Storyboard Movie

Storyboard Movie

file:///F:/Movie.wmv

Evaluation Questions

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

By creating a teaser trailer, magazine cover and poster, we have used and developed different forms of media products. We did not challenge different conventions of real media products as we thought that sticking to the normal forms of advertising was a better and safer way to advertise our product.
We aimed to make our teaser trailer not to give much away as some trailers that we looked at seem to mostly lay out the story and only leave a few things out. Our aim was to capture our target audience’s attention by having a series of quick shots that mostly did not relate to the previous to make our audience interested in the real plot and want to see the film. We used obvious repertoire of elements, in the trailer, poster and the magazine (their costumes) to portray exactly what kind of film this was, and did not specifically develop or change anything you wouldn’t see in a wartime romance.
We did not want to make our film look predictable, and created a very simple looking poster and magazine cover which was enough to get a hint of what the story was about but not giving to much away. We have purposely placed the woman in the middle, to emphasise her character as the centre of the plot, but we did not want to make her look like she has a typical woman role such as a ‘damsel in distrees’ or a ‘sex symbol’. So in some ways we have challenged stereotypes but the overall plot has stuck mostly to the ‘typical’ wartime romance genre. We have not tried to develop a modern edge to the film, or particularly challenged anything that you wouldn’t see in a wartime romance, and we feel this will get the right reaction out of our audience.

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

Our trailer and our ancillary texts are all linked, the same fonts the same backgrounds the same feeling. All very discreet and mysterious.We want our audience to be able to know what they are going to get out of the film but not what this “Betrayal” actually is. We want to tease them with the mystery of it.
Any new film needs to have a great advertising campaign that’s how it will get ratings and the audience viewings it needs, so the combination of all of the media pieces need to fit together and work off eachother in order to be effective to our audience.The magazine cover is the only real information the audience is going to get about the new film, we want to glamourise it to our audience make them feel special in knowing behind the scences about our film.
The slogan or quote of our film “Love is like war, easy to start but hard to stop” conveys the mood and feel of our film without giving too much away. To us it was important that we connected something throught all the trailer and ancillary texts, using the slogan was good because people read it and wonder exactly what it means and how it may relate to the film.We use this in the trailer and on the poster. Both the magazine cover and poster are black with a little light on the faces of our charcaters showing the bleakness of our film, the trailer itself switches its colours when the main characters life switches directions. The reptoire of elements in our film are used in all of our texts, the war planes, the villan, the showing of a heartbreak etc. So everything is linked together to show our audience what sort of a film they are going to see and how it is all put together without showing too much of the films plot or the importance of “the betrayal”.

3) What have you learned from your audience feed back?

Prior to the evaluation, we wanted to get some feedback from our target market, to see what they thought of our teaser trailer. Firstly we showed the trailer to our media group, and handed them a short survey to fill in after watching it. We figured that this would be the quickest and easiest way to record the results. (A copy of the survey is attached as a separate post). We found that mainly the females in the group preferred the trailer, however, we had positive feedback from some males also. Out of the 15 people that we surveyed, 12 would go and see it at the cinema, 9 of which were female. After discussing their favourite part of the trailer (separately from the survey), we found the most popular scene to be the one where two characters get caught having an affair by the sneaky maid peering through the banister. This indicated just how important the suspense of a trailer is to get the audience gripped. Something that really added suspense to our trailer was the music that we used from ‘The Edge of Love’, as we found that without music; the trailer was boring with no build up of shots. Out of the 15 people we surveyed, 15/15 said that they felt the music matched the tone of the trailer and added suspense. Something we were criticised on was the use of one of our shots, which was actually a 0.8 second shot taken from the film ‘The Edge of Love’ again. The shot is of a man at war, which we found increasingly difficult to shoot ourselves without looking amateur. This is why we decided to use this short war clip, however, the majority of people who watched our trailer said it didn’t quite fit in with the rest of our trailer. We have not removed this shot, as we want to exploit war in a violent way, and couldn’t reach the level of violence we wanted to show, without real guns or battle field. However, this point had been taken into consideration, and we attempted to darken the shot to make it match a little better.

