Questionaire to target audiences and evaluation of results

As a group we developed a questionnair designed specially for our target audience Which was our own age group (15/16/17). We agreed at the start that our target age group would be teen's seeing tho it is a teen dram orianated production it made sense.

we decided that we would evaluate our film by showing our production to 10 peope in a room and provide them a sheet to fill out (our questionnair). We though it would deffinetly be a good idea to show our production to our own age goup because they are our target audience and will give us a good idea on what they want to see in a film and what our film possible could of done to be more appealing to them indiviadualy.

we had mixed results which i personaly was expecting because of the genre we picked. the girls who watched our production liked it a lot more than the boys who watched did. I understand this because our film was perhaps not fast, involve comedy, no action. This is what the boys wrote on the as what the film possible could have involved in some way to make it more apealing to them.

When asked on the questionnair from watching the opening sequence 'would you be interested in watching the hole film' every girl said yes they would like to. unlike the boys who when asked the same question the magority said no they would not be interested in watching the hole film. I think this is interesting because it identifies the diferrence in what boys and girls look for in a film.

Many of the boys said that they would have enjoyed a bit of humour in our opening sequence to catch their attention more. While the girls seemed more atracted to the slightly slow dramatic opening scene aproch.

Recent films from our genre

Fish Tank
This film is about a young girl (15). She faces the same kind of problem as the girl Emily does in our film production. For example in the film Fish Tank the girl is frequently neglected by the people she lives with and does not seem to have a farhter who supports her. She found school difficult which resulted in her being kicked out of her school and resolving to drink and drugs. This is similar to our film. The mother of the Girl in the film 'Fish Tank' is similar to the Aunt in our film production. She brings home various men and she (the mother) proveides close to no support to her. This is very similar to the situation emily in our film faces.

Juno

Juno is film based on a young girl (16) who accidently becomes pregnant. The film follows her story on how she copes and matures as a person in the situation she is faced with. she is faced with lots of different problems which she needs to overcome. This relates to our film production because both young girls stared in the two films are young, fulnerabale and have to face problems that arguably they shoudnt need to be dealing with at their young age.

history of genre

The history of our 'teen drama' theme goes back as far as the 1960's. As the late 1960's and early 1970's progreesed more and more teens were becoming interested and relating there own lives to some teen dramas. For example a very early teen drama was produced called 'never too young'. This is a series that looks over the lives of teenagers and how they deal with their parents which has some connections with our film production because emily in our film had hast to deal with many family ussues. In 1967, 'Love is a Many Splendored Thing' was realeased and in no time became a huge success with teenage audiences especially in America. It was quickly followed by such shows as The Young and Restless ' in the year 1973 and 'All My Children' in 1970. This was the begining of teen dramas which over the years has become a very popular and a universal attraction to youngsters. Orginal programes have set a path fo many of the more recent series or dramas about teen and thier lives.

there were also some more original teen dramas for example shows like 'Degrassi Junior High' and later Degrassi High, became very popular in Canada and the north America. these programmes were aired on PBS in the late 80s and the early 9o's. these were slightly more recent but hold the same value and identity as the shows in the 1960's and 70's.

group meetings

Our group meeting mainly took place when we in class together. we would discuss between ouselves our ideas and we all agreed our individual jobs for that day or week. I feel that as a group we worked well and worked around any disagreements we might have faced. At no piont was someone made to do something they were not comfortable with or not agree with doing. every desicion that was made had to be agreed between the group.

i think our group meeetings were vital and were very constructive to our production. For example our organisation of our jobs and what needed to be done were discussed in our meetings so we all new had to be done. without the meetings and discutions we would not be clear what had been done what needed to be done ect...

As i said these discussions were usually taken place in lesson time and we would work together to get as we could done in the time we had together.

There were sometimes as much as 2 weeks between lessons so it was vital for us have group meetings and dicuss our progress since the last lesson.

conventions of an opening sequence

pre production task

GENRE – Teen Drama
PLOT

16 year old Emily Lock’s family have just died in a house fire and she has had to go and live with her auntie who lives far away from her origional home. Her auntie doesn’t have any children of her own, and often has different men visit her at her, which is extremely uncomfortable for Emily.

