Practical Task - Risk Assessment

Practical Task - Profile of our typical viewer

We found that the majority of our viewers who answered to the survey and preferred Action/Thriller type movies (the genre(s) we would be portraying) were predominantly of the male gender. On the other hand, the majority of the females who answered tended to prefer Comedy and Horror movies the most, however those weren't the genres we would be basing our movie off so we believe that our typical viewer would be of the male gender. Either way, in general people tended to preferred action movies the most. 

From the people that answered, we also found that a large portion varied from ages 16 to 30 and because of this a variety of the answers in the "Occupation" section were "Student" since people from 16 to 24 would most likely still remain within education while ones beyond 24 could perhaps have a career by that time. Since most students will be financially supported by their families and people of age 24 and beyond are mature enough and old enough to financially support themselves, we thought that the majority of our typical viewers would be in the middle class in terms of finance so that they could afford to view our movie.

Since no factors within our movie separate people of different nationalities, ethnicities and sexualities from each other we identified that it wouldn't matter what our typical viewer's nationality, ethnicity or  sexuality since it wasn't relevant.

Overall these would be the demographic factors of our typical viewer:

Gender: Male

Most Preferred Genre: Action

Age: 16 - 30 Year Olds

Occupation: Student

Class: Middle Class

Nationality: Mixed

Ethnicity: Mixed

Sexuality: Mixed

Practical Task - Script

Michael Thomas - Michael Blakewood

Alexandar Jokovic - Alex Wilson

The scene opens in a room, there are pills scattered around the room, mostly around the main character 

Michael Blakewood who is sitting on a chair near a wall, there are also bottles of empty and semi full spirits around the character. It is identified that the character is contemplating suicide.

MICHAEL BLAKEWOOD

(Sitting on a chair, holding the gun. Michael then takes the gun to his head)

*Heavy Panting*

(Cut to outside of the building)

*Gunshot*

(Cut to back inside the building, it becomes apparent that it was not Michael who shot the gun. Michael stands up, holding the gun and proceeds to exit the room)

(Michael walks out of the room, he then proceeds to walk towards the source of the noise)

(Michael walks up to the second room, the door is already open, there is a body lying on the floor with a blood stained shirt in the middle of the room, this is Alex Wilson. Michael approaches the body and kneels down towards it, Michaels vision becomes distorted, he then passes out next to Alex)

Fade to black and then title sequence

Practical Task - Synopsis of "Innocent Till Proven Guilty"

Storyline: 

When 20 year old Michael Blakewood gets unknowingly involved in a murder, he is told he has two days to prove his innocence before he is framed by an assailant of which he has no idea has a grudge against him.

Synopsis:

The film opens with the main character Michael Blakewood (Michael Thomas) sitting down on a chair swallowing pills along a tipped wine bottle on a table by the side, contemplating suicide. While he prepares to kill himself with a loaded gun, a gunshot from elsewhere is heard. Alerted, he walks out of his apartment taking his gun with him into the corridor and spots a partially opened door and walks into the apartment. Michael walks through to see a man lying on the floor facing death as mutters a few words to Michael that aren’t made out clear. The man then dies, along with Michael passing out from the pills he had previously taken.

Michael then awakens in a holding cell with his vision blurry and realising he has clearly been arrested. To his own shock, he demands that the working officers release him immediately before they take him out of his cell to question him over the murder of a boy identified as "Alex Wilson". Claiming not to have had any part within the murder and not possessing any information over the murder, the police have no choice but to bring him back to the holding cell upon further questioning. This due to the fact that he has no recollection of recent events due to the drugs. The police then open his cell to tell him he's free to leave. Not realising how or why, he is informed that his bail has been paid. 

Upon having his clothes and items returned to him Michael discovers a note in one of his boots. He finds that an unknown assailant has paid for his bail but that if he is unable to prove himself innocent within 48 hours he will go down for murder, spending his sentence in an adult institution a year premature as the evidence to frame him is strong enough to enforce such as sentence. Knowing he'd be unable to survive that lifestyle, Michael comes to the realisation that he must act fast.

Michael's first instinct is to visit his home in order to try gain access to CCTV footage of any kind that would be relevant to his case. Upon his arrival to the security department he is informed that all CCTV footage in the past week had been stolen and destroyed. He then opens an unread text again from an unknown assailant taunting him about not being able to find any proof through video of his innocence while telling him that "time is ticking". He discovers a clue given to him telling him to look at the side of his aspirin bottle. Not seeing any written words he sees that he is overthinking it and that he is being advised to go to the pharmacy from where he purchased his prescription drugs.

