EVALUATION QUESTION 1 conventions and representations

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

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What I cover in this post:

• General conventions (vodcasts summarising them)
• genre conventions (film cast studies)
• issues of representation and how we tackled them (gender, sexuality, ethnicity)
• How we applied the genre conventions we noted
• How social realist and indie productions challenge conglomerate conventions

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Creative use of technologies:
This is my creative input, the points covered are:

• The 8 conventions we looked at in social realist films, and how we used or challenged them in our film opening
• Idents, companies, production context
• Titles research
• Sound, genre signification
• 1st shot
• Central protagonist and narrative
• Mise-en-scene for exposition
• Transition to main film

• Issues of representation, and how we chose to represent different social issues (gender, sexuality, ethnicity)

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As the creative part of this evaluation question, I recreated Vogue's 73 questions interview, like this one:



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1A How does it use or challenge conventions?

I began research on general conventions looking at these films:

Goon

 L4yer Cak3

Visioneers 

 Mean Girls 

The Mexican

 The Notebook

Apocalypse Now 

The Wicker Man 

Baby Driver

Submarine

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Blogging on these films, I made posts on these 8 conventions:

• General conventions 1: Idents, companies, production context
• General convention 2: Titles research
• General conventions 3: Sound, genre signification
• General conventions 4: 1st shot
• General conventions 5: Central protagonist and narrative
• General conventions 6: Mise-en-scene for exposition
• General conventions 7: Transition to main film
• General conventions 8: Other points

To summarize each convention, we made vodcasts

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General Conventions 1: Idents, companies, production context
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• short audio visual clips played before films
• first thing to see at a film opening
• one of the simplest area of film openings 
• showing their brand to the audience 
• usually 3 company idents to spread the risks
• usual to be 1 - 5 secondslong per ident
• idents for conglomerate or subsidiaries are longer than indie idents
• a lot of production companies competing
• Big Six are dominant both in distribution and production

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General Conventions 2: Titles research
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• a method where film credit production companies
• about 20 - 30 titles 
• there can be exception, in the Mexican or The Wicked Man there we only see under 10 titles
• at high end tentpole movies everything is pushed to the back so the titles start after the movie
• usually about 3 mins long 
• in title sequence you find a lot of signifiers
• exposition what the genre of the movie is going about
• different positioning
• different size font for titles

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General Conentions 3: Sound, genre signification
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• audio bridge between titles (eg Bride of Chucky, Baby Driver)
• ambient and Foley sound for verisimilitude (The Mexican, The Quiet Place, Baby Drive, Chucky)
• music can be diegetic or non-diegetic - often used to signify genre/target audience (eg Baby Driver and Chucky)
• music is not usually continuous - fades in and out (eg Baby Driver)
• sound can signify setting (eg Submarine)
• Can be used to build tension/narrative enigma (eg The Mexican, Drive and Chucky)
• Institution aspect - OSTs

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General Conventions 4: 1st shot

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• balance between exposition and narrative enigma (eg The Mexican, This is England)
• Mis-en-scene for exposition (keep brief) 
• Setting/period (This is England, Submarine, Spectre)
• ABC1C2DE?
• incorporate elements of the narrative (eg Baby Driver)
• framing (anchoring, rule of thirds, eg L4yer Cak3)
• inter titles (break up panning shots, exposition, signify genre)
• conventionally and challenging convention (Spectre)

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General Conventions 5: Central protagonist and narrative
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• Uses and gratifications theory - identification (Submarine)
• Todorov 5 point narrative (Submarine)
• Counter+stereotypes - realistic representation (eg Molly Pretty in Pink)
• Binary opposition (eg Bridget Jones Diary)
• Archetypes (Bond)
• Narrative enigma + voiceover (Bond, The Mexican, Drive, Baby Driver)
• Amount of time the camera spends on protagonist/first character introduced - cutting back to protagonist - reactions, rule of thirds(Drive)
• iconography as part of narrative (Baby Driver)
• establishing/panning shots + tracking (Bond)

  

  Todorv's 5 point narrative (from DB media blog)

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• set dressing, props, lighting(high/low-key?) (Submarine, Need fro Speed, This is England)
• Makeup (Baby Driver)
• costumes and iconography (Baby Driver, This is England, Submarine)
• accents and sound (This is England, Submarine)
• exposition v narrative enigma, also subverting expectation/body language (Mean Girls, Baby Driver, Need for Speed)

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General Conventions 7: Transition to main film
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• represented from Todorov's Narrative theory
• it suggests that it follows a 3 part equilibrium structure 
• this equilibrium is disrupted by something (binary opposition)
• then reaches a solution when equilibrium is restored

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General Conventions 8: Other points
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Genre Conventions

After doing all this research on general conventions, we came up with our film idea, and made a pitch. Our film was inspired by Paddy Considine's 2018 Journeyman, which I saw at a British and Irish Film Festival here in Luxembourg - an indie social realist film.

