. The most frequent people who go to the cinema are around this age as this is what our research has told us.

A member of our target audience would be typically interested in hanging out with their friends. They'd probably be a student or young adult starting out with a new job who finds the latest trends and social gossip interesting. 
Below are some pictures demonstrating what a typical target audience for Behind Blue Eyes would be:

MAIN Post 12.3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A production company is a company that takes and makes the decisions needed to produce a film. The production company would take a film up to the distribution stage where it would then be marketed and distributed by possibly another company.

A production company in Britain would usually get funding by going to the UK Film Council, which has turned into the British Film Institute. These people would offer funding for producers wanting to produce a film in Britain, and give them the money to fund for it. The money they receive is from the national lottery and would be given to suitable films to fund, such as This Is England.

Whereas a production company in other places such as Hollywood would receive funding mostly from the studios. The studios would fund the films it'll produce in there as they'll receive some of the money back after the film has been released. Other funding could possibly come from the government or if the films are small enough they could even be self funded.

The distribution company that I would like to distribute our film would be Sony Pictures, this is because Sony has a lot of subsidiary arms in several different countries and our film would be able to be distributed well. Sony would be able to market our film through different ways, for example through the traditional posters and trailers and then through the internet and possibly even 'word of mouth'.

MAIN Post 12.2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main character in Behind Blue Eyes is a young teenage girl, aged 15, as shown in the photos below.

Here, our media product represents a female teenage social group. Sophie represents this social group as she is a typical teenager at school, with a few family problems at home, being that her mother doesn't really make time for her and along with this she has all the stress from her GCSE's that she is currently taking.
From the costumes she is wearing the photos above, being black tights and skirt, school shirt, tie and blazer, it's obvious to the audience that she goes to school. Our media product here represents her in the social group due to the specific costumes we chose for her to wear.



Another character in our film is Alan, he is Paige's father and in Behind Blue Eyes, the abuser. The picture below shows him in Behind Blue Eyes:

From this picture, I know, Alan is wearing the clothes highlighted in the picture below:

From the above pictures of Alan's clothing, he fits into a social group that can be described as well dressed but someone definitely with a secret. He is well dressed as he's wearing a shirt and black trousers, but he has a secret as he isn't wearing any kind of clothing that is going to make him obvious in a crowd. He would blend in, whenever given the chance and likes to keep himself to himself.

MAIN Post 12.1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

                The structure of the sequence of our opening sequence is conventional to drama films as we have shown opening titles, these are normally shown in other drama films such as Drive. From our group’s research on other media products, looking at the opening sequence of other drama films, we found out the type of opening credits conventionally used and the position they are placed. Some of the opening credits conventionally used in real media products and in our opening sequence are ‘Producer’, ‘Director’ and ‘Casting by’. However even though our group used credits in our opening sequence, being conventionally to real media products, we were unconventional in the placement of our film title. In the middle of our opening credits we placed our title ‘Behind Blue Eyes’, this is unconventional to real media products as it would’ve been expected to be seen either at the end or at the beginning of our opening sequence. We were also conventional in the use of setting the mood of the film in the opening sequence; this is again conventionally seen in other media products. This is one way that our product uses a convention of real media products. 

                The style of presentation in our opening sequence used forms that real media products use, one of these is the use of backing music over the action in our opening sequence. The music begins at the beginning of the opening sequence when the camera is shown to be panning over the math’s equipment and then finishes at the end of the opening sequence. This is a convention to drama films, the music also dims down at the points in the opening sequence when the two girls are talking and when the male voice over is being heard. However the use of the voice over in the opening sequence is slightly unconventional to real media products. This is because in real media products, in a drama film, not much is given away at the beginning during the opening sequence, whereas in our opening sequence the voice over gives some of the plot away. With quotes such as “her skirt was short, her tie loose” this gives away the fact that the male had been looking at one of the girls possibly in an inappropriate way.

                The style and colour of the font used throughout our opening sequence, I’d say, is conventional. The entire font is kept in the same type throughout the opening sequence and the colour is kept constant throughout as well, this helps in keeping the main focus of the audience on the action that’s happening behind the font and not all on the font itself. The audience would simply glimpse at the written font on the screen then immediately focus their attention back onto the action happening behind it on the screen.

