AUDIENCE RESEARCH

In addition, remember that without solid audience research and a clearly defined target audience, you won't get a level 4 for Research and Planning.

On top of your BBFC research and discussion, think about the following:

You must have identified a clear target audience and you must show the steps you've taken to identify it and to test your ideas against this specified audience. This doesn't mean just an endless series of questionnaires. Use the range of techniques discussed including interviews, preferably with your target audience, and the tools available through Web 2.0.

Look at similar films and research their audiences - How was it marketed to appeal to the target audience? What are the viewing figures?

You must be able to answer these questions fully and with illustrations:

1. What is the core target audience? Is there a secondary target audience?

2. How would you describe the look and tastes of your target audience? (collage with key words perhaps)

And later, after a little more research and teaching, you also need to answer this:

3. What functions does this kind of film genre serve to its audience? (uses and gratifications audience theory - why not start researching that?

Think of films which features similar plots / characters / settings / types of editing and screengrabs / comment / analyse.


Remember to sum up your findings about core target audience, any secondary audience.

All magazines do it - for instance, look at NME's summary of their target audience:




Some ideas for you:
Target Audience Profile and Target Audience Media Consumption Profile:

IMMEDIATE TO DO LIST

Use the coursework checklist you were given. Tick off as you go. 

PLANNING

Storyboards uploaded to blogs (photos will do).
Take a pic of every single shot for your animatic.
Finished script uploaded to blogs
Shot list
Shooting schedule
Planning of locations, costumes, props etc…

RESEARCH

BBFC research - link to blog - study guidance - decide on certificate rating for your film.
Gearing towards a post on more detailed audience research.

PRODUCTION

Start filming/editing.

Thriller openings - Analysis

1. Complete the analysis two thriller openings.
You will consider and explore:
• How does the opening engage/create interest for the audience?
• Does it establish characters? How?
• Does the opening introduce themes, mood or story/narrative? How?
• How are the opening titles displayed?
• How is enigma established?

What you will need to analyse:
• Mise-en-scene;
• Use of soundtrack;
• Use of diegetic sound;
• Editing;
• Camera shot, movement and position;
• Use of special effects.

Remember that to achieve higher grades, you need to be ANALYTICAL rather than just descriptive. Don't simply tell me that there is a close up at this point or a tracking movement at that point. Explain how it helps the narrative and how it is supposed to affect the reader.

Choose 2 extracts from below.

Again create a 9 or 12-frame board to illustrate your comments.

Opening scene of The Usual Suspects (couldn't find it with the opening credits)

The first 2-3 minutes of Memento:

The first 4 minutes of Enemey of State (though a look at the credits that kick off then wouldn't hurt!)

First 5 minutes of What Lies Beneath(embedding disabled so link provided instead) http://youtu.be/3WrycZRmIcs

Investigating genre and generic conventions (lesson: 22.1.14)

You will be completing NICCS grids on Blade Runner, The Bourne Identity and one other trailer from the list below.
Generic Conventions AS task
Secondly, you should post your class notes on Genre. Why did you learn? What are the debates around genre? What is the importance of star association with a genre? What can we look for to identify a genre?
What about the triangular relationship?

You could write some bullet points to sum up your responses.

Analysis of Thriller Opening - Silence of the Lambs

Complete the analysis of a thriller opening.

You will consider and explore:
• How does the opening engage/create interest for the audience?
• Does it establish characters? How?
• Does the opening introduce themes, mood or story/narrative? How?
• How are the opening titles displayed?
• How is enigma established?

What you will need to analyse:
• Mise-en-scene;
• Use of soundtrack;
• Use of diegetic sound;
• Editing;
• Camera shot, movement and position;
• Use of special effects.

Silence Of The Lambs

The first is the opening of "The Silence of the Lambs" directed by Jonathan Demme (focus on the first 6 min).

Watch carefully and write a detailed analysis of this opening sequence.
Create a 12-frame board of the key shots to accompany your analysis and number the frames for cross-reference.


Need help with analysis? Read the example below on "The Shining" to see a model of a good analysis.
Here is an interesting analysis of the opening sequence for The Shining which appears on the Long Road Media Blog (thank you, Long Road). Read it carefully to learn some tips.

Watch the sequence first!

