deciding what to include in the opening sequence of our film we looked at many other different film ideas, the first one was mean girls. We looked at this as we thought it would relate back to our target audience and was a film with a similar genre. We also looked at the opening sequence from the film snatch, as we thought that although the genre was not the same, Snatch is a popular film among our target audience. We also looked at the television series Skins, as this has a similar plot and is also aimed at 15-19 year olds. It includes topics like sex, drugs, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy etc. And is supposed to represent the college life of the teen audience in a more exaggerated way. We decided this was effective and tried to incorporate this into our film idea. We have chosen to use teenage characters in our film to make it more appealing to our target audience as they are characters we hope our audience can empathise with and are representative of the different social 
groups of college. The music we have chosen is ‘indie rock’ it is upbeat and modern and is something that is stereotypically what teenagers listen to. We hope this will add to the appeal of the title sequence, portraying its fast movement and upbeat storyline.We have used 6 characters within our film, 3 girls and 3 boys. We have chosen to do this as it is an even representation of both sexes. We have tried to make our characters versatile and representative of all different sorts of teenagers. Firstly there is Cher. Cher is the leading female character who is easy going and into partying and drugs. She is the most dominant member of the group but that is only because the other female characters envy her lifestyle, not because she tries to be in charge. Cher subverts the stereotype of a teenage girl as she is not easily led by male characters, she does what she wants, when she wants which is something teenage girls are not always given credit for. The other two female characters are Lola and Sara, who tend to be more like Cher’s followers. Lola is very academic and quiet and is more in the group through her association with Cher rather than any forcefulness of her own. Sara however is a typical wannabe character. She’s vain, image obsessed and jealous of Cher’s link to the male characters. She is also the most bitchy of the females and is constantly trying to cause upheaval within the group. Matt is a typical ‘jack the lad’ character. He’s the most domineering of the boys and is the one that gets all the girls. Chris is less of a dominating character. He’s mischievous and likes to have a laugh but is less ruthless than Matt and knows his limits. He is a college music student who dresses more alternatively. A typical ‘boy in a band’. Finally there is Thomas who is a college dropout, but still part of the gang. He is laid back and spends most of his time at home of his Xbox. The reason we have chosen to use these characters is so that our film appeals to our target audience because they can relate to the characters they are seeing on screen. We want our film to be representative of the college environment and the only way we can do this is by creating versatile characters that represent most social groups. For dominating females we have Cher, for the high maintenance fashion girls we have Sara and for the less extrovert shy girls we have Lola. For the popular ‘ladies men’ we have Matt, for the
‘indie’ boys we have Chris and for the boys that don’t go to college or the nerdy geeky types we have Thomas. Hopefully this will help our target audience to be more attracted to our film.If it was to be released we think our film would probably be released by a small British company such as ‘Warp’. If it was to be shown on television it would probably be shown on Channel 4 alongside things like Shameless and Skins which are of a similar genre. It would have to be shown after the 9oclock watershed as it is not suitable for children. It is low-budget and probably be shown in select cinemas in a limited amount of areas. It is not supposed to be a Hollywood blockbuster. Regarding merchandise I don’t think it would be an effective method of promoting our film. The best way to do this would probably be by holding themed parties at nightclub venues for obviously the older end of our target audience. Where the cast would attend as a meet and greet for fans. Our target audience is 15-19 year olds. A similar film to ours would be films such as mean girls. This has similar target audience and is also based in a college setting. The TV programme Skins also has a similar plot structure and characters. From our audience research we learned that teen drama was a popular genre and the film Mean Girls and the TV programme Skins did appeal to our target audience. We gave our film the classification certificate 15. As it involves scenes of alcohol, drugs and some mild sexual contact, which we thought was suitable for persons aged 15.
In the opening 2 minutes of our film we decided the best method would be to introduce the characters and the college setting. This was in order to keep our audience intrigued and make them want to get to know the characters more. We haven’t included much action or gave away very much of the storyline as it this stage we decided it was better to keep the audience guessing. We have used a range of characters and settings to show the fast pace of the film and the range of topics we want to cover.
By creating this two minute film I have learnt how to use the filming equipment correctly and effectively. I have also learnt how to use the editing software to manipulate our shots to make them look the way we wanted them too. The difficulties we encountered were that, at times our group tended to lack some motivation for the project; we also found it difficult to transport the large equipment to our range of different settings as they were quite far away from each other. We also chose to film in a busy area of the town centre which made it difficult to get the shots to look how we wanted them too. As a group i think we have all improved since the research process of our film in which we lacked motivation when it came to the filming and editing we managed to pull together and although we found it difficult to work round everyone schedules we made it work and still remained a functioning team to create a finished product that we were happy with the standard of. The most difficult aspect of filming I found was trying to remember the 180 degree line rule. This is difficult without guidance to put into practice. We are now more confident as a group with both the technical aspects of setting up a camera and tripod but also with the creative side, knowing which shots work and how to make the film run more smoothly. The main effects that we have used within our film are fades to make the change of settings run more smoothly. We found it difficult to perfect the timing of the shots so that they didn’t jump and also finding a soundtrack that was appropriate to our genre was also difficult though in the end we were happy with our choice of an ‘indie rock’ song which really finished off our film well. For my research I chose to look at the opening sequence of Snatch and also Mean Girls and Skins. This gave us an idea what shots were effective and what characters to use. The shot list was effective as it made our filming much easier as we knew exactly what we wanted and where we needed to film which characters. The character profiles gave us an idea of how the characters should behave and treatments made it easier to remain on track with our idea. Overall I am happy with our finished film product. Although if we could improve it would definitely be on our blog. Due to the confusion of what our idea actually consisted of and trying to figure out how we would put it into practice our blog is not up to the standard I feel that it could have been had we have time managed more appropriately and so if I had to improve on any point, that would be it.
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