FINAL EVALUATION

I completed tasks A and B for brief one in task A I worked with Katie, Amrit, and Khadijah to create 3 minutes of moving image footage as an extract from our proposed competition entry. Topics from the brief that provided inspiration were Secret, Friendship, and Romance. For task B, I created pages for a promotional booklet to demonstrate the variety of local film making talent.

My research contributed greatly to my pre-production tasks and the final product. I completed institutional research into BBFC; specifically the classifications for a 15-certificate film, my film rating will follow these guidelines. I also researched into the art-house film industry; I looked into other successful art-house films. I looked at what made the films successful, the distribution companies and budgets for the films. This research allowed me to gather inspiration for my group's extract. A film of particular interest to me was ‘A Clockwork Orange’. My research of this film helped me to gain a better understanding of the arthouse film industry, particularly what the typical audience like to see in their films.

The most inspiring film to my group’s production was ‘Donnie Darko’, directed by Richard Kelly. The story centres on a troubled teenager suffering from schizophrenia who is taunted by disturbing visions from a tall bunny rabbit. The narrative of Donnie Darko was particularly inspirational for me. It allowed me to identify how best to portray mental illness in a film for niche audiences without reinforcing negative stereotypes about mental illness.

We completed audience research, by conducting a focus group. We prepared a detailed pitch, in which we attempted to sell our film idea to our peers and teacher. We thoroughly discussed our idea with the group; pitching about all aspects of our idea from the narrative to how our idea would appeal to a 15 years+ audience. The general response from the film pitch was positive and informed our film idea. We took on board the suggestions and comments made and I believe we were able to produce a more professional looking extract. For instance, one of our peers suggested using a wide variety of editing techniques (jump cuts, dissolves, fade ins/outs) to produce a powerful sequence about mental illness and subvert the negative stereotypes in a creative way, which was visually appealing.

The intended target audience for Kiss Of Death is the 15 – 35 years old age bracket and of middle to working class; the minimal age is due to the requirements of the brief. They are an AB selection fitting into the psychographic groups of explorers and reformers. The gender split, is 60% to 40% ratio of females to males. The interests of the audience are likely to lay in Psychology and Drama with a specific interest into how the mind works. Employment status is likely to vary; some are likely to still be in full and part-time education. Others are in full and part-time employment.

 In my opinion, the intended audience of our film is likely to use Apple technology and wear Michel Kors clothes or similar. Other films that may be of interest to them   are Jacobs Ladder, Welcome to New York, Black Swan, and Mulholland Drive. I have selected these films as ones of interest to our audience as they all have original yet creative narratives in which the main character(s) are going through life with two different identities.

This audience is advantageous, as it will help to widen the market and interest in independent arthouse films. I do not think that we should have targeted a completely different demographic. This could prove to be a weakness as the film is already targeted at a niche audience and a different demographic could make the film too specialist to a small selection of the audience market. Despite this, I think that we possibly could have targeted both a core and secondary audience to maximise the success of the film.

Another weakness is that younger audiences are more likely to watch Hollywood blockbusters rather than arthouse films. Hollywood blockbusters carry more of an interest for the audience through its well-known cast members but also because many of them are sequels to previous films. Therefore, blockbusters pull in the audiences of the age we have targeted, as they are intrigued to find out what happens next in the ongoing narrative.

Despite, strengthens and weaknesses of the targeted audience, I feel that we have fulfilled the brief in that our product does attract a new audience to arthouse cinema. Although arthouse films are an acquired taste, the romance element of our product is a theme that is quite popular among the mass audience, which could drive them towards arthouse cinemas.

My film meets the key conventions of an arthouse film as it includes a variety of different sound, editing and camerawork techniques, which I believe help to emphasise the emotional intensity of the film and engages the audience. Kiss Of Death utilises Todorov's theory, of equilibriums. Equilibrium is evident in the flashback sequences showing Katie living life before her schizophrenic episode. Then disequilibrium occurs when Katie suffers a schizophrenic episode and struggles to establish the difference between reality and fantasy. Finally, a new equilibrium would occur further on the sequence where Katie comes out of her episode and continues to live life.

One key moment is at 0:32, with the editing technique. We have overlaid the scene to create a distorted effect to the image on the screen. I believe that this technique helps the audience to develop an emotional connection with Katie as it demonstrates to the audience what it is like for Katie as the sufferer during a schizophrenic episode. This effect helps to give the audience a true representation of mental illness and challenge Dyer's theory, 'the complexity and variety of groups is reduced to a few key characteristics'. This is because we aimed to subvert the negative stereotypes and categorizations of mentally ill people being crazy and delusional.

Another moment is at 1:02, with the camerawork. We have incorporated a panning 360 degree shot in a close up of Katie. This shot allows the audience to build a personal relationship and identity with Katie. As a result, the extract can entice the audience through the emotional intensity built up throughout; the audience is then likely to feel sympathetic for Katie when she suffers her schizophrenic episode.

Then, at 0:03; we have used lighting effectively by using low key lighting which is a combination of key and back lighting  creating a  strong contrast between the light and dark scenes; which is also referenced using the term Chiaroscuro (Chiaro=Light Oscuro=dark). I believe the lighting is effective as it helps to build on the emotional intensity of the film and encourage our audience who would not normally take an interest in arthouse films to carry on watching. With the use of this lighting, I could associate words such as concern and worry from the darkness of scene.

Finally, at 0:05 we have layered a selection of shots on Millennium Bridge, with Katie standing in the middle of the frame. This communicates a sense of confusion to the audience as to what is happening to Katie. The people surrounding Katie are passing by her quickly and this could suggest that Katie's imprisoned in her fantasy world where all her thoughts are muddled up. This may suggest that she is having an episode.

