Draft poster for film

This is the poster that I have made for my film. I used photoshop to design the poster because I am more used to using photoshop than I am using Microsoft Publisher. I used images from my film for the poster. I did this by opening Adobe Premier and freeze framing the bit that I would like to use for the poster and then copy and paste it on to Photoshop. I thought tht these pictures wer very effective because of the facial expressions that they make and also their posture. I took a look at feature length film posters such as aldulthood to see how they used their images. I think the images give away what is to come of the film and it also gives it an urban realist look. I did some work on the poster at home since I have Photoshop on my computer to make some improvements to it.

I created my own logo on Photoshop because if I used and existing logo for example Warner Bros then it would be copywriting. I also got the background from Photoshop. I thought this background is appropriate for poster because the film has it fair share of disfunction and problems and thi bckground seems like it defines that.

I used the layout of the Adulthood poster as the title is underneath the images. I did this to follow the code and conventions of the film since it is an Urban Realist film. I think that the font of the title is very appropriate since the main characters are fairly young. The graphitic look gives a sence to the audience that it is an Urban Realist film and the characters are going to be fairly young.

I still have more work to do on this poster as I need to add 1 more character the the poster and re arrange the size of the images so it can all fit in.

Film Reviews

I have been researching on film reviews and how they are written and the type of language they use. I will be doing a film review after I have finished editing my film. I looked at a couple of film reviews on others blogs and and I looked at different links for example www.creativereview.co.uk When I looked into someones blog they had a film review of the new Harry Potter film. This is a full feature length film. I have taken a look at Shane Meadows website because he has done a lot of 0f short films but I could not find any film reviews for the films that he had done on his website.

research on differents fonts for films

Today I have been researching on the different kind of fonts that suit the type of genre or the type film. I have been looking at this because I would need to know what kind of fonts would be suitable for my poster that I am doing at the moment. Since I have chosen an urban realist film to produce I had to make sure that my poster would be appropriate to advertise the film. I took a look at severtal urban realist films. I took a look at the fonts of bullet boy, kidulthood and This is England. Each film poster have their own unique style of selling their film. All of them have different fonts and it is well suitable for the film. I have taken some of the ideas of This is England with the image of the 5 stars on the poster and putting quotation on top of it to give it a sense that it was a viewer that watched it. I have created my own font because I did not think that any of the fonts that I looked at was appropriate for my film. For the title I used a graphitic type of style to give it a urban realist look.

Making Poster for Film

In my last media lesson I spent my time making my poster for the film the I was making. Firstly I went on google to research on the different types of posters that urban realist films have. I did ths because I too am doing an urban realist short film so I thought it would be good to look at the key codes and convention of th poster. The research I did was done in order to ive me an idea of how I should make my poster. Ichecked out a couple of urban realist film posters such as This is England, Bulletboy and Adulthood. I looked at the use of colours that was shared on the poster, the ue of imagery and I also took look at the way the page is layed out. It was very interesting to see how each of the urbn realist film posters I looked at had their own unique style to it however you could tell that it was an urban realist film. The use of props and colour that was used in these posters were very deliberate in order to give away the type of genre te film is without actually having to watch the film.To create my poster I used Photoshop because I ammore comfortable with using it. Firstly I looked at the type of fonts that these posters had so that I could try to follow the key code and conventions of the genre. I chose a font for the title before looking at the realistic posters. I learnt tht the fonts are very crucial when making the poster because it has to suit the genre of your film and what your film is about. In my film the main charcter is a teenage boy and a 12 year old boy and the type of font I chose seemed to lok very victorian which did not suit th style ofmy film or the genre. It came to my attension that I shuld have a kind of youthful graphitic look to the title and this worked out much better as i does suit the style of the film and als suit the genre.

I have not finished the poster because I only had an hour. I have made a bit of progress with itby adding the casts names and also the directors names. I will be working on the poster more so that I can get it out of the way and concentrate more on editing the film.

Research on urban realist Posters

In this poster it has all the main characters of the film. I can instantly tell it is an urban realist poster because of the type of colour they have used, the props they have and the posture of the characters. The clothing that they are wearing is what teenagers wear today. The hoodies and the skirts makes it obvious to realise that it is an urban realist. The pose and the posture of the characters are also a dead give away. We know that these are teenagers because normally adults do not screw face or frown and the way the stand is as if they run everything, like they are untouchable. The have a baseball bat on the floor which is a weapon in this film and normally it is teenagers that use this prop as a weapon.

This poster also has all the main characters in the film similarly to the adulthood poster. But this poster is fairly different of the way it is layed out and presented. The title is at the top of poster while the picture of the charcters is beneath it, however this is not the case with the adulthood poster as the picture of the character are at the top while the title of the film is at the bottom of it. It is ironic how the title of this is called this is england and they have the title in the colours of the england flag which is very clever.

Bulleboy poster is different to the two posters that I have already discussed about. This poster has a huge picture in the middle and as the title of the film on the photo however it does have the main character on the page. the layout is very different it has its writing at the left hand side of the page while the other two have there writing at the centre of the page. This poster and and teh adulthood pster seems fairly plan while the this is England poster seems like there are more things on their page

Editting session #2

I recently edited my film on friday with my partner. We had to upload everything that we did on the cameras because we started all over again due to some minor complications. Due to the fact that one of our camera batteries died out on us while filming we had to use another camera which meant that we had to upload our film on two seperate cameras. It took us a while to upload the filming that we had on both camera because we had our old filming on one of the cameras and we thought that we had lost our recent filming. It took us a least five to ten minutes to find the filming that we wanted and we uploaded it on the computer. When we came to edit our film we noticed that some areas of the film the camera lense was very bright and we could not see the charcters face properly in some of the medium shots that we took. My partner and I took several shots of that scene which was good because we could chose and figure out which shot was good and which shot was bad.

I expect to finish the editing of the film by next week as I am going to spend a lot of time puting the film together. I am getting the hang of editing the film i feel ver comfortable doing it. I have not had any kind of problem thus far.

Filming session #2

My partner and I wer filming today and we manged to get everything done. One of our characters had a hair cut and also was not wearing his uniform today which ment that we had to re-shoot the whole film again. This was very frustrating for us because we had only one scene left to do. We did our first scene again which was a bit of a struggle because it was ment to be just outside a school however there was a lot of vans and buses around which got in our way of filming. We had to re-shoot the same scene at least four or five times because we wanted to do a medium shot of the main character but the big vehicle got in the way of it several times. Eventually we got the scene right and this allowed us to progress further on. Our characters were prepared to stay with us for as long as they could in order for us to get our film finished. My partner and I decided to put moe shots in the film so that when we come to edit our film again we can choose which shots we liked or did not like.

The sun was very bright today and it got in the way of our film because the screen was to bright. At one point we could not see anything and we had to wait a few minutes until the sun went down. Our casts/characters were very supportive and helped us to come up with ways to resolve the problem of the brightness. We had to reposition the camera several times in order to capture the camera angle and also to get it away from the sunlight. This took us a while to adjust but we got there in the end and we got the first scene out of the way.

In our second scene we recorded in a park that was very close to the school. It had all the resources that we needed to do our filming. All we needed was a children's area with swings and it had that. This time there was complications with the casts and we got straight to filming the scene. The only problem was the sun, but we took care of that problem by putting paper over the camera. It took us at least 30 minutes to finish the second scene. All of our casts were wearing different clothes even though we told them that we would be filming today but that did not stop us from filming. As time was running out my partner and I knew that we had to finish the film today so that we can just concentrate on editing the film. The swings in the park were frosty and there were a bit of ice around the swing seats. We had to rub all the ice of because the film would not flow properly otherwise. In our first scene the ground was pretty dry so in order for the film to flow we coulnt have ice in it. We managed to finish the second scene without any complications or problems.

