TARGET AUDIENCE & NOTIONAL BBFC

AGE:
Our film is aimed at a teenage audience and a young adult audience, between the ages of 13-22. This is because we believe teens enjoy our genre and theme more , which is teenage murder. As out opening was mostly filmed in a school setting we belie that teenage benefit from this , they can relate and understand the context and setting. Our cast were 16 or 17 and i believe having a cast at the same ages our target audience has benefited our opening , our audience can relate more to our story line, they also feel some kind of connection and relationship as the cast as they have similar features which in this case is age. We used fast pasted editing in our opening , due to the increase in youtube and music videos , fast pasted editing in time with music and beats has become increasingly popular , therefore we used this is some parts of out opening to appeal to our audience , we belive this swill help our opening look up to date. The music we used as a basis for ideas and influences was chosen as its peopler and well known in the younger society. therefore we though basing our music on music that is already popular would give us an advantage and create a more up to date and on trend look to our opening. We would give our opening a rating 12 based on what i read on the BBFC’s website. 

Genre: 
i think the genre of our audience will be fairly split between males and females. Our female actors draw both a female and male audience in but mainly attracting guys due to male gaze. The aspect of violence also attracts a male audience as wifi and horror films are traditionally and stereotypically seen as "male films". The issue of conflict between the girl and the scene in which they get ready draws in a female audience and the aspect of teen conflict also will appeal to a female audience.

Nationality/region:
 Our opening is english that means that our audience will be english speaking. We hope that our audience will become a UK-wide audience and we hope that we would make sales worldwide and over sees.
Our settings include traditional looking english school settings , i think this will appeal to american as it fits the stereotypical image american have on England and i believe that this will appeal to them.
as films such as wild child become very popular due to the english boarding school setting.

Typical audiences for this genre:
Our genre of teenage murder and crime is very popular in the movie industry at the moment due to the break out of series such as scream queens and going back to films such as heathers. The typically audience for the genre such as scream queens is young teens and there is an equal divide between males and females.

Ethnicity
Our film is based on a teenager girl in a typical high school setting; with a dark past. Our target audience is teenagers of any ethnicity. We are using caucasian females. We chose these actresses due to them bring available; using the opportunities around us.

Socio-economic groups
Socio-economic groups have a large range. They were created to help the government group the population into categories.

A - higher managerial - administrative and powerful jobs, such as; lawyer or surgeon
B -  intermediate managerial - professional and administrative; back manager or teacher
C1 - Supervisory and junior managerial; shop floor supervisor and sales person
C2 - Skilled manual workers, for example carpenter or electrician
D - semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers; assembly line or messenger
E - Casual labourers, the unemployed and pensioners; for example people who live on basic benefits or students

Our film is going to be targeted at the socio-economic group E - students. This is going to be highlighted by the protagonist being a caucasian student girl. This is so that teenage girls can empathise and connect with the protagonist and antagonist of out film. She will be wearing typical girl clothing - clothing brands such as; H&M and topshop.

Psychographic Profile
Psychographic profile fits into groups; much like socio-economic groups. based on personality, beliefs, values, interests and lifestyle choices. The government also uses this grouping to see where different people fit into different categories and compare them. Much like demographic but instead of focusing on the work they do they focus on the behaviour of the audience and their actions.
 For example a group of 16-18 yr olds staying at home and a group of 16-18 yr olds leaving home and having to live for themselves for the first time would be very different audience's. For example if we were aiming the film at a group of 16-18 yr olds that are leaving home, the film could focus on independence.

Planning for filming

Me and Rian decided that we would have four actresses playing the roles.

The antagonist - Sarah
The antagonist - Isabelle
Second girl - Amy
Thrid girl - Rian

Here is some evidence for our planning of filming:




















All the actressess were flexible and everything went to plan.
We did have some last minute filming (on the 11th of February) due to poeple not being avalibale on the same day. Howveer we worked around this and on the 12th we went in to school and editing the final cut.

We were planning on getting all the filming done before the christmas holidays; however we decided to not rush into this and film some scenes after, for example scene 3 (entering school). We did have some help from parents to convince our actresses to film with us. Making the time of filming shorter by gving us lifts where possible.




















We also gave them some incentives, e.g food. We bought popcorn and chocolate to say thankyou for all their hard work seeing as thry had coursework they needed to be doing as well. 