A notably strength of the film would be our portrayal of mental illness; I believe that we have represented mental illness to the best of our ability, without the intention of reinforcing negative stereotypes. Another strength of the production would be the way in which we have used editing techniques to our advantage to emphasise schizophrenia.

My completed print work meets the key conventions of arts centre brochures as the front cover grabs the attention of readers with a distinctively designed title of the publication and eye-catching central image. This helps the booklet to stand out particularly when stacked on limited shelf space. The central image is strong as it provides a focus for the audience to establish an identity with the front cover feature. I have also met conventions of an arts centre brochure by keeping to a simple colour scheme to avoid the page becoming too busy. Arts centre brochures are quite simple and clean not overcrowded with information. Some brochures often entice the audience through the colour scheme, such as the 'Warwick Arts Centre' brochure, which I researched for inspiration.

The biggest strength of my print work is that I have been creative in my approach while making pages, which are distinctive, and visually appealing to promote Kiss Of Death and the other film entries.  I did this by effectively editing my images to grab reader’s attention. Using a photo manipulation technique on the front cover I was able to make my booklet stand out but also convey a message about what might be inside the booklet. The photo manipulation allows me to associate words such as distressed, cold and hope which makes the readers want to look inside. Inside I have a brief but engaging description about the film, tips from the director, a section that explains schizophrenia in detail and information for Kiss Of Death premiere. This will help to gain audience interest early on and encourage them to watch Kiss Of Death.

However, a weakness of my print work that I faced was with the layout that I chose. I created my booklet landscape, which meant that I needed to design my contents page and double page spread as two individual pages to fulfil the brief. Another weakness I identified throughout the completion of the print was that I was not very confident in using some of the more complex effects on images, to create a strong message. Despite this, I have learnt that you can convey a message with a lot of emotional power and intensity without excessive special effects.

I could have added a creative and professional edge to my print work by using some special effects in moderation to help my promotional booklet stand out more. I believe I have created a booklet, which is visually appealing, but it still could grab the attention of the audience more, which makes my booklet explode, of the stand and makes people want to continue reading inside the booklet. For instance, the booklet could have included a pull quote from the main actors of the film.

In Kiss Of Death, we have represented both females and males who are middle-class individuals. We have a typical white female (Katie) and then we have also represented two Asians one of which is a female (Katie's Sister) and the other is a male (Katie's boyfriend). The main characters are all teenagers, Katie, and her boyfriend are both 17 years old and then Katie's sister is 14 years old.

The representations created allow the audience to relate to the characters in Kiss Of Death. This is because the film targets an audience of the same age range. In my opinion, at some points of the narrative, the audience may be able to see themselves reflected in the story. For instance, when Katie and her boyfriend are having an argument people may be able to see their own relationship problems reflected. To this, I can link a theory by Blumler and Katz who suggested there are four main uses and gratifications (pleasures) that audiences get from the media. I can link 'Personal Identity', which is when people see themselves reflected in texts or learn behaviours and values from the texts.

In addition, in Kiss Of Death, we have created a representation of mental health groups, with the intention of subverting negative stereotypes about mental health; which is what our whole storyline centres around. Personally, I am happy with the representation we have created as it takes the audience on a journey through Katie's eyes of what it is like to live with a mental illness. Typically, people make judgements about mental illness from what they witness 'from a distance' without interacting with a sufferer. However, Kiss Of Death allows audiences to live the life of a sufferer as Katie lives it and possibly change their judgements.

I can link the representation theory, which states ‘the complexity and variety of groups is reduced to a few key characteristics' suggested by Richard Dyer. This link relates to the group representation of mental health, this is because mental health encompasses a variety of illnesses but are often stigmatised with words such as crazy, weird or delusional. As a result suffers are often quickly judged without much knowledge about the illnesses. Instead, they are all grouped as one.

If I had followed the third brief, I would have created an online film blog to support the promotion of Kiss Of Death. I would have created Snapchat and Facebook accounts, with links to other social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram. To make it attractive to our target audience, I would create a wide variety of interesting and visually appealing content that would not typically be available for audience consumption. For instance, regular posts with behind the scenes exclusives. Other content on my blog would be cast and crew interviews and an explanation as to the inspiration of Kiss Of Death.

To promote Kiss of Death on social media platforms I would set up a viral marketing campaign, within which I would encourage user-generated content. I have taken inspiration from Ill Manors ‘Tag London’ campaign a film produced by Plan B. This is because he too created a film surrounding a topic, which encouraged a lot of user-generated content and drove visitors to his social media promotion.  For my campaign, I would generate a trend with the #standupforschizophrenia and #raiseawareness and get fans tweeting and posting about mental illness and ideas for an animated short film about schizophrenia. I would then feature these tweets in the film to emphasise the views towards mental illness, which Kiss Of Death aims to change.

To continue driving people to my blog I would have fans suggest ideas for another instalment of a film about mental illness with the #2IMIF (2^nd instalment mental illness film). I would also personally tweet to inform fans that a donation from the films takings will   go to mental illness charities. As well as coverage of the film release, I would include events information for The London Film Festival and Film London’s filmmaking programmes. I would also, include film reviews and provide readers with information on how to create a successful low budget Film.

Overall, I believe that I have met the original brief; I have produced a competition worthy film to attract a new audience to arthouse film and pages for a promotional booklet that is distinctive and visually appealing. I have confidence in my product to be successful in the media marketplace. This is because the extract provides audiences with a gripping storyline about mental illness, which I believe, will resonate in their minds even after the film has finished. I would compare our extract to the success of Donnie Darko.