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. 

Editing reflection

On the 21st February I finished filming for my teaser trailer. During that stage I started to begin editing my movie so I can perfect the final product. During the past month of editing, I have had a few obstacles to deal with which has affected the amount of time I complete the editing in. The main areas I focused on perfecting was the duration of the teaser trailer, the sound, and how it is presented in the final cut to avoid shots lagging, or the volume being too low or too high.

Sound:

I managed to adjust the sound of the music very well during the post production stages of the trailer. I looked for some suitable music and decided which one fits the best with my school theme. When I found a suitable track for my trailer, I inserted in the trailer to overlap with the footage I got during filming. However, there were some challenges to this specific task. For starters, I had to make sure that the music was not too loud to the point it overlapped with the characters speaking in the trailer. Also with the title writing scenes on the whiteboard, me and the cameraman would sometimes talk to one and another while filming those specific scenes, and if there was talking shown in the trailer, it would make the film seem less professional and more home made. So in this scenario, I decided to mute the audio from those clips so it does not overlap with the music. Overall, I think the sound went on very well and it was not so loud to the point that it overlapped with the dialogue between characters.

Putting the scenes together:

There was no challenge when I had to piece the scenes together. This was a very easy task to do because I was very happy with all the footage that was in my movie. There were times when I had to cut some scenes out because I had to re do the takes when a cast member said a line incorrectly, or did an action incorrectly. If there was an area I had to improve on for putting the scenes together, is probably cropping some scenes down to make the feature trailer shorter. There were times when the teaser trailer would drag on a bit and it did last a bit longer than originally expected. If I was going to do this again, I will try and tirm down the clips in the future.

Magazine front cover

Provisional Ideas/Sketches

This is a sketch of an original scene planned when Mr Garrett was teaching a very disruptive class. This scene was not included because it was difficult to find a number of student actors who could all work at the same time. 

This is another sketch of Mr Garrett being interviewed by the film crew. 

Analysis of Focus group 2 responses

Like the first focus group, I picked my focus group to answer a set of questions related to the mockumentary genre. All my respondents were young males aged 16 to 17. Three of the respondents were fans of the mockumentary genre, and I selected them based on their knowledge of this genre. They all had in common a belief that mockumentaries were successful because they parody real life situations, while often still carrying a serious political message. While their was only one respondent who said they did not know what mockumentaries are. Two of the respondents I asked were boys, and the other two were girls. This is where I decided to improve on my previous focus group. 

Then when they were asked about which type of people on the political spectrum like mockumentaries, two said a mix of everyone from both sides of the political spectrum like mockumentaries with the exception of two candidates. One of those candidates said that left wing people prefer the mockumentary genre, and the other one said right wing people would prefer it over left wing, which was my original prediction before carrying out this task.

Now for the final question, Iasked if there would be any problems with filming a mockumentary in a school. This was the most practical question that I included to help me make decisions regarding my teaser trailer. One out of the four answers said that some problems could arise when a mockumentary is filmed in a school environment. The reasons why people have said that is because you might need to make fun of stereotypes like the studious nerd, to the intellectually challenged bully, in order to make the humor work. Some people might get offended by this. Also, someone said that schools are a place where sensitive issues should not be mocked because of the way this can affect students' well-being.  However, overall the respondents thought that people will enjoy the film and that the school setting would work well in terms of playing-off stereotypes.

Poster

Focus group 2 responses

1. What makes mockumentaries so successful as comedies?
Marta- They manage to parody real life situations that every day people can relate to.
Callum- I don't know what a mockumentary is.
Caxie- Laughing at real life situations in a nice way.
Billy- People can normally relate and enjoy the irony of the situations.

2. Do you think mockumentaries are suited to a left wing or a right wing audience, or does it not matter?
Marta- Left wing.
Callum- It does matter.
Caxie- Right wing audience
Billy- Doesn't matter.

3. Do you think there will be any difficulities about making a mockumentary set in a school?
Marta- Yes because they can be offensive and it depends on the topic.
Callum- No
Caxie- No because everyone has went to school and have laughed at school before.
Billy- I do not think there will be any difficulities.

Filming reflection

After I finished the script for the teaser trailer of the Mockumentary. On December the 1st, I decided to go location scouting and look for suitable areas where I can shoot my movie. It varied from classrooms and hallways, to going offsite and shooting there. After completing location scouting, and deciding on the most suitable locations to proceed to film. The main locations I decided to pick for the trailer was a school playground, a small classroom, and a small fenced area that's in the school but I made it look like it was shot outside of the school.

