Monday, 20 January 2014
Monday, 6 January 2014
Question 6 What have you learned about the technologies from the process of construching this product?
When researching and creating our film opening we have used a wide range of Hardware and software. when conducting research on our action genre we used GOOGLE in order to find sites showing film openings and sites such as Box Office Mojo to find out if action films at that time were very popular.
GOOGLE was very good search engine to use due to the fact that it is able to find an massive range of results that are relevant and very useful.
By using the technology provided by the school (both software and hardware) I found that the overall browsing experience was somewhat temperamental but sometime proved to be good as due to the networking capability's of the school and its download and upload speed google operated at a very fast speed which meant when downloading files and images from Google it was fast and responsive which in turn increased my productivity and ability to obtain relevant research material. When using Google I did however run in to some problems due to the fact of things like safe search being turned on by our system administrator and Impero being enabled, This meant that most sites that involved simple things such as ads there were seen as material not suitable for young adults such as gambling and call of duty video's were blocked an therefor I was unable to visit them and after a few attempts of trying various sites I would become very frustrated. When using Google I found that the computer hardware in the computers was more than adequate for my browsing need but when it come to networking I found aspects of this near impossible due to the unreliability of it. At times the network would crash and my session would be lost meaning that all the work, research and software I was using/ working on would all be deleted or reverted to a previous older version of its self meaning that I would lose a large amount of work.
Youtube was used in order to find a wider range of action film openings ranging from well known films such as Die Hard 4.0 to action films made by other media groups. I found YouTube to be very helpful when it came to looking at previous action films and analyzing the features used as I was able to watch them multiple times in high definition and therefore I was able to grasp a strong understanding on the conventions used in action films and the connotation linked with various items you will see in an action film such as guns or cars.
The problems I had when using YouTube caused my experience to be almost exhausting due to the fact that safe mode is enabled by our system administrators it restricts the range of film openings I was able to watch due to the weapons and themes explored in action films. this made finding action films difficult and sometimes even impossible due to ether safe search or the instability and unreliability of our servers.
When it came to putting all of my ideas, research and planning in one place I decided to use an online blog called Blogger.
Blogger is a simple word processor that enables its users to publish materials for others to see.
When using Blogger I ran in to a number of issues that made using the browser based software tedious and aggravating the main reason for this is that I had multiple issues with it not saving work or failing to publish work meaning that my teacher was sometimes unable to mark it. Another problem i encountered when using blogger was the failure to embed video or presentations this was extremely frustrating and cause a lot of trouble due to the fact that it was conflicting with other programs.
when it came to editing i was our groups primary editor and therefor chose to use Sony vegus i found this a very enjoyable part of our production and put in many extra hours in order to make sure our work was edited to a high standard. There was only one problem i came across when using this application and that was that files i had added in order to be edited were being corrupted but this problem was down to the networking installed at our school and its unreliability.
GOOGLE was very good search engine to use due to the fact that it is able to find an massive range of results that are relevant and very useful.
By using the technology provided by the school (both software and hardware) I found that the overall browsing experience was somewhat temperamental but sometime proved to be good as due to the networking capability's of the school and its download and upload speed google operated at a very fast speed which meant when downloading files and images from Google it was fast and responsive which in turn increased my productivity and ability to obtain relevant research material. When using Google I did however run in to some problems due to the fact of things like safe search being turned on by our system administrator and Impero being enabled, This meant that most sites that involved simple things such as ads there were seen as material not suitable for young adults such as gambling and call of duty video's were blocked an therefor I was unable to visit them and after a few attempts of trying various sites I would become very frustrated. When using Google I found that the computer hardware in the computers was more than adequate for my browsing need but when it come to networking I found aspects of this near impossible due to the unreliability of it. At times the network would crash and my session would be lost meaning that all the work, research and software I was using/ working on would all be deleted or reverted to a previous older version of its self meaning that I would lose a large amount of work.
This screen would appear when clicking on links this stops you from accessing the webpage therefore reduces the amount of research that you are able to conduct.
Youtube was used in order to find a wider range of action film openings ranging from well known films such as Die Hard 4.0 to action films made by other media groups. I found YouTube to be very helpful when it came to looking at previous action films and analyzing the features used as I was able to watch them multiple times in high definition and therefore I was able to grasp a strong understanding on the conventions used in action films and the connotation linked with various items you will see in an action film such as guns or cars.
The problems I had when using YouTube caused my experience to be almost exhausting due to the fact that safe mode is enabled by our system administrators it restricts the range of film openings I was able to watch due to the weapons and themes explored in action films. this made finding action films difficult and sometimes even impossible due to ether safe search or the instability and unreliability of our servers.
