MAIN Post 12.2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our film we had to make sure we showed the characters profile well making sure we represented each characters social status. Our main character is Sophie, a young 15 year old teenage girl as you can see from the photograph to the left. I believe our character represents a female teenage social group well as she is a typical teenager at a public school, who has pressures from various aspects in her life. Having to deal with a mother that never has the time for her, the stress of GCSE'S and typical social pressures it seems that Sophie is any regular teenager, if not slightly lonelier then others. Her costume as seen in the photograph consists of a blazer, tie, school shirt, black tights and a black skirt. Sophie's appearance signifies to the audience that she is in school and with her dress being somewhat 'scruffy' it links to her background story of not caring about her appearance, instead choosing to be focused on school work. The audience also see Paige who wears the same school uniform however her's is 'smarter' and more formal, which puts her in the same social group as Sophie but also shows a contrast between the two girls. I believe our media product here represents her in her social group well because of the specific costumes we picked for Sophie to wear.

The other main character in 'Behind Blue Eyes' is Alan, Paige's father and Sophie's abuser. Alan is expected to fit into a social group of someone who know's how to dress well, but someone who has a dark secret. Wearing a smart dress shirt and plain black trousers with black shoes Alan's character is put in the social group of an 'average joe', meaning he doesn't want to be recognisable in a crowd, showing he has some sort of sordid secret. Alan is a middle aged business man/maths tutor so is expected to dress formally however he is rather conservative choosing to keep himself off the radar. 

Here are two images of characters (the victim and the abuser) in both film and television that represent the social groups our characters belong to. We researched into characters that went through similar story lines and found that television brought up the subject of sexual abuse and grooming a lot more in comparison to film, perhaps because it would not be an obvious hit in the box office.

MAIN Post 12.1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The genre of our film is Drama which is a very broad term so we decided to focus more on the social realism when it came to our film giving us the opportunity to be creative with the narrative content. As a group we decided to be conventional with our film so the audience would be able to tell what our genre was however due to certain twists in the protagonist’s journey in our film overall we weren’t as conventional as we could have been.

The genre Drama is described as putting ‘the characters at conflict with themselves’ which we kept conventional with our main character Sophie who is unhappy with her grades and is becoming stressed with her GCSE’s. She is at conflict with herself because she wants to do well to improve her life. Later on in the film Sophie will be at a bigger conflict with herself trying to decide if the relationship with her best friends father is right or wrong and as a result of her relationship with him her friend Paige, Alan’s daughter will become jealous that ‘Sophie’ is receiving the attention that she used to get. Another way we kept to the conventions of a Drama was making our storyline realistic which we managed to do through our research into the steps of sexual grooming producing the guideline for our plot.

The music we use was called ‘December Rising’ which due to the lyrics – for example ‘I was your best friend when we were all alone’ fits in with the storyline and the message we want the audience to understand. There is a large intake of breath at the beginning of the song also which helped set the theme. The instruments such as the piano were played slowly, created an eerie feeling at the beginning of our opening sequence. Setting the atmosphere of the film was conventional of a Drama to engage the audience with the theme. The emotive feeling of the film anchored by the pace of the panning and static shots of the title designs - which fell more into the category of graphical then live action, meant that we fulfilled our genre of drama due to its emotional themes.

The introduction of our characters was somewhat unconventional when it came to narrative enigma due to our group’s choice of including a voiceover so that the audience knew that the film was from ‘Alan’s’ point of view and not ‘Sophie’s’. Our audience all realised that it was from ‘Alan’s’ point of view but they could also guess what was going to happen later on in our film suggesting some sort of rape or sexual abuse, this is unconventional of a Drama because the genre usually keeps the storyline a mystery only suggesting what will happen.
On the other hand the fact that we created an enigma of ‘Alan’ and showed that the two girls where obviously at risk was conventional because in drama’s you are aware of who is the protagonist is and we made it very clear in our film. We were also unconventional with the introducing of the girls however because both girls got the same amount of screen time, not giving a clear indication of who was who except from the close ups being of ‘Sophie’s’ body not ‘Paige’s’.

The structure of sequence was conventional keeping our film in chronological order and sticking to our plotline and research into the stages of grooming. The opening titles kept the suspense with the slow pace and the voiceover helped with keeping the eerie atmosphere which was conventional of a Drama to do. The title ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ was unconventional because it appeared half way through the titles when usually the title would have been after or before, we as a group decided putting the title at the end of the title design would introduce scene one which was shot in the class room better then putting the title at the very beginning before the titles or at the very end of our two minute opening sequence.

