This post represents the whole group and is our final product for our Media Studies course.
Author Archives: rebeccalaurenfarrell
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
This post reprisents the whole group.
Usually, film distribution companies have certain genres they use the most, especially when it comes to the five main conglomerates; Sony, Warner Bros, The Walt Disney Company, Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox. Disney, for example is mostly associated with children’s films as it is what they are successful with. Since most of their films are in cartoon, Disney is not a suitable distribution company for our piece as it is a Physiological thriller. Our piece is also unlikely to be distributed by a film company who specialize in action movies, romance or comedies.
Following this, we did some research into distribution companies which distribute film in the United Kingdom.
Here is what we found;
We then took a look into some of the more popular distribution companies such as Universal UK, Warner Bros and 20th century fox, as well as some of the lesser known companies such as, Dogwoof, soda pictures and verve pictures. Here is some research from their official websites.
Universal Pictures creates and distributes theatrical and non-theatrical filmed entertainment. Universal also produces, acquires, and distributes direct-to-DVD titles, classic titles from the Universal library, consumer products, and specialty motion pictures under Focus Features. Through its international production group, the studio partners with leading international film 
companies to make and acquire films for wide commercial release or distribution in specific countries. Universal’s content is released across traditional and digital distribution channels, including theatrical exhibition, physical and electronic home entertainment, pay and free television, and subscription on-demand services.
For more information click on this link:
http://www.universalpictures.co.uk/about-us
Warner bros
W
arner Bros. Pictures produces and distributes a wide-ranging slate of some 18-22 films each year, employing a business paradigm that mitigates risk while maximizing productivity and capital. Warner Bros. Pictures either fully finances or co-finances the films it produces and maintains worldwide distribution rights. It also monetizes its distribution and marketing operations by distributing films that are totally financed and produced by third parties. Among the films on Warner Bros. Pictures’ 2016 slate are “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” “The Conjuring 2” (from New Line Cinema), “Suicide Squad,” “Sully,” “Storks,” “The Accountant” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”
For more information click this link
http://www.warnerbros.com/studio/divisions/television/international-television-distribution
Sony Pictures is one of the industry’s leading content providers, producing, distributing, and delivering programming worldwide in every genre and for every platform.
For more information click this link
https://sites.sonypicturestelevision.com/aboutspt/index.php
Dogwoof Founded in 2004, Dogwoof is the UK’s leading documentary distributor. To date, we have released a huge range of award-winning and highly popular films including The Age of Stupid, Food, Inc., Restrepo, Dreams of a Life, The House I Live In, Dior and I, The Spirit of ’45, and Blackfish. Our films have won numerous awards, most recently a BAFTA win for Best Documentary for Joshua Oppenheimer’s extraordinary, ground-breaking The Act of Killing. We will release the companion piece The Look of Silence in 2015.
For more information click this link:
Soda pictures Soda Pictures is an Anglo-Canadian film distributor of art house, independent and world cinema. Established in London in 2002 by Eve Gabereau and Edward Fletcher, the company releases 25+ films a year and has a library of over 300 films from all corners of the world. In September 2014, it was announced that Soda Pictures was acquired by the Canadian production company Thunderbird Films in order to join a greater media group, build a theatrical film division in Canada and expand their existing business in the UK and Ireland.
For more information click this link
Verve pictures
At Verve Pictures specialise in the release of independent film in cinemas and on DVD, offering audiences the chance to enjoy original and thought provoking cinema from the UK and around the world. 
The company was founded in 2003 and have released award winning films such as My Brother The Devil, Kelly+Victor, Red Road, The Arbor, Bullet Boy, Dogtooth and Shell, helping bring important filmmakers such as Kieran Evans, Andrea Arnold, Dominic Savage, Amma Asante, Saul Dibb, Clio Barnard, Scott Graham, and Sally El Hosaini to wider public attention.