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

We used many media technologies in the process of constructing our teaser trailer. We used ‘EDIUS Pro’ to capture and edit our clips. We found this a lot more complicated than the ‘Storm’ software that we used when doing our AS level. However, EDIUS’s major strengths are the speed of the editing, its reliability and the real-time performance. It is probably true to say you could do a job faster and more reliably in EDIUS than any other editor. We found overall that EDIUS had a lot more effects that we could use in our shots, such as the shot contrast and audio settings, etc. Obviously we used a camera to capture our shots, with a tri-pod, to steady them. We recorded the shots onto a cassette tape, and then captured them onto EDIUS in the editing suite. We used the internet to research existing products to enter into our blog, and other things. Of course, we used a computer to record things, such as target audience surveys and a time plan. We used Microsoft Publisher to compose our ancillary texts; the magazine cover and the poster. When blogging our research, planning and evaluation stages, we used ‘Blogger’, in association with ‘Google Accounts’, which can be reached through ‘blogspot’. We found this was easy to use, however, sometimes we had difficulty posting on pictures successfully. We had to do it a couple of times before it was successful in uploading. Overall, the technologies we used were simple and easy enough to use, however, EDIUS took some time in getting used to. After our media teacher had given us a tutorial on how to use it, we found it was fairly simple. When evaluating, we used Microsoft Word to produce a survey (attached as a separate post) and Microsoft Excel for some personal recordings, which we wrote up in the evaluation later.

Marketing

If we were on a real budget, and were really making a film to make money, a very important stage of the research and planning would be to find out who would want to watch our film, and whether or not it matches our target audience. Obviously we will not be able to create an entirely diverse range of results, as during school sessions, we are only able to interact with other students and teachers, however, we have chosen to ask 30 individuals which we will pick to be as ranging as possible. We asked these 30 people by the use of systematic sampling, choosing every second person in the survey, to give us a total of 15 individual results. By conducting the survey in this random way then reduced the amount of bias samples included in our results and making them more accurate. We recorded the results into a table and then the data was transferred into graphs.

The market research shows that the majority of people asked in our survey enjoy historical romance films as much as they enjoyed the romance, so we figured that the romance within the historical was an imperative part of the plot that needed a lot of focus. A high percentage of people also feel that there is a need for more films of this genre. Out of the 30 people we asked at random, the majority were female. An extra question we asked people, after surveying them, was which aspect of a general historical romance would appeal to them the most. We did not give them a list to choose from, so it was un-recordable, but the aspect of this genre that appealed to the people we surveyed the most was the suspense of the man at war dying, or the lonely wife at home becoming distracted. This immediately told us that the film we were to create should wisely include some form of the aspects mentioned.

The Graphs above show our research.

Film Poster

We decided on the black background, as we thought it gave off the "dark" message of betrayal. The film holds the mature theme of betrayal, and we decided that there is nothing cheerful or bright about that. We faded the images slightly to give the poster a more mysterious look, and attract viewers using this technique. The film credits at the bottom of the poster was made by us, specifically for 'The Betrayal', and we included the same catch-line "Love is like war, easy to begin, but hard to stop" as was in the trailer.

Magazine Cover

Repertoire of Elements

War Films

Planes - signify what war the film is set in e.g. spitfire (World War 2).
Uniform – again signifying what era the film is set in.
Camps
Trenches
Machinery
Explosions
Scenery – Cities, Landscapes


Stock Characters:

Hero – generally a combatant
Villain – usually the enemy
Donor – someone who might give him information e.g. person of military intelligence/other experienced soldier etc.
Helper – close colleague/person in higher position
Princess – usually the partner who represents home
Dispatcher – could be the General/Lieutenant
False Hero – good friend


Love Films:

The narrative would include a love story mixed with some drama – something to disrupt it but usually ending in their love ‘overcoming’ the problem

The setting for a love film could be any location, it could range from everyday modern life e.g. P.S I love you, the moors like in Wuthering Heights. There isn’t a specific Mise En Scene for love stories as love can happen anywhere but typical mise en scene for modern love films could include, restaurants, cinema, candles, flowers etc. We are focusing on a 1940’s romance which was less about materialistic things but more about the actual relationship, the Mise En Scene could include romantic scenery to emphasise their relationship such as beaches, the country side, castles etc.