Following this decision we did case studies on these indie social realist films:

• '71
• Grimsby (a contrasting study)
• Journeyman
• My Beautiful Laundrette
• This is England
• Tyrannosaur
• Withnail and I

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I saw/ I did

A large part of social realist films is to portray darker themes of real life with accurate representation - this in itself challenges more conventional aspects of studio productions, which are created to make as much money as possible.

However, we aimed to follow most of the conventions of the social realist genre.
This presentation goes through the conventions we followed and changed from other social realist films:

Genre conventions applied from harriet Barlow

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Here is a commentary vodcast I made showing the influence of or genre conventions research on our final cut:

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(SAM'S WORK)

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This is Sam's Carpool Karaoke on the same topic
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EVALUATION QUESTION 2 audiences and distribution

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?


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What I cover in this post:

• Different ways films can engage with audiences
• Uses and Gratifications theory (applied to 2 case studies, Tyrannosaur and Jurassic Park)
• Stuart Hall's theory of readings
• Intertextuality
• how different films achieve distribution
• Our target audience (and how we target them)
• different types of distribution (conglomerates vs. indies)
• digitisation, disruption and convergence
• Web 2.0
• How we would distribute our film

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Creative use of technologies:

This is my creative input, the points covered are:

• how different films achieve distribution
• conglomerates vs. indies
• different types of distribution (wide release, self-distribution, film festivals, digital, theatrical)
• how budget/funding affects distribution (government agency finding/subsidy vs conglomerates, cultural value)

For creative use of technologies I recreated an episode of the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?", where I appear on a celebrity edition as the director of an upcoming indie film The Journey.

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2A How does it engage with audiences?

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Eval Q2 - audience from harriet Barlow

Web 2.0
Web 2.0 describes how the internet has become driven by users, converging the line between producer and consumer. An example of this is user-generated content, like the fan-art that was made for the Cornetto Trilogy, or the poster for Hinterland which was also fan-made. This web 2.0 theoretically allow indies more of a chance at achieving successful distribution online, by setting up twitters, instagrams and being able to engage with audiences directly.
We did this through our Instagram page, and the different software/online resources which we used throughout, shown in this vodcast (also used in the evaluation question 4):



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OUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Gender/Age
Primary target audience: males, 18-25
Secondary target audience: females, 18-25

Initially we wanted our film to be a 12+, but we did some research on the BBFC
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BBFC Indie Social Realist Ratings from harriet Barlow

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Because nearly every indie social realist film we looked at received an 18 or 15 rating, we would hope for a 15+, but it is likely that our production would also be pushed to an 18.

To put this into some context, these are some of the rating Big Six/Subsidiaries received:

Conglomerate/Subsidiary BBFC from harriet Barlow

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As the main character is male, uses and gratification theory would suggests that a primarily male target audience would be interested in this film as they would either identify with the protagonist, or aspire to be like him.

The other central character is his partner, Cathy, and she is a significant enough character to draw in a secondary female target audience.

Ethnicity
We have an ethnically diverse cast (Caucasian, Chinese, Indian), and as caucasian is the hegemonic demographic targeted, we wanted to both represent and target multiple ethnicities. This is something we found to be conventional of the social realist genre (My Beautiful Laundrette, Slumdog Millionaire), and helps to widen our target audience.

Sexuality

Initially we wanted to have non-heteronormative representation (taking influence form My Beautiful Laundrette), with the protagonist, Tanay, being with another man, but due to casting issues and a need to film we had to scrap this idea and include heteronormative representation.

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2B How might it achieve distribution?

"Film distribution is the process of making a film available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marketing strategy for a film, the media by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing, and who may set the release date."

(Wikipedia)

Some of the different types of distribution:

• Theatrical
• Television
• Personal home viewing (DVDs, Video on Demand, Download e.g. iTunes)
• Self-Distribution

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Eval q2 - distribution from harriet Barlow

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The Big Six/Big Five:
Although this is debated (Disney recently sealed the deal with 20th Century Fox now owning it, but Lionsgate is sometimes included) the Big Six are all present in the top 10 distributors of 2018 list. They are the largest conglomerates of the film industry in both production and distribution.

