Target Audience Research - Focus Group

The group decided, for some audience research, one of the best ways to gather some information would be to show our initial live action footage to a small group of people.

The people we used were a small group of media diploma students, aged about 15-16. We also gave them a questionaire, and asked for their comments on the footage, which were genrally good, with a few constructive critisims. This is the feedback we recieved from the questionaires.


Comments on Location

• Works very well for the plot/genre.
• Created a good atmosphere.
•  Could of been filmed with less of the public in the background.

Comments on Footage/Plot

• Contains a few continuity errors - Necklace, Extra actors etc.
• Plot was very interesting and grabbing.
• The hiding of the characters faces was very effective, as it creates the sense of mystery.

Comments on Camera/Editing

• Many of the angles used were interesting and well used.
• Some people said the camera was shaky at points, some people liked this in parts, such as the beginning of the film, whereas some did not.
• The black and white effects recieved very good comments - It added a great feel to the film.

Once the OTS is completed, we will try and show it to the same group of people, and see what their thoughts and comments are after everything has been added.

Nearing completion

Today, me, Lee and Matt, got together round Matts house to practically finish our OTS.

We added the soundtrack (Which I finally created) combined the Live action footage and animation, and managed to add the black and white effect.

The only thing left to do now is to call in our actors/actresses to do voice overs/lip syncing for thier parts, which should be done at the beginning of next week.


I managed to call in the help of some musician friends, and with a bit of editing, this is what the final piece sounds like: http://soundcloud.com/sam-high/film-noir-soundtrack-final

I'd say it's a very Jazz/blues influenced chilled track, which seems to fit our footage perfectly.

Lip syncing + Foleying

The group has decided that we're are going to need to use foleying to add sound to our OTS.

This is the art of recording sound, and adding it to video after it has been shot,this can be done for a number of things such as gunshots, background noise and voices.

We have also decided that I will be lip syncing the voice of one of our actors, this will be done by recording my voice while I watch the video,and then adding it to the video over the top, this is a little explanation of lip syncing:

In film production, lip synching is often part of the post-production phase. Most film today contains scenes where the dialogue has been re-recorded afterwards; lip-synching is the technique used when animated characters speak; and lip synching is essential when films are dubbed into other languages.

Animatic

This is the animatic we created, detailing a rough representation of what we'd like our scenes to turn out like.


Untitled from Matt Armes on Vimeo.

Sound Problems

I have encountered some problems with the sound.
The way I was going to create the soundtrack was to obtain and record the different pieces of music, and then edit them together in audacity, but it turns out I cannot, as all the different tracks go out of time.

I now have a new plan, but it will have to be done in the halfterm, quite close to the deadline.

I plan to call upon a couple of musician friends, and go down to a studio to record the piece live, in one take.

This could become quite problematic as relying on the people I need to call upon could let me down, but if it works well, the piece should turn out pretty good.

Live Action footage

We have finished filming and editing the live action piece of our OTS, and Matt has uploaded it to Vimeo.


FILMNOIRWITHOUTANIMATION from Matt Armes on Vimeo.


We are having some problems converting the animation to a different format, so that we can attach it to the live action footage, but we are working on something for that.

Deconstructions of The Noir Genre

Many of the conventions associated with film noir are very important to give them the effect and atmosphere the film must have. Although the original era of film noir has passed, many films take aspects of the original genre, and tweak them a bit, creating the new genre "Neo-Noir" meaning modern noir.

Some of the classic conventions include:

• Traditional Narritive:  crime, tragedy, dark moods, and seduction.
• Characters: Protaganist, Antagonist and a Femme Fatale
• Mise - en -Scene: : Lighting:  High contrast of lighting, Chiarascuro and Monochrome   
• Costumes: Male characters in suits and Fedoras, Femme Fatale in seductive clothing
• Setting: Bars, Casinos, Very urban/cityscape enviroments, Dystopian
• Sound: Very orchestral, often with elements of Jazz.
• Editing: Kept simple, with a sense of realism (Verisemilitude)

Today we watched three OTS's of three neo noirs, and compared them to the classic film noirs, This is what we came up with:

Red Riding 1974
A British feature length tv series, keeps quite close to the classic conventions.
Starts off very eerie, with a contrast between black and white, moves to a saturated close up of a mans face, lots of close ups.

Cuts quickly to a very dreary, rainy shot, as the protaganist is established. Music playing is an acoustic guitar, not very conventional. The location is very rural, as it is set in yorkshire, Not conventional. Later in the clip, we establish the protaginist has "Blew his chance" in london, indicating he is flawed, this is conventional.

