Audience Responses to our film

Question 6 of Evaluation

Question 3 of our Evaluation

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

It is the task of distributors to identify and deliver the largest possible audience for every film. The UK has 6 major distributors and many independent distributors. According to the Film Distributor’s Association, most cinemagoers know in advance which film they want to see – and that is principally a result of competing distributor’s efforts to promote interests in the title(s) they are handling. Media institutions such as Universal would be appropriate to distribute our film because Universal is associated with chick flicks such as Wild Child. We researched other smaller institutions, which might help us create our media product because our film is low budget and not well known. We found suitable institutions such as Bedlam Productions or See Saw Films. Bedlam Productions, might be interested in helping us create our film. They collaborated to make the multiple Oscar winning, “The King’s Speech”; this film is also a comparatively low budget movie like ours. Although their main key areas have been feature films and documentaries, focusing on “real-life” stories, we feel our UK girls independent school setting also raises lots of historical and social issues in teenage lives, which would attract similar audiences.

Most importantly, See Saw Films has a first-look deal with Momentum Pictures in the UK and a film finance deal with the American Paramount Pictures. Since American institutions have much more capital at their disposal than British companies, this link with the US could be the secret to the success of distributing our film. Moreover, as distributer of “Mean Girls”, Paramount may well be interested in our film as it is aimed at a similar audience, addressing similar high school issues and stereotypes.

Momentum and Paramount would be great distributors for our product because they can distribute our film through larger companies and to the USA. These institutions would also be interested in distributing our media product because British audiences tend to warm to good quality, British films, and could work well on the back of the success of “The King’s Speech”. This might also attract funding from the UK Film Council.

The cinema is a place where film makers would love to have their products showcased. Films have the opportunity to come across as their best in cinemas as audiences enjoy an uninterrupted cinema experience. Therefore, we would like to show our feature film theatrically – in cinemas, as it is the best and most effective way to show a film and it creates a demand to see it. Showcasing our film on television channels rather than the cinema would be less effective because it would gain less audience attention.
According to the Film Distributor’s Association, the most frequent cinema goers tend to be teenagers, students and young adults, and they are the most voracious media consumers. This benefits us because our media product is aimed at a young target audience. More than half of 15-25 year olds in the UK visit the cinema at least once a month. Due to this, hopefully a good distributor such as Momentum or Paramount will distribute our product because it is aimed a large, young audience.

We invented a collaboration of production companies to produce our film. We created Starship Pictures and COSMO Productions, inspired by a space-like theme which has connotations of innovation and groundbreaking material. Our Starship Pictures logo of the globe surrounded by stars, was inspired by the logo of Univeral Pictures. COSMO also connotes a “girly essence” reminiscent of the fashion magazine named “Cosmo”.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

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Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 7 of the Evaluation

7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From doing our preliminary tasks back in October to now having completed our main coursework piece, we feel we have learnt a great deal that helped us to make our product the best it could be.

Probably the most important thing we learnt from our preliminary task was that when filming we should always use a tripod. In our preliminary task, we handheld the camera when filming the shot-reverse-shot sequence and although it seemed steady at the time, it was clear when we uploaded it to final cut express that this was not the case. Therefore, when shooting our film opening ‘Dirty Little Secret’, we made sure that we used a tripod the whole time, except for when shooting the main character point of view shot. This made our shots steadier and easier to watch than our shaky preliminary tasks. We decided that handheld would be appropriate for Cally’s point of view shot as we found it was conventional of chick flicks like our piece.

After having a professional cameraman in to view our preliminary tasks, he pointed out the importance of headroom. It was clear in our preliminary tasks that there was much too much space above the actor’s heads, and so they did not properly fill the frame and there was too much background. Therefore, in our main piece, we were careful to make sure that our actresses filled most of the shot, ensuring that there was little or no space above her head. We feel that this improved our film greatly in comparison to our preliminary task and we have learnt how important it is that the actors fill the shot.