The film opens with a series of shots of panoramic landscape vistas showcasing the bleak desolation of the snowy mountainous surroundings, which will provide the backdrop for the film’s subsequent narrative developments. Various bird's eye view shots intermittently cross dissolve into one another, and depict an expansive clear blue lake, a snow-capped mountain range, and a densely populated forest of evergreen trees. The camera moves swiftly through its surroundings in each shot, sweeping past the breadth of the natural environs below it, and thus conveys to the audience a sense of the massive scale and large land span of the location depicted.

During the camera’s continual movement, it occasionally captures its views from distorted angles, which undermines the idea otherwise created by this series of shots of the benevolent purity of natural beauty and the wintry American landscape. It thus uses spatial manipulation to contradict the principal connotations of the images of nature captured in these shots, and hence foreshadows the heavy deployment of themes and imagery centred upon the supernatural that will follow.

Also indicative of this theme is the use of slow, sombre, unnerving and deliberate electronic music, which in conjunction with the seemingly oppositional images suggest a malevolence to the surroundings shown and imply an unknown danger amongst them.

Eventually the camera finds a road snaking through an aerial shot of a thickly forested area then picks out and follows a lone car in extreme high angle long shot, making its way along the road. The camera gradually moves increasingly closer maintaining its birds’ eye view position, but also gradually rotates to distort the angle and create a sense of unsettling foreboding in the manner described above. A series of shot changes track the car’s journey and depict a range of different natural backdrops indicating the traversal of time and space. As the camera finally tracks speedily in to a mid shot of the car from behind, revealing it to be a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, credits rise up through the frame from below in blue typeface, and each gives way to the next, departing the frame by rising out of it.

The moving camera overtakes the car and veers away to the left, aerially crossing country before again finding the car and tracking its journey, once again with another series of extreme high angle long shots, while the eeriness of the electronic score continues to aurally unsettle the viewer.

The camera’s point of view eventually shifts to depict an extreme long shot of a remotely located building amongst the mountains, trees and lakes. It slowly circles the building, getting gradually closer. This building is the Overlook Hotel, and will be the yellow car’s final destination, and the principal location for almost all of the film’s subsequent action.

Overall, the opening sequence has been gradually building up to this elaborate establishing shot of the hotel, and has served to highlight its isolation and remoteness and communicate an implication of danger, that the audience should by now have associated with this idyllic yet spectral location and its backdrop.


Remember that to achieve higher grades, you need to be ANALYTICAL rather than just descriptive. Don't simply tell me that there is a close up at this point or a tracking movement at that point. Explain how it helps the narrative and how it is supposed to affect the reader.

Learning about the Thriller Genre (independent study)

You will conduct research into the Thriller genre and give a presentation in class about it. Start with this:

 

Genre theorists from reigatemedia

Now investigate the conventions of thrillers - with examples / clips / screengrabs.

Explore the different types (sub-genres) of thrillers, identifying their specific conventions (characters, settings, typical narrative and iconography) and giving examples. (Don't just copy the same old PPT that does the rounds every year)


YOU CAN WORK IN A PAIR BUT BOTH OF YOU NEED TO FEATURE THE WORK ON YOUR BLOG. YOU CAN ALSO PRESENT IN CLASS TOGETHER.

Updates and deadlines

You need to write at least 2 posts a week reflecting on your progress, embedding grabs of what you're doing and learning alond the way, eg. new tool or technique in Final Cut or how you are diverging from the initial storyboard and why.
Also esplain what you are doing with sound design and soundtrack - the research should be there too (embed as much as possible so we can 'hear' what you're planning...)
Maybe you're hesitating between 2 editing options and would like some peer feedback...
You can also reflect on and list what's still to be done.
All this should give us an idea of your "journey".

Many of you are missing some research and planning on titles. Make sure you put this to right as soon as possible.
We will start assessing the Research and Planning part of the blogs during half-term so it's got to be ready. The mark scheme is in your booklets and all over the walls in the pod.

You should also start planning your answers to the evaluation questions. Make sure you have done all the necessary research in order to answer them.

Finally you will show your films this week and receive feedback which you will need to log carefully and reflect upon.
If you're behind with your edit, start spending more time in the pod!
(Nearly) final cuts should be ready by the end of the end of the double lesson on Thursday or Friday.