The style and colour of font in our opening titles was conventional as the colour white was bold enough to stand out against the black backgrounds and fade outs however we kept the style, font size and colour plain and consistent so that we didn’t move the audience’s attention from what was going on in the background. The style of the presentation was rather simple however when it came to finding where to put the titles it was sometimes difficult because the titles where in white and would only show up against a black background. We had to play around a bit to find out where was appropriate to put the titles and from our research what order the titles should go in.

When it came to our mise-en-scene we had to think about our location because there were two English school girls so that meant we had to keep with the British stereotype and have the two characters in school uniform however changing ‘Sophie’s’ to fit in with the voiceover making her ‘Her skirt was short, her tie loose’. For ‘Alan’ we had to make sure he was dressed smart to show his age because we used a young actor we had to make him appear more mature. Our location was Kings Langley Secondary School which meant that some of the props were already on location such as; the corridor containing lockers and the maths classroom where GCSE maths books were kept, we tried to keep the locations conventional making the film seem as realistic as possible including using a car that we drove instead of using a green screen in the background. We did use a variety of props especially in our title design; we borrowed maths equipment to emphasise the school theme in our opening credits which was conventional as it set the location of the film for the audience. They were aware that one of the main characters would be involved in something to do with school which was anchored by the panning shot across the maths exercise book which stopped slightly on the name ‘Sophie Freeman’ which introduced the character before the audience saw her.

The sound in the film was diegetic for the dialogue between ‘Paige’ and ‘Sophie’ which is conventional because the audience expect to see and hear the dialogue between the two characters. ‘Alan’s’ voiceover however was unconventional because the audience didn’t expect the voiceover to come from ‘Alan’ but from ‘Sophie’ this use of non-diegetic sound explains the point of view from which the plot is being told. Diegetic sound was also used for the car scene for the car’s engine and also in the corridor scene with the locker slamming which was conventional because it made the film seem more realistic and the audience expected it.

In our film when it came to editing and special effects we used a variety of special effects to set the pace for our film to correlate with the genre of drama as we used fade ins and outs which was conventional because we tried to keep the eerie atmosphere of the film. For the very beginning of the title design we controlled the speed of the clips to keep in time with the music fading in and out on the timed beats of the music to make the audience wonder what was going to happen. Our group when filming took numerous shots in various camera angles during each scene for when it came to using the editing suite we could view each clip and see what we would use and what we hated, we had to be careful when putting certain vital scenes in encase there was a continuity error or disruptions with the camera during filming. This is conventional to shoot more then one angle during each scene and to go through many takes because directors are sometimes unsure with what camera angle would look better during certain points in the film.

We used a variety of camera shots to show the emotions of the characters and to increase the atmosphere, the close up shots of the opening titles of the maths equipment with the backing music created the feeling of curiosity for the audience. The first shot of the two girls we see is a high angle shot in the classroom instantly showing them to be vulnerable even in the safe environment of school, their vulnerability suggest that they are having problems at school which links to the diegetic dialogue of the girls with ‘Sophie’ having a hard time in maths. In the classroom we had to make sure not to break the 180 degree rule as we tried to keep the conventions of a drama when it came to the camera shots. In the car we used point of view shots of the girls to link with the voiceover which was conventional as drama’s use point of view shots to get the audience to see through the characters eyes. We used extreme close up’s in the car mirror of ‘Alan’s’ eyes and mouth to create an eerie feeling, by not showing the audience his face they don’t know what his full profile looks like and is a mystery to them making him appear dangerous, this is conventional in a drama as camera shots are thought out to get a reaction from the audience.

MAIN Post 12a:Evaluation - Audience Feedback

After finishing our opening of a short film, we then had to find out about our target audience's opinions. We selected various mixed groups of people from our target audience to watch our film and after we recorded the feedback from each group. I tried to embed the video's however I once again had the same problem with the links as I did whilst uploading my film in a previous post. Below are the links to the feedback from each group.

Behind Blue Eyes Rough Feedback

Behind Blue Eyes feedback 1

Behind Blue Eyes feedback 2

Behind Blue Eyes feedback 3

Behind Blue Eyes feedback 4

Behind Blue Eyes feedback 5

Behind Blue Eyes feedback 6

Behind Blue Eyes feedback 7

Watching this feedback back I was able to summaries what we did well and what we could have improved on. By asking our target audience and also a slightly higher demographic I was able to collect a variety of opinions, however I was surprised that they all enjoyed the same things with only a few flaws picked out.