We also learnt how important it is to be organised, and made sure that for our filming of ‘Dirty Little Secret’, we had everything ready. In our preliminary task, we made the mistake of not charging the camera before filming and so had the problem of having to charge it and film at the same time. Luckily, since we were filming inside, this was not so much of a problem, but if it had happened in our main piece filming, we would not have been able to film. Therefore, we made sure the cameras were fully charged and our equipment was set up before our actress and extras arrived for filming. We found it difficult to arrange everyone in place and had to do lots of retakes in a short space of time, but from this we have learnt efficiency and we managed to get most of the filming done on the first day. Like in the preliminary task, we had to film over two days and so we made sure that our actress was wearing exactly the same thing she was wearing before and waited for a day in which the weather would be the same. Again, even though we had a short space of time, we managed to get our filming done completely by the second day and so we learnt a lot from this about time management, organisation and the importance of communication.

When editing our final piece, we thought back to our preliminary task and remembered the importance of continuity. In our preliminary task, we found that it took a considerable amount of time to edit the actor walking through the door so that it looked realistic. Therefore, we made sure that we took time editing our film opening, so that it flowed well, keeping the verisimilitude of the piece.

So, from our preliminary task to our main coursework piece, we learnt a lot about constructing a film and the experience at filming and editing certainly helped us when it came to doing our film opening of ‘Dirty Little Secret.’

Question 5 of the Evaluation

5) How did you address/attract your audience?

The target audience for our main piece in mostly teenage girls between the ages of 10-18 and we researched modern chick flicks with a similar target group and found out how they made the film fit the need of the main audience. Like in films such as wild child and St Trinians, we decided our main character would be a young, fashionable and pretty female. This was because our research found that this was common of modern, girly chick flicks aimed at teenage girls. We chose to have this stereotypical female character as the hero of the story, since she would be someone that the audience could recognise and relate to, attracting them to our film. So in a sense, we showed our audience in our film, by choosing an actress who was female and of the age group.

During our first discussions about the plot and idea of our main piece, we were unsure of how to make the character of Cally stand out from the other girls in the school. We first thought that Cally should be of lower class, dressed less well than the other girls, so that she felt intimidated by the typical snobby girls at the posh private school. However we decided against this, having Cally dress fashionably, but be a rebellious character and so making the other girls look up to her, though they appear to be jealous of her, giving her dark looks as she passes. We found that this idea was more common in chick flicks and was more suited both our actress and our original idea.

We found that the way we dressed Cally did seem to be the right decision as when we showed a preview of our film opening to our target audience, the shoes our actress was wearing was hugely popular among the girls. They commented on how they really liked them, wanting to buy the shoes themselves. Therefore, this did reach out to our target audience and attract them to our film opening.  

With the girls who played extras in our film, we allowed them to form their own groups, making the film more realistic as they were in similar age and friendship groups. This created verisimilitude, along with the chosen setting, which was our school, which we found was the perfect setting. We also had girls in the windows of the school building, which showed that everyone was focusing on Cally as she arrived for her first day. We handheld the camera in part of our film, showing Callys point of view as she looked over at the small group of sixth form girls and the head girl. This also would help the audience to relate to Cally, getting the sense of being watched by the girls who think they are superior to her.

Another important thing that we also found attracted the girls that we showed a preview of our opening to, was the music. Our song Dirty Little Secret by The All American Rejects was the perfect song for our piece as it was a well known, upbeat, current song that was widely and often used in the chick flick films we had researched. We also felt that the lyrics of the song applied to the plot for our film and so decided that Dirty Little Secret would also be the title to our film. From the questionnaire given to the girls at the screening and the interviews we had with a few of them afterwards, the music was scored extremely highly and the girls were very enthusiastic about it.

