Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Question 6

How did you attract/ address your audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The expected market for my anti-rom-com based on the IMDB ratings would be a 15+. By looking at 500 Days of Summer gaining a 7.8 rating and 17 Again gaining 6.4, although both these films are a 12A rating, by making 'Chloe' the 15 rating it allows for more freedom in terms of sexual scenes and language used, which in turn would allow the target audience to be more involved in the film and hopefully believe in the story line and the couple.


It seems noticeable that my target audience would me mostly women but with the occasional male who is on a date or just interested in the anti-rom-com genre. My target audience age group is 16-30 which can be assumed to be the age group with most disposable income and inclination to see films regularly suggests why large films are targeted at this age group; which could be a selling point to a media institution as it implies it will make a large profit.


Due to the storyline of the film, it can be expected that the film would be suited to a demographic who either has been through the same thing, or at least understands it. Therefore the IMDB rating didn't affect my choice of genre, but generally a romantic type genre is going to be popular with a wide audience, altering slightly dependent on the age of the actors and the setting, i.e. dates set in restaurants or cinemas.


It can be assumed that the target audience is my own age and older, which was confirmed by the 12/41 people in the 14-18 bracket of my research, which was only slightly beaten out by the 45+ bracket with 20 responses. In my findings from the Survey Monkey questionnaire, 25 out of 41 replies were female and so 61% of the findings were from a female perspective. Therefore, it is understandable why the male main character was preferred.


As my target audience was both males and females, I would need to include both genders interests within the film. To follow with the typical conventions of a romance type film, I choose a female and male character that the audience would intend to see themselves with, i.e. that they would find attractive. For the female audience, current trend clothing, bags and makeup style would be used (similar to that of Gossip Girl or Sex and the City). For the male audience I would introduce beautiful females, cars and clothing (although the clothing may only appeal to those men that wear similar or aspire to wear those type of clothes).Therefore the film can then be targeted at fashion lovers, especially women

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

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

What Social Groups Have You Represented- PDF

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

Audience Feedback

I posted the beginning to the film 'Chloe' on YouTube in order to get responses from audience members. I sent the link out to family and friends and asked for them to also pass this on. By the 24th of April I had gained 33 views and a number of different comments. A few of these were:

- editing with black screens could be eradicated and narrator could have been clearer in certain parts. Other than that the quality, colour, story line and effects were of a high standard.

- emotive words and music.

- tense atmosphere made me want to find out more about both characters. 

- great film opening, great actors and loved the piano music piece, only critique would be some of the comments slightly before the visual action.

- narration combined with the piano music made the video thought provoking. 

- good colour definition and use of lighting. Commentary not too fast. 

- good close ups, good cinematography and interesting story line. 

Final Product

Key decisions made:
- Pre-production I made a list of the various shots that I needed to do takes of so that I ensured that I did not miss any. I filmed each shot from around 3 or 4 different angles to then choose the best ones in production. Therefore many shots were unused but this was predicted. I recorded many walking shots of Chloe in order to put in gaps where the voice over would not match the action instead of using a black space to fill the gap.

- My decision was to use black spaces in between many of the shots. This is to add tension but mainly to separate the shots of her face or walking so that the voice over can match the timings of the shots. As in many trailers that aim to add tension e.g. Fifty Shades of Grey, black spaces are used in order to change locations or change the shot and so I used this same technique regularly in the opening of my film.

- The timing of the music had to be carefully thought out as I did not want it to build too early, in particular before Chloe left the coffee shop. In order for this to happen I had to copy the opening beat and paste it so that it occurred twice, but I don't think this is extremely noticeable apart from the slight change in how loud the beats are, but this is only noticed by me as I know why it is doing so, but to the audience they may just think it is part of how the song is.

- The loudness of the music compared to the voice over was important as I wanted the voice over to be the most important and noticeable thing rather than it being drowned out by the background music. As a result I adjusted the voice over individually per clip as some parts were louder than others and also as the song built and got louder I needed to match it with the voice over's loudness. I chose to have the song quite quiet at the start but then it begins to increase in loudness as the story unfolds.

- The voice over was recorded in a long take and so this had to be cut into individual sentences before it was to be used. I tried a variety of different possible timings for when the voice over would come in, per clip and black space timings. I think the final production has the best possible arrangement in terms of where the voice over fits, the speed of it and the loudness of it.