The titles:

On December 16th, production started. The first scenes I decided to complete were the title scenes that were displayed in between the teaser. Three days after, I shot the first live action scene involving an actor. Originally, for the titles I put the titles in stop motion animation, by taking a series of pictures and combining them into one whole video.

I decided to do stop motion animation for this scene because I did not have a cameraman to film me writing down the titles on the whiteboard, and it would have not looked good because its suppose to be titles being shown on the screen, and I wanted the titles to be viewable and have a smooth frame rate. I also proceeded to do stop motion animation instead of writing titles on the computer is because I wanted to do something different and have some originality to it.

Sadly, this approach was not successful because the lighting ruined the shot on occasions, and I would have to use different white boarder marker pens to write down the title if they runned out of ink, and this could affect the continuity of the shot. Then on the 9th February, I decided to re shoot the title writing scenes but instead of a big whiteboard, I decided to use a smaller whiteboard.

I filmed a hand writing the titles on the mini whiteboard instead of using stop motion animation. This saved time, ink and did not affect the continuity between takes. Overall I was happy with the final product for the titles.

The expelled student scene:

Then, when I came back from my Christmas break, I decided to continue shooting the teaser trailer. On 10th January I worked on shooting the first scene involving a student, but the difference was that this student was suppose to be kicked out of Ashburn and the original plan was to film outside.

The reason why I decided against filming outside the school, was because the filming could be disturbed because cars pass by, which could make the film seem less professional and make the characters dialogue unclear for the viewers. Overall, I was impressed with this scene, but if I were to reshoot a scene like this in the future, I would probably have gone somewhere else that looks a bit more remote, and looks like it's in a different area, not in a school because that did make the scene a bit unbelievable because he's suppose to be a student that was expelled from the frictional college, and to have the scene of him being shot in the school does make it less believable to the viewer that he is an expelled student.

The interview scene:

A day before the Christmas break started, I decided to film the first live action scene involving an actor. This was a scene where a teacher was being interviewed by the crew making the mockumentary. I was impressed with the first actors performance as the protagonist of the movie. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts with the teacher, I had to find a new actor to portray the protagonist in the interview scenes. On the 12th January I found another actor and reshot the interview scenes. This time I had a different approach to the interview scenes than the first time around. The first time around, I had the crew speaking in the scene, asking the teacher questions and then the teacher will proceed to answer the question. But this time around, I had titles written on the screen of the question, then the teacher proceeded to answer it. I preferred the second approach because again it seemed more professional, and did have that relevance to a trailer more than me asking the questions.

The Playground scene:

This is the final scene I filmed for my teaser trailer before I wrapped production. This scene was originally suppose to be shot in the classroom, and this would have the teacher teaching the fellow students, and failing to control the class. The reason why I could not do this scene was because of a combination of reasons.

Firstly, not many students were available and their was a lot of scheduling conflicts between me and the actors I was hiring for the classroom scene. Secondly, since I am shooting the teaser in my college, there were problems with looking for an available classroom to shoot the scene in because they would be occupied by another class.

For an alternative choice, I decided to pick three school students in uniform to film with the teacher in the school playground. In this scene, like the original classroom scene planned, we are showing the teacher failing to have control of all the students. However, instead of the students being all together in one take, I split the students up.

Two younger students were put together and I filmed them having a fake fight with one and another, and we would see the teacher try to control the students, but the students would just blank the teacher's instructions, which does display how he is not respected by the students like shown in the scene when the expelled student refers to the teacher as a "posh boy snob who always begs it to the kids", and another student during the interview scene shouting out "your shit!"

While the older student in the playground shot, would interrupt Mr Garrett (the teachers name) when he's talking about the playground, and the older student interrupts him telling him that he forgot to do his homework, and how he wants the teacher to overlook it, in exchange for some money. This also displays how the students do not take the protagonist seriously, and even some take advantage of how he's so desperate to being respected by the students.

Treatment/Outline

My film is title Ashburn College: A life. It's a British comedy set in a documentary style parody which means that the film is a mockumentary. The story follows the regular school life of teachers who work at Ashburn college, and students who attend Ashburn college for their education. Throughout the movie, we show the numerous interactions that the teachers and students have with one and another, and we represent sterotypes in a school, and parody them in a nice way.

