Task 5 - Mass Audience theory

It's obvious that different types if people like different types of media, but of course some are made to be more engaging than others.
Detective and crime dramas were created to try and engage an audience, whereas a soap does not require near as much effort to watch.
But I think some people enjoy watching non engaging TV, as that is one of the points of TV, to be able to escape reality for a bit and get consumed by something entertaining, that does not have a massive effect on your life.
This reason can be related to the intellegence of an audience. Just because someone is very smart, doesn't mean thet have to watch crime dramas and quiz shows, as they themselves may have had a hard day at work, and wish to escape reality and not use as much brain power as they have throughout the day, this could work the other way round, a normal working class person could watch crime dramas and quiz shows to try and prove they are smart.

How the Media can influence an audience - The Hypodermic Syringe theory

The hypodermic syringe effect is the theory that Media in any from has an effect on the audience, eg if an audience watch a piece of violence, they may want to do something violent.

Personally I think, to some extent it does indeed work, But it only works with the non extremities, for example, if a character commits a grusome murder, most people will have the common sense to view that it is wrong and not copy it, whereas if they see a relatively cool character drinking a can of coke, they may want to do the same, either in order to be like the character or they just believe coke is a thirst quenching drink. My point being media has an effect on the audience, but always to some extent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-TSVwPkCok
 This is a link to a youtube video of a performance from John Mayers "Where the Light is" Dvd.
Being a musician, and owning this DVD myself, I can say it is a piece of media that inspires me to pick up a guitar and keep practicing and playing to hopefully be that good, also on the consumer mside of things, it makes me a fan of John Mayer, making me buy his various CD and merchandise.

Audience Task 2 - Blumer's Idea

1. Blumers idea is that all different types of audience come from all different "Walks of Life" and all do not know each other. In some sense I think this is true, as Everyone likes different types of media, for different reasons, at the same time, people could like all different type of media, for one reason, for example, Some people can like photography, as it is seen as an art and contains just still pictures, a group of people may like this more than television, just for the reason all the pictures are still. Another example is Soaps, whilst alot of people like them, as they portray everyday life and problems, they could also only appeal to working class people, as that is the type of people the program shows.

2.I think when I am on my own, I tend to only use the forms of Media I want/need to use, and therefore only benefit from what I am interested in, whereas when I am with other people, I may use a form of Media I am not familiar with, but they might be.

3. Most of the time, if there is some Media I wish my friends to see, I just tell them about it, and they'll decided whether to watch/look at it or not, although sometimes, if it is on the internet, I send a link to them, and they'll use that to view it.

Back in the swing of things

After a short break for Christmas, our group is now getting back to our project.

We're trying to organise some kind of video call/conversation using Skype between our group and cast to try and discuss some filming dates, there are also plans for me, Matt and Lee to meet up, to do some Video blogging and discuss various Ideas.

I also mean to do some more Audience research and I shall put that up as and when I do it.

I also got round to creating a Facebook group, that includes all the members of our project, a dn this should be a good tool to use, and everyone involved uses Facebook regularly, I'll put a screenshot of it up soon.

Re: This is the Facebook Group ;

Market Research

In order to carry out some primary market research, we've decided to create a questionaire, and have people fill it out, to see if we can get more of an idea of our target audience, and what they would like to see in our OTS.

These are some possible questions;

1. How old are you?  15-18   18-21   21+
2. What is your favourite genre of film?   Crime    Romance   Action
3. What time period of film most interests you?   1950's   1970's   21st Century+
4. How regularly do you go to the cinema?    Once a week   Once a month    Few times a year
5. Do you have a Job?    Yes    No

More questions will be added as I think of them, I may also need some group input to help make the questionaire effective.

Animatic/Props

Ok, on Tuesday, me and my group perfomed various tasks in the making of our animatic, and the research of props.

Lee: Researched the type of suits/clothing we would our characters to wear ( see his blog for more info on that), and drew out a majority of the post-it notes.

Me: Took photos of all the post-it notes, in order for them to be used in the animatic + Drew up a list of the props we have already got, and the ones we might need.

