Welcome to MANIA

As a group we decided to do a Social Realist film, based upon choices and decisions that our main protagonist has to chose.

View our Final Teaser Trailer

View our Final Poster

View our Final Website 

View our Draft Teaser Trailer 

View our YouTube Account

View our Twitter

View our Facebook

Something Extra

We produced an extra product in the form of our own extended project. We created a bloopers video to again show that we can use digital technology with ease, and to remember how much fun we had creating our trailer and ancillary tasks.

Our Best Bits

http://prezi.com/ry_ikzxwresi/present/?auth_key=upp9eit&follow=mqitlfwj20pb&kw=present-ry_ikzxwresi&rc=ref-36019491

Final Storyboard

The Kuleshov Effect applied to our Trailer

The Kuleshov Effect is a film editing montage effect demonstrated by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s. It is the process of taking a single shot of one thing (e.g. a man's face) and placing a variety of shots after it. Kuleshov used the experiment to indicate the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing.
Below is a video of the Kuleshov Effect in action.

The Kuleshov effect can be applied to our teaser trailer as there are certain instances where we have used editing to create a certain idea without actually showing it literally. For example, when the main female is sitting on the bed with the male and he says "have you not done this before" we instantly assume that he is talking about sex, despite actually seeing any sexual references. Purely because it is a male and a female sitting on a bed the audience think it is about sex. Additionally, when we see the medium shot of the father walking towards the screen with the belt in his hand, we automatically assume he is going to use it in a violent way on his daughter. This effect is useful as we can inform the audience of what  is happening without actually having to show it visually.

Feedback from Screening

We were given the opportunity to present our trailer to the year 12 media classes in our school. This was a fantastic opportunity to get feedback on whether they felt we matched the conventions of our genre and whether they would be inclined to go and see the film.

We handed out a questionnaire to each person containing a variety of questions from "Would you watch this film?" to "What are the three main themes?". As you can see from a few of the responses above, everyone generally had the same answers. All of the participants noticed that it was a social realism, as well as being aimed at females and for the 16-21 year old age group. We also received an overwhelming amount of compliments on the adventurous story line as the participants thought it was quite challenging. The majority of the responses noted that the main themes were abuse, relationships and having a dream.

From the feedback, we can feel confident that through our use of shots and work in post production we have created an effective and appealing social realist teaser trailer.

Reflection

The overall experience of making a teaser trailer has been challenging, however extremely rewarding. As a team we have worked together to create a high quality trailer, website, poster and blog. We gelled well as a group as we could each bring something different to the final product. Bronwen is skilled when it comes to using iMovie software, the Wix website and most of the technical aspects. She was also the director during the filming of our trailer. Joe participated as an actor and spent a lot of time researching before we produced our product, which was essential as we needed to fit the brief and match our genre. I spent a lot of time in pre-production designing the storyboard and researching different theorists. I was also selected to be the main actress in the trailer. Acting was not something I had done much of before however the task was fun and successful. Over the past year, each of us have enjoyed working together and we believe we have become experienced, well rounded individuals in the media department. 

Evaluation Question 1

This question relates to how we used codes and conventions of our genre: social realism. We chose to present our evaluation questions through visual methods, combined with a audio layered over the top. This would enable the audience to view an example and a comment in context.  

"In what way does your media product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of real media products in association with our trailer?"

Evaluation Question 1 Script

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products in association with our trailer?

Mania is a social realist film, therefore should follow the conventions of this particular genre and also the conventions of a teaser trailer. There are certain characteristics that you expect to see that we should include in our product to demonstrate how we have understood, and reproduced a social realist trailer. 

Our storyline is similar to that of Andrea Arnold's "Fish Tank" which consisted of a teenage girl having a talent and wanting to per-sue it, however obstacles such as family and love intervene. We used the bad boyfriend and disruptive family life themes of fish tank and applied them to our own trailer. The storyline matches the conventions of a social realism as it is hard hitting and emotional. We captured elements of her struggle through shots such as the medium shot of the dad walking towards the screen with the belt.

As you can see we have included a main protagonist which is commonly seen in our genre. We chose to cast a female as the main character to make it easier to feel sympathy towards her and to emphasise the vulnerability of the character. 
The actress is an unknown female which confirms the genre. Unknown actors or actresses are usually seen in social realist films as the idea of the film is that it is meant to be a realist perception of life and the struggles people face. For example, in this is england, Thomas Aiden Turgoose plays a lead male role, however before this he was not well known, similarly with fish tank's Katie Jarvis playing mia. 

Another convention of social realist film is that they are based in a working class environment. We have depicted this lifestyle through the continuous use of tracking shots of the housing estate. The idea that the main character comes from a less fortunate background is a  convention of social realist films. We challenged this convention slightly as we did not want to focus predominatly on her socio-economic background, but more on the relationships she has within her life that, inturn prevent her from following her dream. 