The main protagonist of the movie is Mr Garrett otherwise known as "OG". He is an English teacher from a middle-upper class background, who pretends he is down with the kids and has a working class background to make him look more "cool" or "respected" in front of all the students. He is also not respected by other teachers because its been rumored that he has taken bribes before from students and does not have any control of the class.

Throughout the film, the primary story-line is Mr Garrett's struggle as a teacher and how he is looked down by everyone in the school, and is only still there because his mother is the governor of the school. Their are other mini sub plots to the film, like the students struggling with the education but they are not explored as much as Mr Garrett's story.

The film is targeted for teenage audiences and young teachers because in secondary school, around 60% of the students are teenagers, and a lot of teachers who both teach students, or who are teaching assistants. Another group of people this film is aimed at is people on the left wing side of the political spectrum. The reason being for this is because what also is shown in the movie is people who are considered more liberal are laughing at others on the right wing side of the political spectrum.

Moodboard

Permission Forms

ACTORS CONTRACT

Name of actor                                                   Name of production company

C/o Agent (if there is one)                                              Company address

Actor or Agent’s Address

Date 22/01/2017

Dear Name of actor

This letter confirms agreement that you will take the part of  an actor in the film Ashburn College: A Life ( the “Film”) This is the working title and the final name of the film may change. As you know, this is a low budget production and we are keen to ensure that everyone understands the basis upon which the Film is being made. If there is anything about this letter that you do not understand or you wish us to clarify, please do not hesitate to contact us.

1) You agree to be available to work during the filming period (“the Shoot”)

from 16/12/2016 to  22/01/2017   (or you can name the exact dates).   

2) You agree that the filming will take place in the following locations

Ernest Bevin College

3) You agree to give over any rights you may have in the finished film to Cheeky Creations production.  This will allow us to distribute the film in any and every way we can.

4) We will aim to ensure that working days are not longer than 10 hours.

5) We will do our best to ensure your health, safety and welfare during the Shoot.

6) We will have public liability insurance to cover you during the Shoot.

7) We will provide you with food and refreshments throughout the Shoot.  We will liase with you over your travel arrangements to and from the Shoot and either provide transport or pay travel expenses which we need to agree in advance.

8) We will be provide you with a VHS of the finished Film within 3 months of the completion of all post production.

signed by the actor                                                        signed on behalf of the company

date                                                                              date

Risk Assessment

Risk	People in Risk	Risk Rating	How to prevent the risk
Going offsite to film some scenes. Could potentially get run off by cars if they get hit.	Actor and cameramen	3	Make sure to stay on the pavement when we are filming.
There is a scene when students have a small fight with one and another, there’s a risk that the young students might get carried away and end up seriously hurting each other.	Actors.	4	Make sure that I have full control of the actors, and see they stay calm and stop the fight if they get carried away.
We are shooting a few scenes outside, if the weather is bad, people could be prone to get ill with a cold, or if the weather is in cold conditions, actors could be at risk of getting hypothermia.	Actors and crewman	3	Make sure actors and the crewmen are wearing warm clothing to avoid them from being cold or getting ill.

Filming diary

15/12/2016:

Our original idea for our title scene was to have a full size classroom whiteboard which where we would write the titles and combine them with stop-motion animation. As you can see from this image, there were several problems with this method, the main one was the glare on the whiteboard. 

16/12/2016:

I did more taking pictures of the titles for the teaser trailer. This time I decided to do a "Meet the class" title which was supposed to be used for a classroom scene, but it was sadly cut out because not many students were available to come and help with the classroom. For this scene I decided to do bubble writing and shade in the letters instead because I thought it made the title stand out more. Their were some filming problems to this because the ink on the whiteboard pen would sometimes run out and that would mean I would need to get a new pen to use. Also, there were times I had to start writing the title again because if I would ruin out of ink from a current pen, I would have to get a different colour pen due to continuity.

19/12/2016:

I filmed the interview scene for the first time. The only difference to this interview scene was the actor was different, and instead of the questions appearing on the titles, the interviewer was speaking out loud, asking the questions to the protagonist. Filming went on well that day but the previous actors availability was not the best so I had to re cast him with a different guy.

10/01/2017:

I started to film my teaser trailer after coming back from the Christmas break. I decided to film scenes with a current 6th former and he portrayed an expelled student from the frictional college. Overall filming went well that day, and the takes were spot on and I did not need to do multiple takes for the actor.