Wartime Romance:

We are merging war film with romance and taking different elements from both genres. Although we have slightly challenged typical 1940’s love stories by having an ‘affair’ in the equation which would mostly be unheard of back then, we have mostly stuck to the love/war genre but slightly crossing the boundaries. By setting a love story during a war, it challenges the common things you would expect from their relationship as the husband would usually go off to war.

Timeplan

Monday 7th September - Time plan and story board.
Thursday 10th - Researched location.
Monday 14th - Scene sequence, planning and script.
Twilight - Location spotting (drive to certain places to check out)
Thursday 17th - Begin filming.
Monday 21st - More filming.
Twilight - Filming.
Thursday 24th - Filming.
Monday 28th - Filming.
Twilight - Filming.
Thursday 1st October - Begin to edit.
Monday 5th - Editing.
Twilight - Editing.
Thursday 8th - Editing
Monday 12th - Take photos for poster and magazine cover.
Thursday 15th - Research existing magazine covers and posters, recorded research.
Twilight - Begin magazine cover.
Monday 19th - Continue magazine cover.
Twilight - Added pictures to magazine cover.
Thursday 22th - Begin poster
Twilight - Finish poster.
Monday 26th - Go through research and sort out an order to post on blog.
Thursday 29th - Begin blogging through to deadline.

Amendations to Timeplan

We stuck well to our Time plan up until Thursday 29th October when we realised that we hadn’t entirely finished editing, and we decided that we didn’t like the photos in our poster, which had to be changed. This set us back a week so we didn’t begin blogging until the 9th of November. We can now say we have successfully finished our poster, magazine cover and our trailer.

General Introduction

Second World War – 1940’s.
Wife and husband living together then man goes to war (Corporal) she falls in love with gardener/ servant (wakes up in bed with him) gardener has wife so not publicised (secretive affair) but it is because she does not know if man is dead? Man comes back and wants to kill gardener with rifle.

Poster Ideas
Woman on her own with light shining on her close up of Jane, in here “eye” you can see a plane flying away indicating her love for her husband at war, then in background “the gardener” indicating him in the back of her mind and in her thoughts.

Film name: The Betrayal

Character Names
Gardener: George Harding- David Loftman
Wife: Jane (Mrs Browning) – Stephanie Mills
Husband; Phillip Browning (Corporal Browning) – Ron Jackson

Trailer and Background Research

Our teaser trailer’s main aim is to attract a British audience, although our love story could be universal as many American’s are at war at the moment in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also timeless as its a classic tale of a love affair amist the bombings of world war two. It is based on a World War 2 love story, focusing on the home front and the clashing of class boundaries. We are trying to re-enact something that may have typically happened back in the 1940’s, where hundreds of women’s husbands died in war or were believed to be dead, and it was not uncommon for them to go and have an affair with a good friend, stranger or an employee. Locating it in the deep Kent countryside and basing it around the greatest war that we could ever have won will immediately draw the British in. This is also true to say for the Americans, as they helped us to conquer Hitler. Also, it is going to be produced by Film Four, which is an British Independent film distributor.

Atonement

Atonement is a 2007 film adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel, directed by Joe Wright, and based on a screenplay by Christopher Hampton. It starred Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. A mischievous girl accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit, only to find that her words have irrevocably and permanently changed the lives of all.
Its 1935 just before World War 2 sets in, Cecilia and Robbie, the housekeeper's son, a childhood friend and recent Cambridge graduate, fall into a dangerous love. When Robbie and Cecilia are caught by Cecilia's scheming sister, she makes up an unspeakable transgression for which the boy is wholly innocent, the repercussions of her unfounded claim threaten to affect all three for decades to come.
Atonement explores the themes of clashing class boundaries between Robbie and Cecilia, where Robbie is of working class, and Cecilia is of middle class in a unruly love affair. Robbie the innocent man blamed for a wrong deed is sent away showing how poorly treated the under class were in that time. We liked how a working class man dabling in middle class water could lead to harsh consequences and we like to think we can bring this into our trailer.

The Edge of Love

Two feisty, free-spirited women are connected by the brilliant, charismatic poet who loves them both.The only thing more dangerous than war in this film is love.

