Evaluation
In this brief our aim was to produce a brief which connected with
all media aspects and include different uses of terminology. My group consisted
of John, Darnell and Abdirahman. For a large part of the film we included the
outrageous, outspoken and very consistent Mamduh who has previous skills in
acting. For this topic we chose urban life as we had the idea this would
particularly help us connect with our audience and bring out a different
mentality when each member decides to interact with our brief.
My research contributed to my planning through the influence I
gained from existing art-house films that had similar aspects to my own film.
An art house film which soulfully contributed to our storyline was ‘Ill
Manors’, despite obvious differences in terms of features within the storyline.
The main plot is based around a young black male (which links to stereotype)
and he is a former gang member who has been experiencing flashbacks of his
experience as a gang member after crossing paths with old settings. He crosses
paths with a cerebral king pin who goes by the name of Donald Price. Donald Price
is not like a general leader of the gang as he is perceived like a veteran and
they refer to him as 'Don' or 'Mr. Price' and he has a stage of dominance due
to his longevity which gives him a moral power. Due to our extensive story line
we originally had around 6 minutes of footage with editing done at a decent
pace. This links to the art-house film ‘Ill Manors due to the portrayal of
young people as well as the portrayal of young teenagers in society and the
consequences that follow from their previous actions. More so my film has
aspects of an art house film similar to ‘Ill Manors’ in the sense it has
creative aspects and has twists in the storyline the way ‘Ill Manors does. The
audience may feel they know where the plot is going then their minds then there
emotions change as they see a different aspect to the film. When linking
institution the BBFC was a vital factor in the sense of the age certificate of
15. There explicit language could be used to a certain extent but cannot be
varied. This gives the main reasoning to why the target audience for this film
would be 15 mainly due to the maturity of the individuals of this age group.
The focus group involved a number of
members discussing for a period of time our extract and summing up a particular
set of feedback which each group member can use to discuss any further changes
to our brief and a given judgment of the particular narrative and key elements
that were used in my 3 minute extract. Quite decisively
we decided to go through with a focus group as this is particularly beneficial
as we could gain a discreet and precise opinion from different audience members
on how detailed our brief was and any minor changes we could make which could
have a big impact on our final product.
Our target audience for our film would be 70% males and 30% females.
I would say mainly males would watch this movie due to the excessive violence
which is not merely associated with females. More so males would feel they
would have some sort of relation to the characters and can relate to any action
or situation the character is involved in and the reasoning for doing this.
More so the film has an aspect of links to real life activity which could
detail the involvement of gangs. More so the age range would be from around 15-30.
This for me is a realistic age range as 15 is generally the age when young
males become aware to these surroundings of illegal activity and mainly due get
exposed to this activity or pressured into doing any illegal activity.
Additionally, since the brief was to attract a different audience compared to
what art house cinemas usually attract we thought that urban life would be the
best genre to go for since most teenagers of this day and age enjoy viewing. In
addition older the age the more the understanding of the lifestyle is and the
wiser the decisions. Therefore I would suggest certain members of the audience
could feel they can connect to the characters especially the older generation
as they may have had previous encounters with stuff the on screen characters
may be doing. In contrast I feel this film would appeal to lower class/ working
class people, mainly due to the fact as I’ve stated more members of these
classes would feel they can appeal to this film as certain aspects may be
happening in real life.
I feel when
exploring psychographic groups I came to the decision that quite intriguingly
the film would not appeal to succeeders. I came up with this decision mainly
due to the fact succeeders do not understand the social struggle as well as
they may think and may not have any similarities to any situations or events
taken place in the film and will not emotionally affect them or any decision
they make in their life as they have succeeded with their aims, objectives and
goals to where they want to be in life. I do feel the film would appeal to
strugglers and explorers mainly due to the fact strugglers can sympathize with
the decisions in which the characters in the film make as well as connect with
situations the characters or even victims within the film make. I would say
this film would appeal to explorers
mainly down to the fact they explorers like to explore new elements in a
different brand in which they are not familiar with. I think the main
characters which strugglers can link to would be Malik in the sense that they
may have got themselves in a situation that later affected them in life.
