A2 Media Coursework task: Teaser Trailer

Evaluation

1. In what does your media product use or challenge conventions of real media products?

The sub-genre my film falls under is a mockumentary comedy film. Mockumentaries are cheaper to produce than other films because they usually do not need to spend a lot of money on editing because the film is meant to appear natural and realistic. For example, Borat had a low budget of $18 million and grossed $261.6 million. I choose this sub-genre because it’s very easy to make, and it’s a film genre which has recently become popular, particularly with recognisable franchise with Sacha Baron Cohen’s three mockumentary films. In most ways I wanted my film to be typical of the mockumentary genre. For example, I included the trope of the main characters being interviewed and often embarrassing themselves during these interviews. The main mockumentary influence was The Office as we adopted its use of interviews and minimalist style. Although I took a lot of inspiration from Borat, my film was not improvised like many scenes in Borat. I feel like audiences prefer improvised scenes because they blur the line between real life and fiction. For example, in the Borat scene where he meets several drunken fraternity students the film shows up their racist attitudes and ignorance and it is more powerful because it is not staged. A unique selling point of the movie is the fact it is set in a school and is therefore relatable to all age groups because everyone has been to school before. Therefore everyone would have encountered recognisable types like the out-of-touch teacher and the misbehaving but quite likeable student. 

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

I tried to create a brand identity so that my product can be recognisable to the audience. Creating a new identity is particularly important for new films because they are not part of an established franchise and they need to stand out to the viewers’ mind. I did this by making a poster with just the main protagonist rather than lots of characters because I wanted it to be more memorable and I thought too many characters would confuse the audience, and stop them from realising it is the same film in different parts of the marketing. I took inspiration from the marketing campaign for Trainspotting which focused on memorable characters in one poster and used a recognisable orange background. However, the main difference was that I just focused on the main protagonist however Trainspotting did this with the five most important characters featured:

My poster and magazine featured a whiteboard which draws attention to the school setting but also allows us to include natural writing such as ‘DETENTION’ in the magazine cover, which links back to the teaser trailer which also uses a whiteboard to create the title cards rather than the computer making them adding more of an authentic feel.

I choose Empire because it's a very popular magazine and it works on promoting a range of movies, whereas with Sight and Sound, they are known to promote more independent films and do not tend to focus on blockbusters and films from mainstream production companies. Also Empire does attract a range of audiences from young kids to adults, but other magazines like sight and sound appeal to an older right winged audience. 

3. What have I learnt from audience feedback?

4. How did I use technology in the construction and research, planning, and evaluation stages?

During the pre-production stages, I was planning out my movie on Blogger. I focused on what shots will need to be taken, who will be my actors, and wrote the script. I found the script, storyboard, and shot list easy to make however there were numerous times when I had to re do the shot list, screenplay, and storyboard because it did not match my previous film. Also to research more about the mockumentary genre, I created a survey for other people to do and answer questions related to both the comedy genre and the sub-genre, Mockumentary comedies. For my survey I did not put it on a website like Facebook and survey monkey where it's able to be accessed by anyone with an account. Instead I decided to print out the questionnaires and have my respondents do it on the paper I gave them. Also with my focus group, I wrote down the respondents answers instead of gathering them together and filming it. The reason why I did this is because of availability of students and rooms to use in order to film. For filming I used a HD Sony Handycam for the trailer. I decided on using this camera because mockumentaries are believed to be very low budget. For example, the Ali G movie cost £5 million to make and I wanted to keep true to making the movie low budgeted. Another reason why I decided to use that camera because the canon rebel XSI would usually be taken by other media groups and this could seriously affect how long production lasted. Throughout filming I used the total of 3 HD Handycam cameras. Then for my evaluation stage, I only filmed the third question and the other ones were written on blogspot. 

New Script for Ashburn College: A Life

Black screen slowly fades to reveal a teacher being interviewed in a classroom, by an interviewer. The teacher will be facing slightly to the right of the camera, at interviewer.

Teacher fiddles with microphone and seems not to know how it works. Cut to shot a minute or so later where teacher is ready for the interview

Title: ‘WELCOME TO ASHBURN COLLEGE’

Title: So, what is your name?

Teacher 1: I’m Mr Garrett but the boys call me OG.

Title: Ok, so what do you think about the class?

Teacher 1: My Classes are pretty well behaved, I've got them under my control .

Black screen slowly fades to reveal the teacher being interviewed in the Ashburn Playground, by an interviewer. The teacher will be facing the camera straight while students in the background are making noises.

