"De(i)fied" Final Cut

At long last, here is the final cut of mine and Adam's opening to our film.



AF & DY

Preliminary Study

I filmed this preliminary study a while ago but I never got round to publishing it here. We had to exhibit our ability to use a match on action, shot-reverse shot and that we could follow the 180 degree rule.

The challenging part was the fact that I had to film this freehand because I couldn't find a useable tripod at the time, but I think all things considered I managed to do so with minimal shaking or blurriness. Furthermore, having my friends as actors did not help at all. They kept laughing, despite one of them being a drama student. The amount of unusable material we produced as a result is truly surreal. I wish I had time to make blooper videos for all these projects.

DY

Evaluation: Question 1

AF & DY

Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?



DY

Evaluation: Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your film product and why?

To find out what company might be willing to take on our film, Adam researched the types of companies which exist and the types of films they're willing to work with. A distribution company is defined by the fact that, as a marketer, they raise awareness of the film through a range of campaigns. as well as forming deals with other companies (e.g. Sony) in order to aid the DVD, TV and online releases of the feature.

Adam looked at a variety of companies which we could have considered, ranging from small independent British institutions working primarily within the country to companies which distribute films worldwide.

Adam decided a likely group of candidates was the Independent British Companies, which would be more likely to take on a film shot in a quirky style similar to ours, with its stop-motion ident, unnatural colouring and acoustic soundtrack. "Vertigo", especially, seems appealing due to their previous involvement in micro-budget films, including Gareth Edwards' "Monsters". As our film is also a low-budget sci-fi production, the prospects of working with this company are all the more hopeful. Even the institution's limited reach shouldn't be a problem; much like the above film, Adam conjectured that we could then opt for a larger company such as "Magnolia Pictures" to take our feature to other countries instead.

Another viable option for the distribution of "De(i)fied" would be a company such as Film4, as they finance stylised, unique British films. Their past releases have included "Inbetweeners 2", "12 Years a Slave" and "71". Companies such as this are concerned predominantly with financing and international distribution; two things which are very important for small productions like ours. However, Adam found that, despite the fact that the BFI collaborates with many institutes such as this, a company such as Film4 is likely to overlook our product in favour of more easily marketable works, such as multi-genre biopics or comedies. It is likely our film would be too stylistically different to their usual releases for them to actually regard it seriously, and so a company in this vein wouldn't necessarily be an ideal candidate.

To supplement the above, Adam also researched larger studios such as Lionsgate, StudioCanal and Icon, the first of which stood out the most due to their distribution of "The Hunger Games" franchise from which we partially drew inspiration for our own work. However, considering the fact that these are the three biggest distributors in Britain and such companies usually prefer to avoid financing risky productions, our film is, again, likely to be rejected by them. Although we could use the brand name authority and the reach these titans have even outside of the country, the low budget production of the film and its unusual genre combination (indie sci-fi thriller) would likely put it into disfavour with institutions such as this. We would perhaps be more likely to succeed if, before producing the film, I completed the novel which we based its initial premise on and managed to publish it successfully (bringing "De(i)fied" closer to the standard of "The Hunger Games"), but this would take a significant amount of effort and would also postpone the creation of the feature itself indefinitely. Therefore, unless we managed to concretely show that our film was worth the effort in terms of profit, it would seem wiser to stick to companies that would be more likely to take our work on. 

Adam's research makes it clear that the type of company which would be most likely to distribute our film would be a small-scale British indie institution. The eerie atmosphere of our piece, as well as the saturated colours and guitar soundtrack all lend themselves to the type of feature a small production company would ordinarily release. "De(i)fied"'s originality, in this case, would be considered a strongpoint as opposed to a reason to overlook it (conversely to a typical Hollywood blockbuster). Therefore, a company such as "Vertigo" would have to be our first choice.

AF

Evaluation: Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our media product, according to the research we've done both before and after creating our film, is likely to be predominantly female and within our own age range (15 to 21). This mostly lines up with our initial target demographic, which we anticipated due to our two leads being female and the unusual, youth-oriented genre combination of the film. However, we found that our post-viewing audience was mostly male as opposed to female. The fact that indie sci-fi thrillers aren't common in the industry meant we had to be particularly specific about the types of people who may be willing to subject themselves to watch our film.