The Voice Over

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For the voice over, I hoped to find someone who was well-spoken but also had a clear and relatively low voice to fit with the atmosphere of the opening to the film. I used George who is in my year at school, so he was easily accessible to complete my voice over in time before I began editing. The voice over was completed in one long take and where there were slight interruptions I asked George to repeat the line (the parts with laughter or doors slamming). When I began to edit I cut each sentence into small clips to then move into the correct place of the film more easily. Although cutting the clips would be time consuming it would allow for a more precise match of the lyrics to the music and the shots. The voice over was key in my opening as it set the tone of the film but also built the tension from the outset. It needed to be perfect as it was how the shots of the opening would make sense at all. The majority of the voice over is about Jack's pain which stemmed directly from whatever Chloe had done to him. It was important for the audience to make the assumption that Chloe is a modern day femme fatale, so that they sympathise with Jack at the beginning as he gives the impression that she broke his heart.

The Editing Process

This shot I shot following Megan as she collected her coffee. I used match action editing in particular as she walked out of the door in order to show a variety of different angles but without revealing Chloe. 

As Megan crossed the road I used a variety of shots to include in my match action technique. These shots were then halved in speed in order to match the script speed and also add to the tension of the film. At this point as well as in the coffee shop I added the credits to show my actor names which would be starring in the film.  

The 'typical' phone shot I included in order to match the script. As Jack explained about 'her act her game' I thought it would be appropriate to show just how many people Chloe was pursuing at a given time and as she unlocks the phone we see just how disinterested she is in them. It was an extreme close up shot which would make her action clear and easy to understand.  

This shot zoomed quickly past Chloe's heart in a panning shot. This would match the script and voice over of that particular moment 'that was her problem not mine'. It needed to be a quick shot in order to increase the tension of the speech and make the anticipation for the reveal of what had happened between the man in the background and the girl in question. 

The long shot where Chloe and Jack meet is the first reveal of the other main character Jack. The script makes it obvious that the man that had been talking was Jack and that him and Chloe had definitely met before and had been involved before. There is the use of match action so that when Jack turns his reaction is able to be seen.

The two minute clip ends with a change in music tempo and then the shot of the title to the film. This is 'Chloe' and that would be followed by a '6 months earlier' type thing so that the story of Chloe and Jack is told. 

Soundtrack Explanation

For my backing track to the production I was looking for a long time in order to find a song that was without lyrics as well as built in momentum as that was what my script would appear to do. Firstly I looked on 'Purple Planet' but the type of music on there would not have fitted with my script, I then moved onto looking at the music on my phone in order to discover whether any of the backing music of those songs, if the lyrics were taken out would fit with the script appropriately. As I had already written my script I was looking for something which would fit well with the general theme whilst still appealing to my target audience. As my target audience is 16-30 year olds I came to the conclusion that by opening my film with a relatively well known song, it could potentially appeal to my audience. The song which I chose was 'I Care' by Beyonce but I would need to remove the lyrics before using it and so I then searched YouTube for instrumental versions and I found this version which was covered on the piano and then uploaded to YouTube. The song would be recognisable to Beyonce fans as well as it goes well as it fits with the script (although as I asked around many of the people that watched my film did not recognise the music). 'I Care' built the tension of my script and could potentially make the audience confused at the beginning of the film but this would then be explained as the film progressed.

Editing Techniques

In this trailer there is fast-paced editing used to move between shots and begin to establish where the story line intends to go. Although what I will be making is only going to be the first few minutes of my film I still hope to use similar editing techniques.
For example, each shot generally moves onto the next just after a fade out or black out. When I begin the editing process shortly after my filming takes place I will need to add in black shots in between each of my shots or at least the majority of them. These black fade outs will create a dramatic effect to my film and make the audience excited about the reveal of the two main characters as well as the storyline. The script will generally take the sequence of a sentence followed by a shot and then a blackout. Therefore as Jack mentions the time in his voice over, Chloe will look at her watch. Although this could appear slightly cheesy as it happens on more than one occasion, it will show that I have thought through the script to match up with the shots. As Chloe walks there will be many ellipsis' as the audience will be aware of where she has come from in-between shots.

The Day Of Filming

I began filming at around 1 o'clock on Saturday the 14th of march. My first location was Costa Coffee and then we moved over to a side street just of off Loughton high street. This photo was taken on the day of filming whilst I was doing extreme close-up shots of Josh (Jack). Although I did not actually use this particular shot in my final production task it shows the equipment which I used. This consisted of a tripod and a camera. But for some parts of my filming I had to use the camera without the tripod as it would have been difficult to shoot e.g. in Costa. I did not film in the order of the film but instead shot the parts with Josh in first and then all of Chloe's walking and close up shots.

Location Shots

The majority of my opening to the film Chloe was shot on a side street just off of Loughton High Street. I chose to film here as I needed a quiet street but possibly have a few people occasionally walking past to make it seem more realistic for when Jack (Josh) walked past, as well as making it appear normal that Chloe (Megan) would also be walking down a quiet street. Although I would eventually remove the audio from these shots and replace them with a soundtrack and voice over, it still appeared to be easier to shoot in an area that was not filled with people who would look at the camera and ruin the shots out of their own curiosity, (especially in an area where TOWIE is being shot which could cause some unnecessary confusion.)

