Research

Target audience

Car films have been a very popular product for a long time, appealing to a wide ranged audience. The earliest car film dates back to 1929 to a film called ‘speedway’. This was a silent movie about a racing driver who clashes with his father at the Indianapolis speedway.

These types of early films led onto more successful movie such as Bullitt, the vanishing point, and the Italian job. Many of the older films were strictly orientated around legal racing whereas nowadays most car films are known for illegal street racing, drugs and violence.

For example, grand prix from 1966, was set on a grand prix race circuit, but films such as ‘the fast and furious’ revolve around illegal street racing, violence and involve things such as romantic interests between characters and disputes between characters. Car films usually have women characters which attract a wider female audience but generally appeals more to a male audience. The way the female characters are dressed is debated as being degrading towards women but it is suitable for the parts they play in the movies.

The Classic car movies like Bullitt and Vanishing point all influenced the movies of the modern era. One of the most recent racing films to hit our screens is ‘Death race’. This movie shows all aspects of previous car movies like, racing, drug use, violence and women. ‘Duel’ directed by Steven Spielberg, is famous for its use of creating a character from a vehicle, as we do not see the identity of its driver. This creates a dark, menacing, mysterious character. This idea will be used in our teaser trailer as we will not show the drivers of the vehicles.

This idea has been used in other movies, notably Disney films like, ‘Herbie’ and ‘Cars’ whose characters are all cars.

Car films are targeted at both female and male audiences, but mainly aimed at males due to the masculine activity of car racing. They also aim the films at female by having female characters dressed in attractive attire. For example, one magazine described the female characters in the ‘fast and furious’ as ‘loose women, tight jeans’, this adds to the fact that some people think the way these women are dressed is degrading towards women. The age group that car movies are generally aimed at is 15 – 35 year old males and a smaller range of female viewers.

The cars that are shown in more modern movies are modified and performance enhanced to live up to the expectations of illegal street racing. The colours of the cars are usually bright and fluorescent to stand out in the films as the illegal races that are shown in the fast and furious franchise are set at night time. This is only the case in the first three films; the fourth film is more centred on disputes between the characters and drug movements rather than street racing.

Classic movies like ‘Bullitt’ and ‘Vanishing point’ are more revolved around law enforcers and catching criminals ‘Vanishing point’ involves an exploration beyond the social conventions associated with home, work and family.

A way of signifying the genres cinematic sensation of driving is an exuberant music track, usually rock n roll.


Reptoire of Elements

Action/Racing films are all a recently new genre and have only been around since the 90s. In the beginning when the films first came out the cars were modern for the time and many films from then onwards feature cars from the time period so it is easy identifiable when the film came out due to the type of cars that are used in the films. For example cars from ‘Fast and Furious 4’ are newer than the cars in the original ‘Fast and Furious.’ Other examples of these types of films are ‘Death Race’, ‘Redlined’ and ‘Streets of Legend.’ Some of these films are unhgeard of and don’t make it to the cinema screens. This is due to the low budget and new actors that haven’t been heard of. The films that have made it to the cinema screens are generally made and distributed by large companies with famous actors and high budgets.

These films have been generated by combining different genres and have developed over time from other films and combining different features and techniques to create this new genre. For example crime films from the 60s 70s and 80s include high speed chases and violence. For Stereotypical shots of a car chase.

The Mise en scène of these types of film set in urban areas with busy streets packed full of cars and people. The areas are packed full of business people and shops and stands selling things. The cars in these types of films are classical muscle cars with the villains in a dark car. This is stereotypical of car chases of this era and has been incorporated into modern day Action/Racing films. The hero of the film is in a high powered sporty muscle car which adds the heroism of the character. This also makes the audience want to be part of the film because the cars appeal to them.

The characters of these types of films are the heroes, which are usually undercover police or gangsters while the villains are usually criminals that are escaping the law for various reasons. The police are usually dressed in plain clothing, this relates to the audience by giving them the feeling that they are the officers because they are not in uniform.

These shots of the car speeding towards the camera then a shot of the back of the car speeding away are stereotypical of these types of chases. The camera also changes to shots of the interior of the car this is also used in a lot of other films including chase scenes and is incorporated into Action/Racing genre. These chase scenes are focused on when creating an Action/Racing film and is the core narrative basis of the film. The editing of these films has very quick editing of shots during high energy scenes. This is to create tension and excitement for the audience. This is common in many action/racing scenes, the editing is quick during high energy scence but slows down when the it becomes more relaxed.