When it came to putting all of my ideas, research and planning in one place I decided to use an online blog called Blogger.
Blogger is a simple word processor that enables its users to publish materials for others to see.
When using Blogger I ran in to a number of issues that made using the browser based software tedious and aggravating the main reason for this is that I had multiple issues with it not saving work or failing to publish work meaning that my teacher was sometimes unable to mark it. Another problem i encountered when using blogger was the failure to embed video or presentations this was extremely frustrating and cause a lot of trouble due to the fact that it was conflicting with other programs.
when it came to editing i was our groups primary editor and therefor chose to use Sony vegus i found this a very enjoyable part of our production and put in many extra hours in order to make sure our work was edited to a high standard. There was only one problem i came across when using this application and that was that files i had added in order to be edited were being corrupted but this problem was down to the networking installed at our school and its unreliability.
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Question 5
In order to attract our target audience we had to find out what our primary and secondary audience wanted to see in there action films but we also wanted to know what didn't quiet work and what they felt put them off of certain films. We conducted an interview containing our primary audience, men over 35, and then added in our secondary audience, men under 35. from this interview we were deciding what to include in our film and these interviews affected the making of our films dramatically as some of our previous ideas did not suit what our target audience wanted.
In our interview seen above we asked questions including:
From asking why Chris Higgins likes to watch action films we discovered that he finds them thrilling and feels like he has been personally involved which is one of the reasons that people consume media so we decided that this was a strong factor that we should include in our film plot and decided to include a thrilling aspect with a large amount of enigma.
A strong reason for Chris's favourite film being the borne identity sequel was the story line being interesting and a character that has a strong skill in acting.
When we asked Chris Do you find the stereotypical role of a dominant mail and a damsel in distress a bad thing? he replied 'I think that it distracts from what the actual film is about' therefor we decided not to include a female actor within our film as we thought that our film already contained a large amount of enigma and the introduction of a 'damsel in distress' would peal the viewers away from the action and may end up confusing them.
using all of the answers from the interview above we then pitched our ideas to our peers
We plan to attract our using:
Action
there will be a strong feel of action through our film even though we have not me the typical conventions of an action film due to the fact that we have not used a big city for the setting of our film but we feel that this will be surprising for our audience.
Thriller
There will be thrilling aspect through our film keeping our audience on the edge of there seat. t5o achive this we have used a sound that slowly grows in intensity as the thrill of the kill and his approach to his victims house this will be coupled with fast editing and an unknown character dressed in black.
In our interview seen above we asked questions including:
- Name, age and Gender?
- why do they like to watch action films?
- What is there favourite action film and why?
- What aspects of action films entice you to watch them?
- Do you find the stereotypical role of a dominant mail and a damsel in distress a bad thing?
- what would you like to see in action films that you haven't seen before
From asking why Chris Higgins likes to watch action films we discovered that he finds them thrilling and feels like he has been personally involved which is one of the reasons that people consume media so we decided that this was a strong factor that we should include in our film plot and decided to include a thrilling aspect with a large amount of enigma.
A strong reason for Chris's favourite film being the borne identity sequel was the story line being interesting and a character that has a strong skill in acting.
When we asked Chris Do you find the stereotypical role of a dominant mail and a damsel in distress a bad thing? he replied 'I think that it distracts from what the actual film is about' therefor we decided not to include a female actor within our film as we thought that our film already contained a large amount of enigma and the introduction of a 'damsel in distress' would peal the viewers away from the action and may end up confusing them.
using all of the answers from the interview above we then pitched our ideas to our peers
We plan to attract our using:
Action
there will be a strong feel of action through our film even though we have not me the typical conventions of an action film due to the fact that we have not used a big city for the setting of our film but we feel that this will be surprising for our audience.
Thriller
There will be thrilling aspect through our film keeping our audience on the edge of there seat. t5o achive this we have used a sound that slowly grows in intensity as the thrill of the kill and his approach to his victims house this will be coupled with fast editing and an unknown character dressed in black.
Plot Complexity
A quintessential part of action and thriller films is the complicated plot which make the audience need to watch it in order to fully understand it. Our two characters in the film opening make the plot very complicated because on off them is bad but it isn't clear until the end of the film which is bad. This is the most effective way to keep an audience interested and involved
In conclusion, we have chosen to attract and address by giving them, exactly what they want - thriller and action combo with very complex plot that makes they have to keep on watching.