For the final scene we needed to film in a house. There was a house inside the school which was very helpful because it was appropriate and available for us to use. This scene did not take as long as the others because everybody was very organised and everybody knew what to do. The only problem was that the house did not have a sofa which meant we had to film the inside of the house somewhere else. We chose to film in the year 10 room in the school because there was a sofa. We filmed a couple of shots of the scene.

During our filming the camera battery died out and this caused a lot of people to panik. Luckily i had a spare camera and we managed to finish everything on that camera. It took us a long time to get this film finished but now we have we can concentrate on editing the film.

In conclusion

Editing session #1

Yesterday my partner an I got to edit bits of ouur film. I found thsi really exciting because it allowed me to discuss with my partner which bits we need or we dont need and how we can make pur film flow accordingly. We had to connect the camera to the computer in order for it to read it. The Software that we used for filming is called Adobe Premier. Once we used the computer to upload the filming that we did from the camera the first step was to place them in order. For some reason the film was not in order even though we shooted the first scene first and the second scene second. The second thing that my partner and I did was to take out the bits of film that w did not need or the bits that would make the film seem longer than it should be. This part was a bit tricky for us because there were a few bits that that we did not need from the film but it was a second of the film that we did not need. We struggled on that bit untill our teacher showed us a very easy way to get rid of it. There were headphones for me to put on to listen to the dialogue. During the process of listening to the dialogue I heard some strange noises that the camera was picking up. I was not sure what it was. I thought that it had something to d with the actual camera never the less I took that bit out so that there would be no strange noises during the film.

In conclusion I thought that so far the editing went very smoothly considering how my teachers were sayin how tough editing was going to be. We managed to get our flim in order and also maged to cut out most of the bits that we do not need. We need to improve on the flow of the film because the cuts on it is to instant and sharp and this is causing the film not to flow properly but that can easily be fixed.

Filming sesion #2

Yesterday my partner and I got the opportunity to do some of our filming with our casts. We decided that w were going to shoot th second scene of our film. One of our actors was runing and hour late which ment that we had to wait for an whoole hour for him Eventually our cast arrived but then our main character luric had an exam in the hall which ment that we could not shoot most of the scene. This was a very big let down because we had planned to finish the whole scene by that day and the fact that he told ushat he had an exam very late was a bit annoying for everyone however this didn't stop us from shooting the film. There were some bits where we did not need Luric so instead which filmed those bits. What made things even more difficult was that Luric got a hair cut and it is very visible to see that. If we filmed him yesterday it would hae made abig problem because the film would not have flown properly. my partner and I have alreasy done some filming with Luric so if we hd to shoot him again he would look totaly different which is why my partner and I decided that we either need to shoot the fist scene again or make a bit where he has to put on a hat in order to cover up the obvious change.

Despite all the major upsetsto us, filming went quite well. Our characters were superb in acting and we didn't really struggle while shooting. My partner and I took multiple shots of each sections of the scene so that when we come to edit the film we will ave multiple choices of which one looks or seems better. There were some things hat we had o cover up whilst shooting. My partner forgot one of the props which ment that we had to pretend that we had it. The prop was ment to be paracetamol in a plastic bag which was ment to to be disguised as drugs. However this did not bring us down as the characters played the part very well and it is not noticable that we did not have the prop.

When shooting we hd a slight problem with the camera because everytime the wind was blowing really hard the camera moved ever so slighlty which caught the attention of something that we did not need. We had to djust the camera several times and we waited till the wind stoped and then we started to film. Our teachers warned us that the camera will pick up unneccesary noices that we did not need for example the wind and because the wind was strong I was afraid that we would not hear the dialogue of the characters. There were some areas of the film where our characters forgot their lines whic ment that we had to cut and re film that area.

Overall it was a hug lose that we could not finish the second scene due to the fact that our main character Luric had an exam to go to and also that he got his hair cut but never the less we got some of our filming done. What my partner and I would have to do nw is to get Luric and Harry together so that we can shoot their bit which is only a small bit so we should be able to do that. We also have to make up a bit where Luric has to wear a hat on to cover his haircut and then the second scene will be over and done with.

Today's Media Lesson

In today's Media lesson I was supposed to be editing my film but I cannot do that because the film that I am making is not finished. Since the start of this course I have been having problems with casts. I was ment to film last week but my casts have not been available for the proccess of shooting to happen. This has affected me hugely as now I have not got a lot of time left to film. Moreover my partner has not been well for a couple of weeks now which is slowing down the proccess of filming. Since I am working with a partner I cannot film by myself. I have asked one of my teachers if I was aloud to take it into my own hands to get the film finished but they told me that you cannot do it by yourself since you have a partner. The film that I and my partner are producing has to be finished by this wednesday which is a big problem for me because I still have a long way to go. I have three scenes in the film and my partner and I have only managed to film the first scene. Yesterday i called my partner and told her that we have to start filming on Tuesday. It is crucial that we get some filming done on tuesday because we have only got till wednesday to finish it. What I am hoping to do is to finish filming everything by Tuesday so we can start editing our film on Wednesday. Editing is going to take a long time to do which is why we need to get everything done fast. It has been really frustrating for me because I always manage to have a downfall to why I cannot shoot my film. Either my casts are not available or my partner is ill. I have already filmed the first scene which is why I cannot use anybody else to cast the film.; I had a backup plan to who was going to be the cast of the film in case my original casts do not make it but I cannot use them anymore.

Filming session #

On friday my partner and I I started to shoot the first sceen of our film with the director Tunji. At first we thought that we were not going to shoot on that day because our casts that we chose to be in our film were late. Eventually two of our main characters came and one of them could not turn up because he was ill. This caused a lot of problems for my partner and I and because we needed to shoot that day we had to find another cast quickly in order to shoot. Tunji told us that finding another cast will not be easy because we needed a boy that was young in a school uniform and we will have to get permission from the head of year and also the parents. My partner and I found a boy that would suit our film and luckly he agreed to do it and we got permission from his parents and also the head of year. We were ment to start shooting at nine o'clock but due to the fact that our casts were very late and one was ill we had to start shooting our film at ten. The problem with this was that we only had the help of the director for two hours, from nine till eleven but this was now cut short to one hour so we had to get filming very quickly.

My main aim was to get throught two scenes but we could only get one scene done which was a bit annoying but we then suggested that we were going to film both scene 2 and scene 3 this week so that we would not fall behind in scheduel. During the process of filming we had to do a number of shoots for each shot just to make sure that when we come to edit our film we have a choice of which shot we like. Tunji told us that everytime we shoot a scene, we should press the record button and wait for 5 seconds before we shout action and the casts beging acting, he also said that when we hav finished shooting we should wait five more seconds afterwards so that when we come to edit our film it will give us time to cut out the bits we do not need. I think that the first scene went really well due to our brilliant acting of the casts and a little help from Tunji. Tunji was showing us the best way to postion a camera at certain times and it worked perfectly.

I thought that I had a really good session of shooting the film on friday because the weather was not very bad but it was quite low key lighting and this is how I wanted it to be because I wanted that to reflect the boys lives. I will have to make sure that when I go to shoot the next scene the weather will be exactly the same otherwise the film will not flow properly.