At the very beginning of our opening sequence there is a graphical title sequence that used a range of panning shots over a variety of maths equipment, this was apparently captivating for the audience and helped to create an atmosphere helping set the mood as well as sparking their curiosity. They also picked up on the importance of the maths text book stopping over Sophie's name realising she would be the main character in the film which they found helpful as it gave an introduction to Sophie. It also was commented on that with the maths props could signify the possible plot involving teenage pressures that the character Sophie would go through.

Another point that was picked up on in the graphical titles was the backing music. They felt the music helped them become intrigued and set the mood calling it 'dark and misleading' for it's slow tempo. The mood was also created by the pace of the music which went well with the fade in's and out's that were happening on the screen. The mood seemed to be constantly talked about meaning kept with the typical convention of a drama. Another audience feedback film goes on to call the mood of the film spooky and was very impressed with our attention to detail. 

One of the points that again the majority of our audience agreed on was the scene of Paige and Sophie getting into Alan's car. They believed the close up shots of Sophie's body went well with the voice over and the extreme close up shots of Alan's eyes as he glanced at her through the window. It made the female audience somewhat uncomfortable as they put themselves in Sophie's shoes commenting on how they have worn their ties lose and skirts short also. 

Finally we asked our target audience where they believed the film's plot line would lead to. There was a range of comments but with the help of the voice over the audience all came to the same conclusion of the two girls being in danger from Alan. However it could be argued that the female audience were slightly more intuitive about what was about to happen next as they guessed that the film would include a 'rapist', 'sexual violence' or 'grooming' in comparison to the male audience who were not sure what would happen only knowing that it involved Sophie's maths tutor concerning a 'misunderstanding'. I believe overall we got a large amount of positive feedback showing our film to be a success with our chosen target audience.

MAIN Post 11: Final Opening Sequence

Due to problems with uploading our groups film I put the link below of our film on youtube. As youtube has the screen of 4:3 (the usual television size) instead of 14:9 (the usual size of film screen) the film at times seems a bit stretched, however this would not be the case if our audience was watching in the cinema or watching the DVD.

Behind Blue Eyes

MAIN Post 9: Production

Whilst filming 'Behind Blue Eyes' and editing our footage we came across various points where we would all have to make decisions and as a group agree that the decisions would be in the best interest of our film. In the end the various decisions we made were in fact helpful in making our film a success.

One of the larger decisions that we agreed on was shortening our opening sequence taking out the scene in Paige's bedroom and later on the scene of Sophie being dropped home by Paige and Alan. The reason behind the cut in scenes was we believed that by changing the location of the scene from the girl's school to Paige's house would make the audience believe the opening titles were finished and the film had started. So we replaced the scenes with a scene of Sophie and Paige walking to Alan's car with Alan eying Sophie up anchoring the voice over describing her shirt and skirt. We found that this was more effective and powerful then jumping straight to the film helping set the atmosphere of the film for the audience which I believe worked very well. 


We also completely cut out a shot where we intended to put a camera in Sophie's locker so you could see her unhappy expression about going to maths, the locker would then slam leaving the black background where the title 'Behind Blue Eyes' would appear. However during the editing process we discovered that the title looked better after that whilst the screen fades to black, also it was difficult keeping the continuity when closing the locker with the background.

There was also the decision of making the opening titles a graphical sequence, using a variety of objects that helped show the math theme we decided that there were an awful lot of plain objects which could bore the audience. We fixed this problem by using bright coloured pencils shooting them from various angles so not to get confused during editing.We also had to make sure the opening titles didn't go on for too long but they had to go on long enough to fit all the titles in. From our research into opening titles we found out that the majority of the opening titles appeared in the opening titles and not the end of the film, trying to be as conventional as possible we agreed to keep most of the titles at the beginning of the film. However we couldn't put all four of our names on everything so we made names up or suggested a specific title for one another making it more realistic for our audience. The titles where difficult to position and it took all of group various attempts to get it right due to the font being white it needed to be on a black background to make the titles stand out however not take the attention aware from what was happening in the background.

Main Post 8: Pre-Production Documentation

Our group designed a college of various locations for us to consider and use when filming, below is the image which shows various specific objects that we would have to consider putting in our film.

Our group decided on a location and continued to do a location recce of Paige's bedroom. Below is an image of our location recce which also includes information on things we would have to consider when filming in this location including; permission, power and lighting.

After considering the location of our film we also had to figure out the costume design, trying to represent our characters the best we could.We researched the costume for the three main characters Paige, Alan and Sophie as seen below.