Audience feedback

I wanted to gain audience feed back from specifically my target audience , which is teen girls and boys. Therefore i asked Maddie Wormald age 16 and Esme Sumpner aged 13. They gave me honest answers that enabled me to further improve my opening. For example i altered the volume of the music due to suggestion off Maddie.

scene two and three developments to final cut.

in between the rimes of 1:40 and 2:20 you can see my first rough cut of scene two. I didn't really like my first edit as i initially gave to much narrative enigma away too soon in the opening , therefore i worked and got advice from m peers to help think of ways i could have improved it . In the next video you can see my second attempt.




I prefer this edit a lot but i still felt that adjustments need to be made , i liked the way that the shots blend into each other and the use of the double exposure at the end , but i wasn't sure that the voice over worked as well as i wanted it to. I felt that to enable m to really target my audience of female and male teens that i would have to make it more modern and make the editing faster and jumpier much like modern tv and music videos use today.



This final edit i was really happy with , i changed everything that i though i could improve above and although not shown in this clip , i recorded a new voice over with i still need to add into the opening.

Scene one development to final edit.

When we first filmed scene one we found difficulties with the lighting as the defences between the two locations. I think the shoot however went well as we captured everything that we intended to capture and we worked with the story boards really closely.
These are my first edits of the two shoots , they have no yet been merged together as i had to edited them separately as they were filmed on separate days. I decided that the Establishing shot would be a medium long shot at a medium angle of sarah.


The second development is shown in the fist 1.54 of the video below , i had merged them together but i still wasn't happy. The lightning levels dot work when out next to each other and i don't thinks one of the shots used are the most effective , i also thought that the crossing of the faces doesn't work at the beginning as it is too revealing and doesn't create enough narrative enigma with in the opening. I feel it gives too much away too soon.

This development still needs a lot of adjustments to it. The lightning levels are still way out and therefore there isn't a nice flow throughout this scene. I think it is still a bit jumpy and some of the shots could flow better through out and into each other. I like the shots that we got though and despite the bad lighting i feel i can work to improve that and the scene will look really nice. To improve this scene i am going to add the music so i can work with it and make it fit , i will also improve the lighting levels and make the scene more mysterious. Give it more narrative enigma and suspense so that the reader isn't given to much information at one time. I tried to use shot reverse shots to help give the opening more structure i also wanted to make sure i had a lot of shot variety such as jump cuts , math on action and different angles.
I also need to add my titles to the opening ( i have a post explaining my titles developments ) Here 

My final edit i think was more effective than the rest , despite the voice over when the letter is shown that needs adding , i am happy with how it turned out. It follows the story board very well and doesn't give too much narrative enigma away but gives enough signifiers to enable us to understand the text.

Wish you were here opening analysis

Completed by Rian Scaife

Wish you were here was directed by David Leland. 
The budget was $1.5M. 
The Box Office was $3.8

Summary: Joel Edgerton stars as Dave Flannery, who reluctantly vacations in Cambodia with his pregnant wife Alice (Felicity Price), her younger sister Steph and new boyfriend Jeremy. After a night of partying, Jeremy vanishes without a trace. Dave and the women return to their lives, each bearing differing degrees of knowledge about what happened and slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together to find out what happened that night.  
     Dave reveals he slept with Steph on the beach.He goes for a walk and meets a man, who offers to take him to a small bar. Dave went and began drinking. Alice gets into an argument with Dave. She goes to Steph's house and confronts her. On the way home, she gets into a car accident and is rushed to the hospital, where she prematurely gives birth to the baby. In the end, Dave tells the police the truth of Jeremy's death

This is the opening to 'Wish you were here'. The film was produced in 1987. The film was produced and written by Davis Leland. The film is about a girl who is looked down on by the elder generations because of how she dresses and acts. her mother is dead and her dad has given up on her. (The Title refers to her mother {wishing her mother was there}). It is set in the British seaside in the 1950's.

  The first think that comes up in this 'Film Four International presents..'. The title is white on a black background centre screen. White text on a black background often signifies the film being set on serious social issues and documentation. The text is sans-serif. The film genre is a British comedy-drama. The film opening is1:34 minutes long.

This comes up around 4 seconds after the 'Film Four International'. The writing is the same and the text is centre screen bringing the eyes in. 

