Questionnaire Analysis

As part of our A2 Media coursework we were asked to create questionnares in order to gather information and feedback on our idea of a film as a whole. The film will be 5 minutes long and we have thought carefully about what will be the main conventions and factors generating the film.

The questionnares were sent out to fellow peers and Media student and the results and conclusions made from them have all participated in our final decision on the film. The changes we make, music we use, plots and many more are based from the results we got from the questionnare. This is the analysis.

The synopsis of our film was as follows :

' This film is a story about a 17 year old boy who encounters an un-expected turn in his life after finding a top secret government CD while searching through his missing father's previous possessions. The boy then goes to colege unaware of the CD's relevance. One daym on his way to the local shop he hears the phone box ringin, and out of curiousity, he answers it. Someone talks to him asking about the CD and declares that if he refuses to hand it over, he will be assassinated. Not long after, the boy is kidnapped, as a black bag is forced over his head, and that is how the film is conluded. '


Firstly, we had to find the correct age of people to survey for our questionnare. We looked at many age groups to ask but of course concluded it would be fit to ask the same age group that our film is aimed for. We therefore asked other Media students as they more or less fit that age. As you can see 100% of the people ( 8 out of 8 )questionned were between the age of 15-17. Here are the results below:

We also asked people how much they would rate our film out of 10. From this we got some good responses, as no one rated our idea below 6. The number which received the most votes was 7. 

Another question on the questionnare asked what format the audience most prefferd to watch films on. We had a choice of ; cinema, DVD, Tv, Internet and other formats. In our questionnare it seems people like to watch films in the cinema mostly ( 4 people ). The results are below:

After this question, we asked an open question. We asked about the main conventions people expected to see in our action film and we had  a lot of similar answers. People wanted to see brutaility, fightinng scenes expecially when the main character acts heroic. People wanted to see the use of weapons as this is something usually seen in action films.  However, the modal convention was 'chase scenes' (4 people). People wanted to see chase scenes if not more than one and it adds excitement, tempo and thrill to a film.

This was followed by us asking the audience what genre of film they prefferred watching. Our catergories ranged from Action, Thriller, Romance, Comedy, and Fantasy. Our audience preffered 'Thriller' (5 people) and next was 'comedy' ( 4 people ).

After this, we questionned what type of music would best fit our film. As we have not yet created our music, we would like to take notes on what other people think and maybe combine more than one genre of music to create the best sounds for our film. The catergories we gave were ; R&B , hip-hop, Rock, grime and other. Surprisingly , the majority of people chose 'Rock' (3 people) , as we predicted the majority would choose 'Grime'.

As another open question, we were interested to know what people thought the best action film of the year was. We had answers like ; Transporter , Inception, Salt, and The Expandables. Inception and The Expandables were the favourites. ( 3 people each ).

The last question we asked with a variety of answers was about what is likely to attract an audience to our film. We thought main attractions would be from ; Actors, genre , the storyline, trailer and poster. We predicted as a group that the trailer would be the main attration but we were wrong, as the main attraction was chosen to be 'the storyline'. ( 6 people ).

The students taking part in completing the questionnare then had to suggest a name for our film after reading the synopsis. We have not yet thought of a film name and some of the names suited well with our film and other were a little childish. The most popular name was ' The CD' or ' The Compact Disk '. Out of the participants, 3 people suggested that the title be someting to do with the CD. Other suggestions were; ' Stolen ' , which we thought was not original enough. Another suggestion was  ' Top Secret ' which sounds good yet it is typical.  We also had ' Kidnapped ' as a suggestion yet didn't think an abduction was the main theme of our film. Lastly, ' Guy On A Mission ' sounded a bit childish and typical at the same time. We will probably stick with  a title mentioning the 'CD'.

In terms of suggestions for our film, they were quite weak. None were serious enough for us to consider althuogh there were a few which were in the balance. A suggestion was that we left an open ending where the character is left in a dark room saying 'Hello' , suggesting he has now made a transition from leading a normal life, to becomming a wanted man. This is a good idea but not something we would want to do as we would prefer to have a dramatic ending. Someone also suggested that we have an 'underlying psycological message' yet did not explain how and why. Therefore we could not take it into consideration even though with detail, it could have been an excellent idea.

In conclusion, the questionnare has made a difference. Regarding the sound , conventions and film name, we could definately take the suggestions into consideration. Our feedback on the synopsis of the film and any further ideas were generally positive and we are happy with this. In terms of any changes, we don't really have to make any. Most things we were going to do anyway have been suggested or not in the feedback and anything different from our ideas has'nt really come up. The recommendations for our film were weak so we have to edit and film according to our own ideas. Someting we discoverd is that some of the open questions we asked e.g  ' What genre do yo like the most ' slightly depended on gender , whereas questions like ' What type of msic do you think will fit our film' were suggested all along the same lines. This could be due to the age group we questionned ( 15-17 ) , and also the areas the different people are comming from. Overall, the questionnare was successful.