Matt: Using windows movie maker, He created the Animatic, which is still to be uploaded, I'll edit this post when it is.

This is my Prop list:
4 black/pinstripe suits (of some kind) - I myself have 2 black suits,1 Waistcoat 1 white and 1 black shirt and 1 black and 1 white tie. Lee has said he has another suit and Waistcoat aswell, and I am informed that a couple of our cast members may possess their own suit aswell.

Fedora Hats - Lee has one, need 2 more. Edit: more hats have been found, so these are no longer a problem.

Wine/Whiskey Glass - I have glasses that are suitable

Femme Fatale Dress - We're hoping our Femme Fatale actress will be able to get hold of what we need, we shall make it a priority to ask her.

Pistols/Tommy Guns - These need to be aquired, there may possibly be some props in our schools drama department we could use, but if these look too fake, we shall go in search of better ones. Edit; The tommy guns were axed due to a combination of they are not necessarily needed and we could not get them, and we DID manage to find a pistol.

This post will be continually updated, in relation to the new information/props/idea's the group aquires.

Target Audience Research

On Thursday, our Media lesson cosisted of learning about Target Audiences, and discussing what it takes to derrive our specfic Target audience, and the research we must undertake in order to 1. find our exactoly who our target audience is and 2. what our OTS needs to do to satisfy them.

We got given a booklet, containing a lot of information, and various tasks to complete which would get us thinking about audience research. One of these was to create a mind map, showing how our group uses media in an average day; this is what we came up with.

We came to the conclusion that between us, we use almost all forms of media we could think of, and that they all link together, in some way.

We also had a discussion within our group about some new plans and ideas for actors/dates for filming our OTS, see Matt Armes' Blog for more info.

Plan/Organisation

So, recently our group has been having to rethink alot of things, and we realised our timing/organisation for the whole filming aspect of the project is a bit of a shambles, so we've decided to make a plan in order to organise our time and priorities.

I have thought up a skeleton to one, but I will need to discuss it with my group.

1st - Sort out new cast (possibly hold auditions)
2nd - Get together all the props we need, so they are at our disposal when we need them.
3rd - Try and envision exactly how we want our OTS to look (What shots to use, composition etc)
4th - Arrange a time that both the group and cast can film
5th - Contact our Setting (Paolo's or the Beehive) and see if we can arrange that date with them.

This is only a basic plan, and there are likely some points I have missed out, but I will pitch it to Matt and Lee, and see what they think.

Idea Pitch

Ok, so I should've done this earlier, but atleast it's here.

Last Thursday, me and my group, Matt Armes and Lee Cooper pitch our Film noir OTS idea to our class.
Our ideas seemed pretty well recieve, with most, if not all the feedback being quite positive, but presenting it made us think about some concepts we had and have forced us too rethink them.

One particular problem was our cast; it was pointed out that the people we chose to play our parts were of different racial backgrouds, whereas conventional film noir actors were usually all white.

Because of this, our group is considering changing the actors so that they are all consistent and conventional

This is the only problem I can think of at the minute, when I rewatch/upload the video, there may be some other points to address and reconsider.

My part of the concept board

Right, so i've done a little research into the sound and music of film noir which is my part of the concept board/ the production.

Nearly all of the music in Film noir is jazz of some kind, featuring instruments such as piano, trumpets and saxophones, and are essential in giving the film it's mood and atmosphere. Since the feel and atmosphere of film noir is very dark, gritty and slick, the music is often very slow and melancholy.

I've chosen a couple of tracks to potray this, although they are quite modern, they give the ambience and effect we are looking for, and an influence we could possibly use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeyI-S3RKk0 - this track has a very slow, dreary and sparce sound to it, giving the feel of a scene between the hero and the femme fetale. It is one we could possibly use, but it seems too slow for our purposes.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G55USzVU5ZE - the instrumental intro to this song is very upbeat and powerful, therefore I feel it is an idea for the soundtrack when the animation of our OTS kicks in. whilst being very modern, I think it captures the dark atmosphere of film noir quite well.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eXsBj9BCdM - although this is a very popular song, the intro is indeed very slick and "James Bond" like, with the piano, and jazz drumbeat. This aswell, is another option for our OTS, despite the fact it is very well known.

