Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Turning Pages is a film of the coming-of-age genre. I have chosen to explore how our film opening follows and challenges genre, narrative and form and style conventions.

GENRE
Our film focuses around the journey taken by Lila and her two friends, following the death of her brother. The genre for our film is therefore coming-of-age. Here are some conventions of the genre:

• quirky teenage characters who don't really fit in
• triggered by a significant change, the character goes on a journey (mental and/or physical) and learns about themselves on the way
• themes of education, youth, culture and adventure
• typical mise-en-scene; bikes, backpacks, schools - all of which help to heighten the key themes of the genre

George from 'The Art of Getting By', sitting in a school canteen,
reading a book, and Lila from 'Turning Pages' with a
notebook and backpack (typical coming-of-age mise-en-scene)

Patrick, Sam and Charlie from Perks of Being a
Wallflower compared to our quirky characters,
Noah, Lila and Jess

Lily and Ali from 'Little Birds' go in search of Lily's father (left) and Lila and her two friends set out to complete everything on Lila's brother's bucket list following his death in our film 'Turning Pages' (right)

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

Todorov's Narrative Theory

The conventional structure for films follows Todorov's narrative theory (pictured on the left). The journey taken by the protagonist in most coming-of-age films is often triggered by a change or disruption, which in our case is the death of Lila's brother. Our structure is therefore:

- Attempts to resolve

- Restored order

- New equilibrium

The disruption in our film actually happens before the film starts, but there would be flashbacks to it throughout the film. There would also be a few smaller disruptions throughout the film, such as one of the three not being able to complete something on the bucket list that Lila's brother bequeaths her. This is similar to the narrative structure of 'Now is Good', where a girl finds out she has cancer before the film has begun, but her condition deteriorates throughout the film. 

Our opening sequence will also create enigma, setting up questions like:

• Who is the boy in the photo?
• Why does Lila have a bucket list?
• What is the relationship between Lila and Noah?

We also set up the following binary opposites, adding a little drama to the sequence:

• Female vs male
• Boring everyday life vs adventure
• Young vs old

We also followed Propp's character theory during the pre-production and production stage:

• The Hero = Lila
• The Villain = her parents (although they're not actually evil, they try to stop Lila going on her journey)
• The Donor = Lila's dead brother who left her the bucket list
• The Helper = Lila's two friends, Jess and Noah
• The Princess/Prize = completing the list, and gaining independence (and possibly Noah)

FORM and STYLE

We wanted our film to have an indie style, and so we analysed a variety of indie opening sequences and coming-of-age opening sequences, like 'The Art of Getting By', 'Little Birds', 'Submarine' and 'Brick', and found that they often include...

CU of Lily in 'Little Birds'                                                    CU of Lila in 'Turning Pages'

• Lots of different shot types (CUs of significant props and characters, which help to heighten the genre, LSs to establish the typical coming-of-age setting, etc.)
• Silence and/or a mellow soundtrack - helps to create a hopeful mood, an idea of new beginnings, whilst still not drawing attention away from the visuals
• Diagetic sound effects - birds, wind, distant city sounds
• Natural exterior lighting (gives an opening sequence a real indie feel)
• Few titles in an indie-style font

A LS establishing city setting in 'The Art of Getting By', and a VLS establishing the London skyline in 'Turning Pages'

This is a video we took from the top of Primrose Hill when we were location scouting, and the thoughtful mood conveyed in this video (created by the natural lighting, the mise-en-scene and the mellow soundtrack) is what we wanted to convey in our opening sequence as a whole.

Music:
From our research, we found that coming-of-age opening sequences feature a backing track with lyrics about new beginnings. We also found that Indie opening sequences include mellow-sounding music to connote that the protagonists are thoughtful. After looking through freeplaymusic.com, we couldn't really find anything that worked with our opening. We therefore decided to use one of my original songs, 'Train to Anywhere', which is about escaping a girl's everyday, mundane life - this was a similar message to the one we wanted to portray in our opening as a whole.