Saturday, 4 January 2014
Question 4- The Audence
Targeting the right audience is very important in all media industries as if this is done wrong the film will not appeal and therefore will not be viewed or purchased.
When considering your target audience there are factors that you must consider. These are:
We looked at audience research carried out by the UK Film Council to identify our target demographic audience. Our Genre is ACTION. The reasons we have chosen this genre is because it has a very large market impact and ranks 5th on the chart WHAT CHART? with a GB watch percentage of 50%. our genre is a good choice as the action aspects of our film attracts men above 35 there for it would be appealing to already a large number of people and there for there would be a very good audience. For our genre the percentage of parents and not parents the percentages are in favour of our target audience having children. the social classes associated with action are mostly viewed by middle citizens closely followed by lower class citizens. SO WHO WAS YOUR TA IN TERMS OF DEMOGRAPHICS
Before making our film we looked in to Psychographics and decided to interview people form our primary target audience and secondary target audience.
We spoke to Chris Higgins as he was part of our secondary target audience demographic of males under the age of 35, and he is a fan of the action genre so he had some interesting ideas and answers to our questions. He told us that he particularly enjoyed action films like The Bourne Identity because of the 'interesting story line about the goings on secretly within the government', as well as the acting by the lead character 'Matt Damon'.
We spoke to Paul Cutts as he was part of our primary target audience demographic of males above the age of 35, He was a good choice to interview as is a fan of some of the older, classic actions films such as 'Speed', he liked how the plot was thick and 'they got a lot out of the concept' he said he enjoys the 'explosions and adrenaline pumping car chases'. He also mentioned a very interesting view on how action films that use the dominant male character and saves a 'damsel in distress' character can detract from the film as its a very traditional story feature, and he likes 'Speed' as it challenges this by the female character doing the hard job.
We then moved on to looking at if our film was for more of a mainstream or niche audience and looked at the relevant factors concerning that and decided that it would be best to make a mainstream films as this would be much easier to achieve and would appeal to a much wider range of people inside and out side our target audience.
When deciding this we looked at data collected on box-office films at the current time.
Our target audience are people that enjoy Action and as you can see in the graph above it is a very good choice as our genre is within the top 5 and has a much higher percentage of people that enjoy watching it and there for our target audience will be much larger than if we were to produce a film with the genre such as Nollywood as this is a Niche genre.
we then took a close look at our primary audience and interviewed a member in order to find out about the features of media that they like and dislike but also to get an idea of the things they are interested in.
I interviewed a Male, age 45 who works as a IT technician for a local business. His hobbies are traveling and photography, His class status is C1/C2. I asked him questions on what he enjoys in music, films, books etc to get a better of our target audiences preferred aspects of media.
Music- He enjoys a wide rage of music from many different artists but favours the more recent music as he finds it catchy. He dislikes slow ballroom like music as he finds its boring due to its soft notes.
Films - He really enjoys Action films as they often have interesting plots that are full of enigma and twists his favourite films are the Matrix and the Born ultimatum as he finds them to always surprise him with more and more action. He dislikes si-fi as he finds that they are not realistic and exaggerate to much and so he doesn't enjoy watching them.
TV - Enjoys crime dramas such as CSI, because of the enigma through and he finds it very enjoyable to guess who the victims killer was by piecing together the evidence. He dislikes animations due the un-realistic actions of the characters and the trouble they find them self's involved in
Other Media - He enjoys websites such as YouTube and Netflix as he is able to watch the new action films and his favourite crime dramas as he finds them exciting
Attitude to our film opening genre - He enjoys action films if the storyline is full of enigma to keep him interested and give him a shot at working out who is who and what they may do next. He also enjoys the element of horror integrated into it as he finds that it can add tension to a movie and hep keep his full attention
After collecting this information, we have concluded that our film opening needs to include; classic memorable music that will set the scene mentally, lots of enigma to involve the audience and make them think, the element of truth about the storyline (e.g. events that could or have happened) in order for it to seam realistic.
Marketing our production - we would market our production in news papers and on well-known websites such as news sites as we found out that our audience is often aware of current events and will most likely be watching the most recent action film days after it being released . this should appeal to our target audience as they presumably watch and read the news. We could also market our production on sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, this would appeal to a younger audience and widen our target market but we will mainly focus on appealing to our primary demographic as they would provide a much bigger audience.
When considering your target audience there are factors that you must consider. These are:
- Demographics-Gender, Age, Ethnicity
- Psychographics
- Mainstream or Niche?