We have found a few clips in The Edge of Love that we wish to adapt to our own film, as it focuses on a betrayal which affects many people in the narrative. We liked the idea of betrayal, somehow we will put this into our film. The idea of a middle class man being sent off to war and a working class man undermining him. Maybe his best friend or even brother.

We chose to research this film, as the time setting and themes were very well connected to our orginal idea. After watching this film together, we were inspired by many ideas..We got fashion , music and character ideas from this film. The idea of the love triangle was something which we liked, and incoporated this into our own trailer, however, rather than using the idea of two men and two women which would be a very hard thing to portray in a few minutes without the audience getting confused, we used the idea of one woman, and two men. This gave her the power, and we liked the role reversal here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLsQSVuNsRg

Battle of Britain (Film Four)

Historical re-enactment of the air war in the early days of World War Two for control of the skies over Britain as the new Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force determine whether or not an invasion can take place. It is 1940, and the diabolical mind of Adolf Hitler is planning to bomb England into submission to his warped dreams of a 'Fortress Europe'. Standing between Britain's freedom & Hitler's terrifying plans is the R.A.F - dedicated pilots who took to the skies again & again in the face of overwhelming odds.

We may try and use one of the “bombing” scenes or and the airplane flying over as a special effects scene for our trailer, as this is something that we do not have the funding or equiptment to do. We are going use that shot as a director would use special effects due to a very low budget. A shot of a common world war plane is iconic to any World War 2 film, shots such as this one is certainly paradimical to our film.

Mrs Miniver

This was made in 1942.
The Minivers, an English "middle-class" family experience life in the first months of World War II. While dodging bombs, the Miniver's son courts Lady Beldon's granddaughter. A rose is named after Mrs. Miniver and entered in the competition against Lady Beldon's rose.

This film gave us the idea of maybe putting some or all shots in black and white, maybe make it look like an old film. However, some of our group didnt like the thought of it being made to look old as it would come across as if we had made it back in the 1940's. Although we may put some black and white shots in to get across the feeling of how the main characters life goes from normal into exciting and chaotic.

The Land Girls

During World War II, a new regiment called "Land Girls" was formed in England for recruiting women to work at farms where men left to go to war. Three women of different social backgrounds - quiet Stella, young hairdresser Prue and Cambridge graduate Ag join the Land Girls.

It is England in 1941 in the glorious Dorset countryside. Three beautiful young women, Stella, Ag and Prue, arrive on a remote farm. They are the 'Land Girls' - city girls who have volunteered to take the place of young men who have gone to war. They are an unlikely trio: Prue is vivacious and sexy; Ag is quiet and more reserved; while the dreamy, beautiful Stella is in love with Philip, a dashing naval officer. Despite their differences, they soon become close friends. The film follows their relationships with each other and the men in their lives in the face of war.

This gave us some more fashion ideas and watching it gave us some pointers to how the film should be set out in that time. How people acted and what sort of language they used back then.

Pearl Harbour

Pearl Harbor is a classic tail of romance set during a war that complicates everything. It all starts when childhood friends Rafe and Danny become Army Air Corps pilots and meet Evelyn a Navy nurse. Rafe and the nurse fall in love but quickly rafe has to go and fight with Danny in the war.
The classic story of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is told through the eyes of two boyhood friends, now serving as officers in the Army Air Corps.

This was another reference for a war time love story, however this concentrates more on the actual war. Where as we want to focus around the love story and the back drop is world war two and it changes people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPBtP02yKc

Target Audience

In marketing and advertising a film, a target audience, or target group is the primary group of people that something, usually an advertising campaign, is aimed at appealing to. A target audience can be people of a certain age group, gender, marital status, etc. Examples include; teenagers, females, single people and more. A certain combination, like men from twenty to thirty is often a target audience. Other groups, although not the main focus, may also be interested. Discovering the appropriate target market to market a product or service to is one of the most important stages involved with market research. Without knowing the target audience, a company's advertising and the selling efforts can become difficult and very expensive.