Titles:
From our research, we found that British film openings do not include many titles. We also got a feel for the style of titles in Indie films after watching a variety of Indie film openings - typically, the fonts for Indie titles are very simplistic, so as not to distract from the visuals and the usually slightly confusing narrative.

This collage features screen shots of titles from 'Little Birds', 'Brick', and 'Submarine', all of which are Indie films targeted at the 16-24 year old, arty market (our core audience).

Here are some screen shots of the titles in our film, and when comparing them with the screen shots in the previous collage, you can see how we tried to use a simplistic, but playful and quirky font which doesn't distract from the visuals, like the films we were inspired by.

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our opening sequence, we focused on the representation of gender, age and race, and we used stereotypical representations, but also challenged some conventions. Whilst challenging conventions, we had to keep in mind that audiences like familiarity, and so we tried not to subvert too many stereotypes as that would alienate our audience. We also avoided tokenism.

GENDER

Stills showing the possible romance between Charlie and Sam in 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' and Lila and
Noah in our film

Stills showing Sally's thoughtfulness in 'The Art of Getting By' compared to Lila blogging in our film (highlighting her thoughtfulness), and also Lily's quirky dress sense in 'Little Birds'

AGE

As our film is a coming-of-age drama, we obviously had to focus on the representation of age. Young people in society are branded as ignorant, antisocial, rude "youths", and so many dramas follow this stereotype. For example, many of the characters in 'This is England' are represented in this negative way.

• In our film opening, our three protagonists are thoughtful and lovable, challenging this convention.

This GIF shows our three protagonists (Lila, Jess and Noah) jumping at the top of the hill, which is quite a playful, loveable action

Jess wearing a funky khaki
coat in 'Turning Pages'

RACE

People of Oriental ethnicity are usually represented as quite geeky or quiet and obsessed with studying in coming-of-age films, for example, Lilly in 'Pitch Perfect' and the "Asian Nerds" in 'Mean Girls'.

• Jess is represented as quite cool and quirky, subverting the stereotype. This is evident by her fashion sense but also her sarcasm in our opening sequence.

We have represented our three protagonists, Lila, Jess and Noah, quite positively as we thought that teenagers like to relate to the main characters in a coming-of-age drama and see themselves in them, rather than disliking certain characters and creating their own conflicts with them. In our film as a whole, the slightly more minor characters may be represented more negatively - for example, we thought that Lila's parents would be quite uptight and strict, not wanting her to go on her journey, creating more tension.

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our film is an independent, low-budget, British film, meaning not many institutions would be behind it.

PRODUCTION COMPANY
We created the production company 'Fruit Bowl Films'.

• an independent, British production company
• specialise in the production of low budget, indie films
• aim to produce high quality, British films
• usually produce films aimed at the teen market (coming-of-age and other dramas) 

We based our production company on some pre-established production companies - for example, Blueprint Pictures, which specialises in the production of low-budget, British films, like 'Now is Good' and 'Becoming Jane' (which are also targeted at a similar audience to our film). Blueprint Pictures is therefore institutionally similar to our Fruit Bowl Films.

DISTRIBUTOR

After doing some research into distributors, we made a mind-map of potential distributors for our film, which included Revolver, Entertainment Film Distributors, Momentum, Focus Features and Fox Searchlight.

Distributor	Reasons	Logo
Revolver	- Experts in youth entertainment - awarded with 18 of the industry's top awards for marketing excellence
Entertainment Film Distributors	- Distribute in UK and Ireland - Films distributed: Silver Linings Playbook, 17 Again, Hairspray
Momentum	- Critically acclaimed - Films distributed: Amelie, The King’s Speech, Milk
Fox Searchlight	- Specialises in Independent and British Films - Films distributed: Juno, 500 Days of Summer, Secret Life of Bees
Focus Features	-Art house division of NBCUniversal -Films distributed: Pride and Prejudice, Moonshine Kingdom

In the end, we decided to use Entertainment Film Distributors as they specialise in the distribution of coming-of-age films, but also films which appeal to the same target audience (16-24 year old females) such as 'The Host' and 'Beautiful Creatures'.

