Evaluation Question 3

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

The production company for our film is 'COMA Productions', they would be in charge of the budgeting, scheduling, scripting, casting, organisation of staff, production, post-production, distribution and marketing of 'Rose'.  As 'Rose' is a drama-thriller, social-realism style film Coma Productions is likely to be an independent production company (like Lucasfilm, pre-2012, or Ruby Films) meaning it would probably have a low budget.  This budget is likely to be funded through processes like equity (where people invest in production in return for ownership interest in the film), crowd funding (where friends, family and prospective audiences donate towards the film), differed payments (where producer fees, and those of any other staff who agree, are deferred until after release, reducing the payments necessary to start production) and gap/bridge financing (where we (the filmmakers) would have to take out personal loans to fund any gaps in production costs).

As well as an independent production company our film would probably also have an independent distributor.  The distributor is the company responsible for the marketing of a film, setting release dates, choosing the method of the film's release, etc.  Our film would probably be distributed by a company like A24, who are not only an independent film distributor but have also done film as of a similar genre such as 'Room' and 'Moonlight'.  Our distributor would most likely opt to give our film a limited release where it is shown only in a select few cinemas, to gauge the audience's interest, before being released to a wider audience.  This distribution method is similar to that of 'Birdman' which was released in a few US cinemas on October 17th 2014 before getting a nationwide release, in 857 cinemas, on November 14th of the same year.

The order of credits for our film opening goes as follows; COMA Productions, Cassidy Richards (director), Meg Dobson (actor), Tony Langan (actor), Owen Vidler (producer), Aimee Langan (editor), Molly Dowling (DOP) and David Chidlow (actor).  COMA Productions appears first in our credits because they are our production company and have therefore invested huge amounts of time and money into the film earning them the films first credit.  The second credit goes to the film's director, because they are instrumental to the telling of the film's story, and the third to Meg the lead actor.  After Meg comes Tony, Tony is credited to show his character's significance in the rest of the film.  After Meg and Tony we credited the film's producer, the producer is credited early on in the credits (before the title) as they are very important in planning and coordinating the film's production. After this the film's title is shown, in the middle of our sequence as is typical of film opening, and then the editor, who plays a key role in the formation of the film's story and look during post-production.  We then give a credit to the film's Director of Photography, who both acts as camera man and provides the vision for the film, before David Chidlow, an actor, highlighting his character's significance in the rest of the film.

Evaluation Question 2

How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups? 

 

Evaluation Question 1

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

Typically film openings seek to establish the film's characters, genre and a brief outline of its plot,  all of which has been conformed to within our opening sequence.  Our protagonist is very clearly established within our opening, with Rose being the focus of almost every  frame, and as a result of her enhanced presence the theme of mental illness is also revealed to the audience, giving them a sense of being inside  her head in a state of confusion, enhanced by match-on-actions.  Our opening also sets out the films genre to the audience, with the font, cold colour palette, fast and the opening frame's low key lighting working together to tell the audience that it is a drama-thriller film.

Titles of drama-thriller films tend to be short, quickly establishing key features, concepts or characters of the film (some examples include 'Room', 'Inception' and 'The Matrix').  We used our protagonist's name as the title of our film,  seeing that 'Rose' clearly showed the audience the film's emphasis on that character and her mental health issues.  The font we used for our opening titles also conformed to genre conventions, with the our use of capitals and clear block lettering clearly reflecting the font of films like 'Whiplash' and 'Taxi Driver'.

Generally film openings take place in and around one location, creating a sense of continuity and allowing the audience a smooth transaction into the film's action.  However, we decided to challenge this convention, moving the audience constantly from one place to another, disorientating the audience and giving them a glimpse of Rose's mindset.  Although we do use many locations within our opening they are all tied together with a common sense of sparseness, isolation and entrapment, achieved through minimal mise-en-scene, cold colouring and the motif of the camera circling Rose, together these common threads between frames give our opening the same feeling of continuity as if it were all filmed in one location.

Our use of costume and props within the opening is also minimal with Rose dressed in regular dark clothing creating a sense of verisimilitude, presenting to the audience the ordinarity of Rose's situation.  Costumes and Props are minimal until the final scene of our opening when Rose's hospital gown and the hospital room mise-en-scene are used to distinguish that to be the present moment.

Our film opening uses editing and camera work as a method of developing genre conventions as opposed to conforming to them.  Within the drama-thriller genre entrapment is a key theme and we have used camerawork inorder to incorporate this theme into our opening we used a motif of the camera circling around Rose in a 360 arcing shot. we also used a series of match-on-actions in order to repetitively change the location and disorientate the audience.