For more information click this link:
http://www.vivaverve.com/
As a production company we need a distribution company that will be able to reach our requirements. Overall we are looking for a distribution company that will essentially, be able to distribute our piece worldwide but especially in the UK as that is where our target audience live. We also want our distribution company to have experience distributing successful films. It is also a necessity that the distribution company has distributed a film in our genre that has used similar conventions to our piece.
Psychological thriller distributed by Verve pictures. 
Cuckoo is a 2009 British psychological thriller film starring Laura Fraser, Richard E. Grant, Tamsin Greig, Antonia Bernath and Adam F, set in London, UK. This piece of information tells us that verve pictures are able to distribute films made in the UK as well as psychological thrillers.
Psychological thrillers distributed by Soda pictures. Dartmoor Killing, which stars Gemma-Leah Devereux, Rebecca Night, Callum Blue and David Hayman. The British psychological thriller, Dartmoor Killing, is using an innovative distribution, starting with self-distribution in cinemas from September 18 followed by a DVD and VOD release by Soda Pictures later in the autumn. This tells us that soda pictures also distribute psychological thrillers in the UK.
Psychological thrillers distributed by Dogwoof. Bestselling Dogwoof documentaries include the acclaimed psychological thriller, Blackfish. Dogwoof specialises in Documentaries so they would not be a suitable candidate for our needs.
Psychological thrillers distributed by Sony pictures. Sony has released lots of psychological thrillers in the UK such as; Hidden, Passengers and Home Invasion. This tells us that Sony pictures have had success in the past when it comes to distributing psychological thrillers.
Psychological thrillers distributed by Warner bros are ‘ra
ce in heaven’,’ Hereafter’, ‘the number 23’. Warner bros has had great success with distributing psychological thrillers as many have won awards and gained a large amount of income. With this knowledge, warner bros would be a good distribution company for our piece.
Psychological thrillers distributed by Universal. Schindler’s List (1993) is one of Universals most successful movies ever distributed. Ex machina (2015) is also a very successful movie distributed by universal. This information tells us that universal understand conventions of a psychological thriller and would be a great distribution company to work with.
We decided that although a larger distribution company would help make our piece a larger success, a smaller company would be more likely to work together with us. We came to this conclusion because larger companies seem to only work with well-known actors/actresses, something we don’t have. If we were to work with a smaller company, we would be able to access basic media for advertisement such as newspapers and websites. Choosing a smaller company means that we might have more say in how/where/when the film is distributed compared to a larger company such as universal.
In conclusion, a smaller company would best suit our needs. So we chose to go with Soda pictures, we came to this decision because of their success with psychological thr
illers in the UK. This was important to us because we needed access to our target audience and to have trust in the distribution company’s efforts to make the piece an overall success.
Lighting experiments
In this blog post I will address and any problems we came across during filming related to lighting, lighting research and what lighting is suitable for our theme.
This diagram shows how we positioned our lighting during any inside scene. This includes the kitchen scene and bedroom scene during flash backs.
On our first attempt of filming, we came across a few problems with our lighting. Our back light was too bright causing the camera to darken facial expressions deeming the footage unusable. We later found out that the fill light wasn’t powerful enough which also added to the darkened faces.
To overcome this problem, we re-arranged the lighting and filmed during day, instead of evening to allow natural light to balance out the fill light. Doing this allowed us to have clear and usable footage.
The problem with the lighting caused us to have to reconsider quite a large part of the storyline as we originally wanted to have the beginning scenes shot during the evening as it is a key convention of psychological thrillers. However, we decided that the quality of our shots were more important than what time of day the film was shot.
During the second attempt of filming, we played around with lighting to make sure we had the desired effect on mood, atmosphere and storyline development. We used two large studio lights as the key light and backlight, and a smaller light as well as natural light as the filler lights.
The lighting used in psychological thrillers is usually low lighting. Low lighting is most popular in psychological thrillers because it creates tension and suspense. It is also used to help emphasise abnormalities in a character’s behaviour.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
This post represents the whole group.
Target audience
As a group we decide that our target audience should be 15+ because we wanted to be able to use disturbing footage for our piece which might not have been suitable for younger audiences.
