Showing your production stages

You need to include posts which show what you've done with some photographic evidence- sceen grabs or photos of you on you shoot, at the computer etc.

Find out some production,distribution and exhibition info re a film of same genre as yours

Film Distribution Case study- Bullet Boy

British release poster for Bullet Boy (courtesy of Verve Pictures)

Bullet Boy is a low budget, independent feature helmed by first-time feature director Saul Dibb. The film stars UK rapper Ashley Walters as Ricky, a young man newly released from prison, but unable to extricate himself from the cycle of gang violence that has become an everyday feature in some parts of inner-city London. The film describes, with particular insight, the effects of Ricky's life on his mother and, especially, his younger brother.
Following festival screenings at the end of 2004, the film quickly gathered a reputation as the first film to tackle the difficult subject of contemporary gang and gun crime in Britain’s inner cities. In Hackney, where the film is set, local people saw the film contributing, in one way or another, to the ongoing debate. By the time the film was released, it had accumulated both word-of-mouth and press coverage in the news pages.
The release of Bullet Boy was handled by Verve Pictures. On the face of it, Bullet Boy is a specialised film - its naturalistic representation of characters, time and place, and the use of authentic locations and language have drawn comparisons with milestone British films including Ken Loach's Kes (1969) and Horace Ove's Pressure (1975). This take on contemporary urban life offered a unique selling point for the film, and gave the distributor some confidence that the film would receive exceptional reviews.
Verve Pictures however, saw the potential of the film in the wider market beyond the arthouse, especially with a young black audience drawn by the presence of Ashley Walters (of So Solid Crew, here making his big screen debut) to seek out the film in key urban multiplex sites. In order to broaden the theatrical release of the film, Verve applied successfully for funds from the UK Film Council's P and A Fund.
The film was released on 8th April 2005, opening on 75 prints UK wide, in a combination of established independent cinemas and multiplexes concentrated in greater London and other major urban centres.
The poster design aims to convey the look, subject and tone of the film, supported by key press quotes, while also foregrounding the major presence of Walters.
The ad campaign, too, aimed for diverse audiences, interested in film and music, urban black and white. The campaign included advertising in all of the national daily newspapers that allocate significant space to film reviews, plus two tabloids, newspapers with a black perspective, a selective London Underground campaign and extensive use of radio stations with a concentration on R 'n' B and Garage, the musical forms with which Walters is associated.
Towards the end of its first six months of theatrical release, the film had grossed an impressive £450,000 at the UK box office, most of this achieved in carefully selected urban multiplexes rather than specialised cinemas. It was anticipated that the substantial audiences and awareness generated for the theatrical release would ensure success for the DVD release of the film, six months after the theatrical opening.
Thanks to Verve Pictures for cooperation with this feature.

A check list of essential for your blogs

YOUR BLOG MUST INCLUDE:

Evidence of research into similar media texts and analysis of their forms and Conventions- trailers, posters, film mag covers

A logline for your film idea/concept and or a mind-map exploring narrative/character development

Draft storyboards and plans

A comprehensive set of posts outlining the processes in the development of your film and the decisions and revisions made

Audience responses to  your ideas
Risk assessment

YOUR BLOG SHOULD INCLUDE:

Location shots

Casting Shots
A filmed animatic with camera movement/cuts and sound
Second/third draft storyboards
Music choices discussion and analysis with audio extracts
The first cut of your sequence with analysis
Detailed critique of the developmental process with reflective commentary on the decisions and revisions made.
Exploration of why trailers are so important to the film industry?
Photographs of the shoot - you in action!How you have tried to create a sense of verisimiltude in your trailer

Shooting schedule

Mini-evaluative postings showing reflective thought processes throughout the project - audience feedback

Evidence of audience profiling- target audience and analysis. Vox Pop.

 YOUR BLOG COULD INCLUDE:

Thorough audience research exploring the relationship between opening title sequences and spectator responses to film.

A detailed audience profile drawing upon sociographic and psychographic profiling techniques.

Research Saul Bass, famous graphic designer who did several iconic filmposters.

Evidence into 'Film Production' processes undertaking a case study into a specific studio or film and tracking its production, distribution and marketing strategies. Who would distribute your film?

Structure of trailer - read the article

Read this article to help with the planning of your trailer

Once key moments from a film have been chosen the editors who cut the trailer refer to editing conventions (some might say clichés) that can provoke the intended emotions and begin to tell the story. The following are some examples that can be seen in horror, action and fantasy;

1. Long shots to establish character, setting and the 'dilemma'
2. Fades to black that suggest shifts in time
3. Transitions accompanied by booming SFX, building tension and placing significance on the text on screen – often white on black
4. Short shots and quick cuts of some of the most exciting moments from the film, the ‘events’ that lead to resolution but not necessarily in chronological order
5. Quiet music to establish story, menacing music to highlight villains, build to a crescendo
6. Sudden moments of quiet and silence between and after music and SFX, which have equal impact on mood and pace.