PLATFORMS
I think our film could be shown on a variety of platforms:

CINEMA:

I think our film would initially be exhibited only in the UK in art houses and independent cinemas because our film is a British Indie film, and our core audience would often visit these types of cinemas.

Hopefully, if our film is well received, I think it could eventually be shown at the big chain cinemas, such as Vue, Cineworld and Odeon, and perhaps even emerge in some art houses in the US.

This is similar to the way in which 'Juno' was exhibited.

TV:

I think our film would first be exhibited on Film 4 or Sky Movies in the home entertainment stage, but not necessarily at prime time because it is an independent, British film and not a Hollywood blockbuster.



After parhaps a few months I think it could be shown on E4, or perhaps even Channel 4, slowly entering the terrestrial channels that everyone has availability to.



Because it is an Indie film, it may also be shown on BBC Three, but perhaps not BBC One or Two because although it is British, it isn't very glossy or high budget.

ONLINE:

Our core and first secondary audience (16 to 24 year olds) have a prominent internet presence, and so I think our film would be exhibited on a variety of online movie streaming websites, for example, Netflix and Love Film. Unfortunately, I think piracy will be a big issue with our film as the teen audience often try and find the cheapest way of doing things - and so our film may be streamed on illegal sites such as 1Channel and SolarMovie. This would have a negative impact on the institutions behind our film.

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Coming-of-age dramas typically appeal to the teen market as the storylines focus on the journey of a young person, and so they can usually relate to them. The following groups of people would be the audiences for our film 'Turning Pages'.

CORE AUDIENCE profile:

• Gender: females
• Age: 16-24
• Class and education: middle class, students
• Interests: photography, literature, culture, etc.

SECONDARY AUDIENCE profiles:

Our film has two secondary audiences.
Our first secondary audience:

• Gender: males
• Age: 16-24
• Class and education: middle class, students
• Interests: photography, literature, culture, girls, etc.

Our second secondary audience:

• Gender: males and females
• Age: 30+
• Class and education: middle class, well educated
• Interests: photography, literature, culture
• 'Turning Pages' would also appeal to them as they would see how the family handles the death of the brother, and they may be able to relate to Lila's parents.

In our research, we found that the 16-24 audience makes up just under half of all film audiences, and almost half of the 16-24 age group go to the cinema at least once a month. Our core audience's interests make the market a little more niche, however I do think our characters and themes allow our two secondary audiences to enjoy the film, and so it'd have a broader market.

We also learnt that independent films are becoming increasingly popular among wider audiences, and that they are seen as the "new big thing". An article in MediaMagazine commented on how this was the case for the independent, coming-of-age film, 'Juno'. Although we are targeting the national audience, American audiences may become aware of our film over time and may wish to watch it.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

HOW WE ATTRACTED OUR AUDIENCE

The coming-of-age genre is very popular with our core and secondary audiences, because films of the genre include themes and characters that the audience can relate to. Here are the posters of some films of the coming-of-age genre:

All of these films contain quirky characters and include themes of education, relationships, independence, etc. In adapting the mise-en-scene, adding a mellow soundtrack, and including a conversation between the friends in our opening sequence, we hope that these themes do come across, and that the audience can relate to our themes and characters.

Some of our characters' traits are not stereotypical, but in some ways we had to make them follow conventions because subverting too many stereotypes could alienate the audience because they would be watching characters that they are not familiar with.