• Buena Vista (Walt Disney)
• Warner Bros.
• Universal
• Sony/Columbia
• 20th Century Fox
• Paramount

top 10 distributors of 2018

Their films typically use the tentpole model (costing more then $100m), and the majority of their films are extremely commercially successful - you can see that collectively they own about 80% of the market in shares.

Wired episode with Ryan Reynolds

Marketing campaigns are often extremely expensive, and the star names which usually feature in their films are a large part of this (star billing): trailers are made for national and international audiences, cast and directors appear on chat shows, but cheaper more inventive methods are also used by conglomerates similar to indies. Youtube videos, with cast members are often a popular way of raising awareness of a star featuring in a upcoming film: for example Ryan Reynolds appeared in an episode of Wired a little before Deadpool 2 started being talked about .In the game celebrities see the web's most searched questions about them - these videos are cheap to make and don't take much time to produce/consume.
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Indies:
Indie companies like Warp don't even make it near the top 10 lists when it comes to distribution, but there are ways they achieve distribution:

• Arthouse cinemas
• Direct to Itunes
• Direct to stream
• Straight to DVD
• Self-distribution (e.g. through social media)

The main reason indie films often don't even get a wide release or even a theatrical release is due to budgets being too small. Even though the BFI offers out grants to many indie films for production and distribution, it is difficult to generate interest in small budget films when films like Black Panther, with extensive SFX and large action sequences, are also showing in the cinema.

Some other reasons though may be more to do with the actual content of the films: controversial topics that may include darker themes are not as commercially viable as films do not have political or controversial themes, making it difficult to generate interest in a film, drawing in only niche audiences.

This is England - an example

This is England takes the point of view of a young boy who joins the skinheads in the 80s. There is cussing throughout (C-word and F-bombs), and the climax involves a violent race-based assault. Although the message of this film is condemning this kind of violence, the brutality of it would be too difficult for a 4 quadrant audience to digest.

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Digitisation, Disruption and Convergence:

• As technology is constantly advancing, production, distribution and exhibition are becoming increasingly cheaper and more accessible to more people - expensive reels no longer have to be bought to make films, and even our production has been made digitally.

This allows films with micro-budgets to have a greater chance at distribution - Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee is an example of this, with a micro budget it still managed to have a theatrical trailer and then a straight to DVD release. Professional equipment used was extremely limited.

An example which took it even further is Hinterland, which had a budget of only £10k, filmed using a 15 year old camera and then released in indie cinemas with director Q+A sessions. The film was never released on DVD, but given a simultaneous release on iTunes. The film definitely achieved some successful distribution, as it made it onto a top indie films of the year list.  

As it is so easy now for anyone to make their own films relatively inexpensively and self-distribute them, the term convergence is used to reference this: the line between producer and consumer is blurring as cheaper technology becomes available.

The importance of Netflix and Amazon Prime in this disruption cannot be overlooked, as they offer films directly to audiences, without theatrical releases, and are still massively successful. This threatens theatres, as if people are able to watch Oscar winning films such as Roma at home on Netflix, there will become increasingly less need/want for people to go to cinemas.

Although this disrupts conglomerates, it can be beneficial for indies, who are able to market and sell their films completely online, like the example of Hinterland, which did have a mall theatre run, but the majority of its marketing was one online through twitter.

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How we would distribute our film:

Self-distribution would be a good method for the distribution of our film for some of the following reasons:

• Do not have the budget for a theatrical release
• No star billing
• Digitisation has made it easier for creators to use innovative methods to cheaply promote their films
• Darker themes as possibility for a high age rating significantly lower audience interest, making it more of a niche audience film

As we have a micro-budget for our production, it is unlikely that a large distribution company would be willing to help distribute our film. Due to the accessibility of social media however, getting in touch with a film festival has been shown to be possible, which would get the film viewed by critics and journalists who could generate discussion of the film in the press. We created twitter and instagram pages to promote our film, similar to Hinterland or the Cornetto trilogy, and the example of Coz Greenhop showed how successful a method this can be in generating interest in a film.

Making deals with arthouse cinemas to do director Q+A sessions which would be mutually beneficial, accompanied by a simultaneous Video on Demand/iTunes/digital release of the film has shown to be a successful method in promoting a film and achieving distribution (Wandering Rose, and Hinterland).