My shooting schedule for this week is uncertain because my partner is ill which means I will now have to do things myself and also it depends if my casts will be able to make it. I will have to make sure that my casts are wearing the exact same thing that they wore on friday so that the film flows properly. It is crucial that I get all my scenes done this week so that I can start editing my film next week. I have made arrangements with my casts to film on saturday and it this is fine by all my casts which means that day should be the last day that I film. I will need to find a day this week other than saturday when I can film and I will need to make sure that my casts are available.

So what I am planning to do this week is to have finished shooting my film and then next week start editing it. One of the issues that I am having with filming this week is that the weather might not be the same and I will need the right facilities for that day. Tunji told me that the cameras that we are using are not really very up to standard in terms of sound. My film needs a lot of dialogue which means that the chracters will need to know their lines and be very clear in what they are saying, however Tunji told me that the camera will pick up every other sound that there is around. The problem with that is I will have to put the camera quiet close to them if I want to pick out their voice. If there is another sound coming from somewhere else and it is very loud then it will overtake what my characters has to say which means I will have to shoot that scene again.

This week am going to be more organised because I have learnt from my mistakes from last week. Before I filmed my scene I did not have any of the characters numbers which means that I did not have a way to contact them on the day. If I did have their numbers then I would be able to know if they were pulling out or they are still going ahead with filming with my partner and I. I havce found out that it is my responsibility to see whether they are ready to film or not instead of putting the responsibility on them. This week I am going to make sure that I contact all my casts in order to make sure that they are going to shoot the next scene.

My partner has been ill for quiet a while so I will not know if she be well enough to shoot with me on the day which means that I will need a back up partner to help me. I have already chosen a back up partner and he said that he is very happy to help me if my partner will not make it.

SCRIPT

Filming Schedule

This is my timetable so far for shooting my short film. My partner and I have decided that thursday was the best day to start our shooting because two of our casts are available for that day which means that we can get most of our filming done on that day. Our problem right now is the casts that we have chosen because there are particular days where my partner and I are free to film but our casts are not.

Media Lesson

In my previous media lesson an expert director called Tunji came in to help us with our storyboards and scripts. This was a big help because we got to explain wat our short film production was going to be about and he gave us feedback and asked us crucial questions to whether the film will be successful or not. Before the director came in my partner and I struggled hard to try and find a right ending for our film. We had a selction of endings that we were going to choose from. The ending my partner and I originally chose to do was to leave our film with a cliffhanger and have a black out however when we explained this to the director he told us that it was not appropriate for our film because although it will leave the audience with suspense the film that we are doing is not a feature length film which means that normally when they do films like to be continued or a cliffhanger they will create part 2 of that film and continue it but we are only doing a five minute short film. He told us to finish it with a proper ending. The director helped us with our script. He told us that you always have to keep the script short and sweet in order for others to read it and undrstand the story. In our script we had the camera angles and the and the type of shots that was going to be in the film however the director told us that there was no need to put all the camera angles and shots in the script otherwise it will be very difficult to read it. The problem with our story was that if everything was going to fit in, in five minutes.

When my partner and I came up with our first idea of how our film was going to be the problem was that it was too long for a fivew minute short film, so we had to make sure that we shortened the story in order for it to be five minutes. We had to change our ideas completely in order to match the limiation of the timing. As we got to storyboarding our script we found out that we did not have a proper ending to our film which made things difficult to even draw out the storyboard. Tunji was very helpful because he worked with my partner and I to strengthen our understanding of our film and helped us to come up with a strong and powerful ending. I wanted to let the message of our story be very clear to the audience and Tunji told us that in order to do that you must come up with a understanding and proper ending. Knowing the ending of our film allowed my partner and I to finish our storyboard with full understanding of our film. Before we didn't know too much about what was going on in the film because we kept changing our ideas and our script was not very clear.

When Tunji came in he looked at my script and stroryboard and he also looked at my classmates too. He thenasked us all what we would want the audience to go away thinking after the film. Before I did not think about this and I believe that this is one of the reasons why I was not able to understand my short film. He told us that it was essential to let the audience feel something after watching the film otherwise it wouldn't be a good film. He then asked us what the message of the film was. All of us had a general idea of what the message was about but it was not specific enough. After talking to him about what the message and what I would like the audience to feel after watching the film, things became much more clearer in terms of understanding my film and about filming in general.

During the lesson Tunji sat with my partner and I to restructure our script because there were certain shots that we put in our storyboards that did not match our script. Tunji told us that we needed to make our storyboards as close as possible to our scripts so that when we get filming we would know exactly what to do. He also told me that every director changes somke of the script because they think that they have a better Idea. He told me that it is natural for a director to make some changes and write on the scripts to make the scene look better so we should not get too worried about keeping everything the exact same although it will be useful to do so.

After Tunji helped us with our short film I felt very excited about making the film because it was much more clear what I had to do however I also thought that it is going to be really tough editing our film and also making it. There are a lot specific shots that has to be used in our film. Tunji told us that editing is going to be very long and hard and it depends on how many shots you have in the film

Editing my Storyboard

After doing my script for my short film, my partner and I had to make a storyboard, which involved us in sketching out the camera shots and angles of each scene. We had to make sure that the storyboard fits in to our script, which means that each camera angle, shot or dialogue that we put into our script had to be exactly the same as the storyboard. My partner and I had difficulties of creating the script because we did not know hw to end our short film. Not only that but we changed the story several times because we did not think that the our story would stand out. Because the the script was not to perfection we could not really do the storyboard because we did not know how the film was going to go down. My partner and I could only come up with a solid first scene which enabled us to do the sketch out the first scene on the story board. For the second scene my parter and I did a draft of what the second scene would be like on our storyboard and then we made the second scene of the script. We were not happy with or second scene because it was not flowing with the first scene, so we stayed after school together to come up with a proper solidified second scene. We spent a long time working out the dialogue of what our characters where going to say and the type of camera angls and movement we were going to have however we worked it out and we were happy with our second scene. Having changed our second scene on the script substantially, we had to make surethat we changed our storyboards because when we actually cometo shoot our short film we will need our storyboards to let us know exactly what is going to happen in the next scenes.
So far my partner and I are struggling on how to finish our scene we have typed up what is going to happen in our final scene but we are not sure if it will make a good ending. What my partner and I are thinking of is that we do not want to make our film too original, which means that we do not want something that has already been done. What we are trying to do is come up with somethin unique and facinating which will want the audience to find out more.

Settings, scenes and Location

I have been researching about Locations. One of the locations that my partner and I have picked for our short film is a park. From my understanding there are some parks that we would have to pay for to shoot our film and some parks are strictly prohibited from filming. I have been looking at certain parks where I think it's appropriate for shooting. The first park that I thought about was Gladstone park. I looked on their website to see if it will cost my partner and I to shoot our film there. Gladstone is a good park to shoot our film because it is very big and they have the props that we need such as a playground area for kids such as swings. For further information I called them to find out if it would be fine to film there. The response that I got back from them was that it is ok as long as their is no violence or drugs involved. They also wanted reference from our teacher that we will be filming there. In our film their is no violence in it which is very good for my partner and I. The next park that we considered was Hampstead Heath. I also looked at their website to see whether it would cost to go their and film. They have pictures of the park and in my opinion it looks like a very beautiful place to shoot our film. However if we were to shoot our film their then we will have to pay which we cannot afford to do.
I will be taking pictures of both parks to see which one of them is more appropriate for my partner and I to film at. There are times where the parks could be very busy which means we will not get the kind of atmosphere that we would want. So I will have to research into it and know what times the park will be less crowded or busy in order to shoot our film. By taking pictures of these parks, it will give me a feeling of how it would be like on the day that we will start filming. I will also need a person to come with me and so I can take a picture of him/her in the park. I will also have to think about the costumes that he/she will be wearing. I wanted to have a wider varioty of parks because of I only had two parks to film in and I was not allowed to film in either it will spoil my whole plan of trying to shoot in a park so I looked at other parks. Queens park is very good place to film because it haws all the facilities that I need to film. I will need a foot path and queens park has one unlike hampstead heath.