Teacher 1: So this is the playground, the Ashburn playground, pretty chilled out there, sometimes I walk around try to chat to some of the kids and...

Teacher 1 is interuppted by Student 1.

Teacher 1: Your alright?

Student 1: I've got a bit of a problem sir (subtitled)

Teacher 1: I'm filming at the moment.

Student 1: Alright if I have a quick minute. (subtitled)

Camera pans towards Student 1 and Teacher 1 talking.

Teacher 1: Basically I forgot to do my homework.

Teacher 1: Alright.

Student 1: I need you to turn a blind eye.

Teacher 1: What have you got?

Student 1 hands one pound coin to Teacher 1, they greet each other and exit the shot.

Camera fades in to two younger students having a conversation, conversation is improvised. The younger students get into a fight with each other and Teacher 1 tries to intervene but is proceeded to be ignored by the two younger students.

Cuts back to interview.

Title: So what's your relationship with the students?

Teacher 1: Yeah, I command a lot of respect and I think me and the students are pretty much the best of friends.

Another student shouts out to Teacher 1 "Your shit!" but his face his never seen, while Teacher 1 looks around the room for the student.

Camera flashesback to Teacher 1 having an encounter with student 2.

Student 2: Yo do you like my crepes sir? (Camera zooms in on his shoes. Then pans towards Teacher 1) 

Teacher 1: Do I like you’re what?

Title: ‘MEET A FORMER STUDENT’

Outside the school, an expelled student is lighting a cigarette, and smoking it.

Expelled student: So, I got kicked out of Ashburn for punching up some teacher you know how it is.

Title: Describe this teacher to me.

Expelled student: Ah so he's ginger, got glasses you know how it is, the typical nerd.

Title: So what do you think about Mr Garrett?

Expelled student: Ah yeah, lovely fella he was.

Cuts to person using the whiteboard and writes down Title: ‘ASHBURN COLLEGE: A LIFE’

Cuts back to expelled student.

Expelled student: Just kidding, he’s a little posh boy snob, who always begs it with the students.

Addressing Key Concepts.

I wanted to show that my film that I am working on is in the comedy genre. Specifically a mockumentary. In order to proceed with this, I included many tropes from the mockumentary genre. For example, I included many short clips of interviewees talking directly to the camera. The main influence for this was The Office. I wanted to imitate comical confessions of Ricky Gervais and provide dramatic irony as characters are not aware of each other’s insults. To give my film the feel of a documentary, I have not used lots of cuts between scenes. For example, there’s a scene when student shoes are mentioned and we pan down to these as the cameraman is reacting to what’s going on instead of following a script. I tried to make the documentary as authentic as possible by putting in slang that is accurate to the south London school I filmed in, or that I tried to represent.

I will be looking at a small budget for the making of my mockumentary.  Approximately the budget for my film will be around one million pounds. The reason being for this is because the mockumentary will be shot in the school, and there is not really any need of going offsite to shoot different scenes for my mockumentary. What makes a budget expensive is the actors that are hired, the set pieces in action movies that are shown, the cameras that are needed in order to film more than one take. A script is not usually devised when mockumentaries are being made, for example, it’s been believed in Borat that most of the interactions have been improvised by Borat, and the American citizens think Borat is a real person and costumes needed for the characters to wear, For example, Borat was shown only wearing two costumes, ones a swimming suit, and the other is a professional suit. However, with my film, a lot of it was staged, there was not much improvising to do throughout the filming. Scenes in the mockumentary will usually be shot in one take. A lot of small production companies came together to make Borat but it was distributed by a large distribution company, 20^th Century Fox. They use small production companies because big production companies are working on bigger blockbusters, and mockumentaries are not really a popular genre. The mockumentary genre got popular during the 1980s, they are quite new to cinema, which might be a reason why it is often overlooked by big film companies.

My target audience is teenagers in their early and late teens. The reason being for this is because the film is set in a school, and we are parodying aspects about school that the students are known to laugh at. My focus groups said that they like the idea of a mockumentary set in a school, but are concerned that it could make fun of some sensitive topics that students struggle with this modern day. For example, bullying and discrimination towards other people, and students who struggle in exam situations. I am planning to satisfy these audiences by still having the setting of a regular school, and parody real life situations that would happen in a school. The audience is likely to be left wing because left wing people have been knowing to laugh at mockumentaries because they are less politically respected and a majority of my respondents for my questionnaire about mockumentaries were left wing, and teachers will also be interested in this film because they want to see how they are depicted by students, and relate back to when they were students.  Also school is something that everybody can relate to because everyone has been to school at one point in their life.