The overall chase scenes of these types of film are usually very high energy and high speed with a lot of movement and different things happening in one shot. This is to keep the excitement and energy high to keep the interest of the audience.

Fast & Furious Research

A low sweeping shot of all the car bonnets with the sound of revving engines. The area is a very urban industrial area which gives the impression of being lawless. The colours of the cars are bright to improve the visual appearance and to appeal to the audience more. The cars rocking backwards and forwards give the feeling that the cars are ready to race.

Close up shots of the drivers faces help create competitive tension and give impression they are ready to race. This close up shot engages the audience and gives the feeling of the being in the passenger or driver in one of the cars. This shot gives a brief idea of the main character in the film.

The quick shot of the text moving across the screen informs the audience when the film will be released but does not give an exact date the contrasts of white on black is simple and is easy and quick to read. This colours are overall very masculine and the involvement of high performance cars and women conclude that this film is targeted at young males.

The trailer also include short, fast close ups of different parts of the car such as the pedals, exhaust and the dials. This is to give the feeling of preparation for the race the colours are mainly neutral dark colours that are easy on the eye. The sound is still the revving engines with a quick sound in between each shot to bridge them. This shot engages the audience by giving the feeling that they are in the car looking down at the dials.

Then the shot of the cars is a wide angle shot of all the cars racing off. This includes a lot of smoke and tyre screeching then the cars speed toward the camera then a sudden change of shot to the title of the film. This leads to the audience wanting to see what happens during the race and who wins.

The final shot is the title of the film. This is the second of only two pieces of information shown in the advert. The title speeds across the screen then pauses in the centre for a brief moment then moves across the screen again. This is also in the same style as the previous title shot.

The narrative in this teaser trailer is just audio clips taken from parts of the film, this helps understand the film without giving the plot away, which in turn intrigues the audience and leaves them wanting to see the film.

Poster research

We researched posters of various genres to get a wider perspective on what is required in the poster we will create.

This poster is for the film 'Transformers' which consists of one single image on a dark background. The dark background focuses the audience on what is going on in the image. The image doesnt give away anything about the film but is relative to the slogan below. The words say 'Their war. Our World' this is relates to the image showing part of the face of an alien and planet earth. The other part of the poster that attracts the audiences eye is the name of the film and the date it will be released. This gives the audience a vague idea when the film will be released but not an exact date. This may then spark a viral marketing campaign by the use of the internet with people interested in wanting to know more.

This second poster is very similar to the 'Transformers' poster, although it being a completely different genre. The dark background again focuses the audience on the image, which is quite chilling and scary and leaves the audience wanting to know more about the film. Again the contrast of the white text on a black background attracts the users eye and gives them the name of the film. There is no date given to the release of the film which also adds the the scariness of the film and leaves the audience wanting to know more. This could again lead to a viral marketing campaign.

This poster again is of a different genre which included a dark background but this time there is alot more going on in the poster. The characters faces are put in greyscale to move them into the background and focus the audiences eye on the foreground image of the car. The characters of the film are identified immediatly which gives away the mysterious factor of the film which we feel is relevant to attracting an audience. Although audiences who enjoy watching films containing these actors would instantly be interested. The image of the car instantly tells the audience what the film is about and the name of the film can be related to previous verions of the film so the audience can instantly find out roughly what the film is about. The credits are also included on the poster which are not used on any of the other posters, this again gives away more information about the film. The poster also allows the audience to find out more by giving a number to text to find out more about the film.

In our film we will use factors of the first two posters due to them having more of an impact on the audience and leaving them wanting to know more. A dark background will be used with a single image with the date and the name of the film. No other details will be used such as credits due to this giving too much information about the film and would not have as greater impact on the audience.

Magazine Research

All of the film magazines studied are ‘Total Film’ Magazines this is due to the magazine being well known and interesting to read and it includes all the popular and new films that are out near the issue date.

This magazine is issued at the time of the ‘X-men 2’ film release. The magazine promotes this by having the front cover as an image of one of the X-men characters. The colours of the magazine are dark with a dark background then bright white text and orange text, this stands out and attracts the user. Also part of the image overlaps the graphics on the magazine. This is similar to the James Bond film cover, this adds to the impact of the cover and helps stand out.