One key moment which idolized the incisive elements of the film
would be the scene in which Malik is captured by the henchmen of Don Price. The
camerawork used showed specific cuts in which specified showed the synergy and
the audience could have sensed an urge of discomfort as Malik was captured. The
audience may sense sympathy for Malik and jealousy in which the dominance Donald
Price has. Medhurst’s shorthand identification can be applied to the character
of Donald Price as he is seen as always wearing formal clothing and has a sense
of power over his subjects due to his longevity. More so a strength which could
be applied that made my final work more professional would be the use of CCTV format
editing which added a unique sense to my film as it isn’t classified as a
general format used by filmmakers and I think it added a unique element in the
sense it adds creativity to the film overall. A weakness would be the failure
to lower the lighting in the clips as for the audience it would appear way too
bright and messes with the effects with the visuals of the characters.
My print work has a variation of colors which are seen throughout
all three pages which create synergy and make it visually appealing to the
audience or the viewers who are watching. More so the central images used in my
print work are correspondent to elements of the film and this creates synergy
for the viewers. A weakness could be the background colors as I attempted to
match the colors to make the images more appealing to the audience. Strength
would be the use of blur and how the use of blur creates mystery. For my
contents page I added a generally unique still of blur which is the motion blur
and is added suspense to my print work as it gave the viewers a thrilling edge
with the villain Donald Price covering the face of the main protagonist. This
gave the character of Donald Price a substantial look in terms of his power and
dominance over his rival. My double page spread gave an alternative look as the
central image of Donald Price was an over the shoulder shot and the color used
was a dark color to symbolize lack of emotion the character indeed has. I feel
with each piece of print work I combined a very delicate blend of colors
especially used in the front cover with the blend of black and white.
In our production we gave the
representation of young people as pressured into a specific lifestyle in which
involves drugs and parties or any illegal activity. In addition the fact a two
black males are portrayed as the main characters suggests and gives the
stereotype mainly black young males involve themselves in such violent
activity. More so the limited use of females is quite obvious in the sense
females generally are not associated in any violent activity. The two henchmen
are males which reinforces to the audience that males are dominant and provide
women with the protection in addition the use of black people as henchmen could
link the stereotype given a long time ago which was seen as black people as
slaves and do the physical work for their superiors. Moreover, the ‘Uses and
gratification’ theory can be applied to our work through the category ‘personal
identity’ through which the teenage audience may find themselves reflected in
the characters behavior portrayed onscreen. Furthermore, the ‘dependency
theory’ gives the audience different feelings towards particular characters.
I would have proceeded with creating a blog
over viewing the film in small teaser clips detailing little promos of the film
only giving viewers an insight to the film. When concerning about content I
would include a range of reviews from a variety of film specialists to help
give the audience an idea of different opinions the films concept and the
structural success of the film. I would also include interviews from the main
characters, director, writer and producers. Furthermore, I would include links
to the blog on social media accounts. Lastly I and my fellow colleagues would give
the audience only connected with the blog access to exclusive photo-shoot
images as this will alert viewers of any pre released costume changes or facial
changes to key characters in the film. More so since the emergence of
technology expanded we have clearly identified the cross-promotion we would
need to use would be connected to social media. The emergence of social media
and its daily use by civilians in this day and age has been seen as a big
platform by companies to promote products and services. This is an opportunity
for my production as we know we could capitalize on social networking sites i.e
twitter, Instagram to promote our film and hopefully gain a new target market
from social media in which we can then promote further productions if this
production deems a success.
I personally think I have met the brief pretty well as I have
maintained to make quite a long and constructive 6 minute clip and shortened it
down to 3 minutes in order to meet the briefs specifications. On the nutshell I
feel our product will be sustained and a success in the market due to the use
of the genre and how the genre links with the current lifestyle youths tend to
go into.