Test Audience

Test Audience

Media Text Examples

Media Text Examples Similar to our Opening

Changing Seasons- Notting Hill

Our film opening has lots of match-on-actions in which Rose maintains her position on the screen while her background changes.  These match-on-actions indicate to the audience a regularity in the action of these scenes and a sense of the passing of time, indicating to the audience that Rose has experienced the symptoms seen for a long time and that they are a part of her day to day life.  This use of match-on-actions echoes 'Notting Hill' where match-on-actions are used inorder to present the static state of the protagonists life as he walks down the street with the mise-en-scene changing behind him signifying the changing of the seasons throughout the year.

Opening Scene - Moonlight

A key feature of our film opening is the rotating around the character of Rose.  This is used to disorientate the audience, giving a sense of her mental illness and representing the confusion that she feels within herself.  The circling within out film opening is similar to the movement of the camera in the opening of 'Moonlight' where the camera circles around two characters and
giving the audience a slight sense of danger about circumstances of their interaction.

Flashbacks - Big Little Lies 

Our film opening uses flashes of seemingly unrelated scenes, such as the bridge in order to disorientate, confuse and engage the audience.  This is similar to the use of flashes in the TV show 'Big Little Lies' where flashes to other scenes are often used inorder to keep the audience guessing and give them hints as to what is to come with the fast paced editing of the show adding a sense of suspense.

Storyboard Alterations

Storyboard Alterations

For our opening we had to make very few changes from our original storyboard to our final edit. However there were a few things that had to be altered in the process of filming and editing our opening which made our final edit different from our planned storyboard.

The first change made between our storyboard and final opening was in frames 3-6 of the storyboard. Originally we had planned to open with an extreme closeup of Rose's face which would zoom out to the correct framing for a match-on-action to the camera spinning around her in the park.  

However, when it came to filming this scene it was clear that the cameras zoom was not strong enough meaning we could not get both the extreme closeup and the required framing. Instead we opted to change the order of the shots (switching frames 5 and 6) zooming out as far as possible from the extreme closeup and then using the shot of the bridge to aid the transition to her in the park.

Referenced numbers working from left
to right and top to bottom.

The second change made was in frame 11.  Originally we had planned to have a shot where a hand (suggested to be her dad's) comes into shot and grabs her face.  We did film this shot but chose not to include it in any of our published edits deeming it to be too out of context making the opening seem very trailer like.

One change made during the filming stage of production was the location of frames 12, 13 and 14 on the storyboard.  This scene was originally intended to be shot in a white kitchen, continuing the bleak colouring of the rest of our opening, but when we got to the location it was too small to get the framing we wanted so we had to change to a living room location with much warmer lighting.  The room's furniture also meant that we had to do a shot-reverse-shot, as opposed to the intended circling shot, this did however mean we could include a match on action as Rose fell back into the bath in the next frame.

Our storyboard shows that in the bath in in frame 15 we had originally planned to have black water that Rose would submerge herself in going into a black title screen.  Later we decided that this was an unnecessary addition to our opening potentially confusing for the audience and possibly causing harm to our lead actress.

We originally planned to go straight from the title screen to a closeup in frame 17 however while filming we decided to add in a couple of long shots beforehand.  This leads the audience easily back into our montage whilst also acting as compensation for the lack of planned chairs (seen in frame 18) which couldn't be set out due to limited time whilst filming.

The final change from our storyboard to our final edit is in the openings closing scene, frame 24. Originally we planned to have the doctor, sitting by her side, repeat her name several times before she looks towards him, but this seemed to come to too much of a conclusion for the opening sequence of a film.  We instead chose to change the dialogue having Rose remain unresponsive and the Doctor character walkout of shot as though talking to a nurse out of shot.  We decided to change the editing of the shot as well, instead of zooming out from a closeup to a long shot  we decided to change between the two with cuts before cutting back to the closeup as a way of transitioning to the the rest of the film.

Final Opening

Final Opening

BBFC Rating

BBFC Rating

The BBFC states that a film is classified as a 15 if it; shows drug taking (however, it must not be endorsed or promoted), shows imitable behavior such as suicide (however it should not dwell on details that could be copied), uses very strong, justified language, shows sexual activity with limited detail, shows violence (with no dwelling on infliction of injury) and shows strong threat or horror (however, a sustained fucus on sadistic or sexual threat is likely to push the film into a higher age rating).  Due to the subject matter of our film it is likely adhere to many of the requirements for a 15 with subjects like threat and strong language already being shown in its opening scene.  However, the film would be made within the restraints of the 15 BBFC age catagory so that it is still available to the younger audiences.

Film Opening - Draft 1

Film Opening - Draft 1

This is the first draft of our film opening which we don't need to alter that much to get to our final piece.  However, the ending of this edit does need changing because of it's finality.  In this edit the opening has a very definite ending with Rose looking towards the doctor character.  However it was pointed out to us that this wouldn't work in the context of a full film as it is very difficult to move on from this point.  We have decided instead to change the final scene, by adding in more dialogue and cutting out, in order to open is up a little and make it clear that there is action beyond this point.