Ofcourse, my task, being a musician, is to try and write and record a piece to use in our OTS. Although my instrumentation is quite limited (difficulty in getting trumpets and saxophones) I will take the song I have researched as influence, and hopefully come up with a modern, yet very fitting piece of music that will fit our OTS perfectly.

Pictures and inspiration.

This is a close fit to  what we imagine our femme fetale could look like, she feature the curley hair, complete with a black, formal dress, with gloves.

Here are a couple of pictures that contain the style of the hero, they both feature the classic suit and tie, aswell as a fedora hat, although we may not go with the detective style coat, we may go for a more modern hero, in the form of a James Bond style'd character, as shown in picture three.

this is a representation of the typical gangster, who's attire and style may fit the one that we are looking for, featuring the suit, fedora hat and tommy gun.

Concept Board Idea's

This will be a quick draft of sme idea's I have had for the concept board, covering the main aspects of it, and what we can include in our film.


Mise-en-scene;
The gangsters and the hero will be dressed in black suits (some of which I have), fedora hats required.
The femme fatale will be dresses in a gown, with curled hair.
Hero and Femme Fatale will be holding high class glasses, sat at bar.
Gangsters to be holding either tommy guns or pistols; in the three gangster set up, the two on the outer sides may both hold tommy guns, while the leader( in the middle ) will hold a pistol, or all three may have pistols.
Location; to be finalised - Ideas include bars and restraunts.

Possible plot synopsis; Our hero is a gambler, and has recently had a strike of luck in winning a very valuable diamond necklace, the problem is, it was won against a notorius gangster, who believes he was cheating to win the game. The film begins with the hero giving this necklace to his girlfriend, who is the femme fatale, just as the gangster and his henchmen arrive to take it back.

Sound; we plan to make most of the speech diagetic, with some (hopefully original) music playing in the background, although the speech may have to be mimed, and then foleyed.

Lighting; we intend to keep the lighting as minimal as possible, to enhance the dark and gritty atmosphere.

The people i'm working with...

For our Film Noir project, the members of my group are myself, Matt Armes  ( asmediastudiesmattarmes.blogspot.com ) and Lee Cooper ( asmediastudiesleecooper.blogspot.com )

The idea we're working on is a plot containing elements of murder, gambling and lust, with a dark, slick atmosphere. We are also planning to add animation to out piece, to give it a unique, as well as contrasting edge.

We're all in the process of pulling idea's together and finalising various aspects of preparation; location, timing etc, and we are currently creating our concept board.

I will be posting some of my idea's on the various aspects of our film, mise-en-scene, lighting shortly, but for now, thats all.

Blog Inspiration

Looking through last years media students, I found a guy named Tom Coe's Blog.

http://tomcoea2.blogspot.com/

This one I found quite interesting, as it combines plain elements (grey background, with a simple layout) with alot of information/inspiration he has obviously put straight on there as soon as he has got it, and I find this quite effective. I also like the side bar he has, organising his blog, and this is something that I could possibly do with mine.

Concept Board

Preparing for the video we are to create and shoot, in class today, we discussed concept boards, and what they must contain, these are what we came up with.

• A Title
• The plot; order and structure of the narritive.
• Narritive; the story, including edits, transtitions and titles.
• Storyboards
• The Cast; Charaters, accents, mannerism
• Representation; Style, props, costumes
• Settting + Mise-en-scene (lighting)
• Signifiers/icon (Something with connotation larger than the object)
• Sound (Diegetic + Non-Diegetic) - Soundtrack +effects, Contrapuntal (Contrasting music, to give a better effect), Folelying (Matching sound with the picture)
• Camerawork; Shot, Pace, Angle, Trasitions
• Target Audience; Demographics( Fatual data, such as age, gender and class), Projected/Preffered audience, stereotyped audience; Tradional (Fixed Tatstes), post modern (open minded), hedonest (risk takers), Niche (unique interests), Mainstream (conventionally modern)