One area where it was obviously going to be busy was Costa Coffee, as I planned to shoot on a Saturday at lunchtime (1 o'clock) as this is the only time my actors will be available. However, this was only one part of my shots and so it wouldn't be as big of an issue as if I shot a large part of the 2 minute clip in there.

Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule

Megan- year 12 , blonde hair.
Josh- year 13, brown hair.


Costume:
- Megan- skirt suit, heels, bag.
- Josh- jeans, jumper, newspaper.

Storyboarding

Script

Chloe

Gossip Girl Style Clothing

Blair's office style is similar to what I would hope Chloe's would be like.

 

 Chuck's suit day wear is slightly too overdressed for Jack's character so will not be appropriate.

 

 Dan's general wear is more casual which will be perfect for if Jack is simply walking around town.

 
Serena's office or day to day wear is perfect for what Chloe will be                                                         wearing and her characters relationship will be similar to Chloes                                                             too.

Targeting My Audience

Who am I targeting	How will I target them
Age  - 16 - 30	-         My main characters will be in the middle of this age bracket and therefore will be able to relate to the themes of the film; break-ups.        -         Themes, Background music choice, Clothing, Locations, Activities.
Gender        -         Female	-         Secondary audience = Male.        -         The clothing Chloe will wear I assume girls of the age category will like.        -         The music choice will be that of what a girl would usually listen to or at least like.
Social Demographic        -          C2,D,E	-         The genre of the film = anti-rom-com        -         The narrative will be quite obvious.        -         A ‘less educated’ audience will easily understand the film.        -         The story line should particularly interest the ‘E’ category.
Hobbies and Interests        -          Materialistic, Social Media, Mainstream, Idealistic	-         The clothing Chloe wears will be materialistic/ designer.     -         The use of a Costa/ Starbucks coffee cup is particularly mainstream.        -         The use of a phone to catch up with social media/ friends.

Further Research - Fifty Shades Of Grey

The beginning of this trailer will be the same feel as my three minute clip. From twenty-two seconds onwards the girl begins to talk to the man but the audience only sees parts of him or he is in the background blurred. He even talks and walks around the office but the audience continues to imagine what he looks like up until he is finally revealed. There is the use of continuous black outs as a part of the editing which adds to the mystery of the man's character I hope to create this same mystery for Chloe, my main character. Each movement he makes is followed by a black shot to a further position he is in, this makes an audience member wonder what will happen next, almost like a sense of excitement.

Exploring the Genre

Trailers of Anti-Rom-Com's:



This is more of a film which is similar to mine in terms of the boy is full of emotion versus the girl lacks it. The male in 500 Days of Summer is very set on traditional values much like my character 'Jack' will be like, i.e. he is romantic and longing for the girl. I quite liked how the film progressed through 'Day 1' to 'Day 500', although I could not do this in my film because I am already including a voice over and otherwise it would become too confusing. There are generic conventions of rom-com's used in this trailer, for example a couple getting into an argument, then rowing, an engagement ring, friends giving advice. These will all be used within 'Chloe' and so my genre falls into the category of anti-rom-com; the sub-genre of the major genre, romance.




The Break-Up is a conventional rom-com where by the girl is emotional and longing for the guy to change his mind in the matter of their relationship. This will eventually be the story line of my film although the first two minutes which the audience sees, they will not know about their relationship, how it ends or whether it was a relationship unless they watch my entire film produced. The music is also a building piano song which is what I will use, a song which builds in tempo. The genre uses a variety of shots i.e. long shots and tracking shots which I will use in my opening scene. The main characters in the break-up are a male and a female which is a generic convention of romance/ anti-rom-com genres.

Character Profiles

Chloé 

 

- Age: 19
- Job: Entrepreneur
- Likes: Fashion, Work, Coffee, Social Media
- Dislikes: Lazy people, Love, Sleazy men, Emotion
- Clothing style: Designer, Office colours (Black, White, Metallics)
- Role in the narrative: The audience will not feel sympathy towards her, if anything the audience will dislike her purely out of jealousy but also because she has men's desire.



Jack

 

- Age: 21
- Job: Writer of books and plays
- Likes: Reading, Exercise, Love, All things old fashioned, Marriage
- Dislikes: Aggressive people, Therapists, Breakups
- Clothing style: Simple, Not brand conscious,
- Role in the narrative: The audience sympathises with Jack as he is emotional but the girl he wants is not. From Jack's voice over the audience begins to feel even more sympathy for him, maybe because of their own heartbreak in the past.

Treatment - First Draft