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(SAM'S WORK)
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This is Sam's online job interview covering the same topic
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EVALUATION QUESTION 3 production skills

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

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What I cover in this post:

• Web series made on how to use FCPX, showing development over time
• descriptions of how we improved over preliminary exercises and sample scenes
• summaries of the issues we faced and how we developed our skills to overcome them (casing issues, acting, time)
• set dressing advances
• BTS showing our director skills improving

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Creative use of technologies:

For creative use of technologies, I made a web series on FCPX TechTips, in the form of a youtube tutorial series:

Episode 1

This is a demonstration of how our initial basic editing was done using FCPX

• importing footage from a portable hard drive
• creating libraries, events and projects
• inserting clips to the timeline
• cutting, detaching audio, other basics
• saving 
• publishing to the web

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Episode 2

When we started editing more scenes we used some more advanced effects

• inserting Foley sound
• sound effects
• transitions (cut to black, fade to black)
• audiobridge
• music

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Episode 3

When I filmed my evaluation question 2 creative 'who wants to be a millionaire' I used a green screen and needed to se even more technical effects in FCPX

• green screen
• screen recording
• keyer
• position of clips
• layering

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Episode 4

Whilst editing another rough cut, I had some difficulty with adding transitions to titles in FCPX

• adding titles to a project
• font and size
• blade tool (short cuts)
• cmd + Z
• transitions (in and out)
• making transitions work on only titles

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Preliminary Exercise

One of the earliest productions we worked on was a preliminary exercise in continuity editing. Our early production skills were very basic, and this was an introduction to more ways in which we can create meaning in a text using different editing, directing, camera and acting techniques

Task

Practice continuity editing by filming someone walking down a corridor, entering a room and interacting with someone in it

Techniques we practiced using

• shot reverse shot
• match on action
• 180 degree rule
• whip pan
• focus push
• panning shot
• tilt
• basic lighting techniques
• we also made a brief shot list
• dutch angle

What we didn't have

• call sheet
• script
• tripod/monopod
• dolly
• props
• stabiliser
• microphone 
• mood board

What I learned 

• body language is as important as dialogue
• director needs to be clear/may need to demonstrate
• shot lists make it easier
• shooting in reverse order 
• continuity (eg turning out lights) must be payed attention to
• how to use manual focus
• get lots of footage (often of the same scene) from different angles/distances
• always try and jump at least 2 shot distances (eg extreme long shot to close up), other wise it looks like a continuity error
• see what footage looks like with and without lighting
• a script would be helpful

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Continuous editing v. Discontinuity editing

Continuity editing uses techniques which immerse the audience in the media text, make it smooth and show events as they happen in chronological order. Discontinuity editing however makes the audience acutely aware that they are watching an artificial text which has been constructed, and uses techniques such as jump cuts and the breaking of the 180 degree rule which take away from audience immersion.

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Early sample scenes

Our first sample scene was very short, it was of our protagonist jogging and playing tennis.

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How our technical skills developed:

• a lot of footage was shaky - thought to bring a stabiliser next time we would film
• for more shot variety, use a GoPro to get POV shots of the protagonist (using accessories to attach it to his head)
• get more shots and more shot variety next time
• record sound of things like panting and feet running whilst there for verisimilitude
• get even more involved as a director to show how you want things to happen - the running in this scene is very unrealistic
• bring a shot list/call sheet for future shoots
• think of things you could do once you're their - e.g. getting some training shots of him warming up would have added to verisimilitude

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Our second sample scene was shot inside, which brought more issues with it. This is the scene where the protagonist's partner (Cathy) is leaving him.

Issues:

• the hand opening the cupboard has lots of short takes, so fast that you can't really make out what is happening, and it takes away from audience immersion because its so disorienting
• include a master shot or ELS
• shots of the partner leaving and getting in the car would help with verisimilitude 
• nowhere near enough set dressing, the space in the room wasn't used nearly enough
• Mise-en-scene missing:
• include tennis equipment in the background (racket, bag, water bottle)
• passport (shot of it being put in the bag)
• photos of the couple together and the team (have partner pick them up then put them down again, angrily)
• panning shots of props
• in wardrobe have clear split of his/her side
• have a larger suitcase, get a shot of Cathy grabbing everything from one side of the wardrobe and putting it in the suitcase
• There were still issues with directing, so more demonstration was needed next time

Progress since the last sample scene:

• This time we brought a call sheet and shot list
• we used a stabiliser for the panning shots
• we improvised some of the shots looking at the space we had and thinking of ways to be more creative in it
• a lot more shot variety to choose from in editing

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Later sample scenes


This is the 2nd attempt at filming the scene where the tennis player's partner (Cathy) is leaving him.