Of course, the above is also dictated by the certification of our film; 15, meaning we would be able to include any theme, "providing the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds." (Source: BBFC) Rather than limiting our work, however, I believe the above criteria makes the production of the film itself more interesting and challenging. Instead of blindly, callously and often gratuitously revelling in dubious themes like a lot of 18-rated products do, this certification would allows us to explore a greater morally complex and directional take on anything we include. Additionally, a younger age of certification broadens our demographic to 3 years below what it would be had we gone for a higher one, meaning our revenues are likely to be equally higher due to this expansion; a fact that is very important for independent studios like ours. The typical cinema which would take us on - most likely an art house-oriented chain like Picture House - would be another limit on our audience outreach, focussing mostly on people who don't have enough time or money to consistently go to multiplex cinemas. A set-up like this is perfect in terms of reaching students of all ages, especially, as well as anyone else oriented around indie productions such as ours.

The survey we conducted after our screening roughly followed the pattern of the findings from our previous online poll and vox pops. It was constructed of two parts (one on the individual's general film preferences and the other on their opinion of the film). It contained the following questions:

PART 1

1) Please circle your gender.

Male                Female                        Other

2) What are your 3 favourite/most watched film genres?

Action             

Adventure

Comedy          

Crime

Drama

Historical

Horror

Indie   

Romance        

Sci-Fi

Thriller                       

War

Western

3) When was the last time you watched a film? (Please circle most appropriate timeframe.)

A year ago       6 months ago              1 month ago    1 week ago      

                                3 days ago       Yesterday

4) Where was the last time you watched a film?

Cinema            TV        DVD     Legally online              Illegally online            Other

5) What was the film’s name?

_________________________________________________________________

6) Did you enjoy it? Why/Why not?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PART 2

1) Do you have any criticisms of the ident? (e.g. too short, too difficult to read)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2) Could you clearly understand the dialogue throughout the feature?  If not, what was the problem? (e.g. too loud, too quiet)

_________________________________________________________________

3) What was the best/your favourite part of the film?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4) What was the worst/your least favourite part of the film?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5) Do you want to know what happens next? If so, what do you think does happen?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6) Tick/colour in the amount of stars you would give “De(i)fied” overall.

*~That completes the questionnaire. Thank you for watching and participating!~*

We received 11 responses, although not every question contains a full set of answers due to people refusing or forgetting to answer certain questions. The first half of this information was fairly easy to process into graphs, as most of it was quantitative, but the answers to the second half had to be compiled and assessed in separate paragraphs in order to decide our precise demographic and draw out exactly the type of audience who would be likely to not only watch out film, but enjoy it, too.

According to the graphs Adam created, our demographic remained predominantly male (54.5%), and our target age range of 15-21 remained partial to the Action, Horror and Comedy genres. They were all fairly avid consumers of film, with no one watching a film longer ago than around the 1 month mark, and most seeing one within the last 3 days - an encouraging sign, as this means our target audience was well-chosen for our type of product. The significantly less encouraging result was that of the mode of consumption: most people, 36.4%, said they watched their last film illegally, which isn't fantastic news for a low-budget independent film such as ours. However, there's little to be done about this fact; it's simply a factor to take into consideration should we have reached the marketing stage of our film, as we would have to make the campaign appealing enough for people to want to watch our product in the cinema as soon as it came out as opposed to waiting for an illegal torrent to surface. The fact that our audience's enjoyment of our work averaged at 4 out of 5 stars indicates that this shouldn't have been particularly difficult to achieve.

The qualitative results of our survey gave us more of an indication of the tastes of our average viewer, meaning we could appeal to these more successfully both within the remainder of the film itself and within its promotion. The results (in a randomised order) were as follows:

What was the name of the last film you watched? Did you enjoy it? Why/why not?

1) “Super Troopers” – Yes, because it was hilarious.
2) “Home” – Sort of; it was childish but had some good moments.
3) “Incredibles” – Hell yes; this is my favourite animated film. It’s got great characters, a great story and a cool animation style.
4) “Ex Machina” – Yes, it was a very interesting story with a great cast.
5) “21” – Yes, a great, fast-paced, realistic film with a great plot.
6) “Treasure Planet” – Yes; this was my favourite film when I was younger.
7) “Theory of Everything” – Yes. It was very moving; an interesting perspective on a fascinating life.
8) “Theory of Everything” – Yes, as it was poignant and moving (although a little too romanticised).
9) “Fifty Shades of Grey” – No, it had no plot.
10) “Say Anything” – Yes, because I love 80s movies and it has a great premise.
11) “Fight Club” – …It was alright.