For my short film to work I will need a house, a park and also a school. I have decided the order of which I am going to be shooting my film. I want to start shooting my park scene and the house scene together and then the school later on. This is because the park that I want to shoot my film in is ver close to the house that I would like to film in. I need the house to be fairly middle class to portray how the family was before all their problems start. The props that I will be using will be very significant because although the family is fairly middle classed, due to the problems that they will be having, the family will seem fairly low classed. The props that I will be needing will be vodka bottles surrounding the sofa of which the mum is lying on to represent the mum’s state. This will show the development of how the family was without there problems and where they are now. I have asked my media teacher whether it would be fine if I can do my house scene in her house and it was ok for me to do that although she told me that her house is very victorian. I decided that in order to take the victorian look away from the scene I will have to rearrange some of the things that she has in her house and buy a few props to make it seem more Urban like.

Casts

Casts are very important for a film. If there is no cast in the film then ther is no film. The cast has to suit the genre of the film. e.g in an action adventure film you will normally see a masculine man with a beard to represent the male masculine features. My film production Im looking at Urban Realist, so I looked at Kidulthood and Bulletboy to see who the main casts of the film were. Kidulthood and Bulletboy casts are mainly teenagers from around the age of 17 and 18. For Kidulthood the cast are appropriate to there storyboard because at the start it takes place in a secondary school. Having the right casts means that they should look like the character, they should have the same characteristics and they should be dressed up as how the charcter is meant to be dressed. My partner and I have been thinking of who to pick for our characters. We have to make sure that the people that we will be picking has to be suitable and able for the part.

Location and Camera Views

For todays lesson I did research on Location and Camera views. I learnt that camera views are extremely important because different camera angles will show different parts of the landscape. My partner and I looked at the two Urban Realist films that has really inspired us, BulletBoy and Kidulthood. First of all we looked at bullet boy we observed the locations and camera shots they used. There was a particular camera shot that I found very interesting. Not only did the camera shot show the main character but you can see the landscape at the background. This camera shot is very affective. They have used a close up shot to allow the audience to see his facial expressions and what is going on in his mind. The camera shot also hs the landscape at the background. I thought that the landscape at the background signifies him being lonely because there is nobody around. The landscape is full of block of flats and trees and this gives the audience the feeling that the film is an Urban Realist film.

Secondly my partner and I looked at the camera shots and the location choices of Kidulthood. I took a screen shot of a camera shot of the main character in Kidulthood. I thought that the seting and the choice of lighting was very good. The location of which this scene was filmed was outside and as you can see this camera shot has been film at night time, however we can still see light on his right side of his face. This is th work of the camera crew to get a bit of light upon the main characters face. This is a close up of the character. A close up shot shot allows the audience to see the facial expressions of the charcters and also allows them to almost know what they are thinking at that point of time. In this screen shot the character looks very angry as we can see his face is screwed up. The darkness on his left side of his face and the light on the right side of his face also reflects on the mood that he is in.

My partner and I then discussed how we are going to position our camera at different scenes and how we are going to get the lighting affects to be affective. We also discussed about the suitable locations that we can use to set each scene foe e.g. we cannot have a middle working class family in a high class kitchen because th audience will not recognize that the family is a middle class family.

Research on Script Writing

In todays lesson I saw a very useful clip in order to get my partner and I ready to make our short film production. The clip was called 'How to format scenes in a film script'. I have learnt from this clip tht script writing is very important and there is a unique way of writing a proffesional film script. When I was writing up my script I had to quickly adapt to the way a proper film script is writing.

1. Scene Headings
I learnt that the rule of a film script is that a scene or a scene heading is needed evertime the time or the location of the film changes. The scene heading can be known as a slug-line and the purpose for it is that it allows the reader to know the place and also the time of each scene. As I was told from my Media teachers and I also did some reasearch on it, slug-lines should always be written in capital letters. When I wrote my script this was somethng tha I had to do. Also there is an order of information that I will have to follow to get it right they are; Whether the establishing shot is going to be taken inside or outside. There are specific names for it. Interior which means inside and Exterior which means outside. In my script I had to describe the general location of where I was going to shoot my estblishing shot. After focusing on the WHERE part part i then have to focus of the WHEN part. When I go to produce my film Ihave to think of whether I want to film in the day time or at night. When I was writing my script I looked on google for slug lines. I found that the time of day has to be put at the end of the slug-lines.

2. Scene Direction
The scene direction is the bit that will hold the non dialogue and all the narators descriptions and characters actions within the story line. When I am writing the scene direction there is a specific way of writing it. It should be 1.5 inches from the left hand of the page and each line should be no more than 6 inches wide. I learnt and took into concideration that a narrative text should be written in the lower case and also it should be written in the present tense. Moreover narrative text should be single spaced and very clear. A writters job is to focus just on the storyline and the characters in the storyline.

3. Entrances and Exits
Fade in and Fade out are one of the most common terms used to indicate the beginning and the ending a film. Fade in is always used at the very start of the film and Fade out is always used at the very end of the film or script. There are other terms to indicate a beginning and end of a film e.g. Fade to black, dissolve etc. If I am going to use a fade out in my film then I will have to keep in mind that I have to fade in, into the the next scene. This has to happen in order to make the film flow.
The link the the video clip is bellow.
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-format-scenes-in-a-film-script

Research on Locations,Settings and Props

Location
In todays lesson Ihave been researching on Locations. I thought that this was very important for me because it will help me to have an idea of where I should film my establishing shot. I have learnt that when you have a specific genre that you would like to film, you cannot film your establishing shot anywhere. You need to have a specific location in order for the audience to understand what kind of genre the film is going to be. My partner and I are doing a short Urban Realist film, so we did a little research on where it would be the best place to set our scene. First we took a look at an action adventure movie to see what it was that made the the setting very unique in terms of knowing what kind of genreit was without even knowing the film.

Props
I learnt that props has a huge part to play in terms of knowing what the genre is. In the action adventure movie setting I saw a man dressed in blak leather with a cowboy hat on looking at a snake. I learnt that the black leather signifies hardness and the type of hat that was used in it signifies a typical America Western man. His features where very physical and manly as I saw a lot of facial hair on him. The props of snake signifies danger and the man was looking straight at the snake. There was also a bit of flames in the background which also gave tension and give the sense of an action adventure film.

My partner and I looked at different types of urban realist films to see where they set the location. I have learnt that locations are planned and carefully thought out. The first urban realist film I saw was Kidulthood. Kidulthood is set in a school playground where you see medium shots of kids hanging about in the playground. This is a typical Urban Realist setting. The props are very essential. I noticed that the kids are wearing school uniform which already tells the audience that they are in a school. The second film I watched was bulletboy. Bullet boys establishing shot is in a jail where you see a man coming out of it. The camera uses a medium shot of the man walkin out of the cell. the clothes that he was wearing can also show the audience that the film is going to be an Urban Realist Film. The manwas wearing a grey hooded top with grey tracksuit bottoms. These clothes signifies street boys.

I went on google and looked at council estates because normally these are wear Urban Realist films are taking place or we get to see them during the film. For example Kidulthood. There were a lot of council estates that I saw during the film. Location is something that my partner and I have to be thinking about when we come to shoot our short film.