To help us come to this decision, we did research into target audience and followed guidelines we found online. We also did a target audience profile to be able to compare our plot ideas to the plot of other films such as Fallen (1998); this helped us understand why our piece could be considered disturbing at points. Here is the research from our target audience profile;
A perfect murder (1998) is a film directed by Andrew Davis. Suitable for 15+
“Wall Street baron Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) discovers that his pretty young wife, Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow), is cheating on him. But what concerns him more than her infidelity is the hope of profiting from her untimely death. Emily has millions, and Steve’s own financial empire is collapsing before his eyes. He hires her lover, David (Viggo Mortensen), to murder her. The plan — to stage a break-in that will look like a random murder — turns out to be far from perfect”
Fallen (1998) is a film directed by Gregory Hoblit. Suitable for 15+
“After witnessing the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas), whom he arrested, police detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington), and his partner, Jonesy (John Goodman), are soon investigating another murderer whose mode of operation is eerily similar to Reese’s. In the course of the investigation, Hobbes meets theology professor Gretta Milano (Embeth Davidtz), who introduces him to the world of the occult and the possibility that an evil spirit is behind the killings”
We also did research into films age ratings to help us come to our final decisions.
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Universal | All ages admitted. There is almost nothing unsuitable for children aged 4 years and over. |
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Parental Guidance | All ages admitted, but some certain scenes can be unsuitable for young children. They should not disturb children aged 8 or older. May contain mild language or sex/drug references. May contain moderate violence if justified by context (e.g. fantasy). A parent may wish to check the content before they let their children watch or play it. |
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12a | This category applies to cinema only releases since 2002. Films under this category are considered to be unsuitable for young children. Cinemas in the United Kingdom are only permitted to supply tickets to see a 12A film to children under the age of 12 if they are accompanied by an adult, aged at least 18 or older. However, it is unlikely to be suitable for children under the age of 12.
Films under this category can contain mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, infrequent strong language, very strong language (introduced in 2015) and moderate violence, sex references and nudity. Sexual activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed. Sexual violence may be implied or briefly indicated. |
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12 | This category applies to cinema releases from August 1989 to 2002, and home media since 1994. Only suitable for people aged 12 or older. It is illegal to supply a VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD or video game with a 12 certificate to anyone under that age.
12A-rated films are usually given a 12 certificate for the VHS/DVD version unless extra material has been added that requires a higher rating. The content guidelines are identical to those used for the 12A certificate. |
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15 | Only suitable for people aged 15 and older. It is illegal to supply a VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD, video game, or film tickets with a 15 certificate to anyone under that age.
Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, regular use of foul language and limited use of very strong language, strong violence and strong sex references, and nudity without graphic detail. Sexual activity may be portrayed but without any strong detail. Sexual violence may be shown if discreet and justified by context. |
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18 | Only suitable for people aged 18 or older, which means adults only. It is illegal to supply a VHS, DVD, Blu-ray Disc, UMD, video game or film tickets with an 18 certificate to anyone under that age.
Films under this category do not have limitation on the foul language that is used. Hard drugs are generally allowed, and explicit sex references along with detailed sexual activity are also allowed. Scenes of strong real sex may be permitted if justified by the context. Very strong, gory, and/or sadistic violence is usually permitted. Strong sexual violence is permitted unless it is eroticized or excessively graphic. |
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Restricted 18 | Can only be shown at licensed adult cinemas or sold at licensed sex shops. It is illegal to sell a film with this rating to anyone under the age of 18, and it is also illegal to supply a film with this rating by mail order.
