How did you attract/ address your audience?

Our media product creates an air of mystery around our protagonist that leaves the audience wanting to know more about him and his circumstances. The genre of our media product is a gritty, contemporary drama in an urban setting. The audience sees the principal protagonist packing up his belongings and leaving his home and family. It is obvious to the audience that there is some regret in his actions as this is communicated through the opening scene where he dwells over family photographs. After closely examining one of the photos, showing his son, he experiences a flashback to this happier time where he is playing with his son in a park. What is not clear to the audience is why he is actually leaving this life. He appears to have a family, or atleast a child, who he loves. The audience may now draw the conclusion that he has been through a relationship breakdown which could itself had a number of possible causes. However, there could also be many other reasons for his departure including unemployment, possible drug problems. This is not made explicit in the opening sequence. Therefore, this is how we planned to grab the audience's attention.

We used a mix of handheld shots and use of the tripod. We hoped the use of handheld shots would enhance the contemporary feel of the film. We also used a number of particular techniques for example the framing of the shot of our protagonist through the keyhole as he walks away from his home and life. We used this shot to enhance the sense of the alienation affecting Jordan - the lead character. For the flashback scene we used Light Rays in Final Cut Pro, partly to signify the flashback, but also to create an eerie atmosphere.

The soundtrack is composed of original music and sound effects as we completely replaced all the natural sound recorded as we were shooting. This gave us complete control over the audio which the audience hear and enabled us to create a haunting feeling throughout the piece.

Overall our aim was capture the attention of the audience using all these separate components throughout our piece.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

In terms of the themes running through our film a mature audience of 18-35 would be our target. In terms of certificate we anticipate a 15 certificate reflecting the social themes of the film and the bad language and drug references that would appear later in the film. However, there is nothing in the opening sequence that would earn anything more than U certificate.



Our aim is for the film to appeal equally to both men and women. We our not specifically targeting any particular ethnic group with our film as we feel anyone, regardless of their ethnicity, can relate to it. There is also not a specific region that this film is aimed at. Although our main character begins his journey in Manchester, we then see him board a train to an undisclosed destination. Our aim for this production is to appeal to a niche market. Although this film could have general appeal, the genre and subject matter will be a limiting factor.




A typical audience member for our film

What kind of media institution would distribute your media product and why?

Our film would be distributed by an independent distributor such as Dogwoof. We would choose this distributor as they have obtained wide spread cinema releases for socially committed films such as 'Age of Stupid' (Banner films starring Pete Postlethwaite) and 'BurmaVJ'. Both of these have been shown at the Cornerhouse cinema in Manchester city centre and across the Europa independent cinema network of which Cornerhouse is a member, one of 33 member cinemas in the UK with a total of 94 screens. Cornerhouse itself organises regular programmes of independent film. An example of this is exposures, a unique festival that gives students from across the UK the opportunity to showcase their work to a cinema audience but also aims to give a unique insight into how the TV and film industry works. The festival is a partnership between Cornerhouse and Salford University. We would aim to get the film previewed at festivals such as oxposures and other festivals in the UK and Europe.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Through our media product we examined the problem of family break up amongst urban youth in deprived areas. Our main protagonist is a young white male in an urban environment. From the outset of this film it is clear to the audience that he has undergone a marital breakdown. We see him packing his belongings and leaving home presumably for an extended period of time, possibly forever. The audience then presumes that he has left his son behind. This raises the social questions of single parent families and young boys growing up without male role models which is a big issue at the moment. Children from broken homes are almost five times more likely to develop emotional problems and are also three times as likely to become aggressive or badly behaved as those with two parents at home, according to a comprehensive survey carried out by the Office for National Statistics published 2008.

Living in a "reconstituted" family containing step-children or step-parents increased the risk of developing behavioural problems still further, it found. The ONS report involved interviewing parents, teacher and children themselves to find out how many suffered emotional problems such as anxiety or depression, how many had "conduct disorders" such as aggression, and what the possible reasons behind them were. After interviewing 5,364 children aged between five and 16 in 2004 and again in 2007, the researchers found that 3 per cent had developed problems over that time. In addition, 30 per cent who had emotional problems at the first survey, and 43 per cent who had behavioural issues, still had them three years later. Children whose parents had split up over the three years were 4.53 times more likely to develop emotional problems than those whose mothers and fathers stayed together, and were 2.87 times more likely to show the onset of behavioural disorders.

This shows what impact our protagonist leaving could have on his son part of a much larger social issue.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product genre can be categorized as a drama with our story focusing on a single young male adult. We took inspiration from real media products such as American Beauty, Se7en and Kidulthood. After viewing the opening sequence of American Beauty we realised immediately that this was the film genre we wanted to work with. However, our final piece barely resembles any ideas we may have taken from American Beauty and instead has focused on what we saw as successful in the other two pieces. From Se7en we wanted to take the creepy distorted images and incorporate a similar style into our own piece. We accomplished this by distorting our already distorted flashback scene (in which our main character visits his past) and adding an orange glow effect to the shot. By then repeating this shot three times for a split second at a time throughout the scene we feel the right amount of eerie, sinister moments has been achieved.

However, even though this creepy effect adds a lot of diversity to our shots, the main bulk of our film idea can be seen as quite similar to the British media production of Kidulthood. The way in which our film coincides with this is because both deal with the problems confronting rootless urban youth with limited opportunities. This is the reason for our main characters decision to move on.

Last stages of editing

Having successfully edited our first scene showing our main character - Jordan - leaving his home; we are now in the process of editing our shots of the final scene. This will show Jordan waiting for a train that will then take him to his new life away from suburban isolation. Our second scene - the flashback - has been effectively encorporated into the middle of the first scene as previously planned. The main bulk of the editing for our film opening has been undertaken by Matt who has been a crucial element to our team.

Movie treatment

Synopsis: a young man is packing up his few treasured possessions and moving on to an uncertain future. He reflects upon past events in his life and people that have held great importance in his life.

Elements:
- performance; leading actor Jordan enters sparsely furnished flat and proceeds to pack his few belongings into a small rucksack. His belongings include two photos (scene one) ; four year old Ruben running around in an abandoned grassland with a dog (flashback sparked by Jordan touching one of the photos) (scene two) ; Jordan boarding a train at Deansgate station (scene three)
- costumes; normal clothing for a young urban adult.
- props; rucksack, photographs, dog
- key locations; house in Whalley Range, abandoned grassland in Hulme, Deansgate railway station.