Here are some of the factors we thought about while discussing our target market:

1. Who is our target audience?

With this in mind, this is one of the first things we looked at, having spoken about the genre of our film. We decided to go for a 1940's war/romance type film. We looked at the different areas shown in out teaser trailer that would attract different types of people. For example, the actual war scenes may attract young ambitious men who dream of a life in the navy, but then again, it could appeal to a much older generation, perhaps ex army men, who wish to re-live their past by watching the movie.

Then there is the romance side to the film, which is aimed at more the female gendre. It is fact that there is nothing some girls would like more that to sit down and watch a good romance movie. Perhaps a grieving widow of her ex army husband may wish to watch the film as an idea that it may help her through this awful time. Perhaps an elderly lady whose prime time was the 1940's may wish to re-live those happy days as a land girl.

Unlike an action movie, or a chick-flick, this romance has no specific target audience in terms on gender, as it will appeal easily to both. This is where we have to begin looking past just the gender aspect of the target audience and dig deeper. as mentioned above, marital status could determine whether one would watch the film. A happily married elderly couple may wish to go to the cinema together to see such a film to bring back memories of their childhoods. Who better to share that moment than with the love of your life?

Also, its true that the cinema is an outing where not many people go alone. Often people go to the cinema with friends, but most popularly as a "date". Adding parts into the trailer that may make one think of his or her partner is always a good idea. Its the little things, such as certain sayings and actions between the two lovers in the film could trigger emotions between partners. This sense of emotion may lead them to go together to the cinema to see the film.

2. Where is our target audience located?

We are definitely aiming to target the British Audience. We discussed different British distributors, and decided that Film 4 would be a good option, targeting the British art house audience and middle class audience after having thought about class systems:

We also looked at 20^th Century Fox, who recently released Juno and Ice Age 3, however, we felt that this didn’t suit the historic genre in which we had chosen, and also, they are not British. Another distributor we looked at was the Major UK production and distribution company, Entertainment Film Distributors. Recent releases include My Sister's Keeper and The Time Traveler's Wife.

We have carried out extensive research on different class systems in Britain. We are aiming the household in out teaser trailer to be more middle class. Considering the class system was not so popular amongst the Americans, and was extremely so in Britain, we have decided to target the British audience, using a British distributor.

This then, means that our target audience are likely to be located in Britain, perhaps in the more country areas, or areas which dedicate memorials to World War II. Areas such as these are likely to have people in them who are interested in the war, and probably even in to. Seeing the War memorial may trigger the brain to sub consciously want to see the film - just a thought.

3. What would you like them to think about our trailer and how will we attract them to our trailer?

Obviously being a teaser trailer, we want our trailer to tease our viewers. This should make them hunger for our film, and the more people it has this effect on, the higher the viewing statistics should be. We want to leave our audience asking questions about our trailer and leave them wanting to know more. We hope to attract them through certain iconography which they will recognize and enigmas which can be left to them to decode.

Our film is a 1940’s war time romance, which alone can attract many different groups and combinations of people. Obviously the paradimical wartime scene will let the audience know at once that this is a war time movie. The steamy scenes of passion within our trailer could be a major attraction to some, while others may enjoy the classical romance between the two lovers.

Costume Research

1940s were a unique time in fashion history. In the early years, women's fashions were deeply impacted by the effects of World War II. In the mid and later forties after the war, new styles emerged and help shaped future fashions. Mr Browning will be wearing a Soldiers uniform, Mrs Browning will be wearing a typical house wives dress and apron the Gardner will be wearing again typical manual labour type clothes.

Fil Distribution and Class System Research

We have carried out extensive research on different class systems in Britain. We are aiming the household in out teaser trailer to be more middle class. Considering the class system was not so popular amongst the Americans, and was extremely so in Britain, we have decided to target the British audience, using a British distributor.

Film Distribution

“The whole objective of film distribution is to try and get the film into a cinema and hold it there” – Pete Buckingham from Virgin Vision interviewed on the Media Show.

Typical jobs of a distributing company include choosing which films to distribute, deciding how many prints to make, negotiating where and when the film is to be released, sending trailers and publicity material to cinemas and publicises the film through: posters, trailers, press/TV advertising and press releases, etc.

A typical release pattern for the UK: Films usually open in London where reviewers and the largest audiences are to be found. After screenings in London the film will be released in Outer London and selected cities, followed then by a wider release across the remainder of the country. This release pattern can in many ways benefit films which do not have the budget for a saturation advertising campaign.