While en route towards the pharmacy a man is assassinated in public causing controversy and a state wide traffic jam. Knowing that he has no time to waste, he abandons his car and sprints towards the pharmacy only to find that it's closed due to a large amount of stock being stolen within the company warehouse. At the same knowing that he needs a new pack of pills to maintain his normality he then opens the next text message as it seems like the most appropriate thing to do. It is telling him the location of the drugs but to bring £5000 cash and leave it in a brown paper bag under the yellow van waiting at the given site and that he must drive off immediately upon arrival. He finds that the sensible thing to do is return the goods to their rightful owner and sets off to take it back to the pharmacy but finds police waiting for him at the exit where he arrested and brought back to station where held at first.

The officers investigating his case find it very difficult to believe he had no involvement in the murder at hand if he committed an offence which would also get him sent down for a long time (possession of stolen goods). As Michael awaits within the station, two officers walk in and inform him that the results from the analysis of there body have returned. they then tell him that they have found fingerprints of a man who was believed to be dead over 5 years ago who went by the name Keinan.

All charges on Michael were dropped, Michael leaves the station and decides to carry on his own investigation. the film ends with a man watching Michael from across the road.

Practical Task - Locations for filming

Michael Thomas' House (First Location)

Alex Jokovic's House (Second Location)

Keinan Rayat's House (Third Location)

Practical Task - Props and Costumes

For our films opening, we have two characters, the costumes for these characters are listed below.

Dead person lying on floor / Alex Wilson (Alex Simon): 

• Bloodied casual clothes (Patterned shirt/White T-Shirt & jeans)

Person attempting suicide / Michael Blakewood (Michael Thomas):

• Tattered clothes (blue chinos, dark top)

Props:

• Alcohol bottles: These are for the character "Michael" who is about to commit suicide in the first scene, this is to show the audience that he is not thinking straight and is making an irrational decision. The bottles will only be in one scene, being the opening which means we will only need it on the 17th of January as it is part of the stage decoration. 

• A Fake Black Gun: This is going to be in every scene during the opening, it will be owned by the character Michael and will be carried by him into the next two locations. The gun is black and is owned by Alex, we will be using it from the 17th of January and the 20th of February.

• Tic Tacs and Pill bottle: These will also only be in the first scene however, they will be in use as the character "Michael" will be taking them to present him as a drug user to emphasise his rash decision. Barney and I will but the tic tack and i already have a pill bottle to use 

• Vimto: The Vimto will be used as fake blood during the last scene to show the character Alex Wilson dying. We will use it on the 20th of February.

• A White T-Shirt: Alex will be wearing a white shirt with the Vimto poured on it to look like blood, this will be to show that he is dying and that it was quite recent. 

• Glass: The glass will only be used in the first scene when Michael drinks from it to swallow the pills. We will use it on the 17th of January

Practical Task - Storyboard

The first part of the storyboard indicating the scene where the main character "Michael Blakewood" is on the brink of suicide as we can clearly see that he is attempting to end his life through the consumption of alcohol and non prescription pills. He then hears a gunshot from outside his house while camera cuts to a shot outside the building making the audience believe he had did it to himself. He then leaves his room due to the curiosity of where the gunshot had come from to find a door that has been partially opened. The second  storyboard shows that he has walked into the room with the partially opened the door to find the dead body of Bruk Wilson to which he at this point in time cannot identify. From this storyboard we initially intended to have sirens be heard indicating the Blakewood has been arrested but we decided to change it to a businessman discovering the dead body also but assuming that Blakewood had committed the crime.

Research for Transformers: Age of Extinction

Production Phase:

Series History: 4th in the series

Director: Michael Bay

Producers:

• Don Murphy
• Tom DeSanto
• Lorenzo di Bonaventura
• Ian Bryce

• 
  

Production Companies:

• Paramount Pictures (presents)
• Hasbro (in association with)
• Di Bonaventura Pictures (as di Bonaventura Pictures)
• Tom DeSanto/Don Murphy Production
• Ian Bryce Productions

Distributors:

• Cocinsa 
• Columbia Pictures
• Huaxia Film Distribution Company 
• Paramount Pictures Entertainment 
• Paramount Pictures 
• Solar Pictures
• United International Pictures (UIP)
• Universal Pictures International (UPI)
• KVH Media Group
• NOS Audiovisuais 
• Paramount Home Entertainment 

Production Budget: $150 Million


Distribution and Marketing Phase:

Distribution Companies:

• Cocinsa 
• Columbia Pictures
• Huaxia Film Distribution Company 
• Paramount Pictures Entertainment 
• Paramount Pictures 
• Solar Pictures
• United International Pictures (UIP)
• Universal Pictures International (UPI)
• KVH Media Group
• NOS Audiovisuais 
• Paramount Home Entertainment

P&A budget:

China spent $3 Million - $5 Million on Marketing and in return managed to generate $300 Million.

