Thursday, 30 December 2010

Psychographics and Advertisers social grades

Psychographics-
Belongers: Savers, focused on the future, well known as “nest-builders”, stay at homers. They like to save their money.
Emulators: The young, generally between 13 and 15 years old. They lack in self-confidence and are often confused and vulnerable. Advertisers prey on their insecurities offering them role models, hero’s and reassurance of group acceptance.
Emulator-Achievers: Materialists, obsessed with looking rich but don’t actually posses much money. They enjoy designer labels and the finer things in life.
Societially-conscious: Pride themselves on personal rather than professional or financial fulfilment. Their sceptical of advertisings and often referred to as “Greying hippies”.
Need-Directed: Mainly concerned with surviving and not the luxuries, they earn minimum wage or are on benefits.


Advertiser’s social grades     
A.      Upper middle – Higher managerial, professional and administrative (directors etc.)
B.      Middle – Intermediate managerial, Professional and Administrative (teachers, police etc.)
C1. Lower middle – Supervisory, Clerical, Junior Managerial, Professional Administrative            (supervisor at Tesco’s etc.)
C2. Skilled working class – Lower management (Labour/plumbers etc.)
D.      Working Class excl skilled – Semi and unskilled (Shop workers, brick carriers etc.)
E.       Lowest Level of Subsistence – State Pensioner, Widows without another person to support them. Casual or lowest grade worker. (Part-time workers, students, non-workers etc.)

Above are psychographics and social grades used to appropriate the certificates of films. As our short film falls under the genre of psychological thriller we must consider our target audience wisely.
Following the psychographics system we are aiming our short film to represent the “Emulator-Achievers” group. We have chosen this groups as although they may not have large amounts of money they pride themselves on the luxuries suggesting that they would have computers and laptops that were able to access short films easily. In contrast, the “Belongers” are people who don’t go out and socialise and would not be willing to pay to buy short films as they like to save their money. The “Emulators” mostly consist of between the ages of 13-15 years old, now as we are planning to rate our short film as a 15 certificate the majority of emulators are ruled out. “Societially-Conscious” are less likely to watch a psychological Thriller as they are often described as “Greying hippies” who like to focus on the positive and would chose to watch a comedy instead. The “Need-Directed” are generally of the minimum wage and would not necessarily have the money for a computer or to buy DVD’s however the age range of the Need-Directed group, is predominately early 20’s to mid 30’s, we consider the age range of the early 20’to be our focus audience for our short film, making the Need-Directed a close second on our psychographics chart.

Following the Advertiser’s social grades we aim our short film to fall under the hybrid of “Middle” and “Lowest level of Subsistence” This is because the Middle section have the intellectual knowledge to appreciate the serious situations explored in our short film, yet they don’t see themselves as “above” them. Lowest level of subsistence consist of a lot of students who are the model age range of 18 to 21 generally, and would be interested in the creepy, guessing game our film holds. Students also spend a lot of time on computers looking at sites such as YouTube, viewing videos and films. The other groups in the social grades would not have the time to sit down and search for short films online and would look for mainstream feature length films appose to short films.
Overall we are aiming our short film at 18 to 25 years olds who are either students or has a job that allows them some spare time to sit and search for short films.

Monday, 13 December 2010

Credits & Soundtrack

Our first attempt at creating the credits for our film didn’t go too well, it made the production look amateur because the opening credits were too brief and also the closing credits looked very unprofessional. After receiving some advice off our teacher and several other students our credits have been added to the film and they have given it a very authentic feel, the font suits the genre of the film and the credits shift around the screen creating a sense of mystery.

The soundtrack to our film was non-existent until close to the deadline as it is very hard to find music that is copyright free, we were then informed of freeplaymusic.com, which allows you to download music for free. From this site we managed to find several suitable soundtracks for separate parts of our thriller, fast paced music to create tension and fear for when our main antagonist is on screen, slower, but still tense soundtracks when anxiety is being created. Then more upbeat music for the parts where all seems well with the protagonist.

Thursday, 9 December 2010

Research into Credits

We thought it would be helpful to explore the correct terminological names that are used in the opening credits and end credits or short films. We felt that this would be helpful as we have little knowledge of how short films show the names of the cast and in what order they appear. I decided to look again at ‘About a Girl’, directed by Brian Percival. The list of correct terminology really helped, and will be used as a template in writing our credits. Below is written in order of appearance in there credits.

Cast...

Writer...

Director...

Producer...

Director of Photography...

Editor...

It then goes on to mention the crew, which includes;

Produced by...

Janey de Nordwall
.... producer

Rebecca Wright
.... line producer


Cinematography by
Geoff Boyle


Casting by
David Shaw


Visual Effects by
Giles Livesey
.... digital film colorist

Camera and Electrical Department
Daniel Gadd
.... clapper loader

Daniel Lightening
.... focus puller


Other crew

Helen Bingham
.... production executive
Gus Crotty
.... location assistant

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

What film company would distribute your short film?

The company we feel should distribute our film is 20th Century Fox because the company has made films which are very similar, such as Independence Day, this film is very fast paced and action based, which reflects our psychological/thriller genre very well, although there's less explosions our film has a tense feel to it throughout. The film company, which also made the films Avatar and Predator, is a good candidate because they are able to raise awareness of our film can target a wide audience.
The funding is there to create the rest of the film and to advertise, it also allows for the film to be shown on a wide scale because 20th Century Fox is such a well-known company so cinemas and film festivals would show the short film. The Home Alone films, all created by 20th Century Fox involve attempted kidnapping, which our film also includes, although the kidnap is successful.

Thursday, 2 December 2010

S.W.O.T

Strengths


Our idea is close to our age group and older. A large target audience.
Very close to thriller/psychological genre.
Very popular genre.
Strong controlling idea.
More people are becoming aware of short films.
Characters are male and female, so shorts film can appeal to both.

Weaknesses


Not many people are willing to pay for a short film.
Many people may not attend film festivals to view our short film.
People may feel that short films are pointless.

Opportunities

Film 4 offers programmes to young film makers.
It can be shown at various film festivals. E.g. Film London
As we live in a post modern society, people have access to large amounts of technology. Such as you tube.
Being able to travel due to people being able to drive, we can film at various locations.


Threats

Other large films coming out at the same time
Standing out from the thousand of other competing short films.
Being able to show our film at Festivals
Getting screen time with Film 4.
With the recession people may not be able to afford to travel to the Festival or buy our short.