When developing our film concept during the pre-production stage, we always had to keep the audience in mind. We included characters who are very aspirational, and themes which the audience could easily relate to, but we also managed to attract our audience through our knowledge of the audience 'uses and gratifications' theory:

MARKETING CAMPAIGN

The ‘turning pages’ marketing stuff from Emily__Lawson

One of Juno's marketing ploys was the use of merchandise, specifically the 'Hamburger Phone'. This sold well because it was funny and quirky, and the 16-24 year old audience are definitely up for a laugh. Although our film isn't a comedy, I think we could use some merchandise to help promote the film, for example, selling blank copies of the notebook that Lila is looking through at the start. This would appeal to the creative, thoughtful audience as they could fill it in themselves with their thoughts.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
We held an audience feedback session, where we created a questionnaire for our audience to answer after watching our film opening - this was to see whether we actually managed to attract our core and secondary audience.

CORE AUDIENCE:



Overall, the answers to the questionnaires prove that our core audience (16 to 24 year old, creative girls) liked the appearance of our film opening, and would watch the whole film. They liked the setting, and themes, but found the narrative a little confusing, as in some parts they couldn't quite hear the names of the characters properly, and they didn't immediately understand the relevance of the photo of Lila and her brother.

                                               

SECONDARY AUDIENCE:




The answers to this questionnaire, done by someone in our first, secondary audience (16 to 24 year old males) shows that again this audience like the look and style of our film, and would watch the whole film, but that they are also a little confused about the narrative.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here is our director's commentary, where we talk about what we like about our film opening, but also talk about what we would have done in hindsight. The main thing we talk about is continuity errors, which occurred due to us going on multiple shoots, and using footage from each shoot.



To summarise, we discuss:

• How one of the titles is a little illegible
• How it was difficult to grade the sunrise shots due to us using footage from different shoots
• Some minor continuity errors
• How in hindsight we would have tried to make more of a link between the bucket list and the photo
• The issue with the loud wind noise 

Before we went out on the shoot, we created an Animatic on Adobe Premier Pro using photographs and a voice-over to try and create almost a rough cut of our idea, but without actual footage.

Combining the photos with the V/O, we discovered how long the duration of each shot had to be. We also realised that we had to make some adjustments to the script. Our animatic would have been a little more helpful if we had the actual props we were planning on using on the shoot with us in the photographs, as the Beatles phone case and absence of the backpack was sometimes a little confusing.

Because I played the main character in our film opening, I was obviously not able to film the shots that I was in. This meant that I was given the opportunity to film some of the sunrise shots at the start of our sequence, using a DV 30 video camera and a tripod. I did some panning and some tilt ups, but we didn't want the opening to include too much shot movement because it would have looked a little odd. I also found that trying to get a smooth pan, especially a pan up, was quite difficult at times. We also attempted to do some zoom in and out shots, but they didn't look very professional. Instead, our shots have movement within them (for example, planes flying). This is similar to the sunrise shots in the 'Submarine' opening sequence, one of the films we were inspired by. The equipment was fairly easy to use, and the quality of the sunrise shots was good due to the thankfully good natural lighting, especially on our test shoot. 

This GIF shows the opening, sunrise section of our finished sequence

We edited our sequence on Adobe Premier Pro. We have used this software in past projects (our GCSE children's TV show trailer, and our AS preliminary task), and so we found it rather easy to use. What we did find a little difficult was the grading process, which we had to do after getting a final cut, to ensure that all the shots looked the same (in terms of lighting, contrast, colours, quality, etc). The fact that we used some shots from our test shoot, some from our real shoot and some from our re-shoot meant that the lighting was a bit different each time, due to the varying sunrises.

(Left) My group member Sharlene and I editing the vlogging section.
(Right) A collection of screen shots illustrating the grading process.

As we wanted to use one of my original songs as the soundtrack for our opening sequence, we had to record it using a microphone and Adobe Audition on the Mac in a quiet place. After getting a few takes, we had to transfer the sound clips from the Mac to our edit suite, where we edited a couple of the takes together to get the perfect soundtrack. Editing the takes together was quite difficult as we recorded the vocals and the guitar in the same recording, meaning we had to match both of these elements up with each other when cutting them together. We did have a previous recording of the song, but the quality was very bad - and so, without the microphone, the poor quality sound would have distracted the audience from the visuals rather than complimenting them

and would have also made our opening seem very unprofessional.

