Cast List Task:24

These are the three main characters/cast that I hope to use within my film poster(s). In addition to theses I might be able to gain some further photos of extras that were in our Short Film.

Ben Hicks:

As the drug dealer in our short, I believe that Ben has a key role to show the audience the plot to the film. In addition it shows that the current generation of teenagers are seen to be with the drugs and alcohol. Therefore I believe an image of Ben in the Drug Alleyway scene would suit a poster and our film very well. For the Photo, Ben will be wearing the same outfit that was seen in the film. This attire connotes his youth and the cap shows how he wants to be disguised.



Rory Wilton:

As the main protagonist of our short, I believe Rory has to be in one of our posters or part of his role. By this I mean that their could be a scene with him taking the drugs and the table could be in the majority of the poster. Although Rory subverts stereotypes of drug addicts, we based our film around this fact with a therapy session etc. I believe he will suit the audience appeal as it shows subversions from the media stereotype.





Emma Hussey:

As the (ex) wife of Rory in the film, I believe that Emma would be a good addition to the poster if I were to have a shot of them both in scene. However as I would want to give much away about the plot of the film, I would try to make her involvement in the poster subtle so it would just give a hint to the storyline.




Becky Mead-Stuchbery - Jessica

As for the daughter in our film we were recommended Becky as the actor as she has had previous experience in acting due to her studies in Drama. In addition to this she appeared like a reasonable daughter and matched some key characteristics to the main actors.

Alison Dures - Therapist

For the Therapist we needed an experienced individual who can convey their role well within film and on set at all times. For this we chose a Drama teacher from our school as she has had around 30 years of experience within the drama industry. Another key element we had is the fact that she is friends with Anthony which allowed for smoother acting as they didn't have to work out each others personality. 

Possible names for the film Task:16

As this is a film based around drugs, alcohol and therapy we need to come up with a name that sums it all up to show the audience an insight to the film.

• Class A
• White Lies 
• The Addict
• Paradise White
• Powder line

After coming up with these ideas we decided to run them through our target audience to see what they liked the most. As you can see from the results we have a strong lead on White Lies and the rest of the results were fairly matched with 'The Addict' taking second place.

I believe the results are very true and follow my reason behind 'White Lies' being our final name for the film. I believe that the other 4 where very closely matched due to the fact that the audience have seen this style of names which are stereotypical and corny. By this I mean that its very typical for people to call something that is a re wording of a key part in what ever they are naming. So for us to name our film Powder line or Class A would be stereotypical and as the audience have told us boring and not as appealing. 

From here I can see that Paradise White and The Addict are higher in votes due to the fact they are not named directly of the substance in the film but instead are a mix of words to resemble the film with out being blatantly obvious about it. However I personally wouldn't 

Ident Task:12

Ident's usually appear before a television show or movie is shown. In addition, within a tv show they are shown in the adverts to show the viewers what else they have to other. However in a trailer you normally only see them at the start due to the lack of breaks.





Common Conventions of an Ident?

Idents typically are very clean and follow a professional style. However not all Idents follow a fully graphical style, with this BBC advert we can see that their is multiple hippopotamuses swimming around in a circle. This is a animation but is designed to look like a video from a camera, this therefore connotes that BBC One might refer to topics to do with the world or wildlife. As for the colour palette they have gone with a realistic set that represent real life, this is a mixture of Greens and Blues that make up the water with the sun shining through. As for the logo, it is of a simple nature in the GEL font which is covered on all other platforms by them.

Another Ident is the Warner Bros film ident, which is typically seen in cinemas or before the start of a film or trailer. This is a well renowned company and I can see this from the fact that the majority of their logo is gold and appears like a shield. I believe that the Gold connotes success and high standard along with the shield which is something that famous or successful names go onto.

Idents typically last around ten to twelve seconds. Feature film trailers usually have Ident's which last around five seconds as the actually trailer isn't that long.

How are they linked to the genre?

Typically all idents don't link to the film as that is not what they are their to do. An ident is a way of showing the audience who/what company produced this film. Therefor if they have scene a good film prior which was by the same company then they have a baseline to run of. This is very similar to how people will want to go and watch a film with specific actors in or directors as they might be well renowned and therefor the film should be good. In general the only time that companies will base the ident around the specific film is maybe if they are producing a set of movies based upon the same subject, such as the marvel series.

Genre Conventions Task:11

Narrative and Representation:

Within a Crime film there is a lot of action. The film will often revolve around the criminal himself or the storyline will follow the criminals victim. Within both styles we can see a lot of fast paced action, unknown storylines and mystery upon what is going to happen next.

For a Thriller there is a climax which ends that story with links throughout the film that adds suspense.Throughout a few Feature Thriller films, I can see a buildup of suspense which is followed by a ultimate climax to the story.

Although both genre's are precent in most Feature films we will try our best to incorporate key aspects into our Short. For example this could mean that we have to write the script in such a way that it builds suspense very quickly to match our 5-10 minute suggested film length.

 For characters, I believe we will need 2-4 main character as there can't be to many otherwise they wouldn't fit into our short. However we do need the main protagonist as we need to follow them through the film to add tension and storyline. Furthermore we will need an antagonist to keep this tension building as making the audience on the edge of their seat.


Roland Barthes Stated "The way tension is built up and the audience is left guessing what happens next" (The Enigma) 2007.