Films under this category always contain hard-core pornography, defined as material intended for sexual stimulation and containing clear images of real sexual activity, strong fetish material, explicit animated images, or sight of certain acts such as triple simultaneous penetration and snowballing. There remains a range of material that is often cut from the R18 rating: strong images of injury in BDSM or spanking works, scenes suggesting incest even if staged, references to underage sex or childhood sexual development and aggressive behaviour such as hair-pulling or spitting on a performer are not permitted. More cuts are demanded in this category than any other category. |
By rating our film 15+, we are aware we immediately alienate a large portion of potential audience. To make a comeback from this we focused directly on what our chosen target audience would want and ensure we met their expectations. Our chosen target audience is young- middle aged, middle class, white, adults. We made this decision because it seemed to be the most reasonable choice due to our limited production resources. We didn’t have access to any actors of a different ethnicity than our own which limited us to a white cast. Therefore, according to research, the majority of our audience would also be white. The age rating of our piece was also affected by our limited production resources. Our main actress is 17, therefore, children below the ages of 12 wouldn’t find the film as appealing as if it was featuring children around the age of 10. We thought that relatability was an important part of our planning. We want the audience to be able to recognise themselves and relate to the characters.
An average target audience profile member might be:
19, male, out with friends. Middle class, white, motivated.
To make our piece appeal to our audience, our storyline had to be suited to their interests. To do this we tried to make the ‘normal’ part of the storyline easily relatable to our audience by coming up with the idea of using an average family kitchen for the majority of the beginning to symbolise real life application. We also made sure the theme of our target audience ran throughout our piece by altering costume, surroundings and language. We made a conscious decision of using an average style car which would be commonly used by someone in our target audience so that we could help make that link between the story line and the viewer’s personal life and experiences which helps creates a sense of intrigue.
Another way we have tried hard to create a sense of intrigue in our work is by strongly considering both our narrative construction and using what we believe is some clever use of editing throughout production. Examples of this would include, camera angles such as; use of slow motion, over the shoulder shots and close ups. We felt that keeping the camera shots at mostly eyelevel would add to the feeling of intrigue as we wanted to be able to transport our audience into the story with the characters. We felt that it would work better as opposed to using cranes and dollies as they would make the audience member feel as though they could be looking down on the characters.
Overall, deciding on our target audience wasn’t an extremely difficult task. However, it did include a bit of research and a couple of group meetings over a long period of time. We are happy with our final decision as we feel it suits our piece best and although it does alienate a large portion of possible audience members, it is a choice we are willing to make for the sake of our final product.
Garageband Research
Another way of getting music suggested to us is through the use of garage band. An example of Garageband’s success would be Garageband’s most well known song is Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, this proves that you can create amazing projects with something as simple as garageband. I decided to do some research into how to use garage band for beginners like myself and this is what I found.
Step 1- Open garage band
Step 2- After opening garage band, select the button ‘empty project’. You should then be presented with the Garage band workspace that looks like this.
You should also see a window that says, “Musical Typing”. Musical Typing is a feature you can use when creating high quality projects.
Here are the Basic controls, located at the top of Garageband, the Controls help edit music as you record it.
Rewind
Fast-Forward
Stop
Play
Record
LCD
At the top of the Garageband workspace and next to the basic controls, the LCD tells you about the current project.
Project/Time: You can choose between viewing your music as measures or in the form of hours, minutes and seconds.
Measures: This shows bars, beats and ticks of the music in real time as the tracks are being played.
BPM: Beats Per Minute of the song. The higher the BPM, the faster the song will play. It is set as 120 by default as it is the most common bpm used in songs.
Key – This button lets us change the musical key of our project. By default, Garageband starts a new project in the key of C Major.
Time Signature – This button lets us change the time signature of our song. By default, Garageband starts a new project in 4/4 time, or common time.
Cycle Tool – Use this tool comes in when you want to repeat a certain section of a track.
Tuner – A tool used to tune instruments.
This button gives the option of hearing four clicks before we start recording a track. It is meant to give us a second or two to prepare for recording.
This toggles between hearing a click sound when recording tracks and not hearing a click. The click sound is meant to help you stay in time with the beat of the song when you are recording.
This button lets you control the volume of the entire song.
The Timeline is how you see the tracks overall. You can use the numbers at the top of the timeline to see which bar of the song you are currently working on. The tracks are recorded from left to right, with Bar 1 being the beginning of the song.