Trailers for a comedy are very different. Editors can play fast and loose with transitions to create a lighter touch. The use of split screens, wipes and sound effects become acceptable as the film is not to be taken seriously.

The voiceover and text on screen will most likely feature the film’s USP, its unique selling point. This will be something that can be communicated on a poster. If lots of the chosen moments of the film feature character dialogue then these phrases may appear on screen to read instead. Here is a selection of commonly used stock phrases;

1. 'This Season'… (creates a sense of anticipation)
2. 'From the people who brought you…' (refers to established audience)
3. 'Based on the unbelievable true story…'
4. 'Based on the bestselling book…'
5. Star Names (actors or director)
6. The Title (often heard and seen to cement in viewers' minds)
7. Official website so audiences can find out more

Besides from these persuasive features however, the language on screen and in the voiceover can also establish the narrative. Words chosen can suggest key themes and summarise the plot in a grand way to suggest the plot is timeless and universal. Some clichéd examples are:

• They will find hope where they least expect it
• One man's destiny…
• She will face her biggest challenge
• It will change their lives forever!
• Experience a new kind of fear

The Ancillary tasks and deadlines

Remember that you also have to produce a poster advertising your film and a Film magazine cover, featuring your film. You need to take your own photos for this. My post in September has the details plus mark scheme for those of you who have forgotten the info.

Trailers must be finished by the end of term if you are to get the amximum marks for time management.

There will be a couple of weeks next term for finishing blogs and the ancillary tasks.

Some of you are behind!!!

Some of your blogs are excellent, including Max H, Charlie, Keefer, Hannah, Max T, Nat and Charlotte. Others do not have enough on going posts!

You should have at least 20 by now- with plenty of posts about decision making and audience responses!

You should aim to have 60 posts in total, all illustrated with examples, sceen grabs and dynamic posts, not just text.

Focus group -planning

Show your film so far to two or three people from your target auience- gain feedback on
genre:
cinematography
narrative
character
mise en scene.

Post their comments on your blog and draw up a checklist of strengths and revisions.

Film Magazine Cover

A glossary of terms to help with your research into magazine covers

Here’s a glossary of magazine and newspaper layout terms – taken from a variety of sources.

There are some terms that practitioners disagree on – ‘masthead’, for example. So there are two contradicting definitions of this, and one or two other terms. Some contain advice and opinions that you may disagree with. Take your pick.

Alley: the space between columns within a page. Not to be confused with the gutter, which is the combination of the inside margins of two facing pages.

Ascender: in typography, the parts of lowercase letters that rise above the x-height of the font, e.g. b, d, f, h, k, I, and t. See descender for headline implications of these

Angle - The approach or focus of a story. This is sometimes known as the peg.

Banner: The title of a periodical, which appears on the cover of the magazine and on the first page of the newsletter. It contains the name of the publication and serial information, date, volume, number. Bleed: when the image is printed to the very edge of the page.

Block quote: A long quotation - four or more lines - within body text, that is set apart in order to clearly distinguish the author’s words from the words that the author is quoting.

Body or body copy: (typesetting) the main text of the work but not including headlines.

Boost:  picture boost (usually front page) pic promoting a feature or story in later pages

Strap boost: as above, but with a strapline, not a picture

Buried lede – when the main point of the story is hidden away deep in the text. It should come first.

Byline - A journalist's name at the beginning of a story.

Callout: An explanatory label for an illustration, often drawn with a leader line pointing to a part of the illustration.

Caption: An identification (title) for an illustration, usually a brief phrase. The caption should also support the other content.

Centre of visual interest (CVI) - The prominent item on a page usually a headline, picture or graphic.

Column - A regular feature often on a specific topic, written by the same person who is known as a columnist.

Column gutter: The space between columns of type.

Copy - Main text of a story.

Cropping: the elimination of parts of a photograph or other original that are not required to be printed. Cropping allows the remaining parts of the image to be enlarged to fill the space.

Cross head: a heading set in the body of the text used to break it into easily readable sections.

Cross head - A few words used to break up large amounts of text, normally taken from the main text. Typically used in interviews.

Cutlines: Explanatory text, usually full sentences, that provides information about illustrations. Cutlines are sometimes called captions or legends.

Deck - Part of the headline which summarises the story. Also known as deck copy or bank.

Deck: a headline is made up of decks, each set in the same style and size of type.

A multi deck heading is one with several headings each different from the next and should not be confused with the number of lines a heading has. A four line heading is not the same as a four deck heading.