               The genre of our opening sequence, being drama, used a lot of conventions that would normally be seen in real media products. The first obvious convention we managed to create when we produced our opening sequence was the beginning set the mood of the film, therefore making it feel more realistic to the audience that are watching it. Along with this at the beginning, our beginning also shows a graphical sequence of the camera panning across several pieces of math’s equipment and books. This is more conventional to TV dramas, as this is where it’s mostly seen, for example the beginning of Downton Abbey shows a similar kind of sequence. We were also conventional with the use of the drama genre as real media products that are drama ‘put the characters in conflict with themselves as well as others’ and this apply to the characters in Behind Blue Eyes.  Sophie is in conflict with herself as she doesn’t understand if what shes doing with Alan is right or wrong and because of this her relationship with Paige suffers a small feud. There are a lot of emotional themes used in Behind Blue Eyes that are conventional and that are expressed through the characters throughout the film. Also our opening sequence focuses on social realism, our plot puts across a realistic storyline that does happen unfortunately in the real world and gets the message across to the audience watching it.

                The narrative enigma in the opening sequence of Behind Blue Eyes I think is mildly unconventional as the voice over may be giving too much away to the audience before the film has really started. The use of this voice over was to give hints of what could happen and it can be argued that it does more than give hints in giving too much away as some of the audience in the audience feedback clips guessed straight away that the film would be about sexual grooming. However it can also be argues that the beginning doesn’t give that much away as the majority of the audience in the audience feedback weren’t sure on what the film was about, with guesses such as ‘rapist’ and a ‘dodgy relationship’.

                The introduction of the characters in Behind Blue Eyes is slightly conventional to real media products when the girls are both introduced, as the scene is set up to show the protagonist. It’s set up as Sophie seems to be doing everything, such as, getting stuff out of her locker, getting a bad math’s result and the shots of her ‘short skirt’ and ‘loose tie’. However the introduction of these two characters can also be unconventional as they are always seen together and could in fact be seen to the audience as ‘equals’, therefore not singling out the one protagonist. The male character creates an enigma about who he actually is, and this sets him up as the antagonist. It could be partially unconventional that the male gets hardly any screen time and the audience see little of him, but again, do we want the audience to see him so early in the film?

                The camera uses conventions from real media products as the shots of the characters are conventional. The close ups of the characters, especially the male in the car, show their facial expressions and help to set the mood of the film; this is conventionally used in other drama products to help the filmmakers get the mood of the film across to the audience. Along with this the camera is conventional as the shots, again, help to produce the protagonist and antagonist in the characters that are on the screen. The camera victimizes Sophie by showing the attention on her when it’s her and Paige walking and the camera shows short snips of the male, which could even help set his personality that he has a lot of secrets.

                The sound used in Behind Blue Eyes is very conventional to real media products as the first piece of music heard when the opening sequence begins, automatically sets the mood of the film. This is very conventional as the majority of other drama media products use the music to create specific atmospheres whilst the audience is watching it. Along with this the piece of music we found by December Rising has lyrics that match our plot with lyrics such as ‘we were best friends’ this benefits our opening sequence as Sophie and Paige are best friends and it’s their friendship that leads to the storyline developing. The other sound we used in the opening sequence was the voice over, which isn’t very conventional. Not very many other dramas have the opening of their film to a voice over and even if they do they don’t give a lot of the plot away which our voice over could be argued to be doing.  

                The editing and special effects in Behind Blue Eyes were used to help set the mood of the film as well and this is conventional. We used cross dissolves between some of the shots that kept up with the tempo of the action happening on screen. Also, we had longer shots that weren’t short, sharp shots as this wouldn’t have been conventional to the drama genre. We edited ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ onto a black screen to show the simplicity and obviously let the audience know the title of the film. This wasn’t conventional though as we edited it in the middle of the opening titles, it’s normally seen at the beginning or at the end of the opening credits.

              The mise-en-scene in Behind Blues is conventional to the scenes they are. The classroom is completely conventional as it involves the school equipment, other school children and even outside in the corridor the children walking past in conventional as that is what’s typically suppose to be seen in a school. The mise-en-scene of the car only shows small parts of it, like one side of the outside, the interior mirror and the back seats. This could be conventional as they’re getting into Alan’s car and he is a very mysterious man by not seeing much of the car it could portray his mystery over to the audience in another way.

MAIN Post 12a: Evaluation - Audience Feedback

When our group and I had finished editing the opening sequence of our film, the next step for us was to find out what our audience thought about it. We gathered small groups of people together to sit down and watch the opening sequence we'd created. From this we recorded their feedback and this is what's shown in the links below.
Again when trying to embed the video it didn't work therefore I have placed all the links below with the feedback clip it leads to.