This magazine cover for ‘Star Trek’ is greyscale then the red text used at the top and bottom of the page help the magazine stand out. The image on this magazine does not overlap like the other two magazines, this has just a close-up shot of one of the ‘Star Trek’ characters. This helps the magazine stand out, also the large font magazine title helps people find out what the magazine is called and are easily identifiable for people who already read these magazines.

The colour scheme of this magazine fits in with the image. The house style is white, grey and gold. This adds to the style of James bond with smart font and colours. The text gives an insight of what is in the magazine with new films and reviews. The image over laying the text gives an almost 3D effect of the character popping out of the page.

These magazines show that the magazine cover that will be created needs to include a large background image. With a colour scheme that will suit the image. The text on the magazine needs to include future films and an insight on what is inside the magazine. The cover also needs to stand out by either the use of overlapping and image or having an image which stands out and can easily catch the users eye.

Market Research

We asked a 40 people by the use of systematic sampling, choosing every fourth person. This then reduced the amount of bias in our results and making them more accurate. The results were recorded into a table and then the data was created into graphs.The graphs above show the results that we had found.

The market research shows that the majority of people asked in our survey have seen all of the most common action/racing films. A high percentage of people also feel that there is a need for more films of this genre. Out of the 40 people asked at random the majority of people where young males, most of these said they enjoy these types of film, the pie chart also shows the aspects of these types of film that appeals to people most. The aspect that appeals to people most is the aspect of speed, many people have no favourite aspect but the third popular aspect are modified cars. This means that the film we will create must include aspects of speed and modified cars.

Planning

Time Plan

Filming

2nd October 2009 - Filming at location. All footage filmed on this date. Location photos also taken.

Editing

8th October - All footage captured and editing almost complete.
15th October - Final touches made to film. Completed on this date.

Planning and Research completed on 3rd November 2009
Evaluation Questions completed on 20th November 2009

Storyboard

1. The opening shot consists of a close up of a key in the ignition of a car being turned and the engine turning on.
(Car 1)

2. The second shot again consists of another close up of a key turning in the ignition of car being turned and the engine turning on.
(Car 2)

3. Medium Shot of front of both cars with the headlights turning on.

4. Close up shot of foot pressing down on foot pedal, causing the engine to rev. (Car 1)

5. Close up of shot of foot pressing down on foot pedal, causing the engine to rev. (Car 2)

6. Close up of Car 1's Exhaust while being revved.

7. Close up of Car 2's Exhaust while being revved.

8. Close up of front wheel of car spinning.

9. Medium shot of front of cars, then cars race towards camera at speed.

10. Medium shot of cars racing away into distance.

11. Black Screen with the word 'Shift' in white in the centre of the screen. Engine noise in background.

12. Half second shot of inside of car appearing to go at speed.

13. Black screen with the date of film then fade to black. Sound of engines fade out.

The half second shot of the inside of the car appearing to be going at speed will be speeded up to give the affect of going fast. The unsteadiness of the camera gives the sense of speed and excitement. The estimated time of the film will be about 30 seconds, this is because it is a teaser trailer only.

Location Photos

This is the location of where we shot the entire film. This secluded spot was ideal for filming due to it not in regular use during the evening and night time. This allowed us to film the entire film without having to be disrupted by other road users. The setting at night has a slight industrial feel to it due to the buildings surrounding it and the streetlights large amounts of tarmac. The area is also well lit due to the amount of streetlights which gave us enough light to film in the dark. Seperate lights were also used for the close up shots of the film. The long, straight roads and the tight roundabout allowed us to get the feeling of speed without the need of breaking the speed limit of the area. The area is also national speed limit which allowed us to get enough speed for our filming.

Production Company Information

The Production company we have chosen to use for our film is 'Ska Films.' This is due to a number of Gangster films they produce. They are also a British based company which produce a number of British Films and seeing as our film is British based and the genre is Action/Racing and involves alot of illegal activity and as the genre has evolved from classical ganster films it would be suitable for the film.

Ska Films
Popular films that the company produced are:
Mean Machine (2001)
Snatch (2000)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

These films are in the age group that we have chosen to target so this also adds to the suitability of the production company.

Magazine Cover

The magazine cover that has been created is keeps in conjunction with the rest of the ‘Total Film’ magazines. The house font of the magazine is kept the same as other ‘Total Film’ magazines. This helps it become easily recognisable it the target audience that would usually buy the magazine and attracts other users who would be interested in the magazine.