Risk Assesment - uploaded late

FILM PRODUCTION RISK ASSESSMENT

Production Title Dirty Little Secret	Production Date(s) February 2011 – April 2011
Producers Names Lizzie Smith, Shereen Sagoo and Kayleigh Turner	Directors Names Lizzie Smith, Shereen Sagoo and Kayleigh Turner
Date of Risk Assessment 9h February 2011	Risk Assessment conducted by Lizzie Smith, Shereen Sagoo and Kayleigh Turner

Hazard	Persons who may be harmed	Property which may be damaged	Risk controls already in place	Risk Assessment LOW, MODERATE, HIGH, EXTREME (see table)	Further action required to control risk
Driveway/cars	All actresses and directors	Camera equipment	Pavement at the side of driveway and roundabout	Unlikely High	Warn all persons to take extra care.
Trolley for filming	Directors	N/A	Handle to control the wheels of the trolley	Unlikely Low	Warn all persons to take extra care.
Temperature/weather	All actresses and directors	Camera equipment could get wet	None	Unlikely/Moderate Low	Check weather forecast, ensure actresses are dressed appropriately
Road outside	One actress and directors	Camera equipment	Pavement	Rare high	Warn all persons to take extra care.

Title Sequence of "A Cinderella Story"

COSTUMES

For our film we had to dress our characters appropriately to fit in with the storyline and the chick flick genre. Our main actress, Harriet, who played Cally wore very girly, modern, trendy clothes with high heels and long flowing hair. The rest of the characters in the film are girls at Cally's new school, so they were all in uniform. The sixth formers at the school were dressed in sensible clothes for school to make Cally stand out and show that she is unique.Cally's clothes fit in the with chick flick genre because they are what teen girls wear, however in our film it was very cold so Harriet had to wear a fashionable coat on top, but it was left unbuttoned to see the tshirt!

Cally's clothes - a Barbie top, skinny jeans and peek-toe heels          

School girl clothes - Blue blazer and skirt, black shoes      

                   

Update on Filming Progress

So far, filming has been very successful. We have edited most of the film and it looks great, with a variety of different shots. We have teaked many things and shortened some clips so that the film flows more. We have also edited the film so that it runs with the music, which makes it more effective. I also would like to thank Axel for coming in today because he gave us some feedback. Gladly, he enjoyed our film and said not much had to be amended. The editing of the title and credits still need to be done, and hopefully we will finish this by Monday. The editing has been an enjoyable process and I have learned how to use Final Cut Express well.

Sub-genres of a chick flick

Tearjerkers

·         Tearjerkers are gal-pal films, movies about family and emotional crises. They are traditionally ‘weepies’ and fantasy-action adventures, sometimes with powerful females and bonding situations involving families and woman’s issues. An example of a tearjerker is ‘The Notebook.’ 

Rom-com

·         Rom coms are films with light-hearted, humorous plot lines, centred on romantic ideas such as true love. Examples of a Romantic comedy are Bridget Jones’ Diary and What Happens in Vegas.

Guy com

·         A guy chick flick is a movie where feelings and emotions are discussed and/or dealt with, but from the guy's point-of-view, and with minimum sap.  They may contain things most guys enjoy, like sport, and strong language, but they are always about guys dealing with life, their futures, or relationships with women, family, and/or friends. Examples of guy coms are American Pie and The Hangover.  

The Hangover is a perfect example of a Guy Com. It is like a chick flick, but instead of focusing on the problems and issues of girls, it focuses on men.

Iconic sounds suited to a chick flick

Chick Flicks regularly use non-naturalistic music with a fast beat such as "Hit me with your best shot" which was used in What Happens in Vegas and Bring it On Again. Modern chick flicks, such as Mean Girls or Cinderella Story use pop/rock music and feel good songs within their films to create a postivie, girly feel. A regular occurence in Chick flick movies is when music is played and the main character sings along, for example in Bridget Jones' Diary and scenes from What Happens in Vegas and Pretty Women.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D0zfB1l1x0 This link is an example of this in "Bridget Jones' Diary" singing "All by Myself"

Most of the music pieces used in chick flicks are about love. There is always a special scene in chick flicks to show the special moment between the boy and girl who fall in love. This is where the main love song is used, for example, this scene in "A Cinderella Story".

There are also other ionic sounds used in chick flicks, which may not be pieces of music. In many chick flicks, there are a lot of girl fights so screaming is used. Crying is another sound which is typical sound of Chick flicks. Mean Girls is the perfect example because it includes crying, screaming, love songs, rock songs and slow, sad songs. This is a famous example of a “scream” sound used in Mean Girls.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dpZChF7p1Sk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This soundtrack is the ultimate soundtrack for songs in Chick Flicks. This shows that there are stereotypical songs put into Chick Flicks and these are the type of songs that the audience want to hear. These are some of the songs featured on this CD. Mostly all of these promote a feel-good atmosphere and girl power, like “Respect” by Aretha Franklin.

