Unit 22/24 Assignment 2

Don’t panic is a sci-fi comedy with splashes of drama. 6 polar opposite characters come together after a raging storm hits them at their new college. We have Amy, hard faced, well dressed and so into the colour pink it hurts. Amy gets all the attention. Next of the girls is Lois, creative comfy clothe wearing Lois. She is quite indie, has about 5 tumblr blogs and keeps her cards close to her chest. Last of the girls is Tammy, Manchester United mad and a very keen football player. Spends most of her life in football kits and tracksuits but still takes pride in her hair and make up. Then the boys, maths enthusiast Henry, popular with girls but in a cute little brother kind of way. Kyle, who has girlfriend after girlfriend because he is the stereo typical tall dark and handsome kind of boy. And finally Craig, the rebellious jogging bottom wearing rap star wannabe.

When the storm hits, only these six people feel it. Confused and scared the first character we see effected by the storm, Henry dashes to the nearest classroom to check if fellow students are okay, but they seem oblivious to what has happened. They want to find out why and after a second storm hits, they certainly don’t get answers. Zombies attack but will they survive? We see an epic, yet humorous fight between man and zombie. The 6 know they are outnumbered, they are frightened and panicky but determined.

 Don’t panic will appeal to 16-18 girls and boys as the characters are of this age and most college students are of this age. It could appeal to people slightly older or slightly younger than 16-18 because if the audience are about to go into college or have just left college could want to watch it.

The setting of  don’t panic will be mainly of the college which will be a real college and will give this more of a realistic vibe for the audience and because the college is a big college it still allows us to have many different settings within the settings.

This short film is called don’t panic because that is exactly what the characters do and as an audience watching it you will biting your finger nails wishing the didn't panic, but it will get you worked up and it will make you panic. But the comedy elements of this teenaged sci-fi frenzy will keep you hooked and very very entertained. The drama will pull at your heart strings as the characters emotions are being tested and you become to love them and feel protective of them because their distinctive personalities will relate to a lot of the audience.

Unit 22/24 Assignment 2

This  short film will be a sci-fi comedy
My cast will be people of my own age because that's how old the characters are. This will be easy because i can get friends and people from around college to be in my cast.
There are lots of locations available because the production will be based around people of my age group and its based almost entirely in a college setting.
My target audience will be girls and boys aged 16-18 because the main characters are around this age and people who go to college are of this age too. 

Science fiction (abbreviated SF or sci-fi with varying punctuation and case) is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, movies, games, theater, and other media.

Science-fiction books, magazines, film, TV, gaming and fannish materialIn organizational or marketing contexts, science fiction can be synonymous with the broader definition of speculative fiction, encompassing creative works incorporating imaginative elements not found in contemporary reality; this includes fantasy, horror, and related genres.[1]

Science fiction differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are possible within established or postulated laws of nature.


Science fiction often involves one or more of the following elements:

-A setting in the future or in an alternative time line.
-A setting in outer space or involving aliens or unknown civilizations.
-The discovery or application of new scientific principles, such as time travel or psionics, or new technology, such as nanotechnology, faster-than-light travel or robots.
-Political or social systems different from those of the known present or past.
-Exploring the consequences of such differences is the traditional purpose of science fiction, making it a "literature of ideas".

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fic...

Comedy Films are "make 'em laugh" films designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are light-hearted dramas, crafted to amuse, entertain, and provoke enjoyment. The comedy genre humorously exaggerates the situation, the language, action, and characters. Comedies observe the deficiencies, foibles, and frustrations of life, providing merriment and a momentary escape from day-to-day life. They usually have happy endings, although the humor may have a serious or pessimistic side.
See this site's Funniest Film Moments and Scenes collection - illustrated. In mid-June 2000, the American Film Institute (AFI) selected America's 100 Funniest Movies - see AFI's list of the 100 Funniest Films as presented by this site, as well as Premiere Magazine's 50 Greatest Comedies of All Time. See also AFI's 10 Top 10 - The Top 10 Romantic Comedy Films.
Types of Comedies:
Comedies usually come in two general formats: comedian-led (with well-timed gags, jokes, or sketches) and situation-comedies that are told within a narrative. Both comedy elements may appear together and/or overlap. Comedy hybrids commonly exist with other major genres, such as musical-comedy, horror-comedy, and comedy-thriller. Comedies have also been classified in various subgenres, such as romantic comedy, crime/caper comedy, sports comedy, teen or coming-of-age comedy, social-class comedy, military comedy, fish-out-of-water comedy, and gross-out comedy.