Descender: letters that descend below a line  (q,p,g, j) Ascenders and descenders can create unused space in large headlines.... that is one reason why tabloid front page headlines use capitals... there are no ascenders or descenders in caps, so the lines can be crammed more closely together by adjusting the leading and therefore make better use of the space and add to the impact)

Discretionary hyphen: A hyphen that will occur only if the word appears at the end of a line, not if the word appears in the middle of a line.

Double page spread: magazine design layout that spans across two pages. Usually, the design editor will arrange to spread the layout across the centre pages of the magazine, so as to ensure that the design lines up properly.

Drop cap:  a large initial letter at the start of the text that drops into the line or lines of text below.

Drop shadow: Drop shadows are those shadows dropping below text or images which gives the illusion of shadows from lighting and gives a 3D effect to the object.

Editorialise - To write in an opinionated way.

Feature - A longer, more in-depth article.

Facing pages: In a double-sided document, the two pages that appear as a spread when the publication is opened.

Filler: extra material used to complete a column or page, usually of little importance.

Flatplan - A page plan that shows where the articles and adverts are laid out.

Flush left:  copy aligned along the left margin.

Flush right:  copy aligned along the right margin.

Golden ratio: the rule devised to give proportions of height to width when laying out text and illustrations to produce the most optically pleasing result. Traditionally a ratio of 1 to 1.6.

Grid:A layout grid is the non-printing set of guidlines that designers use to align images and text in a document layout.

Grip-and-grin - A photograph of no inherent interest in which a notable and an obscure person shake hands at an occasion of supposed significance.

Headline - The main title of the article. Should be in present or future tense to add to urgency. Must fit the space provided. If it doesn’t, you are using the wrong words.

House style - A publication's guide to style, spelling and use of grammar, designed to help journalists write and present in a consistent way for their target audience.

Justify: (typesetting) the alignment of text along a margin or both margins. This is achieved by adjusting the spacing between the words and characters as necessary so that each line of text finishes at the same point.

Kerning - Adjustment of horizontal space between two written characters.

Kicker - The first sentence or first few words of a story's lead, set in a font size larger than the body text of the story.

Lead or Leading: (typesetting) Space added between lines of type to space out text and provide visual separation of the lines. Measured in points or fractions thereof. Named after the strips of lead that used to be inserted between lines of metal type.

Leader - An article that shows the opinion of a newspaper.

Leader: A line of dots or dashes to lead the eye across the page to separated copy.

Leading - Adjustment of vertical space between two lines.

lede - The phonetic spelling of lead, the beginning, usually the first paragraph, of an article. The importance of getting the main point of the story in the first sentence is regularly stressed to young journalists by editors. Don’t bury the lede. When we were taught to write stories at school we were urged to save the best for the climax. In journalism, get the climax in first, then give the context.

Masthead - Main title section and name at the front of a publication.

Masthead: Magazine term referring to the printed list, usually on the editorial page of a newspaper or magazine, that lists the contributors. Typically this would include the owners, publishers, editors, designers and production team. The masthead is often mistakenly used in reference to the flag or nameplate, which actually refers to the designed logo of the publication.

Negative space (or white space) the  area of page without text, image or other elements

Noise: A noisy image or noisy scan is one where there are random or extra pixels that have degraded the image quality. Noise in a graphics image can be generated at the scanning stage, by artificially enlarging an image by interpolating the pixels, or by over-sharpening a digital photograph. Noise can sometimes also be found in photographs taken by some cheaper digital cameras.

Orphan - First line of a paragraph appearing on the last line of a column of text. Normally avoided.

Overline: introductory headline in smaller text size above the main headline

Pull quote: A brief phrase (not necessarily an actual quotation) from the body text, enlarged and set off from the text with rules, a box, and/or a screen. It is from a part of the text set previously, and is set in the middle of a paragraph, to add emphasis and interest.

A quote or exerpt from an article that is used as display text on the same page to entice the reader, highlight a topic or break up linearity

Pull-out quote - Selected quote from a story highlighted next to the main text. Often used in interviews.

Puff piece - A news story with editorialised, complimentary statements.

Recto - Right-hand page.

Rivers:A river is a typographic term for the ugly white gaps that can occur in justified columns of type, when there is too much space between words on concurrent lines of text. Rivers are especially common in narrow columns of text, where the type size is relatively large. Rivers are best avoided by either setting the type as ragged, increasing the width of the columns, decreasing the point size of the text, or by using a condensed typeface. An often overlooked method of avoiding rivers, is the careful use of hyphenation and justification settings in page layout programs such as QuarkXpress or InDesign.

Running head:A title or heading that runs along the top of a printed publication, usually a magazine.

Sell - Short sentence promoting an article, often pulling out a quote or a interesting sentence.

Serif and Sans serif - Plain font type with or without (sans) lines perpendicular to the ends of characters.

