MEST2: Evaluation
We are required to make a short film extract about one
of the topics as a general inspiration – ours was romance. In the group I
worked in, there was; Amrit, Katie and Harkiran. The movie had to appeal to a
wider audience and be non-mainstream; more like an arthouse movie. We made a 3-minute
extract and a brochure that fits with the movie; it complements the brief
through the creativity and the artistic thought.
Through our research, it helped us understand on what
we wanted to focus on within our 3 minute extract, seeing the movie ‘Donnie
Darko’ made us realise we would like to base it around schizophrenia and the
concept of being alone in thoughts. It meant that we had to create lots of
enigma codes, since that is what Donnie Darko did too. We were convinced with
this because we found that it would allow us to target the wider audience and make
the audience feel captured in the narrative. Whilst watching that movie, the
cinematography caught my attention immediately, the consistent use of binary
opposition of dark and light moments within the character, could be a way that
allowed the audience to identify and understand the protagonist. BBFC was one
of institution research I carried out, as our target audience was 15 year
olds+, we made sure we followed the 15 certificate rules, for our extract to be
successful, it allowed us to understand our target audience and what is
appropriate for them to watch. We carried out the audience research by focus
groups. The research gave us an understanding that the narrative would be
successful since it was one of the things the focus group liked since fitted
the arthouse audience as well it was something that targeted audience our
audience would be interested in. Majority of the feedback that we receive
informed us that our final product was going to be successful with few things
we need to consider; e.g., the acting and the emotional power we need to put
in.
Our target audience are 15-35 year olds; the focus
group seemed fond of the idea. In addition, even though the movie is focusing
on mental illness and being alone, it can involve both genders, but I would
argue that the females would be more slightly more targeted because the
protagonist is a female and the idea of romance, with that being said, I think
40% of males would be attracted to watch the movie and 60% of females. It
allowed wide audience to be attracted to the movie because of the age range. In
addition our target audience would be, people who are in education or
graduated, ABC1 social class. The psychographic group are mainstreamers as the
idea of psychology coming into young people and who are our core audience.
Reformers are also our audience as they do seek knowledge on all issues and
explores, because they would be willing to explore the human emotions and the mind.
“The Pursuit of Happyness” 2006; is a movie that all of the psychographics
would be attracted too. My core audience are teenagers just because the actors
are the same age, which allows the audience to create identification with
effectively. My secondary audience is young adults and adults (20-35) because
they are able to create personal relationships or even personal identity
(Blumler & Katz) with them which allows them to be captured into the movie
because of the emotion being used. Majority of my target audience would use
Apple products, devices such as ipads and iphones, they would be engaged with
news regularly, and in terms of social media, they would be mostly on twitter
and instagram. The strengths of having my chosen target audience is that I am
able to involve different experiences that people would have experienced and
then identify with. I’m not sure this is shown effectively enough within the 3
minutes, which I think is then my weakness.
For my arthouse film extract, few of the moments that
is key in the 3 minute extract, one of them is when the protagonist and her
imaginary boyfriend are arguing (1:10 – 2:10), this Is a key moment because
this is where the audience understands why the protagonist is being the way she
is but also understanding this is where the table is turned in the linear
narrative. The medium close up shots allows us as the audience to see the
emotion and encourages the identification of the character. The shot was taking
over the shoulder shot because it gives the audience an insight into what the
protagonist is seeing from her point of view, it adds to the realism to the
shot as the audience adopt the same view as the protagonist. Another key moment
is again, between the protagonist and her imaginary boyfriend in their ‘happy
moments of being together’, in this scene the audience are identifying with the
characters good moments, even though it only exists in her mind, the various
shots allow to be identify with the protagonist in multiple ways, for example the
long shots, medium close up. Through the editing, we have added reverse shots,
so the audience is encouraged to identify the emotions of the protagonist, as
emotional power was something that needed to come across quite a lot through
our 3 minute extract. The use of the long shot is so the audience to
acknowledge the location, this could possibly allow them to create a personal
identity (Uses and Gratification) with that location with themselves if they
familiarise with it. In this scene there is few tracking shots, for example at
1:22 – 2:13 so it gives the audience to go on a little journey with the two
characters. The editing of two key moments are put in straight cuts, and a fade
out at the end so it lets the audience to the movie has ended. The editing
style is in continuity, so the audience are able to understand the narrative
from start to finish and no confusions is caused. The key conventions meet our
chosen theme of chosen genre is by the lighting, there is a balance of high and
low key lighting, this is depending on the scene and the emotion of the
protagonist, as this is what we want to focus on, both lighting gives us the
artistic view of an art house movie, which is also one of the one of the main
strengths in our 3 minute extract, and can attract to audience pleasures and
expectation. Also another key convention that complements our brief topic is
the sound, the non-diegetic but parallel sound complements the scenes and
follows the idea of our brief topic, which is also another strength but a key
convention we followed, for our chosen genre. The weakens of this is the
narrative, is having confusion since we wanted to convey the same thought of
the protagonist, to the audience, I am not sure we have done this effectively,
but the audience’s pleasure through this can be not knowing the unknown and
what to expect next.