Reminder - these are your Evaluation questions, counting towards 20 marks (as many as for Research and Planning):
This is the booklet you need to refer to. It is to be found at the back of the assessment booklet you already have. Please look at the A2 media students' blogs to look at the varied ways to evaluate creatively.
A2 Music Video Blog
Marking Criteria and activities for the evaluation

Example from other centre (note - your evalution must feature on your individual blog)
A2 Evaluations - Look at Hasina's tasks and Chloe's voice over for inspiration.

Just to remind you again, here are the criteria for a level 4:
16–20 marks
- Excellent understanding of issues around audience, institution, technology, representation, forms and conventions in relation to production.
- Excellent ability to refer to the choices made and outcomes.
- Excellent understanding of their development from preliminary to full task.
- Excellent ability to communicate.
- Excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation


Finally, for some of your film openings (particularly Komal, Geerthy and Mathura), this is an idea you might want to explore when your character wakes up (at the start):

Christmas Homework / Private Study

RESEARCH AND PLANNING
Use your grid to catch up and update your blogs and develop your research. There are many items to research - just tick off the list as you go.

1. Research:
INDIVIDUAL BLOG: Find and embed extracts and grabs that inspire you or that you'd like to emulate in your work. You might focus on camerawork, editing, lighting, mise-en-scene etc...
Similarly, research soundtracks! Embed as you go...
INDIVIDUAL BLOG: update / complete your Narrative Research, specifically by applying the theories to existing films and to your own opening.

INDIVIDUAL BLOG / GROUP BLOG: Audience Research - questionnaires (general on thriller genre and specific to test your pitch), interviews (filmed) and figures/ stats to establish exactly who your target audience are. You should publish your results on the group blog along with a description of one of your typical audience member ( make it visual - example to follow).

2. Planning:
GROUP BLOG: Pitch (and feedback received), shotlist and storyboard should be posted as a bare minimum. Completed TIMELINE strongly welcome.

INDIVIDUAL BLOG: ideas for costumes, props, mise-en-scene, lighting.

3. Planning:
INDIVIDUAL AND/OR GROUP BLOG:
Recce shots, test shoots etc... Pictures of potential locations etc...

4. Research:
INDIVIDUAL BLOG: Research Production / Distribution Companies in more detail. Some of you have started some research but now dig 'deeper' and give examples of what they do / films produced / distributed.
In class, we briefly looked at some production companies - you might want to start here but explore further on your own.
Blast!
Coffee Films
Hammer Film Productions

Here is an example of one student's research into the question.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

View more presentations from Stephanie.

OF COURSE, WE WISH YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! Find the time to work, rest and play

Research and Planning. Due in.

Research and Planning should be well under way.
Post your Narrative notes on your Individual blog. You should also apply the theories to existing films.
You should also have a post there on how you thinkthe pitch went and what feedback you were given.
Someone from each group needs to post the pitch on the group blog.

You should be working on final script, shotlist and storyboard. These will need to be finished in the next lesson.
On your individual blog, you should be gathering film extracts and screengrabs from which you take inspiration, with a few bullet points on what it is that you like: mise-en-scene, costumes, props, lighting, shot frames or angles, editing techniques etc.

Finally, you should take recce pictures of possible locations.

Lots to do! Work as a team but don't forget to show how well you engage individually as well.

Here is an example of the kind of storyboard you need to be aiming for (though this one is for a music video). You'll be creating the animatic next week:
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=GB#/watch?v=XKmGn9565hA

Homework and private study for 15 or 16.11.11

Make sure you read your pack on Genre and Genre Theory again carefully, particularly the bits we did not read together in class. You also need to post your notes from the 2 lessons if you haven't done so already.
Finally conduct a bit more research on your own and post a few notes on what you found out about genre. A good place to start is MediaKnowAll.com

for Thursday 20 January CATCH UP!

- You will be starting by explaining what you have done / worked on since last lesson, personally and as a group. We will look through the blogs.

- Unfortunately some of you still have not caught up with set work and that means more cause for concern sheets.

- You should all have updated your personal blogs several times:
* what your involvement has been so far, your thoughts on the group's project, progress etc, what needs doing next,
* embedded film sequences with screengrabs and comments,
* Propp and Barthes work (properly),
* others students' blogs you have looked at, linked, with your own comments,
* embedded films from previous candidates with comments,
* posters and DVD covers with analysis (choose models for your own),
* ideas for your own, marketing (including production and distribution) notes, ideas for production company name and logo,
* ideas for soundtrack with relevant embedded clips.

Keep the evaluation questions in mind to complete all the relevant research.