As the opening titles of our film would include props that would specifically link to our main character Sophie, our group also researched into what props we would use focusing around Sophie and Alan's relationship that forms over maths. Below is an image of the props we considered using in our opening titles.

We then proceeded to create a shot list for our opening sequence which shows the basic information of our film, including; the scene the shot is in, the description of the shot, the scene of the shots and the names that would appear in the titles. Below are images of our shot list that we created.



Below is also a copy of our script if you click on the image, our script includes the voice over of Alan and Paige and Sophie's line's.

Risk assessments where made to make sure no one was injured during filming, below is an image of our group's risk assessment showing the risk that was apparent and what we would do to avoid it.

Here is a crew list so that all the members of our group were aware of there role when it came to not only filming but producing also.
Katie-Mai Taylor: Actor(Sophie) and an editor
Bobbi Rhodes: Camera operator, Editor and Producer.
Charley Daugherty: Camera operator and Director
Alexandra Mullins: Actor(Paige) and an editor

To make sure that we were organised we created a shooting schedule that suited everyone's schedule, the schedule shows the description of each scene we filmed.

Below is the group synopsis it is a screenshot from my work in post 4a, it tells the plot line and background information on our characters.

We also produced a storyboard to show the shots in every scene which did have an illustration to show what the shot looked like. It also gives information on the length of the shot and the characters movement. Below is our storyboard.

Main Post 6: History of my chosen genre

Our chosen genre is drama however because it is such a broad genre we chose to focus on the sub-genres of teen drama and social realism. I decided to get a better understanding of our chosen genre by researching it in hope of keeping conventional when creating our film.

From this website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_film drama is described as;

' ...a film that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as ... violence against women and corruption put the characters in conflict with themselves.'

From this website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_drama our sub heading of teen drama is described as;

'...a dramatic television series with a major focus on teenage characters.'

This information wasn't extremely helpful due to it focusing on television series and not films however I did notice that to reach a teenage audience I need to include a teenage cast. So I looked even further for information on teen films and found this website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_film which was helpful as it focused mainly on teen films and found out that the basic story lines to grab hold of a teenage audience usually included;

'....coming of age , first love, rebellion, conflict with parents, teen angst, and alienation. ..... Films in this genre are often set in high schools, or contain characters that are of high school age. Sexual themes are also common, as are crude forms of humor.'

This was helpful as I was then aware of what our film had to include to make it appeal to a large audience, I also noticed that the majority of these films were set in the USA and only a few were set in the UK. This site was also useful in explaining the usual codes and conventions that our target audience would be used to which also explained how our target audience was used to an American culture. Major events that a teen would expect to see would include;

'....proms, alcohol, illegal substances, high school, parties and all-night raves, losing one's virginity, relationships, social groups and cliques, and American pop-culture.'

http://www.movieweb.com/movies/2012/drama This link showed me popular and current film drama's, I found this useful as I was able to see what was popular with my film's target audience such films included the images below.

Main Post 5: Title Timeline

As a group we watched the opening titles of films so that when it came to creating the titles for our film we        would have an idea of how to structure our opening titles. Below is the opening titles to 'Catch Me If You Can'.

Main Post 4b: Narrative/Character Research

In our group we agreed that to be able to portray our characters and have a clear narrative we should research into it.
Here is a link to Opra - Sexual Grooming where we found out the steps in sexual grooming that go like so; 1. Targeting the victim
2. Gaining the victims trust
3. Filling a need
4. Isolating the child
5. Sexualizing the relationship
6. Maintaining control
By researching these six steps we were able to develop the rest of our film using these steps as the basic plotline trying to keep as realistic as possible when it came to Sophie and Alan's relationship.

This link Protect your children leads to information targeting parents so they are aware of what to look out for to keep their children safe. Below is a list of what makes children targets;
Unpopular
Feels unloved
Seeking attention and friendship
Low self-esteem and lack of confidence
Isolated from peers
Spends time alone
Often unsupervised
Experiencing family problems
This site seemed to focus on how the Abuser targets the 'vulnerable' as they are the easiest to get hold off. Therefore to keep our film realistic we have to use a few of the points above to prove Sophie is 'vulnerable'.

As we had an idea of our plot ending with the girl's ringing the NSPCC we checked there website for any information. Here is the link: Understanding Groomers. It not only told the parents how to protect there children but how the mind of an abuser works as seen from a quote below.

"I look for a child who seems to be lonely or sad looking for attention. Then I take my time gaining her trust and becoming her freind. In time she will do anything I ask."

