Question 5

Question 5 – How did you attract/address your audience

Our first step for our target audience to generalise our opening sequence which our group had to create an film poster and analyse in what different ways this foreshadows events in our film. In which is present below;

 

The main colours used in this posters are blue and Black. Black is the most eye catching colour, in this poster and it could emphasise dark actions which may foreshadow in the rest of the story through black it could also represent death in which will occur in some part of the opening sequence, in which how Emma will overcome this will be essentially significant in how she deals with the negative reacting to positive. It will also represent to the audience that all the celebrities have a rough patch in their lives in order to complete their quest to be the greatest which motivates the audience and also our character.  Anybody who likes sporty based in films will be drawn to this poster and may feel to find out more about this film as it may be different for the rest in which the idea of dance is underused in creating short films.

The woman is in the front of the frame in the middle in which can show that clearly all the attention is meant to be upon her, and you can see through the way she is dressed, that it has something to do with ballet or some sort of association with the hobby which is what the obsession is based upon. The location where she is represents people are watching her in essentially the spotlight is on the main protagonist in the short film leading to the location to be some sort of stage. The use of the spotlight beaming towards the characters suggests again that she is the main attraction in this poster in the sense that she is the unique selling point which will sell for teenagers or and anybody who likes seeing these things in movies will be interested in this film. The genre of the film is obsession which relates to the young generation which will inspire them to follow through in their dreams which in a sense can yet again relate to anyone, but mainly targeting teenagers going through adolescence.

There are both visual and textual messages used all over this poster, the visually messages given by the slogan is ‘Film that changed dreams '.My poster is trying to attract a young audience of around the age below 20 as we hope they will be attracted to this sort of film, because of the genre the colours and images represent.
There is a lack of symbols on this poster as there was no need to give everything to the audience straight away as a stereotypical film would bore them. Music will definitely feature in the film in which the poster alerts us of this in different colours for effect.  The poster has all the right conventions for it to inform us about it being an 8-20 year olds film.

 The fonts also add an immature perspective to things as the stars are hand drawn to emphasise the films age group in which again will foreshadow what may encounter in this certain age group. We gather certain ideas from this whether she may be in school or not or whether she is just a young adult with disability problems etc, which keeps the audience guessing. Bold headings, such as the title 'Let's dance' we know that the audience are in for a jam packed intense film which would also excite the audience. The title is located at the bottom because it is in a sense a pan shot as you would then have to analyse the to half of the poster to the bottom half , in which this way it would be more memorable as they are seeing this. Also it is at the bottom emphasising the last reminder not to miss out on our film.

As I saw in many films that simple camera tricks or techniques created a mood or want for more. We were advised to watch as many film openings as possible in our to interpret similar ideas in our own opening sequence and adding our own shots to these also and what would these elements have in an Teenage music based drama.

Starting with the camera work from researching the obsession teenage musical drama genre we used the panning shot in the opening part of the film as we panned to the props such as the teddy bear, the pillows etc. We did this by we brought in our own props as we needed our set to represent a girls bedroom in which I think was successful. Also the use of the audience a clear idea of where the place is set which was a girl’s bedroom and what type of person Emma will foreshadow which would leave the audience guessing through the sequence as of what characteristics a person that these props would include. For example a young girl with pink pillows and a teddy bear would come across and quite young and isolated. Even vulnerable to a certain extent as she may not be allowed to express her freedom in which would belittle her age. Also most importantly immature. Moreover adding to a feminine side with the colours would also emphasise what type of person she is. This made sure that her identity was shown to the audience. A slow pan would be used to familiarise the audience in of her age and also enabled the audience to slow down and analyse each photo due to the slow speed.

Another camera shot in which we used a close up shot of her flicking through the pages of the magazine emphasising her quick transformation from being comfortable to suddenly being off-edge reacting to her sister was coming up the stairs .We see this used in all types of movies and TV programmes for effect. We had to edit the flicking through of the magazines as it lacked continuity in the original shot as we then had to replace it with the previous shot of her running into her bed. The use of the magazines could represent again her involvement in wanting to become famous relating to the ‘idols’ in the magazines and her feminism. This then up to this point was very action packed in which it allowed the audience to slow down and significantly knock reality back into their heads in which it may be used as a fantasy given as the mood of the opening sequence changes often. To engage young audiences we used props that they can relate to .Then we used a long shot of her looking to her sister and giving a fake smile by showing these aspects will represent how the girl is trying to keep her secrets thoroughly. This then was a very good shot as it looked normal and didn’t give very much away as to a certain extent nothing had changed adding to the reality secret in which the rest of the family do not know about. As evidently the audience know this by the different types of shots that we use to portray these methods.  .