One of our themes was sex which is a common convention of our genre. We showed sex through the medium shots of the girl putting her top back on in the boy's bed, suggesting she has just had sexual relations with him.
We challenge the stereotypes of the genre by narrowing the themes we exclude the use of  drugs, alcohol and antisocial behaviour, so we can focus mainly on the struggle between her father, her intimate relationships and her dream.

Social Realist films normally use mostly diegetic sound which we developed through use of dialogue as well as a sound track layered over the top.

Our trailer matches the conventions of Freytag's dramatic structure. Initially there is exposition, following a rising action created through the slow motion medium shot of the father walking towards the screen with a belt in his hand implying violence. Additionally, there is a climax at the end of the trailer when there is a rewind of her recent events which builds up tension and curiosity as to what will become of the character. As for the last two stages of Freytags theory, these are not appropriate for a trailer as having a falling action and resolution would reveal the whole story, which is not a convention of a teaser trailer. 

Improvements

Our feedback consisted of helpful changes we could make to our trailer to make it better. Our teacher's advised us to add an additional scene of the girl in a art gallery, instead of the shots of the girl looking at art colleges on her laptop. Also, we added a scene where the girl is slapping the boy from the trailer to increase tension and sense of 'mania'. Currently we are trying to get some footage of the main girl holding a pregnancy test to broaden the potential stories inside the trailer, therefore making it more appealing and entertaining. Furthermore, we are tidying up clips by stabilizing them on i-movie, making the voice overs fade in more smoothly and editing the colour filters on different clips.

Feedback from our First Cut

Feedback is essential when creating a media product as if the public do not understand or appeal to it, then it will not be effective. We used our social networking accounts to publish the first cut of our trailer in order to see people's reactions to it. We received a wide variety of comments as you can see below. Most of them are constructive and contain tips such as "work on audio" and "don't concentrate on the relationship part so much". We will use these comments to finalise our trailer to make it as attractive and effective as possible.

First Draft and Feedback

We decided to publish our first draft of our trailer onto our YouTube channel to see the responses that we get. This will be useful for gathering research on how to improve it.

We have evaluated our draft to ensure that we can improve the necessary faults so our final cut matches the conventions of a social realism. We answered the question 'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products in association with our trailer?' 

After reviewing our draft, we concluded what strengths and weaknesses the product had. These include:

Strengths 

- Award research

- Original film production company

- Creative font- for anchorage and title sequence

- Use of colour filters- black and white at the end

- Variety of editing techniques- reverse of girl's journey, slow motion in bedroom scene

- Variety of shots- tracking shot, point of view shot, high angle shot

- Variety of lighting- low key and high key lighting

- Good camera quality- Cannon with changeable lens and excellent zoom and focus features

Weaknesses 

- Sound is not as layered

- Voiceovers are not embedded- they stick out and sound irregular

- Shots of the laptop are basic and boring- too amateur, does not show our skill and genre

There are certain conventions that you expect to see in a social realism that we should include in our trailer to demonstrate how we have understood and reproduced a social realist trailer. 

In our first draft we have matched the conventions in many ways:

- We have included a main protagonist (the girl) which is a convention of a social realist text

- We have depicted a working class lifestyle through the housing estate shots

- The actress is an unknown female which confirms the genre

- The storyline matches the conventions as it is hard hitting and emotional through shots such as the dad with the belt and the scene with the girl in bed with the boy.

- Social Realist films normally use mostly diegetic sound which we used through dialogue

- One of our themes was sex which is a common trait of social realisms

- We challenge the stereotypes of the genre by narrowing the themes, excluding drugs, alcohol and antisocial behaviour.

Filming 13/01/13

Today we got to work filming our shots. We had our storyboard at hand to follow and this made our filming a lot easier. We had three main sections of shots - Home Shots, Outside Shots and Boy's room Shots. This helped us plan our day as we had 3 different locations to get filming in one day; which was a struggle but with our time-keeping and extensive planning we managed to get all our filming done. 

As we can see from the shots below, the quality is a such an improvement in comparison to the last camera we used and we are positive now that we can edit this really well and give it the finish and effect we want our trailer to have. 

We also used this time to get a few photos for our potential poster and this was also great with our camera that we had borrowed. Overall it was a very successful day.

Problems Whilst Filming

Some problems have arisen during the making of our trailer.  The girl we were going to use as our main actress in our trailer cannot participate anymore, which is a huge problem as some filming has already been done. This ultimately means we have to re-film everything again with a new actress.
Additionally, we have had a problem with the poor quality of the camera as the footage looks grainy and low grade. We have overcome this problem by borrowing a high technology camera that will produce a clearer image.

Tag Lines

In order to have an effective and eye-catching poster, we have to chose a suitable tag line. This would be beneficial when film companies are advertising their trailers.

Some initial idea:

- A girl can dream
- She has one chance, will she do the right thing?
- One moment can define everything
- One girl, one life
- Which path will she chose?
- You need challenges to keep reality real
- When someone turns against you... you don't know who to trust.
- Heart vs. Head
- Trying is sometimes just not good enough
- Trying to keep your head clear




These are only some initial basic ideas which we can build upon.