This site also had stages of grooming however there were only four steps in comparrison to opra's six.
-Sexual motivation
-Overcoming internal inhibitions against acting on that motivation
-Overcoming external impediments to commiting sexual abuse
-Undermining or overcoming the child's resistance to the sexual abuse

From this website we have gathered information on how the mind of an abuser works which gives us inspiration when writing the script for our abuser's voiceover.

Main Post 4a: Plot development

Below is the plot development that my group created to show the characters, narrative and plot in more detail so we could get a better grasp on our film's storyline and what stages our plot line will go through.

Our group researched timelines and found this website http://www.lightsfilmschool.com/  to be the most informative. It gave us the needed information on film timelines and we created two timelines one being from a well known disney film 'Cinderella' and the other for our film 'Behind Blue Eyes'.

Here is the timeline for 'Cinderella' that we created;

Below is the timeline for 'Behind Blue Eyes' that we created also;

The title of our film is ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and it falls into the social realism drama genre. Our target audience for this film are people specifically between the ages of 15 to late 20’s.

The logline for our film - a sentence under 25 words that summarises the film, is;
“Her skirt was short, her tie was loose. They always look older than they actually are….don’t they?”

A young girl aged 16 – Sophie, is best friends with Paige aged 17. Sophie mum is a carefree single parent and her father has never been in the picture. Paige’s father is also a single parent when Paige’s mother died during child birth; the two girls have grown close through the loss of parents. The girls often hangout at one another’s houses and do homework and have sleepovers and therefore they trust each other’s parents.

It begins with a male voice over who has not yet been revealed, there is a shot of Sophie and Paige in Paige’s bedroom doing homework and gossiping. Sophie quickly goes to the bathroom and whilst washing her hands rolls up her long sleeved top and shows bruising and red hand marks. Sophie goes back into the bedroom and they continue on with homework until Sophie realises that its 18:00 and she has to go home.

Paige tries to talk Sophie into grabbing a lift with her dad trying to get away from him for a couple of minutes (making the audience question why she wants her father out of the way). Paige finally guilt trips Sophie into grabbing a lift with her father.

Sophie gets into the car with him and he starts driving and talking to her whilst touching her, she starts doubting the whole relationship and says it’s not right making the father angry. He turns things around on her making her feel guilty telling her it’s all her thought she wanted the relationship to happen (though it is obviously lies and actually the father that has been encouraging the relationship). She gets out of the car.

Sophie and Paige meet up in town and Sophie can’t take the guilt any longer and confesses her relationship with Paige’s father to her then Paige confesses to Sophie how he also has been physically abusing her. The girls are both upset and worried so tell Sophie’s mum who doesn’t believe that the father could do such a thing leaving the children vulnerable about what the father might do next. Sophie and her mother have a dramatic argument. So go to the police station and explain everything that’s happened even against the mother’s wishes, the father is arrested and taken in.

The Father is taken to prison where he receives counselling where it is revealed that it is his story by showing him talking to the counsellor.

Main Post 4: Group meeting

Our group held a meeting in order to discuss what genre we would want to do in our short film. Below is a write up of what was said when we had our discussion:

'Behind Blue Eyes' discussed by Bobbi Rhodes, Charley Daugherty, Katie-Mai Taylor and Alex Mullins
Charley:Hey guys, so has anyone got any ideas about the opening sequence?
Alex:I don't know, what genre should we do?
Bobbi:
Well what would people want to see more of?
Katie:
Looking at our questionnaire results drama seems to be wanted a lot more.
Bobbi:
Thats a good idea! I think drama usually involves problems, we have to make sure it relates to real life situations.
Alex:
Well what sort of situations could we do?Charley:
What about a relationship between two teenagers?
Alex
Yes, we could do them splitting up.
Katie:
We could but it might be a little bit boring, what about an abusive relationship?
Bobbi:
That would be quite hard to act out and we would have to be careful with the conventions we use.
Charley:
Well if we look at a few dramas and also short films that we have been watching in class I'm sure there are certain conventions that we could achieve.
Katie:
We could also involve editing to make it seem a lot more dramatic.
Alex:
If we can do it I think its a good idea.
Katie:
Ok so where are we going to film it?
Alex:
Either at someone's house or maybe at school?
Charley:
I think the school because then we can do some work during our frees.
Bobbi:
Thats a good idea, I also like the idea of maybe a flash back rather than her actually being there now.
Katie:
Or we could just use the sound rather than acting because from our preliminary task I think the acting let us down.
Alex:
Then it will show our editing skills.
Charley:
Everyone happy with this idea then?
Katie:
Yes
Bobbi:Yes
Alex:
Yes