No one is on a level 3 or 4 at present for research and planning.

Tomorrow, you will have produced your rough cut with titles and rough soundtrack by the end of the lesson ready to be presented next week for feedback.

Finally, keep labels clear and organised - don't use more than 10 or 12. Group 1 needs to review their label list.

Watching other students' film openings

Remember to watch and select relevant examples, embed into your individual blog and comment on what works well, what could be improved, how it relates to your project.

You can watch these ones from Long Road College:
Long Road YouTube Channel and again two years ago
And from Latymer school
Latymer YouTube Channel

And of course many more with an advanced serch on YouTube or Vimeo.

Blog example - Go through this very carefully. Due in Monday 13.12.10

You need to realize how much work you need to put in so I would like you to look at this blog.

The student was not working on a Thriller but all the steps are there.

After looking through it, you need to write a post about what you thought was good about it, which posts were particularly effective etc. Finally you need to give yourself 3 targets / tasks you will fulfill by next Monday 13th December.

NEXT STEPS: To research who would distribute your film. Please look at the evaluation below to start thinking about it.

Victoria's AS blog - evaluation question 3

Using your blog as a diary - planning / research

As you've been told on Monday, this is the stage where you should record everything on your blog about group meetings and what you are doing about planning and research. The posts need not be long but rather short entries, diary - style, about what is going on. You should aim for a post every 2 - 3 days.

REMINDER - group pitch tomorrow

READ CAREFULLY - On-Going work and Home learning due in Thursday 2.12.10

Firstly no one has completed the H/l due in yesterday (Todorov and Propp). Sort it out ASAP. You must keep to deadlines even when there is no lesson. Time is very short to complete all the coursework.

Where you should be now:

You should have sorted out your ideas by now, possibly organized a Facebook page which you could later screengrab and embed to show on-going group decisions.

On Monday, you'll be in full pre-production mode. Target audience research should be under way and your pitch should be taking shape. This time, it's the real thing! Look again at the ideas posted previously on how to pitch and to the hand out distributed in class.

You will also have started your storyboard and shotlist.

You should have at least one group meeting a week outside of lessons where decisions are recorded and minutes taken; these should appear weekly on your blog.

For Thursday, you need to have prepared your group pitch and will give a presentation to the class as a group. You might prefer a PowerPoint this time as you will need to bring in a hard copy (at least one per group). You will be assessed on your pitch and will receive peer and teacher feedback which you must record carefully and post on your blog (this will be needed for your Planning and Evaluation).

What next? The next steps will be:

- To do recce shots and shoot at the weekend, take pictures of actors, costumes, props, sets etc... and post to blog.
- To organize the shoot, planning ahead and writing schedules for your "shoot days" - more guidance to follow. All this is evidence of planning. No excuse for not getting a level 3 here at least.

Other on-going work must be to continue your research of real media products with film opening analyses, screengrabs of films / sets and locations / atmosphere / camerawork / mise-en-scene/ editing you are inspired by in your project.

All this demands a high level of independence, organization and determination. Time management and organization are criteria against which you are assessed. The weekly 5 hour independent study must be done or your group (and your grade) will suffer.

However this remains an enjoyable process and we hope you have fun with it.

PS: Matthew, rethink some of your questions in your questionnaire. Set yourself a clear objective first about what you are trying to achieve / demonstrate / find out. THiS is valid for all groups. Consider Web 2.0 to conduct market research.

Remember to plan with the evaluation questions firmly in mind:

Evaluation questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Refer to your booklets for further guidance.

Finally here are the criteria (Level 4) for Research and Planning, and for Evaluation:

Research and Planning: Level 4 16–20 marks
- There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
- There is excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props.
- There is excellent work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding.
- There is an excellent level of care in the presentation of the research and planning
- Time management is excellent.

Evaluation:
Level 4 16–20 marks
- Excellent understanding of issues around audience, institution, technology, representation, forms and conventions in relation to production.
- Excellent ability to refer to the choices made and outcomes.
- Excellent understanding of their development from preliminary to full task.
- Excellent ability to communicate.
- Excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation

Home learning due in Monday 22.11.10 and Thursday 25.11.10

1. For Monday, your group should have a rough pitch to offer:

- theme and subgenre (or hybrid)

- rough idea of the narrative

- some idea of the style

- a couple of examples of real life products in mind

You will be presenting this in class and get feedback on initial ideas.