We wanted the audience to feel as if that what they were watching in a reflected a realistic stetting, so it was important for to make our setting look as if we were actually filming in a bedroom in which was Emma’s place to practice which would show suspicion. We had a plain and empty set , which are visible are on our location Reece and we brought our own props in such as posters to the set. This came up well on screen and added realism to the scene. If the audience feels as if they are watching a real life story they may develop more emotional links to characters.

We used a cutterway shot as it is most commonly used in dramatic cases are to adjust the pace of the main action, to conceal the deletion of some unwanted part of the main shot, or to allow the joining of parts of two versions of that shot in which were relevant to our opening sequence of the character picking up the wig from an very awkward camera angle. We used this to show the audience in this case the wig was significant as it allowed the character to pretend to be someone that she is not, preferable to her reality as being her is painful. We decided to take it from a different camera angle to make the shot look more interesting and engaging for the audience to watch instead of the old boring normal cutterway. Also from this angle we could see that the wig was superior towards the other props on the table. and to some extent highlighting to the audience the wig may be an important object in the characters progression in practising.

Throughout the opening sequence the dialogue was kept to zero because we felt that we could show the message behind the story better visually in comparison to verbally. Therefore we used sound effects and music. The sound effects we used a fast paced music mainly opera which were played as soon as her sister comes up the tempo of music increases. This was vital in presenting the audience the idea that the tempo changing will foreshadow an event afterwards. Also it creates a disturbing atmosphere up until this point leaving the audience puzzled as of whom, why, how, and when the music changed and will the character get found out or not as she will need to quickly hurry back to her normal positions in order for her sister not to suspect anything .We used a high tone with the violins (Beethoven) to also add suspense to the music being changed and the tempo increased. As this was present in a film in which we used as inspiration was The Streetcar Named Desire in which music was added for expressionism and symbolism for the characters Blanche and also as the play progressed the music symbolised significant events. Our feedback from another person in the class indentified that we successfully mastered this by the music we had chosen from of was a copyright free source.

Our research on the prior knowledge in which we would expect our audience to have on our genre proved essential in order to build our opening sequence around this. We had chosen this genre due to watching previous year groups opening sequences and seeing that this genre was the most unknown genre as this genre hasn’t made enough short films. Also it can be shown towards the audience easily particularly having an ambition/dreams etc which is what we wanted, in which our group felt that we could adapt to those kinds of situations as they are all around us. Focusing on this particular genre, we had to have in mind the typical conventions of the genre that we had to include in our film depending on the cultural context of the film, but they can include proms, alcohol, illegal substances, high school, parties and all-night raves, relationships, social groups and American pop-culture .The classic codes and conventions of teen film come from American films and social groups. The wide range stereotypes most commonly used include film such as

·         High school musical

·         Misfits
 

·         Step up

In which these all have an element of the conventions above in which is what the audience expect from the genre. These significantly will be used in our film as many teenagers read magazines which are what the character does in the shot where she is flicking through them in which she wants to be famous just like them. We also get a further insight of common music very lively and bubbly in which we would also expect the audience of a teenage film based. So we continued searching and our ideas developed and grew to reach the expectations. Our group then decided and started looking on films based around the obsession and what was most common to our primary audience of girls. We came to a conclusion that ballet would be quick, easy and a simple way to present our message across. We researched character such as Billy Elliot and the different types of things he had to go through in order to become who he is now and also Mise en scene in his films and used some elements of this in our film. Having a build up and keeping the audience in suspense throughout the film was a priority for us as it was the easiest way to show this in our characters reality.

 

Overall, our film has successfully addressed and attracted our target audience using the different conventions in which the audience know what to expect of our genre based film through camera, sound, editing and Mise en scene.