My print work (appendix A, B & C) meets the key
conventions of cinema brochures is by the simple things like having the logo at
the left hand side at the top of the page, making sure I have the website links
at the front page so this allows the audience to know the simple information
about the movie. Making sure I have page numbers, to simply guide the audience
through the article and it matches along with the content pages. For example,
in the BFI brochure, they have even amount of images and text writing, this is
what I tried to do too and I think I have done it in a effective way because it
is simple but powerful throughout the article but especially on my double page
spread. Overall, for my print work, the strengths are it Is simple but powerful
because of the use of phrases I have used on all of the pages, for example on
the cover page; “The human world…It’s a mess!” The pages somewhat all link to
each other and gives the right message about the protagonist in the movie too
as she is in all 3 pages, the audience can more about her through the images. I
have made sure that I paid close attention to mise-en-scene throughout my print
work. However, since I am a beginner a using the Photoshop software, I don’t
think I done a bad job, I do have a consistent theme, although I do think I
could have been artistic with my work, which then would make the brochure look
like if it is an arthouse brochure. A
way that creativity or even professional edge could have been added is through
the layout throughout my article so the audience can view the artistic view of
an arthouse movie.
I have a dominant representation (Levi-strauss) of
females in both my print work and movie, as we are focusing on the main
protagonist who is a female and her story. The representation of teenagers,
although it isn’t a typical stereotype, instead it could be reinforcing the
idea of teenagers being alone because of what the society made out towards the
teenagers especially, and few of how people would behave when they do have a
mental illness, though we have tried to not strongly reinforce the idea of it
but just enough to make it realistic. Since there is a very few cast members,
there is a mixture of ethnicity involved, the movie involves this and it is a
positive stereotype (Perkins) of the ethnicity involved since it shows they are
just trying to help out the protagonist. There is a mixture of reinforcing and
subverting the stereotypical representation, in the movie, this is so the
audience when watching get the realistic view of the world they live and what
society brings on to people.
If I could have chosen the 3rd brief, I
would have created an online film blog, the way I would promote the film, is by
putting content like behind the scenes of the making, putting vlogs of the
shooting days since the internet is starting to grow on the idea of vlogging
and it has been successful within the young people (core audience) this is what
interests them, and make them attracted to watch. It allows my online blog to
be current and modern, as it would pay close attention to cinematography of the
artistic shots that are captured from the movie, and the photoshoot for the
print work, this would create synergy, between the movie, online blog and the
print work, this is an effective use of cross promotion. I would involve my target
audience by using social media and use techniques of user generated content, by
the audience simply posting an “selfie” of themselves or with people on Instagram
or Twitter with the hashtag “#mymoments” since my core audience are teenagers,
they are big fans of taking selfies, and being consistently on social media,
this seems like a good way to generate content. The purpose of the audience
taking a selfie is so there are sharing their moment with the rest of us,
taking a selfie to show the emotions of how they are feeling, since emotion is
a big part of understanding the protagonist in the film. Plan B used cross
promotion successful too in his first movie; Ill Manors.
To conclude, I think I have met the brief well, as I
have followed the key conventions that are mentioned in the brief for the
3-minute extract and the print. My Product can be successful in the media
market just because the narrative and the theme is something that can be fitted
for the target audience quite well and the arthouse audience.