This photo of a child then fades in. This image stays on the screen for a relatively longer period of time than the titles. The image is a girl with a gas mask on. We can connote that the film may be based in the past or the past has a lot to do with the life of one of the main characters. The image is not full screen. It has been cropped and on covers the centre of the screen. Again everything seems to be in centre screen. So far we haven't actually seen any of the time period or the area that the film is set in. This is narrative enigma. Information is being with held, making us ask questions, such as who is this child, when was this. This shot comes up at around 0:10 seconds. The fades away at 0:17, which is twice the length of the first two idents.

This is the next shot. Come in at 0:18 seconds. It is on the screen alone for three seconds much ike the idents, the name Tom Bell then appears. Emily Lloyd then disappears at 0:23 listing 0:07 seconds on the screen. Tom Bell i now left and fades out at 0:26 seconds The camera is slowly revealing more of the scene. Slowly moving left. As it moves more titles of actors are put up. This isn't a very long introduction to actors. The first actress to come up in EMILY LLOYD. This suggests that she is the main character of the film. I would usually guess that this meant Emily Lloyd was famous however this was her first film. She was 15 at the time.

  The title is a bold bright red, attracts your eyes to the screen. It is very contrasting in comparison to the background. Which is dull and grey. I can denote that it is the ocean, probably somewhere in England because of the dark grey skies, suggesting it isn't somewhere warm like Spain.

Tom Bell is then added to the screen. We can again denote that these are the main actors of this film. 'Tom Bell' s also in the ocean section of the screen. The text is not covering the structure that we are about to see. The filming that is being done here is crab left. Extreme Long shot to give us the full picture of where we are. The scene is slowly being revealed.Narrative enigma is a big part of this scene. His name fades in at 0:21 and fades out at 0:26 seconds.

The title of the film has now been introduced. The font of the writing has now changed. The writing is serif. Very fancy, something that you would find in a rom-com. However, Wish you were here is a drama comedy. This would be showing the drama side of the film. The writing is very dramatic and over the top.  The semiotics of this are still not giving away, much about what the film is really about.  We have now reached the actually beach. Lana. There is a man walking along the beach in a coat. Costume is very significant when creating a timely film such as 'Wish you were mine'.  

  The man is very far away there we are unable to see the detail. Once agian nothing has been given away. The title of the film comes in at 0:27 and then fades out like the rest at 0:32 seconds, listing 5 seconds.

The text has returned to the simple sans-serif. All of these names are the co-stars. The fact that all of them are on the screen in one shot shows us that the opening of the film will not be very long. the 'and' at the end shows us that, that is the last actor to be mentioned in the opening two minutes of the film. The rest of the titles like this last around bout 0:03 seconds each. Showing that they are less important.

The shot is getting further and further out. We can now see the whole of the man and his dog. he is wearing a long jacket and a hat. Signifying that it is autumn time in Britain. From the background it is clear that we may not be in the best area of Britain. (Sussex). The pier has a section missing. Showing that the place has not been renovated in very long. Not well taken care of. We can connote poverty in this area due to the darkness and how everything so far seems meak and no the idealist of what Britain is really like.

This shot we can see what seems to be a dark green\grey tech chair. if you compare this to Spain or somewhere warm the chair may be lighter colours and with a lighter warmer feeling background. However from first impressions it doesn't seem like the happy kind seaside that Britain stands for. The text 'Designed by Caroline Amies' is right across the chair which brings your eyes toward the detail.

The shot is now being opened up. We can see more of the bigger picture. There are more than one deck chair. There are a few, however most are spread out, why would you want to sit on your own?

The chair is slightly titled, what we can connote from this is that no one has recently sat down on this chair and that the word has moved it. The weather isn't warm.

If you look closely enough we can see a girl in pink riding a bike. Already she stands out by wearing the bright colour. Which again contrasts to the background. The fact that this person is wearing pink shows us that this could be the antagonist of the film. So the first exposed image of the antagonist is at 1:03. Before we see the antagonist we see a flock of birds fleeing an area. This brings our attention to the area. The antagonist the cones in on  bike.

This shot is at 1:06. Showing that the antagonist is quickly approaching. Suddenly from no information being exposed to a front shot of the main character. Wearing very little to say that the woman behind her is wearing a long beige coat. The woman behind her almost blends in with the background. Where as she is standing out. First of all for not wearing much and second of all for wearing pink and smiling.

We now have a side shot of the main characters face. The camera is following her. This shot type could be called a tracking shot. This is a medium shot. We can see her facial expressions and her shoulders are involved in the shot. The ocean in the background blends into the grey skies about her. This could signify the people of east sussex in the 1950s. She is standing out by what she is wearing. The main plot of this film is the fact that the older generation are sticking to the rules and the ways that they know. Blending in. Non of them particularly  have a personality. She does.

