DEAR MODERATOR

Welcome to my blog. It includes all my work which shows the making of mine, Esme and Jo's film opening of a lighthearted restaurant comedy, called 'Zest'. You will find my evaluation questions in the pages above. Hope you enjoy!

FILM OPENING

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Here is our finished film opening!

1 FORMS AND CONVENTIONS

CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

Titles- 

We researched professional film title sequences in a variety of ways, such as the website 'art of the title'. 

As we are making a comedy film opening we decided that an element of surprise and fun was key to indicating genre to our audience. We also knew we had to signal the location very early on, which is a restaurant setting. Therefore we decided we would use CGi to introduce our titles and have them appearing on different part of props in a way that would be visually arresting. We start with our production company 'WLF' where milk is being poured onto a chopping board and displays the name. We edited this on after effects.  

In common with most films we build up with the title of our film at the end.  We based our methods on food ink.

Sound – music, voice over, dialogue

Our soundtrack has three main elements, which often feature in film openings: the musical soundtrack dialogue and voiceover. The audience first hears the soundtrack. We chose a musical soundtrack called…. It has upbeat, cheerful and lively qualities.

The voice over is crucial in introducing our central character – Danni, the gap year student. The voice over is important in establishing the point of view and making the audience share her attitudes towards her employer and customers she meets.

Although Danni and her opinions do not feature largely, because they’ll be developed later on in the film, nether the less she sets the tone of how the audience sees what’s going on. Everything that goes on in the British restaurant is all very foreign to Danni as she’s Australian and this is Britain. She’s alternately aspirated and amused with the people she encounters.

In doing this we are echoing the convention of other comedy films like Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging where the narrative is framed through the viewpoint of the teenage girl.

The dialogue is in snippets to introduce social satire types. We had one of the celebrities complaining about her hair extension falling out to emphasis the stupidity of the girl.

2 REPRESENTATION OF SOCIAL GROUPS

 Bikers boys- according to Dick Hebdige, certain groups form sub cultures with specific identities that they signal through clothing and music codes. Here, the biker boys wear leathers, boots and tattoos. They also signal membership of their musical affiliations through references to heavy metal music: Ozzy Osbourne.

Austalian gap year student: We have noticed that Australians and New Zealanders are often depicted in media texts as having New World qualities of breeziness , humour, and irreverence for Old World conservative, stuffy, and traditional values. For example, characters like Crocodile Dundee and The Castlemaine XXX beer adverts contain comic representations of bold and breezy stereotypes. Our protagonist is a gap year student from Australia who has come to work in a UK restaurant and she is alternately exasperated and amused by the “Britishers” she finds.

Stereotype: Celebrity chef (left Heston Blumenthal) cutting edge molecular gastronomy, obsessed with inventing new recipes with scientific approach. High profile TV appearances. Our chef (right) is modelled on this stereotype.

We have chosen a comic stereotype relating to body image here: fat people are often stereotyped in a negative way as figures of fun; Dawn French, for example, is famous for drawing attention to her large appetite in comedy sitcoms such as The Vicar Of Dibley. 

Magazines and online news sites are crammed full of representations of celebrities: Their clothes, their escapades, their spending habits, their love lives and their holidays seem to have an inexhaustible fascination for readers. We depict celebrity stereotypes as being empty headed and obsessed with their body image.

This social stereotype is the posh social climber, like Penelope Keith in The Good Life.

We introduced them with wine being swirled in front of them as they are the kind of people who think of themselves as wine connoisseurs. This kind of customer likes to bandy about famous restaurants and hotels that they have dined in to show off. They are also the kind of people who follow trends in the press about the latest diet fads. Theyre likely to shop at waitrose and want to know all their food is ethically sourced and of the finest qualities. The recent horse meat scandal is likely to have appalled them and made them suspious of whatever they put into their mouths. At restaurants they are likely to talk very loudly and ghautily in an RP accent like Lead Better in The Good Life.

3 DISTRIBUTION

This is our Prezi we made on distribution.

Click HERE to view the whole file.

4 MY TARGET AUDIENCE

Today I started making brief notes about the target audience for Zest.

Age group: 15+, the majority of age groups

Gender: Both male and female

They are likely to watch TV programmes such as Friends, My Family, MasterChef, Come Dine With Me.

They are likely to see films at the cinema such as Ted, The Change-Up, Meet the Fockers.

In their leisure time they will go on YouTube, Netflix, iTunes, video games, meet up with friends, go shopping, drink Starbucks and Costa, eat at McDonalds, Dominoes, TGI Friday's.

Clothes: Topshop/Topman, RiverIsland, H&M, Urban Outfitters.

Media: iPhone/Blackberry - fast internet usage, Macbook/iPad - watch movies, play video games

5 ATTRACTING & ADDRESSING AUDIENCES

Today we focused on distribution using the BFI site on digital distribution.

Today we spent a lot of time investigating distribution which is a key element in the chain between the film’s production and its audience. Distributors use a spread of means to gain traction and build awareness, such as digital media:

·      Film website

·      Trailers on the website

·      Facebook

·      Twitter

·      Aurasma (linking print with online trailers)

Distributors also use print advertising:

·      P+A includes poster campaigns

·      Interviews in newspapers

·      Campaigns in free papers like Metro

Trailers and other media

·      10 second spot TV campaigns

·      30 second TV campaigns

·      Cinema traikers

·      Screenings

·      Tv radio interviews

·      They also set up distribution for DVD rights and exhibition rights

    In order to attract and address our  audience i have planed to set up a number of products that distributers take responsibility for including: 

•   A Facebook and twitter for our film where people are able to write comments and reviews about it 
•   We have used posters of still imaged shots 
•   Website pages where audiences can connect to interactive games using Aurasma 

Zest's Twitter page.

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TWITTER PAGE.

      To advertise our film opening to the public, we created a Twitter and Facebook page in order to maintain interest within our target audience, particularly in relation to information about the film - such as the release date, competitions, daily updates etc.

      By creating a Twitter and Facebook page, we are essentially interacting with our target audience; keeping them informed with information relating to the film. Additionally, the fact that we have uploaded multiple posters on our Twitter page gives our target audience an insight into our film, as we are providing them with a visual image.

Zest's Facebook page.

     CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FACEBOOK PAGE.

      Below are some of the different posters we edited for P&A in photoshop for our webpage, Twitter and Facebook pages. By creating posters for our film opening, it gives our target audience a visual view of what the film is about and the kind of wacky characters that are in it, as well as giving them a brief understanding of what they are going to see.