Research and Planning

In AS media I produced the opening for a thriller film involving a psychological battle between two competing gymnasts and their coach. The target audience for my thriller was teenagers of both sexes. As part of the advanced portfolio I produced a trailer for a film “On the baseline” which was a hybrid genre combining key conventions of chick flicks and sports films (sports flick!).  The film followed a tennis theme and revolved around the development of a relationship of a new women’s doubles partnership comprising of a champion and an “underdog”.  The main target audience for the film was teenage girls with a secondary niche audience of tennis fans.  A magazine cover and movie poster were produced as ancillary products.

During my AS year primary research was undertaken in the form of the production and distribution of a questionnaire to my target audience.  This was posted online on Wordpress and also hard copies were given to a representative sample of students who met the demographic.  The questionnaire incorporated both open and closed questions with a view to finding out what students thought of the concept of my films opening sequence. Analysis of the feedback indicated that their common perception was that the main target audience for the film would be girls.  In order to create a production with a wider appeal I decided to respond to the feedback by introducing a masculine coach character which appeal to males also. On reflection I feel that I could have obtained better quality feedback if I had structured my questions to elicit more in depth answers from my target audience.

In terms of AS media the main source of inspiration for my thriller opening came from a devised piece that I had written for GCSE drama, the stage production of “Woman in Black” which I had seen in the theatre and from watching TV drama series such as the Marchlands and Orphan.  This first hand experience was supplemented through research into real media texts of the same genre.  The internet (Youtube and IMBD) was used to enable me to view examples of the creative dramatic footage used in thriller film opening sequences, and to begin to pick up commonalities stereotypical of the genre.  “Death of a Cheerleader”, “Stick It” and “Black Swan” where the key texts that I analysed.  The use of secondary research in this way allowed me to gain a basic understanding of the conventions of the thriller genre that I was trying to recreate in my own production. For example: 

From the research I discovered that the narrative was structured in a way quickly changed the audiences emotions.  Death of a Cheerleader began happily, lulling the audience into a false sense of security and within 10 seconds turned into a form of disequilibrium and horror. The real media text provided the inspiration for the narrative structure of my own film opening sequence and the confidence to experiment with a non linear structure.  For example, the opening started with happy, upbeat music accompanying footage of two female gymnasts performing perfect stunts. After 10 seconds the shot suddenly changed to a girl screaming at the camera accompanied with dark, eery music signifying the disequilibrium evident at the end of the film before going back to reveal to the audience a snapshot of some of the events leading up to that final scene.  This flash forward was designed to lure the viewer into a false sense of equilibrium, create tension and unease in the audience.

I also used the internet (Google images) to identify stills from films of a similar genre to my own initially to gain ideas on mis en scene and in particular the types of costumes my characters should wear.  Initially, I thought that this was just logistical research but I quickly realised that the costumes are more than just what a character wears and could be used to subtly create meaning and connotations amongst the audience. This increased understanding influenced my opening for example a still from the film ‘Stick it’ inspired me to dress the two girls in professional gymnast like costumes when equilibrium was present. This would give the audience the impression that even though their relationship was strained they were being ‘professional’. Another contrasting still from “Stick It” gave me idea to symbolise that disequilibrium through the girls appearing in mismatched clothing looking unprofessional. This was used in the scene in my own film where the antagonist was struggling; she was dressed in ripped tracksuit bottoms and a baggy t-shirt. Looking out of character and disturbingly rough!

In my AS year I used the internet to analyse the DVD front covers of movies similar to my own but also using the audience feedback gathered from the questionnaire regarding the need to appeal to male audiences to inform the scope, focus and direction of my search. The use of mise en scene seemed to be the key to interweaving masculine appeal into the cover.  The DVD cover for the movie “Slaughter” featuring a girl trapped on a wheel in a eery setting influenced the composition of the photograph used for my cover.  The shot is set against a completely white background with connotation that the character is in a mental institution.  An extreme zoom in on the camera was used to emphasise the fact that the character was struggling to escape from something (the room or herself).  The simplicity of the composition of the shot and clever use of minimal mis en scene makes it all the more intriguing and disturbing for the audience.