Questionnaire (Final Version)

 This film is a story about a 17 year old boy who has an un-expected turn in his life after finding a top secret government CD when going through his missing father’s previous possessions. The boy then goes to college not knowing that the CD is so important. One day , on his way to the local shop he hears the phone box ringing, answers it and there is someone talking asking him about the CD and says that if he refuses to hand it over, he will be assassinated. After this , he is kidnapped, when a black bag is put over his head, and that is how the film is concluded.

1. What age group do you fit into?

    15-17( )     18-20( )     21-24( )


2. What would you rate our film out of 10?
    ________________________________

3 Which genre of film do you prefer the most?

    Action   Thriller   Romance   Comedy   Fantasy   Other__________

4. In which format do you enjoy watching films?

    Cinema   DVD   Television   Internet   Other___________

5. What main conventions would you expect to see in an action film?

   __________________________________________________________________________

   __________________________________________________________________________

6. What type of music do you think will fit our film?

    R&B   Hip-Hop   Grime   Rock   Other___________

7. What is your favourite action film that you have seen this year?

    _______________________________________________

8. What makes you want to watch a particular film?

    Actors   Storyline   Genre   Trailer   Poster   Other__________

9. From the following, what are the exciting scenes to see within an action film?

    Fighting   Shooting   Chases   Explosions   Other________

10. From reading our synopsis, do you have any recommendations for our film title?

    _________________________________________________________________

11. Do you have any further recommendations on how we can improve our film in anyway?

      ______________________________________________________________________

     ______________________________________________________________________

Prop and Costume List

Props

• CD: We wil use a CD containing important government information . The boy will find this in his dads possessions and it will read 'DO NOT TOUCH'. This is a significant prop in our film because it will appear many times and the boy finds the CD not knowing that it it so significant. The CD will be the heart of what happens to the boy later on in the film.
• School Bag: This will be used in the film as the boy will find the CD inside his school bag when he opens it and finds it there. This is a sign in the film showing that the CD is important and it shouldn't be ignored  by the boy.
• Newspaper: We will use a newspaper of the boys dad and the story in the newspaper which will explain that his dad went missing many years ago when the boys was aged 5 years. We will try to make the newspaper seem old by putting tea onto it and it will have an acient effect. 

Costumes

• Casual clothes: The boy will be wearing casual clothes which will consist of jeans and a shirt. We will be doing this to break the typical stereotype of young teenage boys who normally wear hoodies and blacked out clothes. We do not wnat our audience to think that this is how our film will be as we want it to serious.
• Black hoody, bandana: This will be used for the guy who kidnaps the boy by putting a bag over him at  the end of the film. We will use this type of costumes to portray that there is a villain in the film and will make it seem more realistic and believable.

Treatment

 List Of Equipment 

HD Canon, Camercorder





The reason we are using a HD camera is because it is ideal for the camera angle's we plan to take, furthermore it prodcuces very good camera quality. It is also easyier to edit the footage as we can use the log and transfer which is much faster then log and capture.

  

Tripop



 The reason why we are using a tripod is because it's an essential piece of equipment to be able to adjust to hieghts which we cannot reach. Also, to be able to reduce the amount of camera bounce as using a tripod is steady compared to using hand held camera shots. However, to add a sense of realism to our film we will be using some hand-held camera shots aswell.

 





Microphone





This is an input device which will be used to record high quality sound when linked into the camcorder.This is a very important piece of equipment and is usually used to record diegetic dialogue from within the film world but can also be used to record non-diegetic sound such as voiceovers.



Apple iMac

  We will be using this piece of equipment as it is one of the important things we need, in order to finish our film. This is because we will be using the software on it such as Final Cut Pro and Garage band. We will use Final Cut Pro in order to edit our film to the highest possible quality. Also we will use Garage band in order to create music that is parallel to the genre of our film. Garadge band can also be used to record non-digetic sounds such as voice-overs.



Still shot camera



 We will be using this still shot camera to take photo of the location of our film. We will need to take these photos in order to create our recce report. We will take a variety of pictures from each of the locations we will use, and then describe why we have chosen them when we create our recce report

Detailed synopsis

This film is a story about a 17 year old boy who has an un-expected turn in his life after finding a top secret government CD when going through his missing father’s previous possessions. The boy's father went missing when this boy was aged 5 and the boy never forgot the pain burnt within his heart when his mother told him "daddy won’t be coming back, his in a better place now".

After finding the CD the boy places it back in the box but somehow it appeared within his work folder when he opened up his book after lesson. Ignoring the 'Do not touch' sign, the boy still pursued to insert the CD into the school computer once everyone had left the room.