America spent $150 Million - $200 Million on Marketing and in return managed to generate $400 Million.

Key Marketing Strategies:

• Airing Premiere in Hong Kong
• Creating a video game
• TV advertising
• Released trailer on iTunes and other platforms such as TV and YouTube

Cross media strategies and examples of convergence:

Use of internet:

A good form of advertising from which companies can market their movies for a much lower price or no price at all in some cases e.g. YouTube, Facebook

Web 2.0 and audience 2.0 strategies: Twitter, Facebook etc. Where audiences can also interact with members that took part in the creation of the film wite.

Practical Task - Casting Shots

Alexandar Jokovic - Alex Wilson

Justification: 
Since the character of "Alex Wilson" would simply lie dead on the floor within the scene, we found that we simply needed an actor that matched the demographic factors within our film e.g. based on age, we needed someone who was young - predominantly between the age of 17 and 20. For this casting decision, we found that a great deal of experience within acting wasn't needed.








Michael Thomas - Michael Blakewood

Justification:
Based on the script we found that the character of "Michael Blakewood" was required to perform a variety of stage directions and therefore found that in this case we needed an actor who actually had experience within the field. Since we knew that Michael had previously performed in acting roles such as plays etc. we thought that he would make an effective role.

Feedback for Trial Exam - Age within a TV Drama

For my essay on the representation of age with the TV Drama extract "Monarch of Glen" I was given the following feedback.

- Weak on Terminology (Only used "cut" when referring to editing)

- Only referred to costume when referring to Mise-en-scene

- Must link representations to micro elements (have a tendency to describe narrative events)

- Give range of examples

- Good writing on camera

Representation of Sexuality - Fingersmith

Through the extract of the Drama "Fingersmith" one of the micro-elements we focused on was Mise-en-scene for which many factors represented sexuality. For example, when the main character gives the maid a dress she comes very close the maid almost as if it's an excuse to touch her. Similarly, when they're both lying on the bed the closeness of their relationship is shown as she tries to touch her during her sleep. Also a painting is shown to idiolize the love between the two homosexual characters and also red blood during the painting scene represents menstruation and her realising that she is attracted to the maid. Heterosexuality on the other hand is shown to be very violent when the planned groom aggressively puts his hand over his planned wife's mouth.

Counter/Stereotypes of Sexuality seen in a TV Drama

The TV Drama I watched to find examples of both counter-stereotypes and stereotypes within sexuality was the UK Drama "Skins".

Stereotypes of Homosexuality: One of the main characters "Maxxie"  who is gay participates a lot in the performing arts, mainly dance and tap dance while wishing to fulfil his dream of in fact being a dancer. A common stereotype seen within homosexual males is that one of their interests include the performing arts/the theatre etc.

Counter-stereotypes of Homosexuality: A common stereotype about female homosexuals is that they are tough or aggressive and commonly have very short hair cuts. Basically the way stereotypes work with homosexuals is that the stereotypes seen with heterosexuals are basically reversed so that males have stereotypical female characteristics and that females have stereotypical male characteristics. In season 2 and 3 the two lesbian characters that are "Naomi" and "Emily" are not at all seen as having stereotypical male characteristics such as short hair or aggressiveness. 

Stereotypes of Heterosexuality: One stereotype of heterosexuality that you could argue is that often the male within a relationship is the abuser although this isn't seen much within Skins.

Counter-stereotype of Heterosexuality: Another common stereotype within heterosexuality is that if someone were to cheat or have an affair it would most likely be the male to do so however in Season 3 and 4 we see that the character "Effy Stonem"'s mother cheats on Effy's father with his work colleague. 

Desperate Housewives - Reflections on Archetypes

Generally throughout the episodes of "Desperate Housewives" the main female characters are represented in a manner of their female archetypes. For example, "The Earth Mother" character that is "Lynette Scavo" is seen to be always caring for her children and friends through the use of offering spiritual and emotional nourishment to them although she does at times find her childbearing capabilities difficult. 

The "Temptress" character "Gabrielle Solis" is similarly portrayed through her archetypes of being characterized by sensuous beauty as we see at the start of the show that she takes modelling jobs and is known that at a young age she moved to New York to pursue a career in modelling. Also,

Representation of Gender

Females

Males