This is very relevant to our genre as the idea is to have the audience guessing throughout the film. This is a commonality of thriller/ crime films as their is a progression and the audience are always left guessing.


Media Language:

Within in certain films I can see that long cuts or quick cut shots are the best for adding tension to the film which also gives a sense of urgency to the characters and therefore the audience.

A film famous for keeping the audience on their toes is psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. He uses slow long cuts within the film with his main characters to add tension which builds to the climax of the film. We will be looking at a few films by famous people to decide how we want to build to our film in terms camerawork.

Following on from the Camerawork, Editing is a key part to allow the work you have done in scriptwriting and Camerawork to come together in the final edit. When deciding the camerawork we will be able to all come together and give ideas for editing we have gained from other famous films. However at this point I haven't decided what exact style of editing we want.

Another key aspect is Mise-en-scene, this is important because no matter how good the filming is if we shot the film in a place that opposes our script then it would not be successful. After writing our script we will be able to narrow down each part that we require. In other tense films, they show dark and dull colours to set the scene. Dull colours are used as they are a key part in thrillers that adds tension to the film. We will have to look at this and other parts when setting up.


Sound And Music:

In many thriller films their is a strong tense instrumental sound added to make the atmosphere match the scene. However in other films the lack of music is beneficial as music is not necessary and therefore wouldn't hint to the climax of the film. Personally I find that some lower budget films over use typical songs and music which allows me and the audience to know something is about to happen.

In addition to this the lack of music and the silence within the cinema etc gives a sense of unexpectedness to whats going to happen. Due to this I believe that music although beneficial if used right wouldn't be necessary to make our film better.  Another fact is that our film is short, therefor the time of the music would have to be perfect to match the pace of the film. From this I can tell that we will need to research and experiment further down the line with music in our short. This will come later which is good as it will allow us to further build upon our script without this wall in the way.

BBFC Classification

This is the official classification criteria for a 15 rated film, due to our survey getting results that suggests that the majority of out target audience are aged 15 and above.

Discrimination:
The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour, although there may be racist, homophobic or other discriminatory themes and language.

Drugs:
Drug taking may be shown but the work as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse (for example, through instructional detail). The misuse of easily accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example, aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Imitable behaviour:
Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied. Whether the depiction of easily accessible weapons is acceptable will depend on factors such as realism, context and setting.

Language:
There may be strong language. Very strong language may be permitted, depending on the manner in which it is used, who is using the language, its frequency within the work as a whole and any special contextual justification.

Nudity:
There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context. There may be nudity in a sexual context but usually without strong detail.

Sex:
Sexual activity may be portrayed, but usually without strong detail. There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour, but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

Although this is the official classification for feature length films, it still applies exactly the same for short films.

Target Audience Research

With research into other  Target Audience's I have come up with a few key points I need to consider.

Age: Older Teenagers to Young Adults. (Borderline)
Gender: Predominately Male
Race: Predominately White but not specific
Religion: Atheist - Again not specific
Sexuality: Predominately Straight

In our first Survey Monkey quiz we asked for peoples age group, From this we got a leading vote for 16 - 20 year olds. Following this was 21-25, this has enabled us to decide what content would/could be in our film and wether we rate it 15 or higher which would then cut of people younger than 18.To help us with this we will look at the BBFC's criteria for a film  rating so we can then depict the classification for ours.

For the next question we asked 'What would be a good length for a short Film?'. From this the leading answer was 5-10 minutes, this is great because I believe a short film should be no longer than 10 minutes as then it might be classified as something different. From this question we can now take time to write the script that matches the criteria to keep the film short. In addition to film length, this question will enable us to predict the time allocated for filming, booking equipment and getting actors that might have a busy schedule.

In our next question we asked ' What is your favourite film genre?'. Since our script writers (Fin/Ben) had some ideas on what short film genre they wanted ( Thriller) we were hoping that our target audience survey would relay information that would be in the same style/genre otherwise it would be more difficult to create a script. Within the survey we got a high rating for Thriller, which I believe would be matching the stereotypes of our age group as they are seeking excitement from a film. In addition to this a close second was Crime, which is good as it fairly similar to Thriller but now it allows us to go ahead with a script with parts that link to crime.

A more general question in our survey was about Gender. This came out to be a very close match with Male leading with 52% of the responses. We were planning to to a mix Gender film when we had the initial thought to produce a film so these results are very helpful as they are quite even. When planning this film and writing the script we will have to think about what key parts will make our film mixed Gender's. For example we will see about getting an equal amount of Men to Females within our film.

For our social band question we got a result with the highest vote being from a C1 social grade which means that they are ' Supervisory , Clerical, and Junior Managerial,  Administrative and Professional Occupations.  In simple terms this means our audience is from a Working Class or Middle Class population.

Finally we asked 'What themes would put you of a film?'. We did this question as it will allow us to plan our script in a way that matches the audience and the BBFC classification. In addition to this we asked about what put them of, we did this because if we asked what they liked it would be a very broad set of results and therefore wouldn't help us. However, by asking what they didn't like such as Blood, Violence or Swearing it would and has produced a narrower range of answers.

Most people responded to this with ' They don't mind as long as it is used appropriately'. This is very understandable and therefore when writing the script we will see if any of the suggested violence would be necessary.

Survey #1