12/01/2017:

I decided to re film the interview scene since I recast the actor who plays the teacher, the reason I resorted to this is because I did not want to have problems with continuity because it would not make sense if I was interviewing two teachers with the same name, and a majority of students are not available to come and be actors. I also shot a short scene of the teacher interacting with one student that day as well.

09/02/2017:

For today's filming, I decided to re-shoot the title writing scenes because their was problems with continuity, and the amount of ink I had to use for filming. Instead, I used a smaller whiteboard so I could have smaller hand-writing without worrying about running out of ink, and so we could have better lighting for the scene.

21/02/2017:

The final day of filming, this was a newly invented scene because the original scene was suppose to be the teacher in the classroom but not many students are available to film so I had to get a smaller amount of students to film one scene.  We shot a scene in the playground of Mr Gordon not having control of the students in the playground, and him taking bribes from students.

Talent scouting

I used the total of six actors for the teaser trailer. All of them were males, and their was one staff member, three students in uniform, and two sixth formers in own clothes, including myself. This blog is a detailed look at all the actors I used.

This is Thomas, he plays a student trying to make an exchange with the teacher but appears very briefly in one scene during the teaser trailer. In the the film, he plays the deuteragonist who interrupts the protagonist so that he gets caught on camera taking a bribe. 

This is my teacher who I hired for the teaser trailer. He plays a teacher who has a middle class background who pretends to the kids he's caught up with the modern generation, and is the main protagonist of the film. I think he was success in playing the culturally ignorant teacher, and there were some scenes where he stole the show when he displayed how desperate he was to get the students' respect, especially when he got bribed to turn a blind eye on a student forgetting to hand in his homework.

Jordan Murcer is one of the two sixth formers that starred in my media production.. He plays a former student at the frictional college, Ashburn college. He appears for one whole scene, and we see him be interviewed by the film crew. I think Jordan did an amazing job on playing the expelled student. He managed to do talk informally, and give out an accurate description of the teacher he punched.

This is a still of me playing one of the current students at the frictional college, Ashburn college. I appear very briefly in the teaser trailer only saying one line. The line that I say is "Do you like my crepes sir?" This scene in the trailer is suppose to be taking the mick out of the teachers middle class, posh up-bringing.  I played the character well because in the shot, I managed to keep eye contact with my teacher, did not look at the camera once, and managed to stay in character instead of laughing, and changing my tone in the shot.

This is another still in the teaser trailer of  two students who briefly have a disagreement with one another to show how poorly the teacher Mr Garrett can control his students.  These actors did not find it difficult to play the part because it was similar to their real life counterparts. 

Web research for costumes, props, and location.

I had to do research on what props and costumes are needed for the movie in production:

Location:

All of the film is shot at Ernest Bevin College. Since the overall plot of the film is a mockumentary set in a school, all the scenes are mainly shot here because we wanted to create the feel of a documentary, with some elements of comedy in it. If I had shot outside the school this would have made the film less realistic. The furthest the camera crew went from the school was the front entrance. The scene the expelled student played by Jordan Murcer, was shot inside the school but we wanted to make it look like it was outside the school. The reason for this was practical because we did not want noise pollution with cars.

Props:

Quite a few props have been used for this movie. These props have usually had something to do with school. For example, during the title scenes, we used a whiteboard, and a marker pen because we wanted it to fit in with the theme of the school. Initially, we used a large classroom whiteboard, however, there were problems with the glare coming from the lighting. For this reason, we decided to use a small whiteboard because it made the writing faster, and there was less glare.

Costumes:

Since this film is set in a school, the staff actors and sixth former's did not need to wear costumes. To add realism, we wanted the pupil actors to be wearing their actual uniforms, and the staff actors to be in their ordinary clothes.

Survey analysis

1. Age:

One third of the participants that answered the questionnaire were 18+, the rests were 17 years old. This will be an area of improvement for me when I am organizing my next survey. But it is suggested that more teenagers express an interest in the mockumentary genre than adults do.

2. Gender:

7/9 respondents were male, while the remaining 2 were females. Another area where I could have improved for my research on the mockumentary genre. A big majority of my respondents were male. However, I did find out that more males are interested in the mockumentary genre than females because both my female respondents left the fifth question blank.