After inserting the disc, a short clip film montage started to play which left passive, subliminal messages in his head which he then began to become paranoid about and in a rush began writing notes about the clip. After the film was finished, a bunch of students outside heard all the commotion and rushed into the room, they saw the boy acting a bit strange and he ran past them, collapsed and passed out in the college corridor.

After a short while the boy then wakes up in bed and opens his eyes to see his mother sitting beside him. His mother replies 'Are you ok? I had to pick you up from college because the teachers said you randomly fainted in the corridor' as the mother looks into his eyes she sees a familiar look in his eyes. The boy then in a panic begins to tap himself and he then asks the question 'where's the notes?' his mother replies 'what are you talking about?' he then shouts out 'Where's the notes!?' he mother then replies 'what notes?' he then shouts out 'I have to find them!' and he then makes a dash to the front door and runs out of the house down the road and ends up at a shelter around the back of some shops holding his head in his hands.

The phone box then begins to ring in front of him, the camera then eases towards the phone box and the boy then feels curious to answer it. After i couple rings the boy walks towards the phone box and looks around he then answers the phone and is immediately spoken to by an husky voice asking "where is it!?" the boy then replies "where is what?" the voice replies "stop acting stupid you know what I’m talking about" then boy then replies "no i don’t" the voice then *sighs* and says "listen to me and listen to me good boy! I have a .50 caliber sniper, strong enough to penetrate through 5 sqsheets of steel aim at your head right now and if you don’t co-operate i won't hesitate to leave your brain decorated on the phone box windows!" the boy then says "you’re not serious". *BANG!* the voice then shoots and passer-by and replies "think I’m still kidding now" at this point people are then crowding the body and looking around, calling the police. The voice then says " you better leave that phone box and go home and search for what I’m looking for before i either frame you for shooting this guy or arranging it or I’ll kill you" the voice then laughs and locks off the phone.

The boy runs home in a panic to try retrieve the notes he wrote down, he closes all the curtains and blinds and goes through his dad's box of previous possession. The boy then gets a text saying "you can't hide, you might as well stand in the street, because the walls aren’t stopping anything, I’m watching you".

The boy then backs away from the phone and takes of the battery and throws it across the room. The boy then runs to his computer and tries researching into old documents, the camera the focuses onto the boy’s face with and over the should view of the bedroom door and standing in the door frame is a guy wearing full black clothes and a black bandana around his face, the boys eyes then focus over his shoulder but just as his eyes stop at the furthest point they can go on his face, the guy brings out a black bag and covers it over his face.

The camera is then full black and a diegetic voiceover of the criminals talking is then played. Voice1 says "what should we do with him?" voice2 says "just kill him, no one knows he'll be gone" Voice3 says "think wise he has all the information in his head, let's just torture him for it there's no-one else who can give us this information" voice1 then says "you're right" voice2 says "fine, but let me use the chainsaw this time" and at this point you hear the boy scream and the film then ends.

by Kieran Brown

I GOT SPELLING MISTAKES AND PAST AND PRESENT TENSE MIXED UP. TO BE EDITED SOON!

Note: THIS IS JUST A DRAFT ANY CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISISM WILL BE APPRECIATED AND TAKEN INTO CONCIDERATION IN THE FINAL DRAFT OF THE SYNOPSIS! Thank you for reading