During the AS year the audience research and analysis of real media texts of a similar genre influenced my creative decision making. However, on reflection I could have undertaken more qualitative audience research to give me more in depth audience feedback.  In order to appeal to the male market I should have widened the scope of my analysis of films beyond the thriller genre to identify feature of films designed specifically for men eg Die Hard, and try to replicate some of these.
In terms of planning the production phase would have been more efficient and effective if I had produced a storyboard to provide me with a clear structure of the plot.

In my A2 year I continued to use primary research in the form of a questionnaire to obtain the view of my target audience. However, this year instead of just posting the questionnaire on the blog I used the social networking site facebook to post my questionnaire to my target audience, with the knowledge that most people would receive them and to increase my response rate.   The feedback was very constructive and influenced key creative decisions such as the removal of the conventional “chick flick” use of a deep male voice over to narrate the trailer.  This was edited and replaced with a voice over of the main character which created a more personal relationship with the audience.  Also 30% of the audience indicated that the music that was used in the original trailer was not appealing. I responded to the feedback by creating the soundtrack myself in Garage band and through the insertion of sound effects which would add a comedy dimension to the trailer.

In A2 I addressed one of the areas of weaknesses in my AS research which was the lack of in depth qualitative audience research undertaken to inform the planning of my opening.  In A2 I carried out qualitative analysis by establishing 3 focus groups:  teenage girls, adults and sports fans.  The purpose of the interview with each group was to try to establish the features of trailers that particular appealed to them.   This feedback provided much of the basis of my creative decision making.  The feedback from the adults revealed that they didn’t like trailers to give too much of the plot away and that they enjoyed humour in trailers. Teenage girls stated that they liked the music to establish the character for them (sound motifs). Sports fans said that they enjoyed references to famous sporting sayings to be used in the trailer to attract their attention. I incorporated their views by making the trailer time relatively short 1 minute 31 seconds. Humour was incorporated through the use of sound effects, for example a boiiing when the underdog fell down in her push up. I also used a sound motif to denote the motivational nature of coach.  The trigger to the main action of the trailer beginning was the use of the famous John McEnroe saying ‘You cannot be serious’ from lead character reflecting the views of the sports fans.  Other sporting references are used to appeal directly to secondary target audience, for example the title “On the Baseline” will connotations that can be read by tennis fans as the character being on the defensive / has her back against the wall and the famous Wimbledon “Triumph and Disaster?” reference is used to trigger a narrative enigma. 

In A2 the internet played a much bigger role in helping me to develop a deeper understanding of the features needed to create a quality trailer that would appeal to a specific target audience.  Wikipeadia was used to identify conventions of genres and obtain lists of relevant films to analyse (although I realise that the source is not totally reliable) then Youtube and IMBD were used to analyse trailers. The trailers analysed consisted mainly sports related films with a related theme where the underdog comes through to triumph over adversity (ie Bend it like Beckham, Wimbledon, Dodgeball, Coach Carter, A League of their Own) and chick flicks (ie Mean Girls) focusing on the culture of typical teenage girls. 

In A2 my confidence improved as I understood the typical conventions of both genres and creatively combined the 2 to create a hybrid genre “sports flick” that would appeal to a main and secondary niche audience of tennis fans.  For example:

-  the idea of having the champion tennis player portray the role of the stereotypical chick flick
  “Queen Bee” came from the film “Mean Girls” and was designed to appeal to teenage girl;

-  a scene from Dodgeball was recreated when the underdog was struggling with a training routine to
   meet the audiences expectations of the conventional humour in chick flicks;

-  the Bend it Like Beckham trailer used a voice over to provide narration throughout rather than just
   to introduce the initial action whilst I replicated this I also subverted the traditional convention of
   using a deep male voice by using the voice of the main character to narrate events from her point
   of view establishing a relationship with the audience.