3. Where would you see yourself in the political spectrum? (1-5) 1 being left and 5 being right.

Two-thirds of my respondents are on the left-wing side of the political spectrum, while three of them claim to be right on the middle. Here I have learnt that mockumentaries generally attract people who are left-wing because famous movies like Borat have been known for making fun of people on the right wing of the political spectrum, and that might push people who are right wing away from the genre. Two of the three respondents who answered my survey said that their favourite mockumentaries were the ones that were not related to politics.

4. How interesting are politics to you? (1-5) 1 being not at all, 5 being very interested.

This question was very split, one third of the respondents each were either really interested in politics, or found it fairly interesting, or not interesting at all. This shows a sign that politics do have an involvement with how mockumentaries are made. 

5. What do you think about mockumentaries on a scale of 1-5? (1 being not at all, 5 being amazing)

Out of all my respondents on my survey, 3/9 had no interest in mockumentaries, their was 2 respondents that did not know what the mockumentary genre was. While the remaining respondents were either fairly interested in them, or really liked them. I have learnt from this survey that the mockumentary genre is a highly praised, sub-genre to the comedy genre. 

6. What is your favourite comedy sub-genre? Please tick

• Action Comedy
• Romantic Comedy
• Crime Comedy
• Black comedy
• Comedy Drama
• Comedy Horror
• Mockumentary

The two most popular comedy sub-genres are action comedy, and comedy drama. 6/9 respondents said their favorite sub-genres were action comedy, and comedy drama. While the three remaining said their favorite sub-genre was the mockumentary, black comedy, and romantic comedy genre. The reason why action comedies and comedy genres are the most praised because fans of the action genre, and drama genre are being attracted to the movie and the comedy bit is usually just added to add some joy to the film.

7. What is your favourite mockumentary film, if any?

5/9 respondents said that they had at least one favourite mockumentary film, while the others said they did not have one. I have learnt that Spinal Tap and Borat are classified as the two most popular mockumentaries. We also show that the mockumentary genre is not well known, and doesn't really attract massive amounts of people, compared to other genres.

8. What is your favourite comedy film?

All nine of my respondents said that they had at least one favourite comedy movie. The two films that were mentioned the most were Edgar Wrights first two films in the Cornetto trilogy that were Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz. I have learnt that the comedy genre is a highly praised genre in movies, and it attracts a big audience.

9. Do you think there are any problems with the mockumentary genre?

Two-thirds of my respondents stated that their are no problems with the mockumentary genre while one-third said their are a few problems. Two of the three respondents who said their was a problem with the mockumentary genre stated that they have a reputation for making jokes on very sensitive subjects that viewers might find upsetting. While one respondent said, "Not enough of them are made" this is displaying that not enough mockumentaries are made to be classified as a popular sub-genre. 

10. What type of teaser trailer do you prefer?

• Single scene trailers
• Footage that’s not in the main film
• Classic cinematic trailer

Two-thirds of my respondents said that they favor the classic cinematic trailer which has a lot of clips from the films put together. This is also displayed because several movie teaser trailers that are released like Star Wars, have a montage of clips put together explaining little bits of the plot. While two respondents said that they like the single-scene trailers and one respondent says they like footage that is not from the film.

11. How much do you want teaser trailers to reveal?

• Very little/nothing
• Moderate amount
• A lot/the main details of the plot

None of the nine respondents said that they like teaser trailers revealing the main details of the plot. Most of the respondents said that they like a moderate amount of the plot being revealed in a teaser trailer, and the remainder said they like very little being revealed about the film itself. The reason being for this is because viewers do not want the film they are planning on watching to be ruined in during a trailer. This could either affect the amount the movie grosses at the box office, or have viewers hyped up, then disappointed to find out that they got most of the plot wrong.

12. Where do you usually watch them?

• YouTube
• Social media sites
• Cinema/DVDs
• Other online sites

8/9 respondents said they they usually watch teaser trailers on YouTube. While only one of the respondents say they watch trailers either in cinema or on DVD, as adverts before the film starts. The internet has become bigger these days, attracted a lot of people to log on and YouTube is the new website where people are going to watch videos, for leisure.

13. How successful are teaser trailers in generating interest?

• Not very successful
• Moderately
• Very successful

5/9 respondents said that teaser trailers are really successful at promoting their films to current fans, and regular film goers, while two said they are fairly successful to promote interest and one said not very successful. The reason why teaser trailers are usually successful promoting interest because they reveal little bits about the film, which hypes up audiences, but at the same time, they do not reveal too much because it could cause potential black lash, and spoil the film for others.