Art house and foreign films benefit from a more restricted release pattern, which carefully targets specialised cinemas. A release in a key location, like London, is followed by a release in other selected cities, followed by a release in a small number of other cities. This type of pattern allows maximum use to be made of a small number of prints.

In distribution now, the British market is dominated by six main American distributors. These are UIP, Buena Vista, Warner, Columbia, 20^th Century Fox and Universal. These were responsible for distributing films that took 85% of British box office takings in the year 1999.

As well as the major players above, the independents play a part in the box office. There are many more independent distributors in Britain; however, they only took 15% of box office takings in 1999. The independents tend not to distribute American blockbuster films, handling British, art house, foreign and low-budget American films. In majority, they need to work incredibly hard to get their films distributed in the circuits and multiplexes as they are in massive competition with the American majors. Independent distributors often have strong relationships with art house and independent cinemas.

We discussed different British distributors, and decided that Film 4 would be a good option, targeting the British art house audience and middle class audience.

We also looked at 20^th Century Fox, who recently released Juno and Ice Age 3, however, we felt that this didn’t suit the historic genre in which we had chosen. Another distributor we looked at was the Major UK production and distribution company, Entertainment Film Distributors. Recent releases include My Sister's Keeper and The Time Traveler's Wife. This is a distributor

http://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/distributors.html

The British Film Industry

What is a British Film?

A main problem with studying the British Film Industry is the difficulty of defining exactly what a British Film is. For example, is it correct to call a film set in Britain, with a US director a British film? Can co-productions with European countries also be classed as British?

The BFI British Film and Television Handbook attempts to define precisely the term ‘British Film’: “Feature-length films which are expected by their makers to receive theatrical distribution and for which either the financial or the creative impulse came from Britain. The guiding principle is to identify films which directly contribute to British film culture of the British film industry’. We can see from this definition given by Eddie Dyja, that some ‘British’ films will be more British than others.

British films are placed into five separate groups:

1. Feature films where the cultural and financial impetus is from Britain and the majority of personnel are British.

Number of films made: 47

Average cost: £2.24 million

2. Majority British co-productions. Films in which, although there are foreign partners there is a British cultural content and a significant amount of British content and personnel.

Number of films made: 16

Average cost: 4.20 million

3. Minority British co-productions. Foreign (non-US) films in which there is a small British involvement in finance or personnel.

Number of films made: 12

Average cost: £3.94 million

4. American financed or part financed films made in Britain. Most titles have a British cultural content.

Number of films made: 23

Average cost: £13.95 million

5. US films with some British financial involvement.

Number of films made: 2

Average cost: 4.24 million

Film production in Britain takes place on a much smaller scale than in the US – Hollywood. Research proves that in 1999, the total number of ‘British’ feature films was 100 compared to an all time low of just 24 in 1981. The small size of the British film industry compared to that of Hollywood can partly be explained in terms of economics. In America, with its potentially vast and massive audience, a Hollywood film can cover its costs with even moderate audiences by using the large network of cinemas. Further profits are then taken if the film is distributed internationally. Also, television deals, sales of the soundtrack and specific merchandising will all add to the profit, if successful.

On the other hand, if a British film was moderately successful, it would be unlikely to cover its costs from theatrical exhibition alone, due to the much smaller scale of audience. A British film would have difficulty in attracted the British audience from American films that have higher production values, recognized stars and substantial marketing campaigns.

However, despite all these problems, low budget films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and Billy Elliot demonstrate the ability of British film makers to make films that appeal to the home audiences, but which also are successful internationally but never on the scale of Hollywood films.

It has to be recognized that major Hollywood studios play an important role in the British film industry because of the production work that they bring into the country. Neil Watson points out that many big budget films, such as Gladiator or Bridget Jones, are made in Britain and other countries because studio facilities have improved and tax incentives have increased with the result that film production is more ‘portable’. Britain actually offers a place where Hollywood can produce films more cheaply, especially if the exchange rate is good.

Financing and funding films in Britain has always proved a difficult task for British film-makers, and over the past years, funding has been obtained from a number of different sources. The nest quote is taken from Eddie Dyja’s BFI Film and Television Handbook 1995 outlines the changes in the last ten years.