Primary Research

For my primary research I watched misfits because I wanted to get ideas for the supernatural element of my short film. Misfits has around the same aged characters and appeals to the target audience I want my short film to appeal to. This made it very useful and reliable and it helped me a lot with my idea and how to make it as professional as possible.

Unit 22/24 Assignment 2

Act 1
We are introduced briefly to the six main characters as they start off their first day at college, we begin to see their costumes and get an idea of the kind of people they are. We then see them sat in a class room together as total strangers with a teacher and we find out that they are transfers to the college and they are getting their time tables. They then leave the class room and head off to their lessons.
We then see the first of the characters Amy in her fashion class, Henry in a science class, Tammy outside playing football, Lois in an media studies class, Kyle in an English class, and Craig in a public services class.

Act 2
It comes to lunch time and they all have an extra couple of ours free after lunch before there next lesson. We see them wondering round looking lost, trying to find out where there next classes are and we see that the corridors are starting to empty as people head to lessons. The weather has been bad all day but it starts getting worse as the day goes on and a storm hits the college, thunder and lightening comes and physically starts to shake the college and they all fall to the ground and suddenly everything stops. It appears that they are all okay and unharmed, we then see Henry run into a classroom to check if anyone was hurt and he bursts into a maths lesson and they are acting like nothing has happened so he leaves all confused, heads outside and its all sunny and normal. He finds Tammy outside who seems to be all shaken up and then they discover that they both along with the other 4 main characters experienced this storm. A few days pass and they decide to meet up and try and work out why they felt this storm and nobody else did. They meet up in the coffee shop area of the college and its empty because everybody is in class. They experience another storm but this time they find that everybody in the college has vanished. They wonder round the empty buildings looking for anyone who might be around. Lois heads in to some girls toilets and finds a girl in there who is crying, she opens the toilet door and the girl isn't crying anymore and then the girl gets up and tries to attack Lois. She runs out into the corridor to find everyone else has met back at the coffee shop area after finding nobody. They then start to panic as all these people start to appear, zombie like and trying to attack them.

Act 3
They manage to take shelter in the sports hall and make a plan to fight them. Henry decides to act as leader because he was the first one to experience the storms. They leave the sports hall to find themselves way out of their depth as there are too many people trying to attack. One by one they all get killed apart from Henry who manages to hide and then it fades to black. It skips back to him stood outside confused, he see's Tammy again but she is fine and playing football. Then it cuts to Henry's face and then ends.

Unit 22/24 Assignment 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3_6IklGZ6OdQlY1VWJUNW5MVms/edit?usp=sharing

Finished advert

Barclays Advert

Music Video

A Punk - Vampire Weekend

Focus groups and commentary script

Questions

1. What do you think the purpose of the advert is?
2. We thought that the purpose of our advert was to raise awareness and promote the 5 million young futures campaign, do you think that the advert did this? if so then why?
3. Is the message of the advert clear?
4. Do you understand why the tortoise was incorporated into the advert?
5. What do you think of the sound in the advert?
6. What do you think of the camera work in the advert?
7. Did you think the use of the green screen was effective?
8. What emotional response did you get from the advert?
9. Why did it make you feel that way?
10. Does it inspire you to get involved with the campaign, if so then why?
11. Overall do you think this advert is a good advert? 
12. Does it have typical advert qualities?