Deatiled Account of film

The film will start off with prodcution titles which will show our production team name, Rubber Ducky productions, and there will be non-diegetic theme soundtrack running over these titles. After the production titles there will be a first shot of the boy boxing a boxing bag with an opaque transition fading over the foreground, in the bottom left corner will be opening titles giving information on who the film is directed by, written by, filmed by and edited by. after the titles are finished the camera switches to a POV of the boxing bag and the bag is then punched by the boy which makes the screen black out for a second, the screen then fades back and the boy then wakes up. This gives the effect that the boy was dreaming and awoken by the punch on the bag. At this point the non-digetic music is more fast pase as the boys alarm is going off and he is in a rush to get to college as he is running late for  his media workshop lesson. The film progresses with the fast pase music and fades out in the next shot (sound bridge) as the boy is walking into college and this will be filmed from a high angle as it will give abit of an effect that the boy is getting watched but it wouldn't be aapprent to the audience that the boy is getting watched at this point. The boy then stumbles into his class workshop and no-one is in the class, he looks around and whispers to himself 'abit creepy', he sits down at a table and takes his books out of his bag, he then reads his book and then goes and grabs his folder out of his bag as he needs paper. As he opens his folder he notices the CD which he saw at home within his folder, which will be a shock to the audience about how it got there, the boy then thinks to himself and feels tempted to insert the CD into the computer, after a shortwhile he looks around and inserts the CD into the computer. After inserting the CD a short movie clip montage starts playing on the screen which has the boy mesmarised into a trance and he cant detach himself from the computer (disruption). The boy then comes out of the trance and is able to scrible down a few notes in a panic before he then takes out the CD, snaps it and throws it out of the window. After this he runs out of the room and faints onto the floor and the camera then blacks out and fades in and as the camera fades in the boy is then seen in bed waking up with his mother on the side who then asks him if he's ok ad the boy suddenly replies 'Where's the notes!' the mother is then cofused and asks him what he's talking about and he then repeats himself and a short while the boy endz up panicing and getting stressed out and then runs out of the house towards a shelter the go sit down and try calm down. As the boy walks past the shop a CCTV camera then follows him and a dark figure is seen watching the CCTV monitor as the boy walks past the shop. The boy then sits down at the shelter and holds his head into his hands. The phone suddenly rings and then boy looks around confused about who the phone is ringing for, the boy cant hold the tension after a few rings and pursues to answer the phone. He is then greeted by the voice of a criminal who threatens him and demands for the CD after some dialogue a passer by is shot and the criminal thretens to set the boy up for murder if he does not bring the CD back within three days phone is then put down and the boy runs home after the scene that was made. There is then a dicussion that's heard by the audience between the criminals and they suggest that they need the boy as soon as possible and the main criminal says to his gang that he had given the boy three days but the other criminals say how they've only got three days themselves and the camera cuts back to the boy after the main criminal says 'We'll work something out'. The camera the cuts back to the boy in his room searching on the internet for details about what had just happened to him but he can't find anything. Unexpectedly, a black clothed, ballied guy opens up the door slowly and kidnaps the boy and take him away to a dark room. The criminals the have a diccusion of what to do with the boy and the film ends with one of the criminals reving up a chainsaw.

Proposal

Synopsis
This film is a story about a 17 year old boy who has an un-expected turn in his life after finding a top secret government CD when going through his missing father’s previous possessions. The boy then goes to college not knowing that the CD is so important. One day , on his way to the local shop he hears the phone box ringing, answers it and there is someone talking asking him about the CD and says that if he refuses to hand it over, he will be assassinated. After this , he is kidnapped, when a black bag is put over his head, and that is how the film is concluded.


Target Audience
The target audience of our film ranges from the age of 15-24. The reason for the age group as our main target is because the market for action/thriller films is more dominant by that age group range. The class our target audience fit into ranges from the class E to C1. Most of our target Audience would be students and 'white-collar' workers because students will be looking for an action packed thriller film to get their heart pumping and also the storyline is based around a students so they will be able to relate to the film more, and this may influence them to watch it as the main character is based in the same type of area as the audience, and also lives the same type of life, as he has a hobby which is boxing and also attends college, which is similar to our main target audience. The 'white-collar' young workers will want to watch a fast paced action film that will have their attention throughout the film and we feel that our film idea can achieve this. Also out main target audience would be males, as boys and men are more interested in watching an action film then a female, as the conventions of action films such as the excitement, fast-paced storyline and the occasional violence would be more pleasing to them. Whereas if we was making a romantic film our main target audience would be females and this genre would be more attractive for them. We think that the target audience we have chosen for our film is accurate as we will be mainly targeting young adults and men between the ages of 15 and 24.


Purpose
The purpose of our film is that we want to excite the audience by offering them an action film that has a very interesting storyline, we believe that giving our film an exciting storyline, it will attract the audience more which is what we want to do. We also want to show how there can be unexpected changes in peoples lives, as the main character is a normal person, attending college, but his life changes once he watches a CD that he founds in his dads old possessions. We also want to raise the issues of social class, as the character is from a working class background living in a deprived area, and this specific class and area is stereotyped to have issues such as violence and gang trouble, although our film is not about gang trouble, we will be using violence, guns and kidnapping, which are all stereotyped to to working class people living in deprived areas. Finally we also wanted to make this film, as we wanted to try a different sub-genre of an action film, as we have already made a film which is of the sub-genre social realism. We believe that our previous film was off an acceptable level, so we thought that we would keep the same genre but change the sub-genre to make it more interesting for us as well as the audience  

Trailers of Similar Films

There are a few films that are similar to our idea. The main one being 'Phone Booth'. 'Phone Booth' is filmed in one location and is based around a man that gets an anonymous phone call from a public phone box from a man threatening to shoot him. Our film is similar to this as it will mostly be filmed at one location and will feature an anonymous phone call, where a man is threatening to kill the person in the phone box.
Panic Room is also a similar film to our idea, as it is also filmed at one main location. Also it follows the same basic idea, where there is a villain that is trying to persuade or steal an item which is valuable to them from the protagonist.