 
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Progress since the last attempt:

• There was much more involvement as a director, demonstrating to the actress what I wanted her to do
• even more shot variety was used
• a call sheet and shot list was used
• much more set dressing:
• tennis equipment is placed throughout the room
• photos of the couple and the tennis team have been added for verisimilitude
• female beauty products and jewellery were placed on the surface in front of the mirror
• stereotypically female books were placed on one side of the bed, and stereotypically male ones on the other
• the wardrobe was changed so that there is a clear divide between men's and women's clothes
• a larger suitcase that is more realistic for a permanent move

• manual focus was used in some shots (varying focus push/pull)
• There were no overwhelmingly disorienting short takes

Issues:

• There are sound issues with this sample scene
• slight continuity error - the hand pauses on the cupboard door 
• The lighting was difficult to work with, but there wasn't any more we could do to improve it

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Flexibility and Overcoming Issues Faced

one of the key skills I had to work on throughout the production was flexibility: actors cancelled on shoots a lot, the weather was sometimes bad so filming had to be pushed back repeatedly. We had to find ways to overcome these difficulties.

Cast and Filming:

• Originally the partner of the protagonist was going to be another man, because we wanted to include non-heteronormative representation, taking influence from films like My Beautiful Laundrette, or Withnail and I. But because we had already cast the protagonist and filmed several scenes with him, it would be practically too difficult to reshoot these all again with a different actor, as he did not want play the role if the character wasn't heterosexual. We had to change the casting of the partner to a female, because we had not filmed any scenes with them yet.

• with the actress initially playing the role of the partner, there were issues with following direction, and said she felt uncomfortable on camera, despite agreeing to film. This lead to a cast change, and a reshoot, which was frustrating, but definitely the right decision as the second attempt at filming the packing scene was far more successful than the first.

• Sometimes the actors had trouble following direction: in the car crash scene, we had to reshoot the protagonist's reaction countless times, demonstrating repeatedly the way he should react without making it look too fake or awkward. After about 45 minutes of this, we decided to change the shot to a close-up reaction, and showing the car wheels stopping suddenly.

• For the hospital scene, we asked the nurses at our school if we could film in their office, and they were really helpful and enthusiastic, offering to bring in their old work clothes and move the beds around the room. They also helped us edit the script to make it sound more medically accurate. But filming in the school nurse office was difficult, as at lunch times we had to repeatedly cancel because it was too full, but we eventually filmed after school.

Set dressing:

• at the start we forgot to bring in bits of costume and set dressing, which took away from verisimilitude
• to overcome this we made detailed plans for each shoot (linked below)
• One of the prime examples of this is the set dressing in the packing scene:
• initially there was barely any set dressing, when we re-filmed we added (for verisimilitude):
• female beauty products on the dresser
• a clear divide between men's and women's clothes in the wardrobe
• photos of the main couple, and Tanay's tennis team
• tennis equipment throughout the room
• a larger suitcase (so it looked like she was actually leaving)

  

  Early sample scene - lack of detail in set dressing

  

  Final cut - clear divide between male and female wardrobe,
   shows they are living together and she is leaving

Hospital scene plan

Jogging and car crash scene plan

tennis training scene plan

packing scene plan

Health and safety:

• because one of our scenes involves a car crash we had to make risk assessments to avoid injury
• To make sure no one actually got hit by a car, we made clear markers on the road for where the jogger should stop, and where the car should. The car wasn't going faster than 10km/h. If an accident were to occur, the nearest hospital was a 10 minute drive away, as a safety net.
• seatbelts were worn at all times
• there were no injuries or accidents which occurred

The Facebook Groupchat

Other:

• General confidence was a real issue for me at the start of this journey, but as I did more research and practices confidence grew. In the first few months I had difficulty with editing vodcasts because of this confidence issue, but as we made more sample scenes and we could see our own improvement my confidence grew and I became more able to direct actors effectively and edit vodcasts/podcasts
• Early camera skills were really shaky, and a lot of footage had issues with focus/shake, but as we got more confident with the hardware this improved (more on this in evaluation question 4)
• Group communication was an early issue, but using social media (facebook messenger) we got more involved in sharing ideas through calls and messages, and a group chat was made with the whole cast in it so that we could make sure everyone had all the information they needed (including costume, time/place, scripts etc.)

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BTS
We made behind the scenes videos for some shoots to show evidence of directing. As time goes on our directing skills improved as we became more clear in our descriptions and demonstrations for the actors


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(SAM'S WORK)
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This is Sam's creative use of technologies covering the same topic
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