Media lesson : Short film

In todays class I looked at a film called 'Where is the money Ronnie?' the film was only twelve minutes long and I thought that this film was very carefully planed out. It was directed by Shane Meadows. The idea was to make as if the film was set in the 1960's but really it was set in 1996. The effect they did to get the film to be shown in a way that it was set earlier was very clever in ters of the use of locations and the use of props. In the 1960's there were a lot of crime going on in England. They used that in the film and made all the comotion take place in the streets. They made sure that houses where near by so that the characters could escape by climbing into people's back gardens and I thought that that was very useful. Also England was not really a multi cultral place in the 1960's and they presented this very well in the film as I could see common white people walking around in the streets. They also showed the film in black and white to give it a feeling that it was set in the early 1960's.
I could tell that it was not set in 1996 due to the clothes that the characters where wearing. There clothes where very modern and it was and it was not the kind of clothes people would wear in those days. Moreover I noticed the cars that the people where driving. It was not the type of cars that you would see in the 1960's.
http://www.indiemoviesonline.com/watch-movies/wheres-the-money-ronnie-hanway
The use of camera angles to interview the convictors where carefully used. They used extreme close-ups for each of the convictors to express their feelings and emotions of the case.

The build up and proccess of making the treatment

My partner and I have made our final Treatment. We found it very difficult to make it how we would want it to be because not all of our ideas would fit into the five minute film production that we were going to make. In order to make sure that we had a short film that was five minutes, we had to make a decision to cut some parts out. My partner and I went to ask our teachers and some pupils about what would perfect our short film. We got some feedback from our Media teachers and the pupils. This helped us a lot with audience research. It helped us to develop our film in a way that will definately suit our target audience. We took their advice and made sure that we stuck to what they said but because it was us that was going to make the film, we had to make it our own idea so we changed our treatment in order to make it perfect. At first my partner and I had came up with two treatments, We both discussed that we needed to choose the better one that will be more exciting and suit our target audience. We also did some more research on short Urban Realist films to see what makes it interesting and unique. Choosing characters for our short film was fairly easy but we had to get rid of one character to make the short film easier to do and give us less hassle.

Once we chose our treatment, my partner and I still struggled with making the treatment final because we couldn't think of how to end the short film. My partner and I both went and asked our colleagues and our teachers to what would be a suitable ending for our short film production. There ideas were good so I decided that we had to make a decision out of the endings they had given us. Fortunately my partner thought of a better and able ending to do so we went with her idea.

Final Treatment

TITLE: Major Movements

Location:
School
Kilburn
Home environment

Characters:
Mum aged 41
James (older brother) aged 17
Edward (younger brother) aged 10

Characters Characteristics

Mum:
The mum is an 41 year old alcoholic woman and because of this it causes problems between her and her family. The mum having drinking problems has lead her to become a single parent and results to her son James not being able to cope in his education and struggles to balance schoolwork, social life and looking after Edward together. Consequently all the stress and grief causes James to get himself involved in drugs. James being involved in drugs gets himself into a big mess as his younger brother gets involved.

James:
James is a 17 year old boy that is struggling a lot in life. Due to his parent’s splitting up and his mum having drinking problems, he hasn't been able to cope with education and has behaviour problems. James has to look after his younger brother because the mum is always drinking. James's behaviour causes him to mix with people in school where his surroundings allow James to be influenced into taking drugs.

Edward:
Edward is 10 years of age and is the youngest in the family. Edward is also suffering the same fate as James as he is feeling hurt because his family is falling apart however Edward is well behaved. Edward looks up to his older brother James. He thinks James is his superman and everything he does is right. Edward knows that his older brother is taking drugs but because he thinks that his older brother is doing it, he decides that he should give it a try but it doesn’t end well for him.

Synopsis

Act 3: Edward watches a film and then decides to takes the drugs because he thinks that if James should take it he should. He then has an overdose and collapses

Act 1:
The older brother James comes home from school with his younger brother Edward. James tells Edward to wait outside while he goes to see where the mum is. When he walks into the living room he sees the mum unconscious with the room full of vodka bottles on the floor. James then gets Edward upstairs without him seeing his mum in the state that she is in.

Act 2:
James and his friends get involved with drugs. James brings it home and takes it to school without anybody knowing

Act 3:
Edward is in the living room watching a film. Edward is thinking in his mind whether he should go and take some of the drugs. It then comes to his head that because his brother knows best he should do it too. James takes the drugs and gets an over does.

James (17 years old) a young teenager that is having a lot of problems at school due to the problems that he and his younger brother has to suffer at home. His mum is an alcoholic and this has caused her to become a single parent. However the mum is incapable of looking after her kids because she is always drunk. James has to take care of his little brother Edward and his mother. Edward idolises his brother because he takes care of him all the time. He looks up to him and goes to him whenever he has a problem. James comes home from school with Edward. James knows that his mother has been drinking and he wants to hide this from Edward. James tells Edward to stay where he is so that he can go and check up on his mum. Edward does everything that James says so he stays without asking any questions. James finds his mum unconscious with vodka bottles all over the floor. James shuts the living room door and takes James upstairs so that he doesn’t get to see her. When Edward does his homework James then goes downstairs and gets rid of all the vodka bottles that he could find on the floor and helps his mum to her room.

James’s behaviour is a big issue in school due to the problems that he faces in school. James and his friends decide to get involved in drugs. James naively thinks that if he takes the drugs everything will get better for him, so he goes ahead with it. James tries to hide the fact that he is taking drugs but unfortunately his little brother finds him taking it without him noticing.

James is sitting in the living room sofa when the thought of his older brother taking the drugs. Edward questions himself whether he should take the drugs or not. He then comes to a conclusion that James is much older and wiser than him and if he is taking the drugs then he should too. James goes to the place where James hid the drugs and Edward takes them. Edward then gets an over does and collapses.

2nd Draft Treatment

Location:
School
Kilburn
Home environment

Characters:
Dad aged 44
Mum aged 41
James (older brother) aged 17
Edward (younger brother) aged 10

Characters Characteristics
Mum:
The mum is an 41 year old alcoholic woman and because of this it causes problems between her and her husband. The mum having drinking problems and the dad having arguments with his wife, results to her son James not being able to cope in his education and struggles to balance schoolwork, social life and looking after Edward together. Consequently all the stress and grief causes James to get himself involved in drugs. James being involved in drugs results to his younger brother getting beating up. This then resolves the family to fix up. The mum and dad divorces realising the agony that they have caused and decides to get help.

Dad:
The Dad is a 44 year old man who has worked in a school as a headteacher. He and his wife has constant arguments which leads for them to get divorced. James's behaviour at school causes him to look for another job at another school. He hardly takes care of the family because he has o much to do.

James:
James is a 17 year old boy that is stuggling a lot in life. Due to his parents arguments with each other and his mums drinkingg problems, he hasn't been able to cope with education and has behaviour problems. James has to look after his younger brother because the Dad is always busy and the mum is always drinking. James's behaviour causes him to move school where he would make new friends and settile in fine. His surroundings allows James to be influnced into taking drugs and joining a gang.

Edward:
Edward is 10 years of age and is the youngest in the family. Edward is also suffering the same fate as James as he is feeling hurt because hie family is falling apart however Edward is well behaved. Inadvertantly James gets Edward in a big mess with a gang and gets beaten up.

Act 3: Edward gets beaten up by a gang. This then helps the family to decide that they need to make things right and get help.