The colour scheme of white, black, blue and orange are all contrasting colours so they stand out and attract the users eye. The image of the car is spread over the entire cover which stands out an therefore not only attract film fans but also appeals to automobile fans therefore creating a wider audience for the film. The photo used in the magazine cover coincides with the film due to the car in the photo is one of the car used in the film. This then gives the film and the magazine a connection.

Poster

We created posters with two different images on them so then we could compare the two designs to see which one was most suitable.

First Poster

Second Poster

We chose to use the first poster due to the car being in the film. The image used is also used on the front cover of the magazine. This helps relate all three media products to each other and makes the poster easily identifiable to the teaser trailer. Another reason why we chose to use the first poster was because we felt the colours and style was more in keeping with the house style of the magazine cover and film.

Evaluation Questions

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

Our teaser trailer doesn’t use typical conventions of a teaser trailer of this genre, for example none of the characters are shown apart from close ups of areas of the body. This helps create a sense of mystery of the trailer and entices the audience to want to see the film. The use of only giving away the name of the film and the date again helps add to the vagueness of the film and could spark the audience to begin to blog on the internet to find out more about the film, which in turn could help advertise the film by the use of viral marketing. The choice of cars and location gives the sense of realism and helps the audience relate to it due to the cars that are used are often seen in real life and are not over the top like some other films of the similar genre.

Our magazine cover uses the famous film magazine ‘Total Film’ as the name and is in keeping with the style and appearance of the magazine company. We included the relevant texts and images such as the barcode, date, price and issue number. This helps to add to the realism of the magazine cover. To help create the magazine cover we looked at previous issues of the magazine and studied the layout, and conventions of the products. The image and layout of the magazine that we had created is typical of the layout of the magazine with a simple image that relates to the film and the fonts and colours used again help make the cover look as realistic as possible.

The poster we used was kept simple as possible with only and image of a car, the date and the name of the film. This give the similar affect of the teaser trailer, by giving only limited amount of information to make the audience want to find out more by searching the internet and again causing a viral marketing campaign. The poster is also in keeping with the colour scheme of the magazine cover so this relates all three media products together. This is similar to what real media products such as ‘The Fast and the Furious’ film which also keeps with this kind of style.

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

Our main product kept in keeping with the two ancillary texts we created. The styles and characteristics of the products are kept in keeping with each other on purpose to make it easier for the audience to relate the poster and the magazine cover to the main film. The three products give the audience an idea about what the film is about but the limited information given out allows the film to have a twist that the audience would be unknown about.

Our Magazine cover uses the same colour schemes as the post by using dark colours such as blue and black. These colours represent the film and giving it a darker side that the audience would be unaware of. The bright orange colours used on the magazine cover are only used to allow the audience to easily know what is inside the magazine which may encourage them to purchase the magazine. The contents of the magazine would also give the audience a brief guide of the film but would not give the whole story away.


3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When our teaser trailer was shown to a small audience they instantly wanted to see more of the film. They thought the short, high speed trailer was affective and that the film overall was exciting. They thought that the camera angles and length and transition of shots help make the trailer look professional and they were left wanting to see more. We were informed the sound of the cars flowed through seamlessly throughout the trailer and the use of only leaving key information for the audience to work out more about the films for themselves was effective. All of these points were intentionally created by us to make the film as professional as possible. No negative comments where give but they would have been good to help improve the project if we were to do it again.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Before we created our film we needed to research and plan it. This involved researching existing products and using the resources we gathered to plan a film that would be of the professional quality. We used computers and the various websites to research existing products. Magazines were also purchased in an attempt to create a structure of what our film should look like. The use of popular websites such as ‘Youtube’ helped us to research existing trailers of the genre we had chosen. Posters were also researched using Google images which was a great resource when researching our products.

The equipment we used for filming were video cameras that used mini DV tapes to store the footage. This was good due to being able to film simply and to capturing the footage on a computer was relatively simple. We used a computer using the storm editing suite to capture the footage and edit it. Sound effects were not needed to be added in due to the sound from the footage linked together giving it seamless audio.

To upload our work to the blog we firstly wrote up all our findings and information into programs such as Microsoft word and publisher. Microsoft publisher was used to create the magazine cover but we had to use professional programs such as Adobe Photoshop, this was used to edit the photos for our poster and magazine cover which gave us a more professional standard of ancillary texts. The photos used where taken using professional Canon 450D SLR camera.