Thursday 18 December 2014

12BMS Feedback



See below for the different feedback for your initial ideas- you can put the relevant ones on your blog and then you will need to discuss what you have learned as you have seen following the criteria above.

There should be an appropriate level of detail and you need to consider presentation (i.e. rotate the pictures I've not had a chance to rotate!) in your post.












Wednesday 17 December 2014

Target Audience & Production Company Ident

After having discussed possible ideas and come up with a pitch, your next focus should be on thinking about your target audience and designing a production company ident (logo) for your film. These will be discussed together as the production company ident will be largely dependent on what you decide the target audience for your film is.

Target Audience

Film company target audiences tend to be broken down into 4 categories:

Females under 25
Males under 25
Females over 25
Males over 25

Of course, you might argue that your film would appeal to more than one of these audience groups, and many films do. There are even some films that are 'four-quadrant' movies, meaning that they would have a genuine appeal for all 4 target audience groups (e.g. Toy Story 3, Inception).

You will need to have evidence on your blog that you are thinking about who would be your target audience and attached to that think about why it is that it might not appeal to other audiences. As always, you should attempt to think about your presentation!

Further Thoughts on Target Audience

You should reflect about what kind of film you are going to be making the opening of, and whether it would be considered mainstream, a slightly lower budget co-production or a niche independent production.

This would obviously have an impact on the size of your audience.

EXTENSION 1: look at some of the BFI exit polls and discuss what kinds of 'baits' of audience there might be:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/film-industry/lottery-funding-distribution/insight-reports-case-studies-audience-research/exit-polls

EXTENSION 2: look at the UK Tribes website and try to think about specific youth audience groups that may be interested in your film: use the password slwhkxwi

https://www.uktribes.com/

Production Company Ident

Your production company logo should at worstnot be distracting and at best help to reflect the tone of the film you are aiming to make.

Many major film company idents tend to reflect a wider appeal- Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks, for example.






For independent production companies who specialise in making certain films, there tends to be a slightly more themed ident.
For example, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company Gary Sanchez Productions



Gunslinger Productions have made edgy social realism films like Shank, Sket and the parody Anuvahood.

Tuesday 16 December 2014

Character Development

It will be necessary and beneficial for you to work out a slightly more 'fleshed-out' idea of your film- this will allow for some important character development and issues around tone (so, is your proposed horror film going to feature dozens of characters being killed or just one person being psychologically tortured?)

The character development aspect should focus on your main characters with a profile of what they are like- you might focus on aspects such as:
  • costume
  • personality
  • name & possibly reason
1 or 2 in-depth profiles rather than every character in your opening sequence is fine, and you are welcome to make reference to existing characters that may be an influence on your choices.

Thursday 11 December 2014

Wallander Clip!

I know some of you have been trying to get screen grabs from Wallander but haven't been able to access the clip. Please follow instructions below to access it from FROG.

FROG- Second Dot- Departmental Sites-Shared Area- Media- Year 12 Media- Foundation Portfolio- Opening Sequences- Wallander.mp4

You can then download this file and get your screen grabs from there.

25 Word Pitch

While a good idea can quite easily be ruined by poor execution, a poor idea is much more difficult to save through good production skills.

Students often come up with overly-complicated narratives that they then struggle to contain in a brief teaser, or choose ideas that do not really 'work' in terms of allowing for interesting visual ideas.

The most important thing is to keep your ideas simple and to attempt to think visually when coming up with ideas.

Steven Spielberg said that"If a person can sell me an idea in 25 words or less, I know it'll make a good movie." Using this as a model, you will be required to provide a pitch to the rest of the class and be ready to answer any questions or field any other feedback.

Below are four different examples that may help you in terms of structure:

Egomania by Paul Alexander and Simon Braithwaite - "Hotshot young lawyer Michael Stark becomes so successful, so arrogant and so full of himself that his ego decides to go solo - with disastrous consequences."

The Cleaner by Peter Michael Rosenberg - "When a crime scene cleaner haunted by his past uncovers evidence that suggests LAPD cops are working as assassins, he becomes their next target."

Shoeless Joe by Andrew Clyde - "A holiday of a lifetime across the desolate heart of the Australian outback turns into a living nightmare for five friends."

Storage by Chris Denne and Matt Winn - "Terror stalks a storage facility. Survival for those trapped inside depends on the secrets in those endless units. But some doors are better left locked."

Genre Influences

Having seen the variations of opening sequences as a class, it is crucial that you find additional sources of influences that are more interesting/ personalised for you. At this stage, you are looking to focus on:

- influences in terms of genre

Again, these should be shown on your blog with visual elements included (stills from the opening of the film) focusing on specific detail of the conventions in terms of:

- production ident
- titles
- tone
- sounds
- characters

Friday 5 December 2014

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Mood Board





For your opening sequence, the precise storyline is not assessed. However, a poor storyline often will make it a struggle for you to obtain the higher marks in your production.

While we will focus on more specific aspects of storyline next week, one way to assist the process of coming up with a suitable story is to do a mood board.

A mood board is a poster that consists of images, bits of text, objects or anything else that may convey ideas of design for a project. It is used by many people within different creative occupations in order to begin to get ideas of the tone and look that they wish to bring into their projects.

You will need to design some kind of mood board in order to ensure that your story ideas are not just guided by a one-sentence story but also informed by a visual style you want to incorporate. Each of you should do this individually to reflect your aesthetic interests.

This should be labelled 'Planning'.

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Brief

While this was given to you by Miss Mitchell, see below for the brief:

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.