Storyboards - the rough draft

Here's our rough story board sheet for our film opening:

We planned for it to start with the main character sitting in his office with his head in his hands as he thinks over the recent case he's been given which will then lead on to an extreme close up of the characters eye as he's seen to be closing his eye quite painfully (as if he was clenching his face and screwing it up) which is when the series of flashbacks will begin

the first panel explains how there will be a series of two different scenes of murder victims within the flashback, the second panel says how we will have the character standing in front of a suspect board before it moves on to the third panel which will zoom into the suspect board which will show the titles for the actors and the producing roles etc.

In the first panel after the titles have been shown, the next scene will show the character walking through the woods looking for clues on his case before the flashback ends and shows the character standing outside of an interrogation room.

For the last 2 panels, we'll have the character entering the interrogation room and slamming the door behind him, then he'll sit down and start talking before the camera fades out and the title is shown

This is our rough idea and has gone through a lot of editing before we ended up with our final neat storyboards

Our Target Audience Member Profile

Our target demographic is Males over 35, so we decided to interview our schools ICT teacher Mr. Healy who is a perfect subject as he is in our prime target social class (A/B) and fits the other categories for our demographics (Male, 35+):

We interviewed Mr. Healy about his interests, his opinions and his attitudes on different media related subjects and recorded his answers as information to give us an extremely loose idea on the psycho-graphics of our general target audience so we can be aware of what would seem to be fitting to our film opening and what shouldn't really be included so that we can make our film opening as good as it possibly can be.

Here are the results we got from the interview:

Music
Mr. Healy has said that he'll listen to pretty much anything, any genre of music, although he also said how he loves the old jazz-style music, more specifically preferred when it's included in older films that related to our genre, but commented on how he was slightly more interested in Jazz with some sort of a modern-techno twist to it, this sounds like something that would tie in with the electro-swing genre of music. He gave us a few examples in which the types of music he was talking about such as Bladerunner and the Matrix, the latter was highly leaning more towards the techno side of the music and how it creates a tense atmosphere.

Mr. Healy also made it specifically clear that he is not a fan of the more mainstream pop music such as the likes of Madonna or Britney Spears.

TV
The TV shows which appeal to Mr. Healy the most are detecive/deduction shows such as CSI or Elementary and has said how he detests programs that include unwanted or unnecessary information and events in them such as relationships included in a TV show which has no need for it.

Movies
Mr. Healy said that he's interested in action films as well as Film Noir, some examples he gave us of action films he liked were; Bladerunner, Indiana Jones and more specifically, films directed by Ridley Scott such as Alien etc.
Horror films don't particularly take his fancy, more specifically horror films which are shown to be highly unrealistic such as the supernatural style-films (such as the Paranormal Activity series or the Scream series)

Student Film Analysis

Student Film Analysis on Prezi

Our Film Idea Pitch

In the video below, our group pitched 2 ideas (each idea lasting around 30 seconds) of our film opening ideas to our Media class, who gave us feedback on the 2 ideas and they all voted for which idea they would rather prefer to see made; Idea 1, or Idea 2. Both ideas at this stage were simply the most basic concepts and only really held the main plot as to what would happen in the film and what would be shown in the 2 minute film opening, also included in the pitch is information about our Target Audience and any additional information that needed to be included in the two film openings of our chosen Genre

As the video states; our Target Audience is Males aged 35+ withing the A/B social class, aiming at people with careers in generally high class jobs (i.e. Bankers, doctors etc)

Concepts of our two film opening intros:

Idea 1: Murder Mystery/detective film.
Shown in a flash forward (to which the rest of the film will be shown in a flashback, with the events playing backwards up until the present moment in which the film began).
The film begins with an interrogation scene between the detective (being one of the main characters) and an unseen criminal (aimed towards the suspect in a recent crime). As the opening carries on, a narration from the detective begins as he explains the case he has been given, and ultimately, the reason for him being in an interrogation room with a suspect as the camera shows the location of the victims death which shows a white outline of the victims body as the narration is proceeding. As the narration ends, the detective will eventually find the murder weapon, ending the film opening and also giving him a clue to his progression in solving the murder case.

With the film genre being Film Noir, we will have to edit the footage so that it is shown in Black and White to keep as close to the conventions of the genre as possible without it seeming like some cheap, rip off of any other films.