'Written and Directed by David Leland'. This is the last text that is shown in the introduction. It is in centre bottom of the screen. Our eyes are on this dancing lady. The dancing lady goes the audience a thought of when this was set in. The lady is also not wearing much, much like the girl riding he bike. The lady is dancing and asking for money. Clearly this is not the desirable job for a lady in the 50's. It is cold and wet. We can connect the girl on the bike to the girl standing and asking for money. 

Finally the music fades out and we have a frontal shot of the antagonist. This is a medium close shot. She is smiling at the camera. The diegetic music then stops and there is a black out. She in a hairdressers smiling at a boy. This is where the film begins.

I would say from what has been revealed to us that the genre of this film is romantic-drama. With underlaying comedy. I can connote this from the opening because of the choice of titles, white on black to begin with. Then a very dull background with bright red sans-serif writing. The bold text stands out much like the antagonist might throoughout the film.

So far i woulddn't say there has been any binary oppositions. However seeing as it is a romantic i feel that the boy to girl binary opposite with come into place as a main element.

The music fades in at about 0:28 seconds. To start with the sound that is coming from the screen is the sound of the ocean. This is non-diegetic sound. This makes me fel like im actually at the seaside,it is far more effective than scilence. The music then fade in (diegetic) this brings you back to reality.
 The antgonist then comes into the shot on a bike, as she gets closer we can hear the sound of the bike, changing gears. This now has non-diegetic and diegetic at the same time. However after tracking Emily Lloyd on the bike we see a woman dancing on a music box. The music then becomes muffeled, as if playing from a music box. We can dennote that the music is coming from the tap dancing lady (we can also hear the tap shoe). When the music stops the lasy stops dancing and it goes to a black out. This is the end to the introduction. There is  faded blackout and then it fades back into the opening scene. Which Emily Lloyd is smiling at a boy.

Four lions opening analysis

Four Lions

(Chris Morris, 2010)

Produced by Warp Films, (+ Film4; Wild Bunch, Optimum Releasing)

Budget: £2.5 million

Overall, the opening sequence is about 3mins20secs long, with two company idents and four titles. It seems that the lack of titles for this opening is done deliberately so that the audience will focus on the story and characters right away. The film seems to be trying for verisimilitude, as it doesn't start with a montage and non-diegetic sound, but with a long-shot of one of the main characters. There isn't much of a narrative enigma, but this works as it fits with the characters (who seem rather unintelligent) and are rather unsubtle.

The film opens with the company ident for Wild Bunch (10 seconds in length.) As "Wild Bunch" is a German Film Distribution Company, we understand this company ident to mean that they were the distributors for "Four Lions"

"Film4" is a production company, so this company ident (10 seconds in length) reveals to us that they produced "Four Lions".

Both company idents keep their original sound.

This is the first shot of the film. There are no titles - it simply cuts in with a static medium-long shot (that shifts ever so slightly) of one of the characters in the middle third. All the sound is diegetic. It can be denoted that the character looks middle-eastern, is wearing dark, khaki clothing, and a head band with what appears to be islamic writing on it: this exposition shows us that the character is islamic, and given that the audience is likely to have seen videos of terrorist propaganda on the news (intertextuality) we understand that this character is meant to be a terrorist. A narrative enigma is created briefly as an audience wonders what he is going to say and what's going to happen next. The lack of titles seems to have been done to create a strong sense of verisimilitude (as if this were really a terrorist demands video, as that wouldn't have titles.) 

In the next shot (cuts to a long shot - which is important as it increases the shot variety) the rest of the main characters are revealed, and it becomes clear to the audience that they are not actually a serious terrorist group, but just four Pakistani's from Sheffield, West Yorkshire (exposed through their accents.)  However, there is a slight narrative enigma as we (the audience) are left wondering what they're trying to achieve by being terrorists. We can denote that the room they are in is shabby and sparsely furnished, which has connotations of our main characters being lower-middle class. 

However, there is a jump-cut to a medium shot of Omar's (the protagonist's) family, but now the room in which they are in is a lot cleaner and nicer, a direct contrast to the place in which we first met Omar. This creates a binary opposition; the terrorist, and the family man. It must be denoted that his wife is a nurse, and that he has a young son; these two facts both make the audience more connected to Omar, despite his attempts to be a terrorist. All sound up until this point has been diegetic, but non-diegetic music begins to fade in (providing an audio bridge.)