Development of ideas

The results I got from my questionnaire about the mockumentary genre, were very different to what I predicted. I thought that people on the right wing of the political spectrum would like the mockumentary genre because it is often focused on right wing people, mocking left wing people and certain religions. For example, Borat is a Christian and we see him being anti-Semitic and ignorant towards American/Western culture. The reason this film is actually mainly meant to attract a left wing audience is to mock people who show these ignorant attitudes. For example, in Borat, they are not mocking Jewish people, instead they are mocking people with these right wing views about different religions and cultures. My questionnaire suggested that a lot of people who are interested in the mockumentary genre are left wing and mockumentaries are often politically themed. Borat in fact is almost a documentary because there is a scene where the protagonist and his camera crew travel with a real group of conservative Americans and the film exposes their fascist and xenophobic views. This influenced my plan for the script because it made me decide to involve more political themes such as the upper class divide between the teachers and the students.

The most useful insight that I got was about what types of teaser trailers the respondents. I asked if people prefer classic cinematic trailers which reveal a majority about the film, trailers which focus on a single scene, or footage that does not exist in the film. I asked nine people and found that two-thirds of them said that they like the classic cinematic trailer the most.  The reason why I it was the most useful insight because it made me rethink my approach to how I plan the trailer. My original plan was to show one scene of the character because I thought it would hype the audience up for more. I chose this because it was a trend that I spotted in mockumentaries, such as David Brent: Life on the Road, and Borat. I plan to combine my insipiration, and questionaire results together, to make a trailer that has a feel of the single clip style, as we see in Borat, but also has some cinematic elements for example, the trailer of The Bad Education Movie which was also an inspiration.

My questionnaire was quite effective because it made me have a better understanding on people's political views, and how they can impact on people's interests. However, there were sereval limitations I had during my research. They are that I mainly asked teenage boys, who are quite left wing. I should have expanded and asked more people because I asked only one female responder, there was a struggle because I go to an all boys school. In the future, I might expand my research, and ask more people from different areas to get more respondents who are female, or on the right wing side of the political spectrum. If I had more female respondents, it may have impacted what gender is more interested in the mockumentary genre, The age range also made my results less useful, because I did not see if age had something to do with people's interests in the mockumentary genre. However, I do think I choose the right people for my focus group, It was the same category of people who mainly asked the survey.

Overall the research was useful because I got some good feedback which changed my idea's for the teaser trailer, however I realise they are are limitations to the pool of people that responded so that led to getting a narrower view.

BBFC

Film classifications are used so the government can monitor which audience is exposed to certain themes and content in a movie. The BBFC is a non-governmental organisation which means the government has to subscribe to it. The government takes advice from the BBFC. For example they will try to prevent under 18s buying and renting DVDs without ID, if the BBFC decided on an 18 as its rating. However, due to attitudes changing classifications that were awarded in the past will be different today.

My mockumentary will be a 15 because the film as a whole would have a lot of swearing and some sexual innuendo.  However, the trailer itself only has one swear word present, and a cartoon drawing of genitals and so the trailer is going to be rated 12a.  

Universal means it's suitable for everyone. No violence, language, sex, drugs, or adult themes in this movie.

PG stands for Parental Guidance. This means kids at the age of 8 and over can watch this. It can contain some mature themes, but they are not explored in depth. There is moderate violence but it's fantasy. For example, the Christopher Reeves Superman films are all rated PG.

12A means you can watch the movie if you are under 12, but you need to be accompanied by an adult. This rating is only used for the cinema. It can contain mature themes, moderate violence, sex references, nudity, mild drug use, strong language, and very strong language was introduced in 2015.

12 means you have to be 12 or over to watch the movie. Since 2002, this rating was given only on DVDs. This rating is usually what 12As  become when they are released on DVD.

15 states that you have to be aged exactly around 15 or over to watch this movie.  These movies contain strong language, sometimes very strong language, strong violence, sometimes some sexual activities, hard drug use, sometimes bloody violence, and adult and disturbing themes like suicide or racism.

18 means you have to be aged 18 or over. These movies contain strong language, very strong language, strong bloody violence, a load of sexual activities, hard drug use, and adult themes are really explored in depth.

R18 stands for Restricted 18. These films with these certificates can be only shown in licenced sex shops if they haven't been given the 18 rating. Some films have even been not suitable for R18 even though they are still legal. These movies are certain to have hardcore pornography.