The track headers are where you see information about each of your tracks. When we first open Garageband, only one track is open and it is defaulted to sound like a classic electric piano.
And finally, the instrumental library is made up of pre-installed sounds include drum kits to orchestral instruments to allow you to experiment with different sounds when creating music.
Target Audience Profile
Target audience profile
Our target audience is 15+ therefore allowing us to use disturbing footage for our piece which might not be suitable for younger audiences.
By rating our film 15+, we are aware we immediately alienate a large portion of potential audience. To make a comeback from this we will focus directly on what our chosen target audience would want and ensure we meet their expectations. Our chosen target audience is young- middle aged, middle class, white, adults. We made this decision because it seemed to be the most reasonable choice due to our limited production resources. We didn’t have access to any actors of a different ethnicity than our own which limited us to a white cast. Therefore, according to research, the majority of our audience would also be white. The age rating of our piece was also affected by our limited production resources. Our main actress is 17, therefore, children below the ages of 12 wouldn’t find the film as appealing as if it was featuring children around the age of 10. We thought that relatability was an important part of our planning. We want the audience to be able to recognise themselves and relate to the characters.
A target audience profile member might be:
19, male, out with friends. Middle class, white, motivated.
I decided to take a look into suspense films that are aimed at a similar age range to our piece.
A perfect murder (1998) is a film directed by Andrew Davis. Suitable for 15+
“Wall Street baron Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) discovers that his pretty young wife, Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow), is cheating on him. But what concerns him more than her infidelity is the hope of profiting from her untimely death. Emily has millions, and Steve’s own financial empire is collapsing before his eyes. He hires her lover, David (Viggo Mortensen), to murder her. The plan — to stage a break-in that will look like a random murder — turns out to be far from perfect”
Fallen (1998) is a film directed by Gregory Hoblit. Suitable for 15+
“After witnessing the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas), whom he 
arrested, police detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington), and his partner, Jonesy (John Goodman), are soon investigating another murderer whose mode of operation is eerily similar to Reese’s. In the course of the investigation, Hobbes meets theology professor Gretta Milano (Embeth Davidtz), who introduces him to the world of the occult and the possibility that an evil spirit is behind the killings”
The order of opening credits research
The order of opening credits research
Today I am going to be talking to you about the order of opening credits.
The opening credits or title sequence is the way films or television programs present their title, Production Company and cast members. The opening credits usually use aspects of the film to help establish the tone and setting of the film.
- Name of the studio that is distributing the film.
- Name of the production company responsible for making the film.
- A (Producer’s Name) Production.
- A Film by (Director’s Name).
- Principle actors names
- Film title.
- Featured cast members.
- Casting by.
- Music composer.
- Production designer.
- Makeup, costume, or visual effects credits. Credit the VFX team or supervising visual effects artist, costume and makeup will most likely get credited here.
- Director of photography.
- Producer, produced by, and executive producers production company, and distributor.
- Based on the (book name) by (Author’s Name). This credit is necessary if the film is based off of already existing media.
- Story by. This credit is employed either when a script has gone through a number of changes or someone wrote a story that the film’s script is based on.
- Writer or written by.
- Director or Directed by. The last credit belongs to the director, and the Directors Guild of America only allows one director to be credited as director on the film unless there was a death during production.
We aim to use this as a set of guidelines when creating our piece as the opening title sequence is a key convention of the first two minutes of a film. We hope to use ———— in our piece.
9 Frame Analysis of The Walking Dead
Scene 1: The first still shows abandoned cars on what would usually be a busy motorway giving us the impression that large quantities of people have gone missing and left in a rush. The lighting is natural and bright, indicating it is around midday, therefore adding suspicion as there are very few reasons to there being no people out during such a sunny day
Scene 2: The second still shows a police badge on the ground. The idea of the badge possibly being dropped whilst running or being chased comes to mind as it is not often a police officer would go for a walk in the woods unless on duty or in danger. The badge itself indicates that an authority figure is present and therefore gives us hope of any survivors as authority figures are seen as powerful and wise.