Blade Runner
A science fiction film with neo noir elements, directed by Ridely Scott.
Starts off with a very futuristic shot of the cityscape, with a few explosions seen, not many classic film noirs would be action packed from the start. There is also an effect where the burning city is being seen and reflected in a mans eye, conventional film noir would not have had anything like this, as the editing was kept to a minimum.

Cut to a dark room, with only natural lighting, and smoke whisping, smoking was very conventional of film noir, and gave a good effective if used with correcting lighting.

The first characters that are seen are two men, but these are neither the Antagonist or Protaganist, in classic film noir, either one of them is established in the first character, showing their importance to the film.
The sound is also quite unconventional, using techno sounds and machinery. Mixed in is a heartbeat, which was used quite often for effect.

Mulholland Drive

An american neo noir, directed by David Lynch
Begins with an high energy scene of people dancing to a old fashioned swing track, as faces are faded in, we establish a blond women, There is alot of bright lights in the scene, this is unconventional, as most film noirs would start very dark.
It then cuts to a very dark shot, where car  headlights are just made out, inside of the car is a heavily made up women. Assuming she is the femme fatale, she is made fairly conventional as we see the amount of makeup and lipstick she is wearing. The sound is very atmospheric and sustained, but is also a synthesised orchestra, giving a conventional contrast.
The movie is overall very chiarascuro, in the sense that alot of it is contrasted, for example, the two main character are two women (Very unconventional) and they have completely different personalities and narritives. The speed and colour of the two opening scenes are also very contrasted, as the first is bright, jumpy and energetic, the secong is very slow, atmospheric and dark.

Video Blog

So Matt finally edited the video blog we done a little while ago, basically commentating what we hope out OTS will turn our like.

Link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa3FuZiM2Fw

Semiotics

Semiotics are the idea that everything in a film has a meaning and that it can be interpreted in many different ways, depending on the persons background views and their personality.

Some of the semiotics in our OTS are the playing cards and the gun.

It is a huge subject, and Lee has done some research into it:http://asmediastudiesleecooper.blogspot.com/

Two Step Flow

The two step flow theory is the theory that the viewer personal influences could be affected by other viewers of the media and vice versa, such as a film: if one person watches and likes a film, and then discusses it with another who watched the same film, who did not, they may discuss it and change each others views.

I believe that this could relate to our target audience, as if our film is based at office workers, a single man ( called the opinion leader in the theory) could watch it and enjoy it, and go back to his office the next day and tell his co-workers, who may become interested in it due to the single colleagues opinion.

Another aspect of this theory is that people opinions could influence other people's behavior,  as exampled in the James Bulger case, and I think this would relate to our film classification ( Matt has done some research into this, head over there :( http://asmediastudiesmattarmes.blogspot.com/) as we are thinking as placing our film as a "15"

Our Target Audience

So, our group has decided that the main target audience our Film Noir is trying to reach is the stereotypical male office worker aged 18-40 who we would describe as "Needing a little more action in their life"
Seeing as our film would be quite action packed, based on idea's from James Bond e.g slick characters, glamourous women and fast paced action, we've figured that these are the type of men we wish to target.

The two most predominant audience theories we are following would be the hypodermic needle theory: the idea that our audience accept the media and it's messages, and the Obstinate audience theory, the theory that the audience select which messages to accept, and that they also influence the message itself.
The two-step theory could also come into place, where the more the viewer discusses the film with other people, the more likely his views on it are to change.

I'd believe instead of our audience would be more interactive than passive, as our film would possibly leave subtle clues and decoys that some viewers may want to follow, although it would not be necessary for the film to make sense.

In relation to the NRS social grades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade) I'd reckon our target audience would be skilled working to lower middle class. Conventional film noir usually aimed for the lower middle to working class, but have now become more classy and aimed at the older generation, closer to middle class.

Copyright Laws

For our OTS, I am producing my own song to use for the live action part, but due to limited resources, for the animation we wish to use an existing song over it, buit with copyright laws, this is difficult.

I have found out that the first 30 seconds of a song is acceptable to be used, without breaching any serious copyright laws.
PRS is the website/organisation that protects artists from people using their music, if I were to purchase a license to use music, this would probably be the one:


http://www.prsformusic.com/users/recordedmedia/corporate/Pages/Public%20Exhibitions%20%28SG4%29.aspx

Since we only need a short extract from a song, only the intro will be used, so this should not effect copyright that much, additionally we are using it for educational purposes. This is another link I found regarding using music for school projects, but unfortuatly, the actual page is being redesigned at this time:


http://www.prsformusic.com/whoareyou/edu/Pages/default.aspx

Edit: Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.