It's time to get organized so as to be able to communicate amongst yourself: email /tweet each other; some groups set up a Facebook page so as to be able to quickly reach everyone.

2. For Thursday: Apply Todorov’s 5 stage model and Propp’s theory about character roles (or spheres of action) to a Thriller of your choice, preferably a ‘similar product’ to your own planned production.

REMINDER - don't leave home learning task till Wednesday night...

... as there is an element of audience research to be conducted before then.
The task is here:
Home learning set Monday 1.11.10 due in Thursday 11.11.10

This is a group's pitch to get you inspired (it doesn't cover everything but gives you an idea of what needs doing)

Pitch Notes Pages

View more presentations or Upload your own.

You can also look at their blog here; this work achieved level 4 in the 3 areas.

Pete Fraser's advice - AS Film Opening

Here is the post from Pete Fraser's blog mentioned today at the conference. It's all there... We will obviously start the Research and Planning 'proper' after half-term though we hope that you've already started your Reseach... (see home learning posts) and have already got a feel for film opening conventions.

Pete Fraser's post on AS Film Opening

Half-term work - must be completed by Sunday 31 October, 5pm

Dear all,

- First the bad news; some of you have not caught up enough and managed to stay up to date and will therefore need to have a chat with us after half-term about the negative referrals we've had to write. We might judge that a meeting with parents is in order.

- Secondly, there are a number of things that you need to do by next Sunday (31th October) - 5.00pm.
All tasks set so far need to be completed on your blogs; in some cases, it also includes taking pictures to demonstrate techniques and illustratE a genre.

- All Thriller research must be completed to a good (A'Level) standard.

- All of you must complete an analysis of at least one DVD cover, analysing mise-en-scene and other choices (fonts, colours, style) carefully. Embed a picture of the DVD cover (could be annotated or comments made separartely). Choose a Thriller film that could be a source of inspiration for your own project.

- The final task is to do some research on a successful film director who has directed some Thrillers. You need to explain why the films are successful, what the director's "trademark" is, and embed trailers and screengrabs of interesting or memorable shots with some comment on technique and mise-en-scene.
Try your best to re-create one of these shots yourself or in a small group, making sure that you get the atmoshere of Thriller right. Aim to chose a shot with at least one or two characters in the frame.

Thriller Sub-genres Research and Preliminary Task - Improving your work

Very few of you have produced A' Level standard research so far for this task... You need to address this and improve your posts.
Make sure you:
- Look again at conventions of Thrillers (some of you have done a Spidergram of Conventions of Film Openings rather than Thrillers)
- Provide a list of Thriller Sub genres including some of their codes and conventions and examples of films that could be put in each category. OF COURSE THERE ARE MANY HYBRID FILMS.
- Focus particularly on the "man-on-the-run" or "innocent-on-the-run" subgenre. Embed trailers or film openings. Use screengrabs to illustrate the kind of camerawork to be expected, the narrative expectations, the character types, mise-en-scene choices etc.
- Do the same for another sub genre of your choice, maybe the kind of film you would like to create for your coursework. Below is an example of work produced by another student on Conventions of Psychological Thriller (might not be totally accurate; this is just for illustration purposes):

- Write the synopsis for the first 10 minutes of your Thriller spoof - it should be obvious that you understand the conventions of the genre and are adding humour and twists to them.

I WANT TO STRESS THAT YOU SHOULD START LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION FROM YOUR VIEWINGS, GATHERING IDEAS FOR YOUR OWN FILM OPENING. START DOING MOODBOARDS AND COLLECTING PICTURES, FILMS POSTERS / DVD COVERS, SCREENGRABS ETC. Chart all your reflections on your blog. This must become on-going work.


Example of Moodboard in planning stages of script:
Example of Genre Moodboard illustrating the Psychological thriller using film posters:

Finally, start evaluating your Preliminary task. Use the questions below as guidance:

1. Discuss how your group came up with the idea for the script. How efficient was the discussion? What key decisions were made? Embed your script.

2. Reflect on the planning / storyboarding stage and upload the storyboard.
3. How efficient was the shoot? additionally, embed screengrabs demonstrating the required techniques from the brief.

Once the editing is finished, you will be evaluating that too.

Finally, make sure you add the relevant tasks to your assessment booklet with a brief comment self-assessing your posts and get a parental signature. I'll add a comment and countersign them next week.