Target Audience

Target Audience: Our target audience for our film is 12 to 18 year old girls. We have chosen this target audience as firstly the age rating for our film will be 12 rates because of the content and this is reaching a large demographic that can relate to the conventions of our film. Secondly as its a teen angst its target towards girls as boys do not enjoy watching films about girls issues and girls chasing boys. Having a target audience of a similar age to the characters in the film means that they can also relate to the social issues and ongoing in the film. Finally after research of other teen angst films such as 'Mean Girls' and 'Angus, Thong and Perfect Snogging', we found that they all have the same target audience as ours.

Unique Selling Point

USP: Our unique selling point for our film is that it's completely different from every other teen angst film and that the girl doesn't get the boy. We looked at 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging' and in that the girl ends up getting the boy. The same happens in 'Aquamarine' and 'Clueless'. In the end the main character of our film ends up with none of the boys as she plays and leads them along. This makes our film stand out as it gives a moral and is unexpected as everyone expects the girls to get the boy of her dreams.

Risk Assessment

Risk:	Method to overcome this:
Camera could fall from top of locker and break or injury someone when filming high angle shot	Ensure that someone has a steady grip of the tripod at all times
Shauna could injury herself when Ella knocks her into the locker	Ensures that there is no real contact, instead stage it so Shauna is fully in control of her fall
The cast and crew could injury themselves or damage equipment on the way to Shauna’s house for filming	To avoid this we will watch where we are going and follow basic safety procedures
Shauna’s dog could scratch her when filming the scene of it jumping on her	Ensure that the dog only goes on top of the covers to avoid contact with skin
When filming the shot of the shower the camera could get wet	Ensure the camera is a safe distant back where the water won’t be able to touch it
Shauna could fall down the stairs when we filmed her coming down them	Ensure that she takes care in every step that she takes

Draft and Feedback

Rose Draft

The video above shows our draft video for our film opening. We showed this draft to our class of 25 students of which roughly around half of them were 16 year old females which fit within are target audience, therefore it was a good demographic to show. After watching the film opening we asked them for feedback on areas of improvement and what worked well, these were the results:
 

Positive feedback

-The fast pace of the beginning when Rose was waking up.

- The way that the titles fit into the background with varied size.

- Our creative shots such as the shots within the cup of tea.

 

Negative feedback

-Last part of Rose sitting down did not add any value to our film.

-Having all white titles was a weak area as it added no meaning to each title.
- We were told that our music transitions didn't blend as well as they could have.
 

This feedback was crucial for the production of our final product because it allowed us to see exactly what our target audience like and dislike. Editing on the film yourselves on the editing software also makes you become very familiar with the film you are producing which meant we often did not notice the downfalls of our film that an audience were able to identify. After receiving the feedback we went back and adapted our film and upon reflection it added great value to our film opening that we wouldn't have had without showing a draft to an audience, therefore the process was very valuable.



Group Roles

Group Roles

Sam Wood:

Sam took on the role of 'director of photography' which meant that he was in control of all filming of the scenes. We decided it would be best for Sam to carry out this role because he had a good understand of how to work the camera to take good effective shots without any errors. Sam also ensured that he knew about the risk assessment and how the camera could be damaged but also a danger to others, so he was able to control the camera effectively.

Adam Walker (Me):

I undertook the role of director for the film which meant I had to make some crucial decisions about the overall running of our film, with the agreement of the other members of the group. We decided it would be best for me to be the director as I have the best organisational skills in the group. This was an important asset for this role as I had to organise characters, rehearsals and all of the deadlines for the filming of our film. I was also in charge of finding the music for our film opening and ensuring that it suited our film and everyone agreed with the choices.

Georgia Hayes:

Georgia was in charge of the editing of our film. We decided that Georgia should take control of this aspect of the production process because she had previous experience of editing on similar software to what we were using. This meant she had a good understanding of how to add slow-motion, transitions and sound effects which was a great asset. Georgia was also very fast at making cuts which we felt was very important because this was a major part of the editing process.

Rose Update!

Changes to plan

After carrying out our first filming sessions we found some flaws in our initial plans about how the film was going to work. This was due to many aspects such as what we thought would work best on the day and what just physically didn't work.

 

Our first change was the sounds that we decided to include in the film opening. We initially decided that we would have a voice over throughout of Rose explaining the situation. However after using the voice recorder and assessing what they sounded like we decided against using them as we felt they hindered our film instead of improving it. However we still wanted some dialogue in our film so we decided to include a shot reverse shot scene between Rose and Tommy when he helps her up, which had diegetic speech between the pair. This also helped to show a clear transition between the title sequence and the opening scene. 