Jamie

1.  to promote the 5 million young futures
2. yes because it explained what it was and why barclays is involved 
3. yes it was straightforward 
4. yes because it's a metaphor
5. yes because it has a catchy song
6. i liked it especially the birds eye view shot
7. yes it added to it and made it funny
8. it made me want to be part of the campaign
9. because it shown the difference they make 
10. yes because it shows the work they do
11. yes it makes me want to keep watching 
12. yes because it has a catchy song and it has everything you'd expect in an advert 

Josh Ellingworth

1. To get the point of the campaign across 
2. Yes because there is facts about the campaign in the advert
3. Yes because it was easy to follow and came to a good conclusion at the end
4. It is a different way to advertise for the campaign 
5. The sound was very clear and the voice over was detailed. The music suited the advert well
6. A lot of important shots of the maim character (the tortoise) was used
7. Yes because the character was seen in front of the barclays sign   
8. It makes me feel happy 
9. because it is helping people
10. Yes it does because it helps people change their life 
11. Yes because it gets the point across to the audience and shows the benefits of the campaign
12. Yes because it shows the company logo at the beginning and end and it is mentioned through the advert, also catchy music is used.

Jades mum - Collette

1. to advertise the bank
2. yes because that's what was being talked about.
3. yes
4. not at first but I understood at the end.
5. I  liked it and I felt like dancing wanted to keep watching.
6. it was good as different shots were used.
7. I liked it, it was my favourite part.
8. made me feel happy.
9. the music was upbeat and engaging
10. yes because I liked the tortoise it gave me the feel good factor and made me want to help
11. yes I enjoyed watching it.
12. yes, it has good music and a voice over which is what normally features in adverts.

Video script

Video commentary by Maddi, Jade and Matt.

For our focus groups we asked a group of people 12 questions and all said they got the gist of our advert and agreed the message of it was clear and straightforward. We asked them if they understood why we had used the tortoise in the advert, 2 said they did and the other said that they realised at the end when they heard the "slowly but surely", following from this all said that the chroma keying added humour to the advert and they enjoyed it.  Everyone also said the sound was clear and the music really suited the advert and because the song was recognisable it made it more engaging for the audience. Our aim was to make an advert that was upbeat and positive and from this focus group everyone said it gave them a feel good factor and inspired them to get involved with the campaign.

We didn't face that many challenges with the brief but one of the things we did find challenging was the fact that the brief was quite open, it was mostly an advantage because it give us creative freedom. 

We could of made it serious or funny but barclays didn't want us to dwell at all. The disadvantages of having an open brief was that it made us spend longer coming up with an idea for the advert. 

We experienced some problems with the technical side to the advert such as, it took us a while to get the focus right on the close up of tommy because he was so small and the lighting in the room wasn't very good, we couldn't of used lights because there wasn't enough room and there wasn't enough plugs for them anyway. Generally working with tommy was a challenge because he wasn't very cooperative, the first time we shot the advert because he would hardly move but then when we re-shot it he was overly active and wouldn't keep still. He was also walking over all the lettuce so we had to keep putting it back in place when we were filming every shot.

The positive sides of the technical stuff was that when we re-shot the advert we used a better camera this helped us get more of a professional quality and the close ups were a lot more clear and not grainy. The setting was simple and effective because we didn't need any permission to film there and there wasn't any restrictions with regards to time. I think the song on the advert went well because it was upbeat and it had a happy tone, and the song is well known because it was in Matilda and it was quite catchy so this made the advert memorable. We thought that our voice over guy brain, a media teacher at college was suitable because we felt that a tortoise needed a older male voice compare to someone young which we originally used because we feel like it suited the character more to use an older voice and appeal more to the adult audience. 

We manage our time quite well because we only had one location so we could work fast and focus more on the editing. Overall we worked well as a group because we put ourselves together and we could work comfortably together because we didn't feel like we couldn't give our opinions. We shared the tasks out fairly and to each others strengths. With the filming we wanted to get started straight away because we were working with an animal so if anything wasn't working out we has time to fix it or change our idea. We had to film around our timetables and around when tommy was available and we had to takes these things into consideration we got it done quite fast and had plenty of time to re-shoot whenever we wanted.

We took inspiration from the previous barclays advert which had a talking hamster in it. This helped us with our idea because barclays have used animals before so our advert was more relevant to barclays. Our final advert was successful because it turned out to be what we initially planned to do and stuck to our idea apart from we added in the chromakeying to tie in tommy's voice with what you could see.