Do you have any criticisms of the ident?

1) Too short.
2) Too short.
3) Too short.
4) Too short, but what I managed to see was cool.
5) Too fast and quite blurred.
6) The text could have been brighter or a little clearer.
7) Eh.
8) Clear.
9) Great.
10) It was good.
11) (One person neither knew nor asked what an ident is.)

Could you clearly understand the dialogue throughout the feature? If not, what was the problem?

1) Uneven volumes.
2) Slightly too quiet.
3) Too quiet.
4) Too quiet.
5) Yes.
6) It was good.
7) Very clear.
8) Yep, all good.
9) Yes.
10) Yes, ‘twas great.
11) Yes.

What was the best/your favourite part of the film?

1) The raccoon hat.
2) The businessman colliding with homeless girl.
3) The typeface.
4) The pan scene.
5) Good cinematography and other shots, transitions, etc.
6) The reflection part.
7) The titles were really good. Also, the intense ending that built up against the wall, plus the window reflection shots.
8) The colours.
9) The “Hello, mother!” scene.
10) The repeated movement through the gates and the mother scene.
11) The beginning was really good. I liked the close ups.

What was the worst/your least favourite part of the film?

1) Flawless. Or maybe not very smooth transitions for the music.
2) Actor’s eye contact with camera.
3) Difficult to understand storyline.
4) Storyline too hard to understand.
5) The transition of the title was a bit amateurish.
6) All the standing around.
7) The weird-looking girl in the raccoon hat. (A comment by the actress who played said weird-looking girl.)
8) (Blank)
9) (Blank)
10) (Blank)
11) I have no idea!

Do you want to know what happens next? If so, what do you think does happen?

1) Not really.
2) Yes. I would guess that the following persists, but I’m unsure of what the outcome of this would be.
3) Yes; I hope there is a thrilling CHASE between the two characters or maybe an interaction.
4) No. Bad things.
5) Yes… I think one girl confronts the other :)
6) Yes, they save the world!
7) Not really. But I think the girl in the racoon hat follows the other one, Terminator-style.
8) Yes. One girl murders the other in an attempt to put more action into her life.
9) Yeah. She probably escapes.
10) Yes! I think the girl in the racoon hat wants love and will find it in unexpected places.
11) (Blank)

The above information makes the kinds of people we can expect to watch our film fairly obvious. The answers to the first question indicate a wish for emotional experiences in films. The adoration of animation, especially, exhibits a sentimentality likely owed to the child-to-adult transnational age of our target audience. Similarly, plot was clearly important, as it was mentioned in at least 3 of the 11 responses. This is good for our film, as it contains its fair share of poignant scenes centred around character development, as well as a cohesive, original take on an admittedly fairly cliché overarching plot.

The massive variety of responses we received in terms of what what good about our film is interesting in terms of showing that, as long as we hit the correct demographic, different people are likely to find different things to enjoy about our work, which is an encouraging thought. The humour of the "Hello, mother!" dialogue was appreciated a little more commonly however, correlating with our audience's interest in comedy films.

The fact that many of the answers on what our audience enjoyed the least were left blank is similarly pleasing in terms of showing that our film succeeds in grasping this demographic's attention successfully, furthering our confidence that we picked the correct market for our piece. The fact that 2 of 11 people found the plot confusing would ordinarily be a negative sign, but I personally maintain the confidence that, if we were allowed to shoot more footage, the premise would become one hundred percent clear fairly quickly due to the standard cues and conventions the rest of the film would exhibit to establish it as a sci-fi thriller. 

The overwhelming positive response we received in terms of whether the audience wanted to continue watching our film (7 out of 11) is the deciding piece of evidence which proves that the demographic of an almost even 50:50 gender split within the older teen/young adult range is right for "De(i)fied". The fact that most of our audience members couldn't guess what would happen next is also perfectly in line with the thriller genre we worked in; after all, if the audience is sure about what will happen next at all times, the film has failed as a thriller! (The deleted final scene of our opening can be seen in our second rough cut, showing that despite a wide range of responses on what could occur next, our hints throughout the opening were sufficient to allow 3 of the 11 people to guess the next scene at least roughly, we had secured a decent level of continuity in terms of plot.)