After Emily’s trauma, and having to move in with the nasty aunt who begins to physically harm her when coming home drunk, she starts to become depressed and self harm herself. Her depression grows deeper as she has to join a new school. The students there don’t warm to her and bully her. The school teachers have no time for the new scruffy student. The torture proves too much for Emily as she begins looking for different ways out of her mess.

She slowly turns to drugs and mixes with the wrong people; she becomes ill and reliant on strong drugs and alcohol. She is in a helpless situation and at the lowest point she could possibly be at; the future looks lifeless and non existent.

On a significant day when Emily feels she is at a complete dead end, she goes to buy more drugs; a boy from her school is watching her from a distance giving her money to a dealer. The dealer is evidently trying to steal the money without providing the drugs, so therefore the boy watching runs over and ‘saves the day’. He particularly notices that Emily is very unwell, and realises she was buying drugs. He feels sorry for her and wants to help her, she refuses his offer on a few occasions but he is adamant to get involved.

Eventually she lets him into her life and tells him the story of her tragic past, and present as she realises his pure intentions. Jack is effectively the only one who cares for her. Emily’s happiness starts to return and the drugs and self harming starts to stop. Jack, the hero, builds her life back up and they grow closer until, at the end of the story, he asks her to be with him and move in with Jack and his welcoming parents.


Opening Scene

Emily, the main character, is standing in the shower, the shower is on, and she faces the shower so the water is spraying on her face.
Whilst Emily is in the shower, a newspaper article appears transparently over the top of the image of Emily. The audience hear screams etc which are in Emily’s head. The newspaper is transparent over her still in the shower with Emily’s hands at her face. It creates the affect of her remembering reading/seeing the front page of the paper.

We then cut back to the shower where she is still in the shower, facing it however her hands are no longer at her face, they are just hanging by her side.

The second flashback depicts Emily sitting in the family room at the hospital with a social worker comforting her. Someone of authority walks into the room and tells her all her family have died and he says that they did their best.

We cut back to the shower, which is at her auntie’s house; you see her reaching for a razor. The razor is about chest height on a shower shelf so she just reaches forward. The camera catches Emily’s hand trembling.

We cut it to the third flashback of Emily going to have to live with her nasty aunt. The camera follows Emily walking up her auntie’s path. You see her knock on the door with just a small bag of belongings. All the auntie does is use a head signal suggesting Emily to come in. Her auntie doesn’t make Emily feel welcome at all. Next, her auntie just literally closes the door as Emily has rushed in. The auntie then walks away into the kitchen dining area, not letting Emily know where she is staying or offering her any tea.

Cutting back to the shower where she is shaving her legs and accidentally cuts herself with a razor; the camera goes onto the water and you just see droplets of blood. Next the camera goes onto her face, where she is looking at the razor, suggesting to the audience that she could use this razor in the future to perhaps harm herself. The camera then fades out from this shot to the next shot of Emily preparing herself.

Emily has just got ready for first day at new school, says to her auntie she’s going who takes no notice of her and doesn’t look at all bothered.

Emily walks out the door, flinging her bag over her shoulder looking at the floor unconfidently on her way to school. This begins the story.


Treatment





Shot list



Risk Assesment



Location – Aunties bathroom, Int. 7.00am. Date 22nd January.

The bathroom is dimly lit with a light that seems to not work too well. The shower is turned on, which is the only sound the audience can hear. The weather outside it severely overcast, with light rain and mysterious fog. The first scene the audience see if Emily, in the shower with the camera behind her. She is dressed in a long baggy top.

We didn’t write a script because the only dialogue we have included in our opening scene is the doctor’s line. However our teacher advised us that we need not write a full script as we have already practised this skill in our preliminary task. The dialogue is detailed in our treatment with the other sound effects we have.

Breif

Our task was to design and produce a short opening scene to a film production. To complete our task to the best of our abilities we had to take certain stages to establish a successful production. Firstly we had to create our own story line. Then we had to design story boards and make a risk assessment. We have to prepare shot sizes so when it comes to filming we will be prepared and will know what we need to do. pre production reports must be done and much reaserch needs to be put done for example history of genre, recent films from how genre, group meeetings ect.We also need to develop an evaluation to explain how our production went and what we could have done to improve it or develop it further.