- The primary audience
- The Secondary audience
We looked at audience research carried out by the UK Film Council to identify our target demographic audience. Our Genre is ACTION. The reasons we have chosen this genre is because it has a very large market impact and ranks 5th on the chart WHAT CHART? with a GB watch percentage of 50%. our genre is a good choice as the action aspects of our film attracts men above 35 there for it would be appealing to already a large number of people and there for there would be a very good audience. For our genre the percentage of parents and not parents the percentages are in favour of our target audience having children. the social classes associated with action are mostly viewed by middle citizens closely followed by lower class citizens. SO WHO WAS YOUR TA IN TERMS OF DEMOGRAPHICS
Before making our film we looked in to Psychographics and decided to interview people form our primary target audience and secondary target audience.
We spoke to Chris Higgins as he was part of our secondary target audience demographic of males under the age of 35, and he is a fan of the action genre so he had some interesting ideas and answers to our questions. He told us that he particularly enjoyed action films like The Bourne Identity because of the 'interesting story line about the goings on secretly within the government', as well as the acting by the lead character 'Matt Damon'.
We spoke to Paul Cutts as he was part of our primary target audience demographic of males above the age of 35, He was a good choice to interview as is a fan of some of the older, classic actions films such as 'Speed', he liked how the plot was thick and 'they got a lot out of the concept' he said he enjoys the 'explosions and adrenaline pumping car chases'. He also mentioned a very interesting view on how action films that use the dominant male character and saves a 'damsel in distress' character can detract from the film as its a very traditional story feature, and he likes 'Speed' as it challenges this by the female character doing the hard job.
We then moved on to looking at if our film was for more of a mainstream or niche audience and looked at the relevant factors concerning that and decided that it would be best to make a mainstream films as this would be much easier to achieve and would appeal to a much wider range of people inside and out side our target audience.
When deciding this we looked at data collected on box-office films at the current time.
Our target audience are people that enjoy Action and as you can see in the graph above it is a very good choice as our genre is within the top 5 and has a much higher percentage of people that enjoy watching it and there for our target audience will be much larger than if we were to produce a film with the genre such as Nollywood as this is a Niche genre.
we then took a close look at our primary audience and interviewed a member in order to find out about the features of media that they like and dislike but also to get an idea of the things they are interested in.
I interviewed a Male, age 45 who works as a IT technician for a local business. His hobbies are traveling and photography, His class status is C1/C2. I asked him questions on what he enjoys in music, films, books etc to get a better of our target audiences preferred aspects of media.
Music- He enjoys a wide rage of music from many different artists but favours the more recent music as he finds it catchy. He dislikes slow ballroom like music as he finds its boring due to its soft notes.
Films - He really enjoys Action films as they often have interesting plots that are full of enigma and twists his favourite films are the Matrix and the Born ultimatum as he finds them to always surprise him with more and more action. He dislikes si-fi as he finds that they are not realistic and exaggerate to much and so he doesn't enjoy watching them.
TV - Enjoys crime dramas such as CSI, because of the enigma through and he finds it very enjoyable to guess who the victims killer was by piecing together the evidence. He dislikes animations due the un-realistic actions of the characters and the trouble they find them self's involved in
Other Media - He enjoys websites such as YouTube and Netflix as he is able to watch the new action films and his favourite crime dramas as he finds them exciting
Attitude to our film opening genre - He enjoys action films if the storyline is full of enigma to keep him interested and give him a shot at working out who is who and what they may do next. He also enjoys the element of horror integrated into it as he finds that it can add tension to a movie and hep keep his full attention
After collecting this information, we have concluded that our film opening needs to include; classic memorable music that will set the scene mentally, lots of enigma to involve the audience and make them think, the element of truth about the storyline (e.g. events that could or have happened) in order for it to seam realistic.
Marketing our production - we would market our production in news papers and on well-known websites such as news sites as we found out that our audience is often aware of current events and will most likely be watching the most recent action film days after it being released . this should appeal to our target audience as they presumably watch and read the news. We could also market our production on sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, this would appeal to a younger audience and widen our target market but we will mainly focus on appealing to our primary demographic as they would provide a much bigger audience.
Friday, 3 January 2014
Question 3
A film distributor is a company or individual responsible for the marketing of a film. The distributor may set the release date of a film and the method by which a film to be exhibited or made available for viewing: for example, directly to the public either theoretically or for home viewing (DVD, video-on-demand, (such as Netflix or love film) download, television programs through broadcast syndication). A distributor may do this directly, if the distributor owns the theatres or film distribution networks, or through theatrical exhibitors and other sub-distributors. A limited distributor may deal only with particular products, such as DVDs or Blu-ray, or may act in a particular country or market.
