Shotlist

Shotlist

Film Title: Influences

Inspiration can be drawn from Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden, with its separating the stylisation of two sections of one word; this places emphasis on its meaning and leads the audience to question why the title was chosen and how it is important. In this case, 'manhunt' is familiar term with sinister connotations, but in the case the hunted is the 'evil' entity, not the hunter, thereby subverting expectations of what the title implies. Furthermore, the title is so basic and literal in its meaning that it quite simple to understand its premise, and although it may be a touch heavy-handed at least it is simple and direct, avoiding anything complex and pretentious. 

The spacing of the letters is relevant here because the 'Man' in question - Bin Laden - is one obvious issue the CIA are facing in their counter-terrorist activity, present in a tightly-lettered, simplistic form, whilst the 'Hunt' is the bigger, longer process that takes years to resolve, conveyed with the letters spread out across the screen/page.

Little White Lies Cover Analysis

Cover Analysis

SL

Documentary Film Poster Annotations

Focus Groups & Target Audiences

Focus Groups & Target Audiences 1

In light of the results of our survey, I interviewed members of our target audience in order to get a better idea in terms of qualitative data what it is about a film that gets people watching. Three boys were interviewed and one girl, all seventeen.
Fitting our assumptions, two of the boys were into the action and thriller genre, and they were attracted to it because of the promise of excitement and adrenalin, although it was mentioned that violence should not be overtly gratuitous and should be done right. The girl agreed that action films are watched for the purpose of entertainment and do not need to develop on any other elements of plot, yet interestingly this was reason that our male interviewee did not like action films. He expressed that he enjoyed drama, romance and comedy because they included an "emotional connection" between the characters that was involving, and particularly that character development is a rewarding process. This view is at odds with the other male interviewees, one of whom stating that human interest stories were not really of interest of him because he only watched films for entertainment and escapism, not as a mirror to real life.
Thus, documentaries were not high on the watchlist of the the action-and-thriller boys, but all the participants agreed that a big factor in making a documentary interesting is presenting a subject that is unfamiliar to the viewer, so learning about a completely new topic is a rewarding experience. Popular criteria for a watchable documentary is that they be somehow relevant, maybe containing 'current affairs', or 'trashy' in the style of Channel 4, with human interest being a strong factor as long as it is entertaining. One of the boys mentioned that he only watched geographical/wildlife elements, but yet it was still the aforementioned element of discovering the unknown, and not "stuff form day to day life" that appealed to him.
In terms of the 'gritty' urban thriller genre, there was a general agreement that its portrayal is often heavy-handed and cliched, and so stereotypes must be avoided in order for a film to gain credibility, and perhaps incorporation a plot twist to keep the genre exciting. As our female interviewee said, once you have seen one generic urban thriller "you have seen them all".
Viral media such as Youtube was the most effective form of getting mass publicity for a film, but the most valuable of exposure was recommendation from a friend. Thus it is important for our film to strike a chord with a certain demographic for it to get good reviews, but attempting to reach as many markets as possible because 'human interest' stories have a fairly universal appeal. Furthermore, the trailer should showcase accurately the vague premise of the film without giving too much away so that the viewer has a notion of what to expect from the genre.

SL.

Mood and Tone

Aesthetics: Mood & Tone Inspiration

Our drama is a sports documentary with a blend of 'urban' drama, and do it needs to incorporate an energetic pace with a certain darker mood. Themes include struggle, relationships, sportsmanship, redemption and triumph over tragedy. 

A lot of the colour palette will adhere to a grey/blue-tinged grain similar to Fish Tank and Into the Abyss (bottom right and bottom left respectively), a typical representation of urban landscapes in order to establish the audiences' expectations and understanding of the geographical context . However we will aim to subvert these visual stereotypes by including more green landscapes such as parks, flowers as trees, in scenes with the tennis court and in the park. After all, almost 40% of London is covered by green space, particularly the numerous commons and parks in South London, so it would be wrong not to include those aesthetics. Furthermore, youth culture is extremely dynamic and creative and this should be represented at least through colourful and stylish clothing; this varied the palette and make the film more visually exciting and avoid drab stereotypes. Inspiration for this can be taken from This is England, where fashion plays a large party of cultural identity and representation of the time; in this case with the characters expressing themselves as members of 80s counter culture (center bottom). Other aesthetic influences include China Heavyweight (Center), because although these people may come from small town agricultural/industrial China, they still present their individualism through their bright clothing and adoption of Western brands. This perhaps may be seen as a visual metaphor as they desire to break free of their rural, insular background and achieve their dreams on an international platform. 

SL.