I focused on age and class representations in my film. For example, I portrayed the teacher being out of touch with the kids, eventhough in the trailer, the teacher denies that and pretends he’s in touch with the kids, when he is actually quite posh secretly. The students we are using multiple stereotypes for each student. One stereotype is the really informal, misbehaving teenager who uses slang words instead of speaking in proper English. I did this because that is one popular stereotype that is known in school environments and my film will be shot in south-west London. Another stereotype is that overly achieving, studious students who wear glasses, and effect this has on the audience is that I want the audience to see that people who study a lot are not completely uncool, like how they are depicted in the movies. Another representation that I have used in age, because we have a lot of teenagers shown in our film. The two main characters in our film are a teacher and a student. Both the teacher and students are quite posh, but they are imitating behaviour associated in the working class. The teacher fails to imitate the working class, for example during the interview scene, he refers to himself with an informal nickname “OG” because his surname is Garrett and also, in another scene, a student asks him about his shoes and uses the word “crepes” which he does not understand. The inspiration for the teacher was Jack Whitehall’s performance in Bad Education. I liked that because he was trying to be an unconventional teacher but he fails, and not only students laughed at him, other teachers laughed at him as well. 

Poster analysis

This is a poster that I created to promote my latest movie, Ashburn College: A Life. I have made up my own font this time around, in order to relate it to a school. For the poster I have put in two backgrounds. The background on the top contains the teacher reading a book and standing behind a whiteboard with titles written like "Snob" and promotional titles like "The Office... in a school." to encourage people to watch the movie. On top of the first background there's a title which says "A Cheeky Creations Production" which states the production company that made this film. Meanwhile, the bottom half of the poster has the title which says "Ashburn College: A Life." which is in a blackboard style again to establish the school setting of the movie. I also decided to present the school setting by putting a piece of white chalk present on the blackboard as well.

Again I did use a plain and simplistic background like I did with the magazine cover, but this was more colorful. I had two backgrounds to add some variety to the poster and make it eye catching for the audience to like it as well. Another thing I want to do is establish a brand to this film, like what Danny Boyle did when the first Trainspotting movie was coming out in 1996 with having the main character present in an orange background.

Magazine front cover analysis

This is an empire magazine which is used to promote my latest movie Ashburn College: A Life. I have chosen the formatting for the famous film magazine, Empire to feature my film. I choose Empire because it's a very popular magazine and it works on promoting a range of movies, whereas with Sight and Sound, they are known to promote more independent films and do not tend to focus on blockbusters and films from mainstream production companies. Also Empire does attract a range of audiences from young kids to adults, but other magazines like sight and sound appeal to a more older right winged audience. 

I used quite a plain and minimalist style to match the low budget non-edited feel of the mockumentary. I tried to make this style similar to the poster and the teaser trailer because I wanted to create a recognisable brand. For example, I wanted the school setting to be enough for people to recognise the film without having to use the title. I took inspiration for this marketing strategy from Danny Boyle's 1996 independent film, Trainspotting. Trainspotting uses a specific orange font so that it is recognisable. Which has helped spread it's popularity. This is similar to the poster because we see the main character standing near a whiteboard. This is also a technique which allows us to include text as a natural part of the film.  Both the poster and the cover focus on the protagonist, Mr Garrett, because we wanted use him as the focus of the campaign and to make him recognisable.  This is why we included the text in the black circle.  

New Storyboard

1. Blank whiteboard, 2. Person writing "Welcome 2 Ashburn" on the whiteboard. 3. A student arrives in later hours of the day to draw a "H" next to "Ashburn" and a penis on the whiteboard. 4. The introduction of the teacher "Mr Garrett" being interviewed by the film crew. 5. Mr Garret introducing the film crew to the Ashburn playground.  6. Mr Garret being approached by another student to talk about a class related situation. 7. Two younger students get into a dispute with each other over football teams. 8. Mr Garret tries to intervene the fight and stop it from happening, but fails to do so and is ignored by the other students. 9. Flashes back to the interview scene when Mr Garret is explaining about his relationship with the class and a student who is not seen shouts out "Your shit" 10. The whiteboard being written saying "Meet the former student" 11. An expelled student is being interviewed by the teacher after he punched a teacher. 11. The title of the film being written on the whiteboard saying "Ashburn College: A Life." 12. Flashes back to the expelled student to make a rude comment about Mr Garrett.