We researched into films of similar theme and genre, and we realised that most action films such as 'Bourne Ultimatum (which had a budget of $110m) and Batman: Dark Knight (which had a budget of $185m) have high budget to incorporate the realness that this specific genre needs. We have decided that our films should be High Budget because it is very realistic and creating realism isn't cheap.
If we chose a distributor we would choose one that has done films of the same genre before, so they are experienced with marketing to this genre and will make the film as accessible and successful as possible, probably 'New Line Cinema' as they had distributed se7en, which is a very similar film to ours in terms of its theme and style. Although we would use a bigger budget distributor that doesn't mean that the film couldn't be a success if we chose an independent distributor, films such as 'Paranormal Activity' were made with a relatively tiny budget compared to most films that were as popular.
We have chosen Warner Brothers to distribute because they are the leading distributer in 2013 with a total of 900 films including the newly released 'Gravity' and the action film 'The Dark Knight'. They a also create films like 'Sherlock Holmes' and 'Inception' which are films that have the same genre as ours, which is action/crime.
We expect that, because of the popular genre that we chose, our film would go to a multiplex cinema such as Odeon which is one of the largest cinema companies in Europe. We also have chose this because our target audience is males under 35, who are more likely to go to cinema to see films than males over 35. Our film is very mainstream, it has a very popular genre that is suitable for virtually everyone. The popularity of the genre would mean that marketing for the film would have to be in multiple areas such as online video sites such as Youtube, newspapers and magazines such as The Sun and also on Television. By doing this, we cover the major gateways to the public.
We researched into films of similar theme and genre, and we realised that most action films such as 'Bourne Ultimatum (which had a budget of $110m) and Batman: Dark Knight (which had a budget of $185m) have high budget to incorporate the realness that this specific genre needs. We have decided that our films should be High Budget because it is very realistic and creating realism isn't cheap.
If we chose a distributor we would choose one that has done films of the same genre before, so they are experienced with marketing to this genre and will make the film as accessible and successful as possible, probably 'New Line Cinema' as they had distributed se7en, which is a very similar film to ours in terms of its theme and style. Although we would use a bigger budget distributor that doesn't mean that the film couldn't be a success if we chose an independent distributor, films such as 'Paranormal Activity' were made with a relatively tiny budget compared to most films that were as popular.
We have chosen Warner Brothers to distribute because they are the leading distributer in 2013 with a total of 900 films including the newly released 'Gravity' and the action film 'The Dark Knight'. They a also create films like 'Sherlock Holmes' and 'Inception' which are films that have the same genre as ours, which is action/crime.
We expect that, because of the popular genre that we chose, our film would go to a multiplex cinema such as Odeon which is one of the largest cinema companies in Europe. We also have chose this because our target audience is males under 35, who are more likely to go to cinema to see films than males over 35. Our film is very mainstream, it has a very popular genre that is suitable for virtually everyone. The popularity of the genre would mean that marketing for the film would have to be in multiple areas such as online video sites such as Youtube, newspapers and magazines such as The Sun and also on Television. By doing this, we cover the major gateways to the public.
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Question 2
All media products represent individuals in a particular way this can depend on factors such as Age, ethnicity, social class, sexuality, gender and physical ability.
The main social gropes we explored in our media product are gender and social status, age and ethnicity.
Young male characters
Young male characters are normally seen as inexperienced compared to their older male counter parts. They are often put across as weaker and less informed of the events that are unfolding around them this is representing them in a negative way as it makes them out to look uneducated, easily frightened and gives them an attitude that makes them look that they don't have a care in the world. This is representing them in a negative way due to the fact that men are normally seen as strong and brave and are often put across to know what is happening around them and it is due to this reason that I believe that young males are being represented in a negative way.
Unknown Character
Gender
In our film opening we have represented genders in a series of different ways.
We have represented females in a derogative way due to our cast being men only leaving only one role to be played by a female and there for we have shown our audience that society is dominated by male's, the one part that a female did partake was a police interview and this was a spoken part overlaying our main Unknown character. The interview speech by our female news reporter presented females in a strong manner due to the severity of the report and the strength and volume of the voice, this is very un stereotypical of a woman in an action film as they are usually seen as a 'Damsel's in distress' and they need rescuing by a man who often has to risk his life to save hers.
Ethnicity
We have not included a rage of ethnicity with in our film opening as the two characters on set and the two reporter voices you hear are all English.
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
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