Act 1: Mum stays at home drinking while Dad, James and Edward move to a new school to settle in.

Act2: James meets knew friends and becomes a member of a gang that deals with drugs.

Act 3: James puts drugs in Edwards bag and this leads Edward to get beaten up by the gang. The family then decides to make things right and gets help to support one another.

James (17 years old) a young teenager that was having a lot of problems at school due to the problems that he and his younger brother has to suffer at home. His mum is an alcholic which causes her to argue with his Dad all the time and both parents do not look after them, which means he is responsible for Edward and has to look after him.

James's behaviour problems gets worse in school which forces the Dad to get a job at another school. James and Edward settle in very well in the school and the environment that they are put in meanwhile the mum stays at home on the sofa drinking.

As time goes on and James gets to know the students around him and picks up a few friends. James still being naive decides to join a gang that his friends are in and gets himself involved with drugs. James hides the fact that he has met knew friends to his parents because his parents are always shouting and screaming at each other.

To hide the drugs, James puts them in Edwards bag without him knowing. James forgets to take the drugs out of Edwards bag the following morning. When James gets to school, his friends asks him where the drugs are. James then remembers that he forgot to take it out of his little brother's bag. James tells them that he forgot to take the drugs out of Edwards bag and that he would get it latter.

After school James finds his brother battered and bruised on the floor. When they reach home the mum and dad decides to divorce but get help so that they can support the family.

The moral of this story is that you should not get mixed up with bad friends because this can lead to big consequences.

Possible Treatment

Characters:

Mum - Alcoholic
James (Older Son) 17 years old
Brian (Younger Son) 10 years old

Background of family

Middle Class family that has a lot of problems because of the mum’s drinking issues. James has to look after Brian i.e. clothe him, make him breakfast because the mum is not fit enough to do this. James has a job as a shop assistant as Brian has to go to school by himself. The mum stays at home watching T.V drinking all day. James and Brain hates going back home because the mum is very abusive shouting and screaming at them for no apparent reason. James has to stick up for his little brother as the mum approaches to use aggressive comments towards him. James plays a role as a father as he takes Brian out for walks just to get away from the house. James sits down in his room with Brian and both talks about how life would be if they had their dad was still alive.

Plot
The scene will starts at home where we see the mum shouting at the James and Brian before they go to school. We will see the state of the living room full of Vodka bottles and clothes on the floor. James will wake up very early to hide all the bottles before his younger brother does, so that he makes his brother feel that everything is fine when really it isn’t. The state of the room will represent the family’s life, messy and full of sadness. James doesn’t want to make Brain find out that their mum is and alcoholic and tries to protect that secrete from him however there are some occasions where Brian will be asking what is wrong with their mum and why is it that she never cooks him breakfast or buys him anything and why Brian is the only one looking after him. Brian sees James helping their mum up and taking her to her bed because she is not in a fit state to be walking.

The next scene we will see James setting up breakfast for his younger brother as he is asking him questions. After that there will be utter silence as James will feel very depressed. From here we will have a sad music playing. The song will be representing how the brothers feel. The only noise we will hear is the noise of the boys eating their breakfast. We will see the facial expressions of both boys as they are getting ready for school. We will see both James and Brian leave home as they wish each other well for the day as they both separate to go different paths as James is going to work and Brain is going to school.

We will then make the focus of attention on James as he is making his journey to work. We will be able to hear his thoughts on how his life has got to where it is and why him and is brother are always his a mess. However he promises and Vows to himself that he will make his life better for him and his brother. When the brothers come home we will see the mum apologizing to James and Brain and we will see her crying that she will change her ways.

The last scene will end when the sun will rise and James looks at his little brother sleeping and then looking outside. We will also hear him say today is the day and then it will end.

I thought that ending it with a cliff-hanger is a good because it creates a lot of tension and makes the audience want to find out what is going to happen with James and his little brother.

Characters characteristics
James:
17 year old boy and fathers his younger brother Brian who is 10 years old. James is a very reliable person and does everything in the house. Is like a father to his mum and also his brother. James works as a shop assistant to earn a little money to support his familly. James doesn't want Brian to find out that his mum is an alcholic even though he knows.

Brian:
Brian is the younger brother of James. Brian knows about the problem with his mum about drinking but acts like he does'nt know what is going on. Brian goes to school by himself wondering when thingss will get better. Brian looks up to his older brother James because he is keeping the family together. Brian occasionally asks James questions about their mum even though he fully well knows what is happening.

Mum:
She is an alcholic and vey agressive. She gets really agressive and abusive towards her own children. She doesn't work at all. All she does is lies on her sofa drinking vodka. At the end it is James that has to hide the bottles and carry his unconcious mum to her bed.

1st Draft for Treatment

My partner and I have an idea of what our short urban realist film is going to be about. We decided to make a plan for the treatment before we actually do the real one. This is because it will help us to cut out the bits that we don't need and the bits that will take up time because the short film only has to be 5 minutes long. My partner and I talked and discussed that not all of this will fit into our 5minute film, so we decided that there are some parts of it that we need to change or get taking out however we are still trying to figure out what we need to tak out.

Upper-class-white family

Mum-alcoholic
Loses her job consequently can’t afford to live in the house and cant afford to send their son to private school

Dad- Head teacher of private school that the son attends to
He gets offered a job as a headteacher, in north west London for more money and decided to take it. Their son will attend the school.

Son- has mild behaviour problems due to problems at home. Always been a bit boisterous and didn’t really fit in to the private school environment. Son was known as a rough person in old school.

Family move into estate, problems at home get worse. Son fits in right into new school makes friends becomes popular, still rough. Involved in drugs and crime. Makes girlfriend.

Girlfriend gets hurt because of boy and ends up in hospital- boy gives girl drugs to look after, boy tells this to one of his friends and they tell gang, that girl has drugs and she gets robbed and beaten up. Boy finds girl beaten up and unconscious calls for ambulance and calls her best friend to stay with her. Boy finds note lying next to girl. Ends in cliff-hanger of boy getting knife and finding the boy who told the gang that his girlfriend has the drugs.

For my short Film production I have decided that I am going to do an Urban Realist Film. I will be working with a partner who is going to help me make this film successful. We decided together that Urban Realist was the genre for the both of us. We came to an agreement due to the research that we have both done about genres that we can relate more and we feel comfortable with doing an Urban Realist Film. After we discussed about what genre we were going to do the next thing was to make a treatment or a storyboard of our short film. We had to take all the information that we have researched on Urban Realism films and follow they key codes and conventions of the genre and make sure that our storyboard is good enough and will take up the 5minutes that we have for the film. My partner and I had to come up with a solid storyboard that will attract the audience and if all of it was going to fit into the 5minute film but for now we have an idea of what we want to do.

Research into the BFI

During my research I looked at the BFI film festival website to look for more research on urban realist short films. http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/films/short_cuts_animation/1058. In this website there are so many films with different type of genre. I looked at this website in my media class briefly but I thought that I had to go into greater research as there are films that I would like to see. A I was researching I came across an urban realist short film that only last 15minutes. It is called 'London calling'. This is a short urban realist film that I would like to see as I am going to be attending the festival. Going to the festival is a great opportunity for me to experience the different kind of short film genres.

What I learnt in this lesson

In todays medai lesson we looked at an interesting film called 'The Unique Wonders of Christians Savage'. This film helped me a lot because it was taking us through how and what the key important factures are in making a film.