1. Move On Up - Curtis Mayfield (Bend It Like Beckham)

2. Hot Stuff - Donna Summer (The Full Monty)

3. Respect - Aretha Franklin (Bridget Jones's Diary)

4. I'm Coming Out - Diana Ross (Last Days Of Disco)

5. Lady Marmalade - Labelle (Long Kiss Goodnight)

6. Can't Fight The Moonlight - LeAnn Rimes (Coyote Ugly)

7. Flashdance….What A Feeling - Irene Cara (Flashdance)

8. Burning Down The House - Tom Jones & The Cardigans (Someone Like You)

9. American Pie - Madonna (The Next Best Thing)

10. Let's Hear It For The Boy - Denise Williams (Footlose)

There have been many famous crying scenes in chick flicks and these affect the audience because it makes us feel sympathy for the main character who we all love. The fast tempo music makes the audience feel good and lively and girls always love a cheesy number in films, for example in Music & Lyrics. Girl power, as said before is often promoted in chick flicks, and this one, in St Trinian’s is a perfect example. It also shows rock being used in chick flicks which is stereotypically expected.

Update on Filming Progress

Our set date for main filming is Wednesday 16th! We have prepared well in the last two weeks and have overcome the problem of filming on our bumpy set which is gravel. We are now using a trolly to roll on the pavement so it will be a smooth film, and when we need to film on gravel, the tripod will come into use well whilst on top of the trolly. We have finally casted our production and we will be using a numerous number of girls, as our film is about an all-girls school! A dark blue ferrari was parked outside of school this week, and we thought this would be a brilliant opportunity to get some shots of it for our film, to represent the social class of the girls at the school in our production, to over exaggerate the stereotypical views of private school students. We have run through some practice shots with our main actress playing Cally, and so far it has been an overall success. One problem however, the teacher who was casted to play the Headmistress in our film does not come in on Wednesdays so we may have to re-cast her role. We are hoping for a successful day on Wednesday and hope it runs smoothy.
This our set and where we will be filming on Wednesday. However it won't look this summery unfortunatley due to the cold weather!

Chick Flick Collage

First 9 Shots in "Mean Girls"

                                          1) Cady Heron's mum and dad close up shot of them
                                              talking to Cady before her first day of school.

                                           2)Close up of Cady. Over the shoulder shots
                                        

                                          3) Cady's taking a photo of Cady and her mum

                                         4)The photo that Cady's dad took off his camera

                                          5) Cuts to a spelling bee to show stereotypical views
                                               of "Home schooled freaks".

                                          6)Another cut to more "homeschooled freaks"

                                          7) Close up of Cady. She is homeschooled but her
                                              family is normal and she is not a freak, but she used to
                                              live in Africa.

                                          8)A snapshot, far shot of Cady's African life     

                                          9) Cut back to reality of Cady standing outside of her
                                             new school in America, saying goodbye to parents.

                                           These first 9 shots shows the storyboard of Mean Girls
                                           for the introduction. Many close ups were used which
                                          reflects typical conventions of a chick flick, so in our
                                          2 minute film, we will also use close ups.

History of Chick Flicks

The term ‘Chick Flick’ has been around for at least twenty years and is a slang reference to movies that appeal to a predominantly female audience. Usually these types of movies are heavily emotional and revolve around relationships, both romantic and platonic. This genre of film has existed since the beginning of the movie industry. The earliest examples include ‘Morocco’ released in 1930, 1936′s ‘Camille’ and of course ‘Gone with the Wind’ in 1939.

Many film critics have noted that today’s Chick Flick differs somewhat from earlier movies directed at female audiences. The earlier films were more melodramatic and tragic, like ‘Mildred Pierce’ and ‘Written on the Wind’, whereas the modern version is definitely more upbeat and optimistic in nature.

