Monthly Diary November 2012

The past few weeks lessons has focussed on planning for our main coursework trailer. What was involved was trying to create an idea and in turn think up the props, setting, location, story and the cast for this. We then had to establish this into a PowerPoint presentation which we then presented to the rest of the class and on camera. We used the class as a good use of audience feedback, helping get their ideas and thoughts on what could improve our trailer idea and whether it will be reasonable to make.

The response came back fairly positive, with a number of people excited by our idea and potential trailer.  The negative feedback we got was mainly to do the subliminal extras we planned to put in. After analysing this, we took this feedback on board and hope to improve it for once the filming starts

Prezi Presentation

Target Audience- 10 Missed Calls

Addressing our target audience was a fundamental point even before we began filming our trailer. The importance of drawing up a target audience is essential for the marketing and distributing of our film trailer. Knowing who your target audience is allows you to know what the consumers want and need.

After deciding that our film trailer was going to to be an action/romance/thriller, considering the target audience was our next step. Researching similar films below I have listed their certificate and the impact that this had on establishing our target audience.

• Trade- Certificate 15
• Kidnapped- Certificate 15
• Trapped- Certificate 18
• Dont Say A Word- Certificate 18
• The Collector- Certificate 18

Here we can see that most of the same type of genre of films are 15 and over. This film will appeal to both a female and male audience as the romance and thriller aspects of the film will attract females and the action and violence aspects will attract males. However, we need to propose the question that will having several aspects put off either females or males? Asking our class they all perceived the idea as inventive and insisted that having several genres will make the film trailer more appealing and attract a wider target audience.

Looking at similar  existing films with the same concept and genres as ours. We can see that the target audience will be best suited from 15 years- 30 years old of both men and women. The concept of making the target audience up to 30 is that this film could also be appealing to couples from 25-30 years old or even onwards further than that. However, we understand that have several different genres listed may put some consumers off. 

Films like this are deemed wrong to be targeting a younger audience. Therefore, in retrospect to our film with aspects of sex trafficking and violence this film trailer is not suitable for children or teenagers under 15 years old. Although, A film trailer can be modified to a lower classification if it meets the appropriate criteria of the classification. Therefore in our film trailer if we restricted the violence and language used we could select our film trailer classification as 12A. This will then set out a greater mass audience for advertising. 

More Title Ideas

When deciding a film trailer every idea needs to be linked to an aspect of our film. Using the internet, ideas were interlinked to create a suitable list of names for our film trailer: 

10 Missed calls

The abductor 

Welcome to Corfu

The Oblivious

All names listed contain more than one word, my previous post displayed all our ideas for a one worded name film trailer. After discussing as a group we have agreed that 10 Missed Calls is a suitable and effective film trailer name and reflects  a pivotal aspect of our film trailer. 

After deciding on our film trailer name we asked the rest of the class on their opinions of the top three names the results are listed below:

Title Ideas

Choosing a suitable name for our film trailer has been a difficult task below I have addressed a few one worded names that could be used as the name for our film trailer.

Peer feedback on the blog

This was my first peer feedback where I asked 2 members of my class from another group to look at the context of my blog and evaluate it giving me both positive areas and areas that need to be worked on. By addressing the feedback this will improve the quality of my blog.

Dow- "Will your blog has started well. Its clear that you have done plenty of detailed research into the process that producing a film takes. I like the fact that you have done several case studies on different films from different genres- from this you could write a post about narrowing down your options for you selected genre of your film trailer. Your what makes a trailer post needs to be re arranged as you have different fonts and different sizes within the post."

Kassie- "Will your blog looks excellent. I love the fact you have used different features to present your work. Although some your posts are vague and you are missing out key parts of information within the post for example your target audience post you need to refer more to certification and the impact this will have on your film trailer. Your pitch is good from this have you had any further reflection? if so why not write a post about it."

Script Development

Proposed Locations

Abandoned house- A recommendation from one of my friends was to use an abandoned house to film a chunk of our trailer. The house fitted the description that we needed and was a perfect destination for a hostage scene. The house fitted the action aspect of our trailer as short scenes could be manipulated by varying camera angles and with a wide range of different rooms to film in.

School scenes- At the beginning of the trailer the build up with the couples will be filmed in our common room this will resemble the fact that the couple are still at school. A further scene with Matt(Main actor) on the phone will take place in one of the smaller class rooms in the six form centre. Lastly, the final school scene will take place just outside the school on a quiet road this scene will be where Matt asks a woman where he can find the address, this scene will need to be carefully planned out with the adequate camera angles as this shot needs to reflect being in Corfu. Therefore, the weather also needs to be taken into consideration.

House scenes- Two scenes are needed to be filmed in a house. However, both house scenes needs to be filmed in different houses. The first scene is a party scene whereby the couple are caught arguing, after a row Jodie gets kidnapped and returns back to her house. Therefore, using two houses is fundamental, the scene where Jodie gets kidnapped a wide range of different camera angles will be incorporated to add tension.

Film Stages

The process that a film has to undertake is massive. The 3 main stages are summarised as production, distribution and exhibition below identifies the 3 main stages in more detail. All 3 factors are essential when making a film.

1.Production

·        Motivation

·        Stakeholders

·        Finance

·        Independent cinema

·        High Concept

Every stage is linked with the next stage. Although it is fundamental to help make the entire process of the film go forward, money will be needed and so stakeholders will have to be put in place for this to happen. To get stakeholders, various pitches will have to be arranged to companies explaining what the films about, characters, cast etc. It's also pitched to groups of the public, trying to determine that it will either;

1. Be successful.

2. Will it appeal to the approached target audience.

If a film doesn’t appeal to the target audience the idea maybe changed or scrapped altogether.

2. Distribution

·        Unique selling points

·        Costs

·        Case studies

·        Trailer Conventions

·        Marketing Strategy

The next stage is distribution and this involves the whole marketing and advertising side of making a film. This very much links in with financial elements, this revolves around the advertising and marketing aspects which all influences how much money the project has. This will include trailers, posters and test screening all features included in making a successful film. Unique selling points are essential before preparing the marketing strategy as the unique selling points attract people to the film. This can also be evident through the cast which holds massive dividance to the success of the film. The cast are who will attract people to the film, and along with good plot selling points and a lot of money can result in financial success which will impact on a better film.

3. Exhibition

·        Cinema screens

·        Mode

·        Exit Polls

·        Audience figures

·        Audience Stratification

The exhibition stage focuses on the after math of the release of a film. The data collected focuses on a number of things including, how they heard about the film, the best of the part film, what attracted them to go see it. The questionnaire is pivotal for the producers of the film as they can see whether the film for the audience has been a success, if so could it become a sequel.