This is the 1st title to appear in the film, however it doesn't appear until 3:01. The word "presents" shows us that Film4 produced this film. Non-diegetic music (which sounds middle eastern and quite serious) has begun to play by this point. This footage provides the transition (with the aid of an audio bridge) from the introduction to the main film, and also gives anchorage to help with the context (e.g. that it takes place within a city.)

This is the (2nd and) main title (the name) of the movie. It's written in sans-serif and is easy to read; fonts like this are commonly used in comedies and dramas ("Four Lions" being a combination of the two.) It's small, and in the lower middle third of the screen, however as the camera zooms in on the Mosque with fairy lights (center, middle third) we understand that this movie is to focus on Islam; the mosque is being used as anchorage. As we've seen the four Jihadi terrorists by this point, we understand the title "Four Lions" is a direct reference to them. 

Just as with the 1st and 2nd titles, the writing here is small, sans-serif style and pale coloured, meaning it is not eye-catching. Again it's also in the bottom two thirds, almost as if it was not meant to be seen (or at least focused on.) This title mentions the production company (Warp Films) and the director (Chris Morris - who is only mentioned once within the titles; this is unusual, as normally the director is mentioned twice.) The mise-en-scene here depicts an empty shopping center, which is revealed to be the place of employment of Omar. The use of the empty shopping center is to anchor the fact that Omar lives in the western world, which makes his involvement in a Jihadi terrorist group all the more confusing for the audience.

This is the final title for the opening, and it simply names two companies involved in the majority of distribution of this film; Wild Bunch and Optimum Releasing. Again, the writing is small and difficult to read, especially as it's placed in the bottom third. (The non-diegetic music ends here.)

*Each title lasts approximately 5 seconds (and they fade in/out,) with the overall title sequence stretching from 3:01 to 3:20. 

(Main) Props List

• Camera
• Toy Rifle
• Laptop

Location

• Shabby living room
• Modern kitchen
• City at night
• Empty shopping centre
• Completed by Nicola 

Title sequnce

I needed my title to be appropriate to my target audience of a teen age and both female and male. I need it to fit the genre of teen horror and still create narrative enigma and also have a sense of verismilitude so it didn't seem to cheesy or cliche.
I wanted my Title sequence to have a school feel to it . Therefore i went out and took clips of a few places around school i thought would work well. I changed the lighting levels on final cut so that it had a more early and dark feel to it. i think my title sequence works well with the style of my opening.I wanted the photography in the background to be a representative of the setting. This would help by acting as a signifier it also leads the reader to have multiple perceptions of the text and therefore would act as a polysemy and a anchor.
My first attempt at my title sequence was what is shown bellow. Although i like this sequence as i feel the photography is strong and it helps create an initial school feel to the opening , i didn't feel like the font worked as well as i wanted it to.



Therefore i went on to different websites that showed fonts used in the film industry for example http://fontsinuse.com/in/2/formats/15/film-video.  I looked at fonts used in horror films , this included American Horror story  , Don't be affairs of the dark and Halloween.

After looking at the fonts used in these titles i tried a number of diffrent fonts in my title sequence. 

After trying a few fonts some that i got off the internet and some that final cut provided , i came to the conclusion that instead of using a "horror" type font i went for a school american type font. This font was called " be true to your school ". i think it works well because it adds to the school theme at the beginning and through out throughout the opening. 

This is another development trying out some new titles with a different font. I tried this out to incorporate american connotations within my opening.

Final titles;

I changed my titles for a final time as i wanted to follow common conventions of other films that i have looked in to. My titles were inspired my the font used in heathers. The handwritten style text i feel works really well. 

Feedback and targets

Deadline for coursework - 12th of February  2016 

Targets and what needs to be done;

• film the last part of scene two , the two girls walking out of the houses. 
• voiceover and video of the letter with candles etc 
• make sure all my blogging is done
• finish creating the music and blog about it and its influences 

Feedback for section 2 exam question- 

EEA 12 

EX 4 

T 4

In order to improve and get a higher grade in the future i need to make sure i fully understand distribution. i need to make it clear that the are distributing through distributors and not Warp or Working title. I need to include more detail about how the films were distributed and marketed and be more specific with out generalising into " social media and online marketing ".