Final Storyboard

This is our finalised storyboard with all the necessary alterations.

 

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

My Response:

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

My Response:

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

My Response:

Evaluation Question 1

In  what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My Response:

Considering our audience

Reflecting upon our final trailer, it is important to consider our audience and if we met their needs.
We felt that our film would be marketed at a younger audience of around 15-30. We felt that both men and women would engage with our narrative as it is a very real issue for both genders. However, we did feel that our narrative would attract a mainly female audience as the statistics suggest that they are more likely to be victims of domestic violence.
We felt that our trailer met our target audiences' needs because:

• The quick cuts we used would keep a younger audience intrigued
• We withheld a lot of the narrative to entice our audience
• With no scripting, our trailer was assertive and got straight to the point
• Our final shot was unique and action packed- suggesting more than just a slow, emotional film

Certificate rating for our film

We decided to rate 'White Ribbon' as a 15 certificate. We decided this due to the nature of our storyline and the fact that our film would depict scenes of domestic violence and verbal abuse. Therefore we felt this may be disturbing for younger viewers who may not fully understand the intention of the film and find the make up effects graphically disturbing. We used these BBFC guidelines to help inform our decision:

Tzvetan Todorov - Narrative theory

Todorov proposes an interesting narrative theory as summarised below: 

Our media trailer purposely challenges this theory of narrative. Our trailer begins with no equilibrium, as the male character is dominating the female character through his control and violence. This means that the opposing forces aren't in balance and never were. 

Our storyline then fails to be disrupted by an event as the female character fails to speak out about the domestic violence she is experiencing along with the past victims. 

Ultimately, although it is only a short teaser trailer, the audience get the impression that the problem is not resolved either, due to the final shot of the female character being held underwater.

Blumler and Katz - Uses and Gratification Theory

Below is the Uses and Gratification Theory by Blumler and Katz:

When considering why I think an audience may choose to view 'White Ribbon' I felt that there were two main reasons. 

Firstly, I felt that an audience may choose our media text in order to be informed and/or educated. For example, they may know someone suffering from domestic violence, and so they may view 'White Ribbon' in order to find out more information regarding how to help victims and to allow them to further understand their situation. Secondly, I feel that an audience may be inclined to view our media text to achieve Escapism. This seems an unlikely reason for an audience to choose a film based on domestic violence, however, if they themselves are victims then they may find it an escape from reality to see how a fictional character would react in a similar situation to their own. 

Media Theorist - Laura Mulvey

Whilst considering our storyline and the message we are trying to portray through our trailer, it reminded me of a key media theorist - Laura Mulvey. The following slide explores her ideas:

I feel that, in a way, our trailer does comply with this theory, in the respect that it is displaying violence against women and therefore placing women in a subordinate position. This may be viewed as displaying a sexist viewpoint, however, we have been careful to ensure that we display the violence from both the female and male perspective to ensure our trailer in not entirely portrayed 'at a male angle'.For example, we have used frequent shots of our lead female character on her own as well as our lead male character.
Furthermore, we have been mindful not to over sexualize the female characters in our trailer (e.g- through displaying sexual scenes) as this may cause viewers to take the message of domestic violence less seriously and may legitimate the use of women as 'sexual objects' in media text.

Making our final trailer a teaser trailer

We decided to make our final trailer a teaser trailer not a theatrical trailer. This is mainly due to the fact that our trailer lacked speech and could tell the story without the need for it. Therefore, we felt that choosing to do a teaser trailer gave us more opportunity to entice the audience by using our best shots and simple piano music to leave them intrigued and wanting to know more.

Final Trailer

This is our final teaser trailer, 'White Ribbon'. 

Final website

Click here to view our website

Final Poster

We finalised our decision on using this image for our poster. We decided to use a black and white colour scheme as it reflects the mood of the trailer and may be more eye catching to our audience as it is different to the typical conventional colour scheme of many film posters. The black and white also creates focus on the main elements of the picture and their outline, (James, the building and the bird).

Change of music

Originally, we chose Bastilles' Oblivion track for our trailer. We were aware this is copyright limited and so we searched Sound cloud for a copyright free cover of the track. However, there were still copyright issues with using a cover version of the track. Therefore we decided that to comply with copyright laws as required, we needed to find an instrumental piano track of a different composition, free of copyright. After we located one that we felt complemented our trailer best, we replaced the track with this new piece.

Outtakes

This is a brief video comprised of outtakes that we decided not to include in our final teaser trailer. The reasons we decided not to include them vary from them not being totally relevant to the quality of the acting involved.

Our group logo

We felt that this Skyline Studios logo was very appropriate for our social realism genre and theme of White Ribbon. For example, the use of the black and white colour theme draws upon the simplistic aspect of the message we are portraying throughout our narrative based around domestic violence. Also, we felt that the simplicity of the background design depicting the London skyline would draw attention to our company name whilst still intriguing our audience to engage with our logo.