Aside from researching our target audience, we also used this questionnaire to unveil any problem areas our audience found in our work. The criticisms we received of our ident were, sadly, impossible to remedy, as the most common response we got was that it was too short (5 of 11), but we had already gone over the 2 minute time limit by around 3 seconds. The fact that it was also found to be somewhat difficult to read (2 of 11) was also essentially out of our hands, as despite all our practice on Motion, we couldn't find a way to space the letters of the afterglow any further apart without having the text go out of frame. The presence of positive responses (3 of 11), however, assured us that we would just have to write all this off to experience. However, the volume of the dialogue, which 5 of 11 people commented was too low, was something we went back and adjusted slightly, hopefully heightening the quality of our work somewhat.

In conclusion, the above information not only confirms our previous assumptions about the audience of our film, but also makes it clear what we would have to alter or do better in order to cater to a larger audience in future projects. 

DY

Evaluation: Question 5

How did you attract or address your audience?

In order to address and attract our audience, Adam and I included a variety of cues and conventions which our young adult demographic would be able to identify with, combined with some concepts they would rally against, instead. This manifested predominantly in our choices of cast, action, costume, setting and soundtrack.

The characters' clothes in this opening sequence were amongst the most vital components of both their personality and relatability. Whereas Mal, the girl from our planet, wears the casual, average clothes one would expect of a teenager forced to live on the streets (comfortable hiking boots, a warm coat, jeans), Al's costume was designed specifically to be strange in terms of both its unsuitability to the weather and its jarring style and colour. This would hopefully create a ripple in our young adult audience in terms of forcing them to ask themselves who and for what purpose would dress as strangely and uncomfortably as her, therefore hinting at her extraterrestrial origins. The perception of Al as weird and Other is understandably one of the core concepts of our film; the viewers are supposed to relate to the both physically and metaphorically more human Mal, up to the point when Al's characterisation develops enough for her to be accepted by them as well.

In terms of this, our choice of cast was also important; the leads had to be representative of our target audience to allow greater identification, making the contrast of Al's behaviour greater. We also did this in order to go against certain annoying stereotypes forced upon female heroines in many sci-fi and thriller films (such as their status as damsels in distress, or their characterisation as two-dimensional as opposed to humanly flawed, individualistic and generally well-rounded).

The setting and choice of action in the case of our film go hand in hand to an extent in attracting our audience. The bedroom of the girl whose identity Al has stolen, in particular, would have hopefully appealed to our viewers due to the variety of pop culture references present in the posters on the walls (including the Batman and Superman logos). Al's strange speech pattern and behaviour, however, would conversely have hopefully alerted them to the fact that something didn't make sense about someone being so well-acquainted with our world and yet unable to interact successfully with others (in fact, this behaviour may instead be seen as a comment on the mental state of a lot of teenagers).

The fact that a character of our audience's age commits a crime in this sequence is also resonant of the stereotypically perceived need found in most young adults to rebel or transgress authority and rules, hopefully adding a higher degree of excitement to the narrative. Similarly, the fact that the action begins in a large but mostly unidentifiable city hopefully brings it closer to home for certain viewers, allowing them to imagine it's occurring somewhere near them and lending a sense of immediacy to the plot.

The final component of our address of our audience was the acoustic guitar soundtrack we used to help establish our film as part of the indie genre. The lyrics version would have arguably been more apt in communicating such an atmosphere, but I digress. The guitar line, being fairly simple and easy to duplicate, would hopefully inspire an element of fan imitation, as many viewers of indie films are statistically partial to playing guitar themselves. The cultural relevancy of this instrument, therefore, would hopefully bolster our audience's ability to relate to and immerse themselves in the story.

In conclusion, we attracted and addressed the audience of our film via attempting to appeal to the socio-cultural layer our film is targeted at due to its indie sci-fi thriller genre, as well as by making our characters as relatable to our chosen age bracket as possible. All this would hopefully allow our audience to feel almost part of the story in terms of feeling that the events of the film could happen to any average person on earth; even them.

DY