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.

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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.