First draft White Ribbon

Change of name

We originally decided to call our trailer 'Listen'. This was to reflect the desperation of those subjected to domestic violence and to depict the controlling nature of the trailer.
However, after receiving peer feedback on our chosen title we decided to re evaluate our decision.
Therefore we conducted further background research into domestic violence and charities working hard to support victims. We came across the White Ribbon Campaign, active in various places across the globe including the UK and Australia. They rely entirely on donations and aim to stop violence against women globally. We felt inspired by this campaign, who currently have over 20,000 pledges in the UK alone. So we decided to rename our trailer 'White Ribbon' as it reflects both the nature of the campaign and the nature of our storyline giving the title more of a valid meaning. We also felt it would fit with our new Social Realism genre to a more appropriate degree.

Looking new inspiration 2

Unforgivable (1996) is a film based around domestic violence within a family. I found research into this film interesting as it was created nearly two decades ago. This makes the quality of the filming and narrative slightly different to more modern films such as 'Private Violence' however the basic characteristics of domestic abuse remain (e.g- manipulation and sarcasm). I felt that this trailer was also inspiring as it incorporates the social realism genre. For example, it is based in a normal house, within what many people would consider an 'ordinary' family. As we are trying to use social realism as the basis for our trailer, the codes and conventions from this film may be very useful.

Looking for new inspiration

Private Violence (2014) is a film documentary based in America. I felt that this type of film could really help to inform us of the psychological and physical state of women who are subjected to domestic violence, It also includes shocking facts like: 4 women are killed through domestic violence every day in America. This reinstates just how important education on domestic violence is but also the sensitive nature of the topic our trailer is to be based around. Despite 'Private Violence' being set in America, domestic violence is still a world wide issue, making it remain relevant to our research.

Background research on our theme

As we are dealing with the socially sensitive issue of domestic violence, it is important that we know our facts. I visited the website 'futureswithoutviolence.org' in order to gain a better understanding our our theme and was surprised to find that:

These facts reinforced to us that a social realism topic of domestic violence is a very relevant choice.

Peer Assessment

Our peers aged 16-18, viewed our trailer 'Listen' so far and gave us feedback on what they felt was good about our trailer progress and what may need improving. The main points of feedback we received included:

• Consider the music (currently 'Broken' by Leona Lewis) as this may not fit with all the scenes
• Complete blank shots where filming needs to be completed to improve the flow of the trailer
• Consider the transitions used between shots as they can occasionally appear fragmented

However, positive feedback for our current trailer included:

• Very effective use of make up 
• Good quality of shots selected
• Effective ending underwater shot that really intrigues people

We will consider all feedback given to us to ensure that our trailer is to the maximum standard it can be.

Website Background Research 2

As we have now decided that our trailer would be considered as more of a social realism genre, we needed to research social realism film websites as these differ from horror film websites. The main differences we found with the websites of social realism films compared to horror was:

• The colour scheme - included brighter as well as darker colours and was more varied
• The font was occasionally less clear cut- more like handwriting- keeping incorporated with the social realism genre
• Pictures was often used as the background for parts of the websites instead of just in a gallery
• As expected, social realism websites appear to include more promotion of the narrative rather than the action or gore

Animatic

Social Realism moodboard

As with my horror moodboard, i created a mood board for social realism using Microsoft Word. I found that using social realism films in my mood board helped me to gain a better understand of the essence of the social realism genre and what it entails.

Analysis/Contrasts of two Social Realism Trailers

Passport to Pimlico (1949)

This is England (2006)

There are similarities and differences between the two trailers produced over 50 years apart. Unfortunately the trailer for Passport to Pimplico was unavailable to post but the above is a clip from the film with shots included in the trailer. 

The trailer for 'Passport to Pimlico' has the title across the bottom of the screen for most of the trailer where as 'This Is England' only displays the title at the end of the trailer. 

'This Is England' uses reviews throughout the trailer to show how well it did, however, 'Passport to Pimlico' doesn't do any of this. This may be due to the increasing media consumer market over time making the competition to attract an audience more extreme in 2006 than in 1949. 

There is obvious contrast between the colours of the trailers. For example, 'Passport to Pimlico' is black and white where as 'This Is England' is in full colour. This difference is obviously due to the fact the 'Passport to Pimlico' was created before Tv in colour was invented and widespread. 

The music in 'This Is England' changes when a new main character is introduced in the trailer. The mood is then changed which is effective. However, as a contrast to this, 'Passport to Pimlico' uses old-fashioned music at the start of the trailer, which fades into diagetic sound of dialogue and returns again when the titles appear. 

The clear contrast in accents in the trailers also display the difference in time era's. For example, in the 'Passport to Pimlico' trailer, the actors are well spoken with Southern accents. On the other hand, in 'This Is England', the accents shown are more Northern and slang is occasionally used. This may reflect the difference in language development and dialect overtime as the trailers (being social realism) are attempting to reflect real life people in that time.

Finally, there are major differences in costume between the two social realism trailers. In the 'Passport to Pimlico' trailer the costumes are mainly very smart with ties and suites, where as in 'This In England' the clothes are less traditional as it's storyline focuses on skinhead fashion and style. 