Audience Feedback Rough Cut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UltDP81oOEQ&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q
Audience Feedback 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv9xa9d4eos&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q
Audience Feedback 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqFsWCSLVeI&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q

Audience Feedback 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D8w-ln-sgg&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q

Audience Feedback 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrpnbXdXUmU&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q

Audience Feedback 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7JkPprAVEQ&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q
Audience Feedback 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcmtVe2_DCo&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q
Audience Feedback 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZkfZnGHI08&feature=BFa&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q 


After watching all the feedback clips of the audiences watching our opening sequence I can now summarise it, getting a better understanding of what they thought.
The majority of the people who we got feedback from commented on the very beginning of the opening sequence when the camera was panning across the maths equipment.

They said they enjoyed it as it brought curiosity, emotion and it helped set the mood. Along with this, some commented on the thought that maybe this highlighted the pressures of school that a specific character could be going through.

One of the other key points made in the feedback videos was the use of the music in the opening sequence.
The speed of the music and the opening titles at the beginning of the opening sequence went well together, some of the audience said, and along with this it helped set the mood of the beginning of the film. The music made the audience 'intrigued' and was 'dark and misleading'.

The opening sequence that the different audience watched, they said, was spooky and the attention to detail was very good. This shows that the mood was put across well and all the audience seemed to notice it. Another point several people made was the fact that once the girls got into the car, after seeing the male look out the window and then the interior mirror, it made them slightly uncomfortable to watch because of the thought of the short skirt and loose tie shown in a shot before.

When the audiences were asked about where they think the film would be going and what would happen later, they had a mixture of comments. We found that the women watching the opening sequence thought the rest of the film would be about either 'grooming', 'sexual abuse' or a 'rapist'. Whereas the men weren't quite sure on what they thought it would be as the responses we got from them were 'something to do with a maths tutor' and 'misunderstanding the signs'. From this we found out that the women had a better understanding of the opening sequence than what the men did.

Overall the majority of the feedback from all the clips was fairly good.

MAIN Post 9: Production

During the filming and editing of Behind Blue Eyes my group and I had to make various decisions when filming and after nearly finishing the editing we had to make some revisions of the work produced. These decisions were made as a group and we made them in order to produce the outcome of the film a lot better.

A big decision our group made when editing the first section of our film together was to take out the scene of Sophie and Paige at Paige's house and of Sophie getting out the car and walking towards her own house. These were replaced with a scene of Paige and Sophie walking away from school and into Alan's car and another scene of them both inside the car, beginning to drive away with Alan. This decision was made as we thought by adding the scene of them both in Paige's bedroom it'd feel to the audience as the opening sequence has ended and the film had begun properly, almost as if they'd missed watching and skipped a scene out. 
Even though the shot of the girls getting into the car outside Paige's house was cut, we kept the shot of them getting into the car just, this time outside the school instead. This shows the girls walking towards the car, and we can therefore still show Alan looking out the car window at them highlighting the fact he's looking at Sophie's short skirt and loose tie.

Personally I think this was a good decision made as the end result of the girls walking to the car and then the shots inside the car look really good and contribute in getting the mood and part of the plot across to the audience.




Another decision we made together was at the beginning of the opening sequence in the graphical sequence. The decision we made here was because when filming we captured lots of different shots of the colouring pencils, this was helpful during editing as we put several shots of this in from different angles. This gave some slight hints of bolder colours in the graphical sequence, rather than it showing dull colours and possibly even boring the audience watching.  

During the editing of the opening sequence we had to make several decisions, these being where to put the opening titles, what font to put them in and how many to have. From our research after watching drama films, we found out that there are a lot of opening credits and from this we wanted to be conventional in putting the majority of them in.

However when we were putting these credits in, with the amount there were, we couldn't put our four names on every single one of them. For this reason we made some names up so that when the audience was watching the opening sequence our names weren't repeated at every opening credit there was. For us this made it feel and hopefully look more realistic.


We also took out a shot in the opening sequence, this was the one from inside the locker where we would've seen Sophie getting her books out and shutting the locker door, leaving a black screen for 'Behind Blue Eyes' to appear. The reason we decided to take this shot out was because it was difficult to keep continuity and keep the camera still whilst filming and when editing we discovered the title looked better on a black screen anyway.
Another decision we had to make regarding the opening credits was where to put them and for this reason some of them may differ from what the shot list originally states. We spent ages deciding where about to position the credits, we wanted to put them evenly spread through the title sequence and in places that looked visible yet not taking up the entire screen.

Overall all the decision we made as a group during the filming and editing stages have been good ones, from them they help in make the film what it is and also get the plot across well.