The first thing I learnt was Storyboard. The storyboard is one of the most important factures of making a film. You have to make sure that your storyboard and each shot is planned to perfection. Without the storyboard you will have no film. I took this into consideration and made up my decision from then what my storyline was going to be. Knowing your storyboard well and planning it early makes a huge diffence because you will not rush and you will have plenty of time to make decisions of what you need and what you do not need. In the film you can see how fluent the structure of the film was because they had planned it and stuck to what they wanted to do. This will help me when I come to make my short film because knowing my story board and becoming familiar with it will help me to know what I am doing instead of panicing and leaving things to the last minute

The second thing that the film showed us was the importance of short construction. Short construction is really crusial because this is where the camera comes into play. They discussed that the frame and size of the frame is very important and also the size off the frame. They also gave us an example of why it is very important. They said that if they had to frame a man up close it will give him the sense of superiority and power but if they had to frame him from a long view then that sense of superiority dissapears. They also talked about the landscape of which you are framing. I foiund out that the landscape is an important aspect because it is the view of the landscape that gives of a hint of what the film is going to be about. In this film they showed us the area that they were going to frame and it was a dryed up land in africa. This gives the audience the setting and the mood of the film. Lastly they showed us the camera shots are very important because it signifies the characters mood, role and characteristics. For examle a close up shot of a person shows the audience that the person is either the main character, shows the characters mood or shows the characters high postion of status. A low angle shot shows the character from below and also giving them the impression of being more powerful or dominant. A high angle shows the characters from above, i.e. the camera is angled down towards the character. This has the effect of diminishing the subject, making them appear less powerful, less significant or even submissive. The point of view shot allows the audience to see the eyes of the camera which I think is a very clever way of drawing the audience in. It allows the audience to think that they are actually there.

The next point they expressed on was Lighting effects. I learnt that the lighting is the principle task of directory. Lighting i.e highlights, texture and dark placs predicts the mood. Lighting has three main purposes. The first is clarity of image. It is important for viewers to be able to discern all the important elements in the frame. These might range from facial expressions and physical gestures to the presence of significant props. The use of "effects lighting," as it was known at the time, paved the way for the third purpose: the creation of atmosphere or emotional effect. The development of lighting technique as a significant element of mise-en-scène became an important tool for manipulating audience responses to characters and narrative events.

The important they came across was sound. They expressed that sound is essential for a film. I found out that sound adds to the emotion and also rythm of the film. Since I will have to make my own sound track for my short film I have to make sure that it is well suited for the film otherwise it will not make sense.

All this information that I got from watching this film was very important and useful to me because i can now take away what I have learnt from it and use it to make my short film very good. I will have to beware of where I would like to film because landsape is very important as it sets the scene. Moreover camera shots are very important too. These are the things that I will need to be thinking of as I am preparing to make my short film production.

Narative theories

For this media lesson I looked at the three popular existing narrative theories from three different people called Tzvetan Todoro, Vladimir Propp, and Claude Levi-Strauss. I also did a bit of research on their theories

Tzvetan Todorov’s TheoryTzvetan Todorov (Bulgarian structuralist linguist publishing influentialWork on narrative from the 1960s onwards) Todorov suggested that stories begin with an equilibrium or status quo where any potentially opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by some event, setting in chain a series of events. Problems are solved so that order can be restored to the world of the fiction.

Vladimir propp's theoriesContending that fairy tales could be studied and compared by examining their most basic plot components, Formalist Vladimir Propp developed an analysis that reduced fairy tales to a series of actions performed by the dramatis personae in each story. Propp argued that all fairy tales were constructed of certain plot elements, which he called functions, and that these elements consistently occurred in a uniform sequence. Based on a study of one hundred folk tales, Propp devised a list of thirty-one generic functions, proposing that they encompassed all of the plot components from which fairy tales were constructed. He also concluded that all the characters could be resolved into 8 broad character types in the 100 tales he analyzed:

The villain — struggles against the hero.The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.The princess or prize — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain.Her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, and marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.False hero — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

Claude Levi-Strauss's TheoryClaude Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in termsof binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. An example would be GOOD and EVIL – we understand the concept of GOOD as being the opposite of EVIL. Levi –Strauss was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot. He looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes. For example, if we look at Science Fiction films we can identify a series of binary oppositions which are created by the narrative: Earth SpaceGood EvilHumans AliensPast PresentNormal Strange Known UnknownSo far in the clips that we have viewed and analyzed there has only been a few that I can say that these theories have applied. For example a clip on youtube that we watched called ‘Panic Attack’. Out of these three theories I think that Tzvetan Todorov’s theory applies most to this particular clip as it begins with an equilibrium then we see that the robots come to attack. However the story didn’t get resolved. The last thing that we see is the robots bombing the city that they’re attacking.

Questionaire

What kind of age group do you think is more suited for my urban realist film?



5+ :0 10+ :0 17+ :30 25+ :20




















I told 50 people that I was going to do a short urban realist film and I also told them the theme of the plot that i was planning on doing. For my research I asked them what kind of age group would be more suitable for my short film production and these are the results that I got. As you can see from the graph the majority of people chose 17+ and 25+ which I was expecting. I also asked them why they chose this. The feedback I got was that children such as 5 and 10 year olds will not enjoy it because they are too small to understand fully what is going on around the world they live in. They also said because teenagers from 17 onwards are aware of these things they will understand and relate to it. For example gangs and gun crime, only teenagers at a certain age will realize the seriousness of this and can relate to it. In my opinion I thought that 25+ was a bit too old for people that age to see this. This is because there are more of teenagers that are into the lifestyle that I would like to create in my short film such as joining gangs, socialising with other students. Even though I knew what the answer would be in the end, I still needed to do this experiment just incase.

What would you want my film to be based on?





Crime: 27 Nature: 7 Life about a person: 0 Pregnancy: 16





It is really important to know what the target audience would like to watch. So I thought that if I could ask 50 people of what my short film should be based on, it will give me a general idea of what to do. During my research I found out that in order for a film to be successful the audience that are watching the film must find it interesting. So I took this into consideration and asked them what they thought my short film production should be based on and these are the results I got. Crime was the highest with 27 people voting for it, 7 people voted for nature, nobody wanted to vote for a life of a person and 16 people voted for pregnancy. I found these results very intersting because crime and pregnacy all fit under the catergory of the genre urban realist. Ive also put on a graph below to give me me the percentages. As you can see from the graph more than half wanted the film to be based on crime. A lot of people thought that crime would be good because you can add stereotypes and also challenge stereotypes which is good. They also said it is interesting because there are a lot of fast movement of the actors and the camera shots and all these things builds up tension. I also asked them why they would not like to see a short film about a person's life and the response I got back was that it is very boring and nobosy really wants to know about a person's life unless he/she had a really really interesting life. Throughout these questionares I am getting more and more confident in what to do when finally make my short film. I have to make sure that I take these answers into consideration because this is what the audience want to see.

What film would you prefer to watch?



Bullet boy:26 Star Wars: 6 Scary movie2: 2 The life of mammals:1 paranormal activity: 15


To make my short film a success I had to find out what kind of films/movies people really enjoy. So I asked 50 people what kind of movie/film they would prefer to watch and here are the results. A staggering 26 people decided to pick bullet boy, 6 people picked Star Wars, 3 people picked Scary Movie 2, only 1 person picked The life of mammals and a promising 15 people picked paranormal activity. As you can see from the graph bullet boy takes up half of the graph. This is very good for me because Bullet boy is a urban realist genre and from this data it gioves me confidence in picking the genre urban realist because a lot of people tend to like it. I asked the people why they wouldn't choose The life of mammals and the majority of them said that compared to the other films/movies this is by far the most boring one. I asked them also why they would go for Paranormal Activity and Bullet boy and the response I got back was that these two films are very interesting because they can relate tot. They said that Paranormal Activity is a film that gets a lot of the audience very edgy and that what they expect from a horror.