Conventions of a chick flick movie

Basic rules of a chick flick

Rule 1: There is no such thing as a sci-fi or horror chick flick. While fantasy can certainly be used in the storyline, movies that are dominated by technology and gore cannot be a chick flick.

Rule 2: A film cannot be a chick flick if the female goes to the movie to see her favourite male star, regardless of the content of the movie. Therefore female fans that went to see ‘Troy’ just to see Brad Pitt means that ‘Troy’ isn’t a chick flick.

Rule 3: A true chick flick cannot be a full-on comedy. For example "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." It fits many of the criteria of a chick flick. The same may be said for Legally Blonde I and II.

So, what are the conventions of a chick flick?

1. The female lead must be a strong woman who faces adversity and overcomes it, usually by pure force of will.
2. There must be significant tragedy that the woman must overcome to reach her stronger self. In its simplest form, someone has to die, often the lead female, herself. Pretty Woman is the exception that does not prove this rule.
3. There must a love interest.
4. There may be no violence, war or fight scenes in a Chick Flick
5. There must be at least one moment where a character cries. The shedding of tears may be of sadness or happiness, but there must be crying.

Research on Chick Flicks

Chick Flick Genre
RESEARCHING FAMOUS CHICK FLICK DIRECTORS

Mark Stephen Waters (born June 30, 1964) is an American film director. Waters is perhaps best known for directing Just Like Heaven, Freaky Friday and Mean Girls.

He is the brother of screenwriter Daniel Waters and has been married to actress Dina Spybey since 2000. He is a graduate of the American Film Institute and as of September 2006 has a development deal with Paramount pictures. He directed The Spiderwick Chronicles, filming in Montreal in the fall of 2006. In 2008 he shot "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" in Boston.

Mean Girls is a 2004 American teen comedy film, directed by Mark Waters. The screenplay was written by Tina Fey and based in part on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, which describes how female high school social cliques operate, and the effect they can have on girls. The film stars Lindsay Lohan and features a supporting cast of Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, and Lizzy Caplan.

John Tucker Must Die - John Tucker Must Die is a 2006 American high school comedy romance film, directed by Betty Thomas. The film is about a trio of girls (played by Ashanti, Sophia Bush, and Arielle Kebbel) who plot to break the heart of manipulative basketball star John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) after they learn he has been secretly dating all three and pledging each is "the one". They recruit cute wallflower Kate (Brittany Snow) in their scheme to publicly humiliate the cad. Released in North America on July 28, 2006. The film reached number 3 in the US and number 1 in Australia.

Born Betty Thomas Nienhauser in St. Louis, Missouri, Thomas graduated from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She worked as an artist and taught school in Chicago before deciding to pursue a career in show business.
Thomas joined The Second City comedy group and appeared in the films Tunnel Vision (1975), Chesty Anderson, USN (1976), Used Cars (1980) and Loose Shoes (1980) and on the TV series The Fun Factory (1976). Later, she appeared as a guest performer on the British comedy program Whose Line Is It Anyway? in 1988.
While Thomas had been building her career in comedy, her breakthrough role as an actress came when she was cast in the dramatic role of police officer (later Sergeant) Lucille Bates on the TV series Hill Street Blues (1981–1987). She was nominated for six Emmy Awards for this role and won one for Best Supporting Actress in 1985. Thomas' character was paired with Officer Joe Coffey, portrayed by Ed Marinaro.
Following the end of the series, Thomas moved into directing. She first worked in TV, directing episodes of series such as Doogie Howser, M.D., Dream On, Hooperman, Mancuso, F.B.I., Midnight Caller, On the Air, Parenthood, Shannon's Deal and Sons and Daughters, and TV movies such as Couples (1994), My Breast (1994), and The Late Shift (1996). She won Emmys for her direction of Dream On in 1990 and My Breast in 1994.
Thomas made her feature film directorial debut in 1992 with Only You. She went on to direct several films, including The Brady Bunch Movie (1995), Private Parts (1997), Dr. Dolittle (1998), 28 Days (2000), and I Spy (2002). She has also produced several films, including Can't Hardly Wait (1998), Charlie's Angels (2000), and Surviving Christmas (2004).
In 2009, Thomas directed Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.
This information was from Wikipedia