Set flush: text set at the full width of the column with no indentation

Splash – Main front page story.

Standfirst - Lines of text after the headline that gives more information about the article, or about the author.

Standfirst: will usually be written by the sub-editor and is normally around 40-50 words in length. Any longer and it defeats its purpose, any shorter and it becomes difficult to get the necessary information in. Its purpose is to give some background information about the writer of the article, or to give some context to the contents of the article. Usually, it is presented in typesize larger than the story text, but much smaller than the headline.

Strapline - Similar to a subhead or standfirst, but used more as a marketing term.

Subhead - A smaller one-line headline for a story.

Subhead: A secondary phrase usually following a headline. Display line(s) of lesser size and importance than the main headline(s).

Talkie headline: a quote from one of the people in the story used as a headline

Tag line: a short memorable line of cover text that sums up the tone of the publication (Loaded Mag has :For men who should know better)

Tombstoning - In page layout, to put articles side by side so that the headlines are adjacent. The phenomenon is also referred to as bumping heads.

Top heads - Headlines at the top of a column.

Widow - Last line of paragraph appearing on the first line of a column of text.

Widow: In a page layout, short last lines of paragraphs - usually unacceptable when separated from the rest of the paragraph by a column break, and always unacceptable when separated by a page break.

Wob - White text on a black or other coloured background.

Well done on your blogs

Nearly everyone has worked hard on their blog this week to improve their Term 1 data grade.
  If I still don't have your blog address you will get a U, unless I receive it today.
Once you have completed your animatic, write a shooting schedule, shot list , risk assessment and GET filming. Trailers take more editing than openings.

Check list and marking

You need to add class notes to your blog and link them to your ideas. Make sure you have also:

 
1.Analysed at least 3 trailers, screen grabs and annotations to show genre and structure;
2.Vox Pop and some notes on your findings- link to your ideas
3.Bubbl mind map;
4.Pitcth
5.List of shots and story board;
6.Location and casting shots;

7. Notes from theory lessons;

I will make comments on your blogs next week. This will be your term 1 grade !

A2 Media Group

A2 Media Student Blogs

Centre Number  66631

4731  Charlie Russell              
0030  Keefer Bishop          
4530 Eva Averill                  
           Sarah Gorman            

0042  Max Hill                      
4606 Hannah George            
4573  Nat Coombes              
4757 Max Tonkin               
          Jack De Carle
4748 Charlotte Southam
4716 Cally Quigley              
          Ollie Miller               
4556Ross Campbell

Research/planning for this week

1. Go to  https://bubbl.us. Use this to write up your lesson mind maps and add to your blog.

2. Confirm your trailer research by taking  9 screen grabs to show how the trailer reflects genre. Set them out as on the Art  of The Title Sequence website- look at previous post. Use annotation tools to add text to the grabs.

3. Make a post about your movie pitch research.

Please keep up to date on your posts this year.

Tim Clague is an ex St John's Student - writer and flm maker

An A2 Trailer

Welcome Back group!!

Hello from JLD!

Hope you all had a good summer and were pleased with your AS results. Most of you did very well on the coursework but the moderator highlighted some key points- some good , some to help you improve.

1. The storyboards were well executed.
2. Good research and development of ideas.
3.Well constructed and enjoyable openings with good range of shots and continuity editing.
4.Some individuals did not show any of their own work -they relied too heavily on the rest of their group.
5.Music was not very imaginative - be more experiemtnal here.
6. Sound levels were inconsisitent
7. Powerpoints were too crowded with information.

The final comment was that it was a pleasure to moderate your work, so WELL DONE!

You will need to really think about sound in your A2 coursework as the expectations are higher still!

It will be fun making a trailer but you will need to have a lot more material to work with and also be more organised with the blogging! And more inventive with the presentation of your work.

See you all soon

JLD

Coursework Brief. G324. OCR Media Studies

A promotion package for a new film, to include a trailer, together with two of the following three options:

a website homepage for the film;

a film magazine front cover, featuring the film;

a poster for the film.


The criteria for the production element of the courseworkis as follows

Video

Level 1 0–23 marks

The work for the main task is possibly incomplete. There is minimal evidence in the work of the creative use of any relevant technical skills such as:

Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task;

using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;

using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;

using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.


Level 2 24–35 marks

There is evidence of a basic level of ability in the creative use of some of the following technical skills:

Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task;

using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;

using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

shooting material appropriate to the task set;, including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;

using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

Level 3 36–47 marks
There is evidence of proficiency in the creative use of many of the following technical skills:

Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task;

using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;

using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

shooting material appropriate to the task set;, including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;

using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

Level 4 48–60 marks

There is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:

material appropriate for the target audience and task;

using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;

using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

shooting material appropriate to the task set;, including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;

using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.