 

Secondly we made changes to the length of both the title sequence due to problems with both scenes. The title sequence that we had planned just seemed too short to portray exactly how Rose would prepare for her first day of school and lacked the fast pace to show a rush. So we extended it which gave a greater insight for the audience which created realism by adding lots of different shots such as close ups of the shower and high angle shots of Rose doing her make up. Extending the title sequence also meant we had more time to put in the titles of the actors names which initially seemed to be an issue. We had also planned to film Rose falling out of her bed to create a sense of excitement. However when we tried to film the shot it just didn't work out like we had planned and imagined it would look like, due to the inexperience of our actor. Due to a combination of this and that the lighting wasn't correct as it was low-key opposed to our high-key lighting in other shots, we decided to scrap the shot.

 

The last change that we had to make was for the opening scene. We had planned to film a scene out the front of our school with the front of school in the background. However this came with several issues. Firstly we wanted to film our collision scene between Rose and Lucy-Lou here, after trying to film here we found that this wasn't going to work due to how busy the area was and we always had unwanted people in our shots. On top of this we also decided to setting just wasn't right as it did not look like a stereotypical school as there was no iconography that linked it to a school environment. Instead we decided to change the setting to the school corridor which include iconography like the stereotypical big school lockers. We felt changing the setting greatly improved the quality of the scene.

First day of filming

 

First Day of Filming

 

 

Our first day of filming came with several unexpected challenges that caused us issues. Firstly our main character Rose (Shauna) who we were filming the scenes in her house didn't feel her best. We originally had to plan and try find another day where we could rearrange to film however later on in the day she felt better and lucky volunteered to film on the day as planned. Secondly we started to film some of our scenes for the opening scene in school with one of the characters called Tommy. However after trying to film a couple of scenes we found that Max (who we choose for the character) just lacked in acting experience which resulted in the shots looking weak. Thankfully we found another actor called Jacob who agreed to play the role and we were able to use him for the character instead which made the shots a lot better than before.

 

After sorting out these original issues we set off for Shauna's house to film. We had to bare in mind our risk assessment as carrying the filming equipment safely to Shauna's was one of our risks. However after taking care we arrived at Shauna's to film. We filmed lots of different shots of Shauna getting up including a long shot of Shauna's dog jumping on her to wake her up. This proved difficult initially because the dog just wanted to lay down and be stroked, although after playing with her toys she became excited and filming the shot was not an issue. This part of filming was also very important because we could portray a stereotypical female girl by filming in the house because we were able to film shots such as Shauna putting make up on and choosing clothes from her wardrobe. These aspects portrayed the character as self centred and concerned about her appearance which was essential to film, we also saw similar conventions in Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging.

 

After leaving Shauna's house we had filmed lots of vital footage needed for our film opening so we were happy with our first day of filming, although we will have more to film tomorrow and next week.



Shotlist

We started filming in the downstairs of the home setting first.

1. Long shot on Rose putting on her coat, packing her bag and leaving through the door to go to school.
2. The inside the bag shot that shows Rose zipping up her bag as a close up.
3. An extreme close up of Rose tying up the laces of her shoes.
4. Long shot of Rose walking down the stairs to the hallway.

Filming in Rose's room, before she got showered, after a change of clothing.

5. Close up of Rose's dog running up the stairs
6. Establishing shot of Rose in bed and her dog running in
7. Extreme close up of the alarm going off
8. Long shot of Rose ignoring her alarm
9. Close- Mid shot of her turning the alarm off

Filming in the bathroom.

10. Close up of Rose's face while on the toilet.
11. Extreme close ups on Rose picking up her toothbrush, toothpaste being put on the toothbrush and of water going down the sink.
12. Close up of Rose turning on the shower and water coming out of the shower head.
13. Mid shot of Rose throwing the towel onto the camera from the shower.

Filming in Rose's bedroom.

14. Eye level shot of Rose picking out clothes.
15. Mid shot of her putting on her shirt.
16. Close up of Rose flipping her hair.
17. Extreme close up of the hair dryer being plugged in
18. Over the shoulder shot of Rose drying her hair in a mirror
19. Canted angle of Rose putting on foundation.
20. Point of view shot of a brush and powder.
21. Rose leaving the room and starting to go down the stairs.

Filming in the kitchen.

22. Long shot on Rose getting a tea bag.
23. Mid shot on her getting a spoon full of sugar.
24. Mid shot of Rose about to drink her tea
25. Extreme close up of the tea bag being put into the cup
26. Extreme close up on the sugar being put into the cup

Storyboards

Storyboards

We all worked together on the scripts as we all had different ideas on shots and effects to use. This was effective as we managed to use many good ideas to create a good, solid script. We created our script in chronological order so the story made sense. However, we filmed in non-chronological order so that it was easier to keep continuity and also we had to film in two different houses when Rose is getting ready so there was no point filming a couple of shots in one house, go the other house for the next couple of shots and then back to original house to film the rest. This did cause a small issue as sometimes we were unsure what we were filming at what point but after looking through the scripts and developing a shot list, it fixed this issue.