MAIN Post 8: Pre-Production Documentation

Before we began looking for a location to film the scenes, we came up with a mise-en-scene design in order for us to follow. This shows a mixture of different pictures that can highlight specific parts in the mise-en-scene that we want to put across. The below picture shows this:

 













My group and I produced a location recce of the bedroom that Sophie and Paige would be in whilst shooting them in the scene, this location recce highlights the power in the room and the lighting.
Below is a copy of our groups location recce of the bedroom Sophie and Paige are in at the beginning of Behind Blue Eyes:

As well as planning what the set design would look like with all the pictures together above, we also put together what we wanted the props and costumes to be and look like. The costumes would highlight what Sophie, Paige and Alan would be wearing and the props are mainly what we would be using to pan over at the beginning of the opening sequence. Below are the props and costume ideas:

My group and I produced a shot list for the opening sequence of Behind Blue Eyes, this simply shows the location of the shot, the scene the shots in and a description of the shot itself. By producing this shot list we could refer back to it whilst filming all the different shots.
Below is a copy of our groups shot list of the opening sequence to Behind Blue Eyes:

The script simply highlights who says what and the order in which the lines are said. This script contains the voiceovers said by the male in the opening sequence as well.
Below is a copy of our group's script of the opening sequence to Behind Blue Eyes:

We produced a storyboard to illustrate each shot in each scene, this had a visual drawing of what the shot would look like and it also highlighted the character movement, length of and where the shot would be.
The storyboard is shown below:

We carried out a risk assessment showing the potential risks throughout filming, risks that could've injured somebody or a piece of equipment.
Below is a copy of our groups risk assessment, highlighting the risks in each scene and a way of avoiding this risk:

In order to get our opening sequence filmed, we created a shooting schedule of when we were all free in order to get the scenes shot. Our groups shooting schedule consisted over two days, described what scenes would be filmed, what times we would film and this is show below:

We also had a short crew list, so that everyone in the group knew what they were doing and what their roles were in producing the opening sequence.
Katie-Mai Taylor: Actor of Sophie, Editor
Alexandra Mullins: Actor of Paige, Editor
Bobbi Rhodes: Camera Operator, Producer, Editor
Charley Daugherty: Camera Operator, Director






As shown in post 4a, below is a copy of the Behind Blue Eyes synopsis, this simply highlights the main points in the entire film. It also gives an audience that reads it the background information on the film and the general plot.

..

MAIN Post 11: Final Opening Sequence

Unfortunately when trying to embed the video clip from youtube onto my blog, it didn't work. Therefore below is a copy of the link that'll lead straight to the video on youtube.

When we put the video onto youtube the size of the screen changed to 4:3, this would normally be seen when watching the television, but when we shot and edited our opening sequence we used the size 14:9 as this is what's seen when watching a film in the cinema.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOvWz14PI3M&list=UUiCPNZjTUS7GKDcdT5xgP_Q&index=1&feature=plcp

This link leads to the opening sequence of Behind Blue Eyes.

MAIN Post 6: History of Chosen Genre

To help understand about our chosen drama a little more, I carried out some research into the history of teen drama.

I started my search on wikipedia, simply searching drama film and teen drama and teen film. From this I was looking through the following three websites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_film
The above website gave a clear definition of dram films that is "film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes". Continuing on from this it mentions some dramatic themes such as alcoholism and drug addiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_drama
From this website it quotes that teen drama is a "dramatic television series with major focus on teenage characters." This isn't extremely helpful to us as its talking more about television programmes then it is film. But it does allow us to kow that drama for teenagers to watch would possibly involve watching other teenages and people similar ages to them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_film
Accoriding to the site above, it gives the definition of a teen film as a film targetted at teenagers, where the plot is an interest of what teenagers want to watch. These types of films have typical codes and conventions such as "The Jock/Cheerleader, The Geek/Nerd and The New Girl/Boy". This can help us as in order to reach our target market we may need to think about adding some of these codes and conventions into our film.

http://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/drama
I found the above website useful as it gave a clearer definition of the genre drama. It sums it up in a sentence that is "Drama film is a genre that relies on the emotional and relational development of realistic characters." From this we can aim to get our film to fit into that sentence as we are aiming to produce a drama film. However ours will interpret teenagers as it isn't just a drama, its a teen drama.  

http://www.imdb.com/genre/drama
The link to IMDb gives a list of the most popular drama films at the moment. This list includes films such as The Hunger Games, Titanic, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Lucky One.