Social realism codes and conventions

Codes and Conventions:

• Location shooting (not studio)
• Wide shots
• Non-professional actors
• Semi improvised scripts
• Humour and seriousness
• The erosion of regional identities
• Wider social issues explored via emotional and dramatic individual stories
• Triumph over adversity

Research on Social Realism genre

Poster genre research

 

To research social realism poster conventions, I decided to analyse a social realism poster for 'Skateistan'. Here is what I noticed:

• The title, tagline and production company are all situated at the top of the poster.
• The cast, reviews and companies involved are all situated at the bottom of the poster. This follows typical conventions of film posters with the writing being at the bottom and in smaller font.
• This poster uses rules of thirds layout, meaning the page is split into thirds either horizontally or vertically. In this case, it's vertically. This rule of thirds technique helps audiences to easily read information given on the poster,
• The font used have a kind of 'urban edge' to it which is in keeping with the image of the three teenage boys skating. However, the mountains contrast with this urban, city feel the font creates, This raises questions for the audience like 'what are they doing there?' and 'where are they going', creating a feel sense of mystery. 

Reflection on genre

After reviewing the development of our trailer,  we decided that our genre was more social realism than the horror we initially categorised it as.

This was partly because we felt our film would be less to scare an audience through the use of violence, bruises and dramatic music but rather to portray a real life problem (domestic abuse), which is a real life situation for many people in modern society. We want to educate people on domestic violence rather than them feeling as if they are just watching violence in a horror movie. Also, upon reflection, we felt our film trailer may lack some of the key codes and conventions of horror films such as excessive blood, a knife or gun e.t.c.

Website Background Research

Whilst considering our horror genre, we decided to conduct some background research into 'typical' horror film websites. This should give us an idea of what to include and the layout to select. Here is what we researched:

This Lionsgate horror website promotes many different horror films produced by Lionsgate, for example- Saw. Despite it not promoting one film like ours, it still gives us lots of information by the colour scheme used and the links. It includes a twitter, facebook and instagram link to promote its products as well as a home page, gallery and horror club. It suggests that dark colours such as black and grey work well to promote horror films. Also the writing is very bold and clear cut which makes it stand out, which we will consider whilst constructing our website. 

Filming Update 2

We recently completed the underwater filming for the final shots of our trailer. We did this by using an underwater cover for the iPhone 5 we were using to film.
We are very pleased with these shots and the quality was better than we thought it may be.

Photos for our trailer

The beginning of our trailer includes quick cuts of girls who have been beaten up. We have begun to gather the shots we need to do this:

However, during editing, we realised that we were going to need more shots than we originally estimated. We want the shots to flash with quick cuts so we decided we needed at least 4 pictures for each flash for it to look the most effective. Therefore, we casted more brunette girls to take part in the photos so we had the best selection when it came to editing.

Make up

Milly Peckham-Cooper took the main lead in make up for our trailer. The main part of our trailer where the make up effects are very important is at the beginning with the shots of the beaten up girls.
We used dark purples and greys to create a bruised effect. We wanted to make it look as realistic as possible so also used yellow tones to represent old bruises and dark circles under the eyes to represent exhaustion.

Poster idea

Whilst editing our trailer, this particular shot stood out for us :

We felt this image would be a great potential poster image. The fact that it displays the main character and his figure is shadowed, symbolises the darkness of the film. If we were to choose this image, we would have the title (most likely 'LISTEN') displayed in white capital font across the sky.

Filming Update

                                              

We successfully managed to film and edit the time lapse element of our trailer in Tunbridge Wells.

We also found a shot that we really liked and are interested in using for our poster as we feel the lighting is very effective especially the shadow like figure of James representing the dark side of the trailer through his character. 

We are also very pleased with the quality of the close up of James we managed to achieve using an iPhone 5 camera. 

New actors for our trailer

We decided to change our lead female actress to Bee Williamson. This was due to the fact that we were having difficulty gathering the required shots with our trials involving past actresses. 

We also decided to change our lead male actor to James Allen. This was due to the fact that we felt his image complied with what we imagined our main actor to look like in our shots. 

Storyline developments

Possible Titles

Our list of possible titles for our trailer include:

• Listen
• Infatuation  
• Obsession
• Broken
• The Infatuated 
• Stalked
• The Boy 

Health and Safety considerations

Our first filming schedule

This is footage from our first filming session, created earlier today. We attempted to gather some of the strangling shots for our opening of the trailer and the scene where our lead male breaks down. However, we are aware that we will need to re shoot most of this footage at a later date to achieve the quality we are after.

Location scouting

We have 3 main locations we plan to film in: 
Brighton

We felt that Brighton Pier was perfect to create romantic beach shots and our tea-cup shot we want to create. The pier is a convenient filming location as it is open all year round between 10-8pm. However, a limitation of this location is that it is usually very busy, making our shots of just the couple hard to capture, and it is a long distance to travel, 

Tunbridge Wells 

 

Tunbridge Wells high street is a potential location for our time lapse. Due to the busy nature of Tunbridge Wells, we felt it would be ideal to capture of time lapse with many people passing by. This location involves less travelling than Brighton.

London

An alternative or additional location for our time lapse is Trafalgar square in London. Again, we felt that the busy nature would be perfect for creating our time lapse. However, like Brighton, it has a far travelling distance and can be costly to travel to.