Typography Ideas

In our trailer we have a title page, phrases for anchorage and nominated awards therefore it is essential to ensure our typography matches the genre and mood of our trailer.
Here are some fonts we found on dafont.com.





These are all very different fonts, but they all give the feeling of movement and pace. The third one down matches our trailer the best as it is blurry which is what happens to your vision when you have to much to drink. Our trailer is about alcohol, drugs and teenage behaviour therefore the third one down also depicts a manic environment.

It is useful to do typography research as we can see which fonts stand out and which do not.

Website Deconstruction 1- Kidulthood

It is useful to do website deconstructions as we will be making a website ourselves. We can see the conventions of a social realism film website and mimic the effective characteristics.

1) Effective quotes appear in the centre of the screen. Others include '"Brilliant". MTV'. These are useful to show the overall quality of the film and to persuade viewers to watch it.

2) This introduces the film and also advertises the following film 'adulthood'. The viewer can make the connection between the two films and it is obvious they are a continuing story.

3) The title is clear as it fills a huge space. It is spread along the top of the website and is eye-catching due to the white on black combination. The bold font makes it jump out at you. The inconsistency of the lower case 'i' gives the impression of uneducated characters.

4) This is another quote and almost works like a tag line. It leaves the audience in suspense as it is a rhetorical question. The use of the direct pronoun 'you've' includes the viewer and they feel personally connected.

5) The main character from the film takes up a lot of space on the websites homepage. His clothing and race make him prone to stereotypical thoughts before the audience has even seen the film. The mise-en-scene of the baseball bat adds to the idea that this film will be violent.

6) They use the website as an advertising strategy to sell the DVD. The image of the DVD box shows people exactly what it looks like and the features that come with the DVD.

7) The 'revolver entertainment' logo promotes that company but also shows who helped in the making of the film.

8) The menu at the bottom of the screen allows you to select from many different action. It shows where you can watch the trailer, download soundtracks etc.

9) This informs the audience of when the film is available to buy and corresponds with the big image of the DVD. The typography is the same for all the important messages making it easy to navigate around the page.

10) At the very bottom of the web page it shows the designers of the website, however it is not very important so it is in small font.

11) This is the selling point of the DVD. It is bragging about all the special features and bonus scenes to entice people to buy the DVD.

Settings

The image to the right is the setting of our party scene. It is located in Otford to the rear of the station. It is a small secluded field so we are unlikely to get disturbed while filming. We will film in the evening when it is dark and have the characters located in a group in the middle of the field. Filming in a field is effective as it shows the carelessness of teenagers.






We will film housing around the Bat and Ball area in Sevenoaks, mainly houses that look warn and basic.










Additionally, we will get some footage of the station in Bat and Ball and the by-pass as they both depict working class city life.











The shot of the main girl walking down the stairs in inappropriate clothing will be filmed in Hannah's house. The location of the stairs is perfect as the girl can walk down the stairs and enter the living room where her Dad will be.

The living room has normal features; a sofa, rug, cabinets, TV etc. The father character will be slouched on the sofa which will depict his lazy, depressed state.

Music

Music is vital in establishing the mood in a trailer. You can tell what the emotions you will feel in the film and how you are meant to react. We have researched different party music for the party scenes and emotional instrumentals for the hopeful and sympathetic scenes.

The first video below is an example of the audio we might use for the beginning of the trailer. It provokes sympathy and introduces the story line.

Another potential video we are going to use as a emotive piece is from sound cloud. It is similar to the one above as it has a beautiful piano instrumental with a steady beat to keep it attractive to our target audience- teenagers.

http://soundcloud.com/search?q%5Bfulltext%5D=tentoes+sad+piano+beat



For the party scenes we will use sound effects to build up the exciting and crazy atmosphere. One of which will be the first 10 seconds of a video from YouTube. We have done a lot of research into different sounds on YouTube as it is one of the biggest music libraries available at the click of a mouse.

The main music in the party scene will be a song by Fat Boy Slim as it has a fast pace and will keep the audience engaged.

Depression

The father character in our trailer is going to be effected by depression. This will create another sense of sympathy for our main character, as she will be a young carer.

Through our research into depression, we found that this was not a topic easily used in films as it is quite hard to address and sad to watch. However, we will be using this in our trailer to provoke sympathy for our main character, and thus giving her an explanation as to why she turns to drugs and alcohol.

The main symptoms of depression are:

- Mood Swings
- Self harm
- Isolation- father finding it hard to get out of bed
- Angry outbursts - we will show father shouting at the girl


We hope to create a character in our trailer that will mimic the kind of frustration and sadness that someone in a real life situation feels, and can relate to.

An example of depression being used in film is 'Sylvia' released in 2003. The character sinks deeper and deeper into emotional isolation and emptiness, especially after her partner leaves her for another woman.