“In 1983 and 1984, at least half of the films were supported by British sources other than channel 4, British Screen and the BBC (all of which are either state funded or perform a public service function). Since the ITV companies invested only modestly in feature films at that time, the assumption must be that equity was available from the film companies themselves. Indeed, in the early 1980’s there was a host of properly capitalised British production companies willing to risk money in films – among them Handmade, Hemdale, Virgin, Goldcrest and, most importantly, Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment. Now there are none, unless one counts Polygram, which strictly speaking is Dutch. (Polygram was subsequently bought by Seagram now part of Vivendi Universal). The latter day British producer, no matter how experienced, goes from project to project, raising money where he or she can and in the process giving away the bulk of the rights. Little or no value accrues to the producer or Production Company beyond the production fee, and even that is sometimes part-deferred. British film production, in other words, has migrated in the past ten years from being a small industry to being a cottage industry.”

In the 1990’s British producers have increasingly relied for finance upon European funding bodies such as the European Co-production Fund and the TV industry. The National Lottery emerged as a further supplementary source in 1995.

Film Magazine Cover Research

We have looked at a variety of different film magazines online and paperback; Total Film, Empire, Bright Lights, Film Journal, Film Threat and Sight and Sound.

They all differ, some covering huge Hollywood films and new releases, some compete over major interviews with star celebrities, some focus on British or American film releases, while others cover cult issues and smaller budget alternative films.

We have chosen to use Sight and Sound to template the magazine cover that we will produce. We wanted it to look well done and professional, so by using an existing product, we were guaranteed these features. Sight and Sound is produced by the British Film Industry, although it is an international magazine. The British public are our target audience and by advertising the film in this magazine, we hope to reach much of the British public.

Sight and Sound has been published by the British Film Industry since the 1930’s and is now edited by Nick James. It is renowned for its ‘greatest ever film poll’s’ it publishes every decade.

Location Research

Considering our film is set in the 1940’s, we need a location for our film, away from the modern way of life, like heavy duty Lorries, modern housing and clothing etc. Fortunately for us, a member of our group lives on a large sheep farm, with 200 acres of open farm land. There is no noisy road in the background, just sea and trees, which is exactly the location we need. Dover Castle in the background is also an added bonus! This is just one of our ideas.

Ideally we are looking to find a 18^th – 19^th century manor house, with a long path to the front door. This is the most ideal we have researched so far. It’s close, just outside of Canterbury, and a very cheap day out, costing just £3.50 to enter.

“The Higham Park estate can be traced back to 1320 when it was ceded to the 'De Hegham' family by Edward II. Since those early days it has been home to many important and colourful characters, including in the 1920's Count Louis Vorrow Zborowski who conceived and built the first aero-engine powered racing cars on the estate, later immortalised by Fleming's fantasy film 'Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. Higham Park has also been frequented by the rich and famous including Mozart, Jane Austen, General Charles de Gaulle and royalty.

The Fortunes of the estate declined following its use as a Hospital for a prolonged period commencing during the second World War and extending to 1981 when it was closed and estate fell into neglect and disrepair.” - http://www.gardens-to-go.org.uk/higham_park.htm

After a long period of research linked with location, after lots of travelling around, we decided upon a house in Sandwich in Guildcount Lane. We have immediate access to the house, as it belongs to Sophie’s Granny, who has kindly agreed to let us film there while she is away on holiday. It is a perfect location for our film, as everything inside the house is very dated, almost looking like 1940’s – 1950’s décor. The house is situated on a very quiet street, which makes is ideal for us to do front of house shots and establishing shots. One thing that we have had to work round, is the double yellow lines on the road outside the house. We made sure that when filming any shots at the front, that the camera was slightly high enough as to not get the lines in view. We wanted to give our film a very professional feel, where everything was perfect, and that no modern technology could get in the way. Our sandwich location is perfect, as everything was very old fashioned.

Although it was sad to move away from the rural idyll farm, we realized that there was a problem with that particular location. We had no house that fitted into the time of the film, as the farm house had modern door and window frames. The sandwich town house was alot more 1940's than that of Broadlees farm, so we decided that this would be more suitable.