What type of genre do you prefer?

Horror 13 Sci-Fi 6 Comedy 2 Documentary 3 Urban Realist 26

From this questionaire I came up some results that will help me with my production of the short films. I asked 50 of my target audience what kind of genre they would prefer to see and these are the answers I collected. On top of the graph are how many people chose the genres. So out of 50 people 13 said that they would like to see a horror film. I thought that this was a good idea but the short film has to be only 5 minutes. I thought that if I had to do a horror then it will go over 5 minutes. 6 people chose Sci-Fi, 3 people chose comedy, 2 people chose documentary and a msive 26 people chose Urban realist. I had a streong feeling about doing an urban realist short film and the majority of people would like to see this. This information is really helpful as it helps me to make up my mind of what kind of genre I am going to choose. For the people that picked Urban realist, the next question I asked was why they would want to see an urban realist film. The feedback that i got was that they thought it was interesting to see how they stereotype people an the things they do. They said that Media has corrupted corrupted people's minds so much that when they see it on films the audience tend to think that what they are seeing is true. For me I thought it was very interesting because what happens in the real

world today does get exaggerated a lot in a stereotypical way for example gangs, crime, pregnancies etc. All these things that happen today do get exaggerated and people find this very interesting to watch because they can relate to it easily.

I made a graph of the results I got and as you can see more than half chose Urban realist and only 4% chose comedy which was suprising for me because i though a lot of people liked comedy.

What makes a film successful

In order to make my short film successful I needed to find out in general what it is that makes a film become successful, so I did a bit of research on how big films become a huge hit and makes the audience go to watch it on cinemas or even buy them on DVD's. I found out that the storyline is one of the most important things to making the film a hit. If you do not have a good storyline then the target audience will not go to watch it. A good storyline is at the heart of every successful film. The script must definately appeal to the target audience. Successful films are known to tug at the heartstrings of the audience because they are fairly easy to relate to. Even if you have a big star to perfom for example Will Smith, the audience would not like to sit through 120minutes watching him in a boring film because the storyline was very poor. Granted, there are so many movies that have such a huge buzz going into their opening weekend that people will go and see the movie. But when word gets out that people did not enjoy the movie the second week’s take will be drastically less.

Having stars that are good actors are also the key to making a film successful. This is because popular actors have huge following and they are known to give quality performances. Angelina Jolie took a small movie that wasn’t getting that much press, last summer’s “Wanted”, and turned it into one of the biggest movies of the summer.

Marketing Plan is a critical part of a successful film Making a film, no matter how good or how famous its actors and director are, would not attract much attention if it won’t create some buzz. That is why it is essential to Advertise and other marketing campaigns such as a movie trailer, posters, inviting movie critics to the film’s premiere and other forms of promotions are of utmost importance.

The budget is also a very essential thing to make a film successful. Film production costs a lot of money, making it an important aspect of what makes a movie successful. Having a budget that would adequately cover expensive talent fees and at the same time enable directors to come up with creative ways of making a movie. Release Date is also crusial. I have noticed that a lot of the big budget films are in the summer. This is because there are more people able to see them at any given time throughout the day. School is not in session and people even work less. Plus it is great to be super hot all day and then walk into an air-conditioned movie theater for just a couple of hours. Movies also have to be aware of what other movies are being released and when.

During my research I came across this article which is really useful for making a short film. The article is by Warren EIG. Here is the link to the article. http://www.thefilmlot.com/articles/ARTsuccessfulshort.php

All this research I have to done is going to help me a lot when I come to make my short film. The first thing I have to be thinking about is manking sure that I have a solid blueprint or script to begin with. I have learnt that if I spend the time perfecting the final draft then the production will go more smoothly. I also learnt that having a specific target audience for your films are extremely important. Your film must be relevant to your target market. This means your target market must be clearly defined. It's not uncommon for big film to have to refocus and revisit their targeting, especially if it was not clearly identified in the beginning stages of producing it. To achieve a good a successful film it is important that you know your target market inside and out. This requires conducting a market analysis. This market analysis must be as in-depth as possible providing you will all the data you need to reach your target effectively. By knowing your target audience you will be more confident in the steps to take to connect with that audience.

Key codes and conventions.

Each genre of film has there own key codes and conventions to follow in order to allow the audience to know what is going on. Knowing all the key code and conventions for each genre is really important because if you are thinking of doing a horror film for example and you add a little bit of slapstick commedy then the film wouldn't make sense and this can lead to a film being unsuccessful. So I have done some research and looked up the key code and conventions for each genre. The first genre I looked at was Sci-Fi because there are some short clips that I watched from this gnre and I thought it was very creative and interesting. I reseached on what the codes and conventions are for Science Fiction because theseb are the things that they use in the films to make it Sci-Fi. Science Fiction is a type of media whereby the premise is that the events being described are taking place in a reality other than the one you are currently experiencing. For example Long Time ago (Star Wars), Alternate Present (The Terminator, Twilight Zone, Independence Day) or Future (Dark Star, Silent Running). Science Fiction usually deals with hardware and technology, compared to Science Fantasy (also SF) whereby there is more concentration on non-technological aspects of the events being described, for example - The Lord of the Rings. A lot of the target audience get drawn to the genre of Sci-Fi due to the high technology that is happening today. A lot of audience think that things such as flying cars or spaceships could happen in the future. for example our mobile phones today were predicted in 'Star Trek' from 40 years ago.

The other genre I looked at was horror. Horror is one of the biggest genres because a lot of target audience's tend to watch horror film. Horror films code and conventions are so precise and obvious and makes the audience want to watch more of it. Horror is a genre that strives to educe fear and apprehension from their viewers by colliding supernatural into reality situations. Everything a normal society values is systematically destroyed throughout the film. It often can be completely paranormal without any reality whatsoever and are based on classic literature of the gothic/horror genre. They can also incorporate elements of other genres such as science fiction (sci-fi), fantasy, black comedies or thriller. Modernized horrors usually contain graphic violence or bloody gore. Horror films differentiate due to the years and so it is much harder to compare or group them largely and so contrasts between them become very clear. For example Paranomal activity is one of the biggest horror films out now. A lot of its traget audience went to see it and the code and conventions were very good because there was a lot of supernatural things in it and it did have the audience wondering if it was real or not. Here is a link to the trailer of the film paranormal activity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSSqxrh5kp8

This image is the front cover of the horror movie 'SAW'. as you can see the cover is following the key codes and conventions of a horror. The Red writing signifies blood and death which a lot of horror films have. The picture itself of the scary looking face tells the target audience that this film is going to be scary. Also you can notice the slogan they have on the top hand left. 'You will wish it were just a movie'. This kind of slogan plays with the audience's minds to think that what is happening in the movie could also happen to them. It draws the audience in the film.

I did some research on what code and conventions make up a documentary. Documentaries are very unique to other genres becaue they use real footage of events. Documentaries are essentially seen as non-fiction. A convention of documentaries are that all events are presented to us are to be seen as real to the target audience. Documentaries make a big deal and go to great lengths to convince the audience that all footage is real and unaltered in anyway. For example I watched a clip of a bbc documentary called 'The Birth of Isreal' which i found was very fasinating. Documenatries are more like facts and deal with real pictures and use their own music to educate or to teach people about things. Here is a clip of the documentary 'The Birth of Isreal' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8hE6WN9xRU