Scene 3: The third still shows two arrows shot into a tree. The arrows signify the use of weapons such as a crossbow, therefore indicating possible threat and violence. The fact that the arrows are stuck in the tree at different angles triggers the thought of someone moving whilst shooting. This could be because the person is running from danger, attempted to shoot something close to the tree but missed, or the person is simply training to use a bow and arrow or crossbow. Either way, a dangerous weapon is still present.
Scene 4: The fourth still shows an over grown graveyard signifying damage to a well-respected place of rest. This indicates that all peace on earth has been lost and there is no one left to care for anything. The way the shot is taken makes us feel very small as it is an up angle. This could have been done to add to the scare factor by making us feel vulnerable
Scene 5: The fifth still shows a diseased eye extreme close up looking away from the camera. This could be a major clue for the viewers in telling us what’s going on. The eye that seems so human is actually so alien, raising many questions such as “what’s wrong with the eye?”, “is this why everywhere is deserted?” and “how did the eye come to look so diseased?”
Scene 6: The sixth still shows an ordinary deserted building in what looks to be a small village. The use of this shot shows the audience that whatever is going on has affected everywhere and not just a small area. The lighting is still the same as the previous stills indicating that little time has passed throughout the sequence. However, the sky looks greyer instead of a blue which would usually be used to represent sadness and discomfort.
Scene 7: The seventh still shows a temporary hideout in an abandoned building or factory. The image we see may as well be the inside of the previous building shown in the sixth still. The building is dirty and is still full of old machinery. However a single makeshift bed is present, indicating the idea that someone is seeking refuge.
Scene 8: Still 8 shows an establishing shot of an empty prison surrounded by a small river. The lighting is dim and grey portraying sadness and desperation. The prison its self is a key part of the episode/ season. The use of a prison indicates the idea of safety and asylum contradicting the idea of violence and danger in the third still.
Scene 9: The ninth still shows the program title in a bold, dirty white font surrounded by a dark and dirty background. The colours used throughout the stills suggest the idea of contamination, infection and disease. This supports the actual theme and genre of the program as you later fight out that it is based on the concept of zombies taking over the world.
Film opening analysis of Insurgent
I have chosen to analyse the first two minutes of Insurgent starring shailene Woodley and Theo James.
It’s one of my favourite films and uses many techniques to create the desired effect.
In terms of genre, I believe that insurgent would fall under either an action film or some sort of futuristic action film.
You can tell that it’s an action film because guns and fighting are displayed very quickly along with some very short clips and very fast music. The reason to assume it’s a futuristic movie, if you had not watched the movie, is because as soon as the trailer begins, you are greeted by very futuristic sounds and a display of technology that I’ve never seen in present day.
Intrigue is created by the use of short clips of what would be quite long scenes making use want to see more. Also the dialogue leaves you with many questions such as, “who are they looking for?”, “what’s in the box?” and “why does she need divergents to open the box?”
The first words to appear on screen are” what sets her apart” in a bold, metallic silver font. After a few more clips it shows “will set the world free” in the same previous font.
The title of the movie is shown in a large, bold and silver metallic font. I think the producers have done this as silver is a metallic colour mostly used in machinery, an aspect used quite a lot throughout the film.
When it comes to sound effects, there is a lot of use of guns, glass smashing and futuristic sounds such as whirling and beeping. There are is a large variety of camera angles however the most common on would probably be tracking as it is easier to follow a character when they are running if you use this technique.
The music in the background is heavy and loud with a lot of drums and crashes. Editing plays a large part in this movie as holograms and wires that move like snakes are featured.
The lighting of the video is dim and grey to represent the seriousness of the situation in which the characters are in.
The first two minutes of the film is effective because of the use of camera angles and editing to make the story come alive. It made me want to watch more and I think it did with other people too.
AS Media Studies Group1 2016 