We created our titles on LiveType, and searched the website 'Dafont' to find the perfect, indie font, with a playful, coming-of-age feel about it.  I am very happy with the font as it really adds to the opening sequence, however I did find LiveType a little tricky to use because I haven't had the opportunity to use it much in past projects. 

In our opening sequence, Lila is vlogging her experience of watching the sunrise. We therefore needed to create two 'REC' titles (one with the red dot, and one without, so that it could flash on and off - which is more realistic). I made the 'REC' titles on Adobe Premier Pro on our edit suite. At the end of 'Easy A', Olive is vlogging, but a 'REC' title is not used - we thought, however, that without the title, it wouldn't be very clear that Lila was vlogging, which is a key part of the narrative.


In order to stay in contact, our group created a Facebook group where we could post our ideas, images and videos, and comment on them. This aided us in the development of our project as it meant that we could still share ideas and have online group meetings without actually being with each other, face to face. The presence of new media therefore made our lives a lot easier.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Here is the final cut of our preliminary task; a clip from the thriller, 'Faceless'.



Although our preliminary task was to create a clip from a film and not an opening sequence, and the genre was thriller and not coming-of-age, the same processes applied to both our prelim task and our final AS film opening.

PRE-PRODUCTION 
Location reccies was a big part of the pre-production stage because the location sets the scene for the film, which in turn helps to connote mood and atmosphere, and also helps to tell the audience a little about the narrative:

1. For our prelim, we were restricted to using a location in school, and so we just had to pick somewhere that was quite quiet, and with gloomy lighting.
2. We had to put a lot more effort into finding a location for our film opening as we wanted the setting to convey the idea of new beginnings - after going on a location reccie, we chose to film our opening at the top of Primrose Hill at sunrise. 

The storyboarding process was similar for both out prelim and film opening task - the only difference was that our prelim was around 1 minute shorter than our film opening, and so we needed less shots.

• During the process, we had to make sure we drew a variety of shot types, but also didn't break the shot distance rule.
• When doing our prelim, we used different coloured post-it notes for different shot distances - as it was successful, we also used this technique for our film opening.

PRODUCTION

• When doing our prelim, we spent a lot of time working out set-ups and shot logs for the sequence. 
• We also did this for our opening sequence, but we also had to make a shoot schedule for ourselves and our actors coming with us on the shoot. 
• After our test shoot, we realised that we had a large range of shots, but we didn't have enough masters. Therefore, on our real shoot and re-shoot Anna and Sharlene filmed several takes of a master from the front and one from the back.

POST-PRODUCTION

The Grading Process

• In doing our prelim, we learnt how to do continuity editing and shot reverse shot, and to not break the 180 degree rule. The 180 degree rule wasn't so much of a problem at the start of our sequence as we only had one character, but during the conversation section, we had to pay a lot of attention to it, and we also did a few shot reverse shots.
• We included matches on action in both, but I think our matches on action were smoother in our film opening, due to the fact that we were able to practice them in our prelim. 
• One thing we didn't do with our prelim task was grading - this meant that grading our film opening was a little difficult as we had less practice. 

WORKING AS A TEAM

Fortunately, for both my preliminary and film opening tasks, I was in a group of 3. Our preliminary group worked really well together, despite not having huge amounts of time to plan and complete our prelim task. We had really good group dynamics in our film opening group, for example, if one of us didn't like something, we'd tell our group members, and we'd try to work out a way to alter the idea or compromise so that we all agreed with it. Because there were only 3 of us, it was also quite easy to share the jobs between us; sometimes we had to do the slightly less exciting, time consuming jobs, whereas other times we were given the opportunity to do the better tasks. We created a Facebook group so that we could stay in contact easily, and post ideas that the others could comment on - it was through this Facebook group that we first started developing our narrative. 

 Here is the final cut of our film opening:

Hopefully from watching our final cuts you can see the progression in our filming, editing and organisational skills from our preliminary task to our AS film opening task.