As a twist to the film, our group agreed that we will not be showing the victim or the murderer's face, but to keep them hidden (e.g. the victim will be lying face down on the floor and the murderers face will be cast over by a shadow in the interrogation room which will be set with Low-Key lighting)

For opening titles, we had the idea of using a suspect board to show the different names of the actors and the main title etc. Possible props for the opening would include items such as a case file, a suspect board, some form of a murder weapon (still to be decided), possibly a gun which is more typical of a Noir film.


Idea 2: Jewel robbery/detective film.
This opening would start with an anonymous burglar stealing a precious, expensive diamond, which - naturally - will be reported into the police by the owner/s of the diamond. It is then shown that two suspects have been found for the crime and it is then up to the detective to figure out which of the two suspects, is the actual criminal behind the Diamond heist and to essentially find the diamond itself.

Not showing who the actual burglar is gives the opening some form of enigma for the audience and sets a slightly uncomfortable feeling in the audience because of the enigma of who the burglar could be and it becomes slightly more unsettling when it's revealed that there are 2 suspects instead of the typical 1 suspect.

As said in the previous idea, the film will be edited so that it will be shown in Black and White to stay within the boundaries of the genres conventions. Obviously one of the main props in this opening will be the stolen diamond, and the mask that is used to cover the burglar's face.



Feedback:

- We were confronted about the problem of trying to attract a certain amount of people to watch the film considering that the Film Noir genre is more typically a niche audience (a genre which has a smaller demographic for their audiences) which will make it slightly more difficult to appeal to more people. We're considering possibilities of making the film to look slightly more modern to attract a more younger audience who are unaware of the general genre but so that the film can still look interesting to them all whilst keeping to the criteria of the conventions of the Film Noir Genre.

- Because we are filming in Market Rasen, it's not exactly the perfect place for a Film Noir to be set which will make it difficult to stay within the conventions of the Genre which is typically held in Cities in America. We will try our best to get the settings to look like it's set in a City but it might be slightly more difficult to pass it off as a City in America.

- As we've noticed, Both of the ideas for our 2 minute film opening, run slightly more longer than 2 minutes, so we will have to consider cutting certain scenes out from the overall Idea so that it will fit in the time frame but still keep the plot easy to understand and still create enough enigma to keep the audience interested.


After the vote, The majority of the class preferred Idea 1 with the murder mystery plot.

Target Audience stats for our genre: Film Noir

 

This graph on page 105 tells me about the types of film genres and what percentage of people normally enjoy watching them. Our groups genre, Film Noir, is fourth from the bottom, with 10% of people saying they typically enjoy watching Film Noir. The percentage isn't that big compared to the more popular genre's such as Comedy (No.1 at 64%) or Family (No. 8 at 37%), but it does show us that there is a potential audience for us to target our production towards.

 

This Chart on page 106 shows us a more in depth insight into the audience demographics for each genre, giving specific percentages for each group of people (I.e. Males 35+, males 35 under, repeat for female, whether the film genre is watched with parents or not, and the most typical social class).

Determining a secondary audience is difficult because 9% of both males under 35, and females over 35 said that they enjoy watching Film Noir. Therefore, we will aim more towards over 35's by marketing the film during films and TV shows that the over 35 age category would be most likely to consume.

   

Above is the percentage stats for our groups' genre. This tells us that Males over 35 are the preferred group that watch Film Noir, essentially giving us our primary target audience. The chart also tells us that the preferred social group for the Film Noir Genre is AB, which is more of an upper class social status with people who would typically have jobs as bankers, or doctors etc. These are the type of people that we are going to be trying to attract to our film opening.

Films that have been successful in our Genre

These are the top three successful films in Film Noir and how they rank by Box Office success.

These are some of the more recent Film Noir's and the year that they were released over the years from 2010 and forward showing that there are still Films being made under the Film Noir Genre.

This is one of the Films that was shown to be a recent release in the Film Noir Genre. As shown at the bottom of the information box, this film made over $200,000,000 which is quite a success for the film and also shows that there is still an audience that is interested in watching Film Noir.

(Sources: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_noir_titles#2010s

Some Information about our Target Audience

Our primary Target Audience for our film opening (genre: Film Noir) is males over 35 years old in the AB social category as shown in the charts above. (wip)

Target Audience Interview

Conventions of my Film Genre: Film Noir

Conventions of My Chosen Genre: Film Noir on Prezi