-  the Wimbledon film demonstrated the importance of relationship building in sports films this was
   reflected in the action sequence involving the 2 players training together which finishes with them
   performing synchronized star jumps in perfect time together with the connotation that they have
   formed a partnership and are working positively together; 

-  a common theme across the sports films involved an underdog triumphing against the odds which
    is the key narrative theme of my trailer.

The importance of these existing texts in helping me meet the expectations of my target audience demonstrates that “Individual creativity is stimulated by the work, ideas and achievements of other people.  We stand on the shoulders of others to see further.” (Ken Robinson)

Also from watching the openings I also began to recognise the prominence given to promoting the name of the production and distribution company in the opening sequences of films – a feature which I tried to replicate creatively in my opening.  

In A2 I also produced a story board showing sketches of the scenes, camera angles, dialogue and highlighting where music or sound effects where to be incorporated.  A script and shooting order was also prepared in advance. This more detailed planning massively improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the production phase and the quality of the overall product.

At A2 level I analysed in depth conventions of film posters using the internet (ie Wimbledon, Bend it Like Beckham etc) and magazine covers (ie Empire, Total Film).    These (particularly a Total film cover for Sherlock showing Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes standing together) gave me the creative inspiration for the main image used on my products which was taken using a digital camera and improved by removing the background using the magic wand tool on Photoshop software.  Connotations can be read into the photograph of the antagonist and protagonist standing back to back on the court used on the poster and magazine cover.  The positioning of the main characters, their body language and facial expressions denote the existence of a bitter rivalry.  The angle of the racket held by one character along with a clown like supersize tennis ball suggests that she may not be as serious or as competent as her partner.  On reflection, I could have made the presentation of the main characters as binary opposites more apparent to the audience through greater contrast in the use of costume. However, at AS level I would not have had the knowledge, technical ICT or creative ability to produce an image which deliberately incorporated connotations and clues for the audience into the plot of the film.

Magazine research consisted of analysing film magazines (ie Empire, Film) and women’s magazines (ie Hello, Celebs magazine) as the target audience for the magazine covering my film was women.  The secondary research helped me produce a basic flat plan sketch showing initial ideas.  It was apparent that different genres of magazines have different colour schemes and pink was a common feature of magazines targeting women.  The seasonality of the summer edition was also a convention replicated on my cover with a choice of sky blue fading out.  My use of sensationalised language also reflected the seasonality ie hottest stars, sizzling etc as is conventional in summer editions.   A single image was selected and overlaid with text which is a convention of magazines.  The same image was used on the film poster creating intertextuality and image association in the audience.  Other standard features were also evident on the real text such as: barcode; date of issue; issue number; price; giveaways; competition offers; mastheads and taglines -  all of which were replicated on my cover to add to the realism of the product.    A limited number of fonts and colours were used in order to create a clear house style.  Text relating directly to the film was produced in pink creating intertextuality through colour association with the pink tennis court on the film poster.  The title of the magazine was changed to follow the convention of many film magazines which use a single word as a title so Film in Focus became Flicks.  Flicks also relates to the female target audience having connotations of chick flick, is also an old fashioned word for the cinema giving the magazine a nostalgic feel and also creates brand awareness of the production company, Sport Flick Pictures, who also own the magazine. In conventional fashion a company logo was designed that branded the media product across all 3 platforms.

In conclusion I have shown progression in my A2 year as my research became more focused on my target audience and how trailers are specifically designed to meet their expectations. This approach reflects Gauntlet’s view that “making is connecting” with your audience.  The primary audience research became a more significant influence on my final product as it gave me the qualitative feedback needed to justify the subversion of conventions in response to their expressed preferences.  In the A2 year I also planned all of my products more effectively by making through the use of storyboards, shooting schedules and flat plan drawings. In terms of the production of my ancillary products in AS I looked at what was denoted on a range of DVD covers in A2 I started to understand the connotations that were cleverly implied in the composition of film posters and magazine covers.  The secondary research was crucial in improving my understanding of conventions related to layouts, fonts, colours etc and the importance of developing a recognisable house style and brand identity across a range of media platforms.