M1-Resubmission

Apply the codes and conventions for the chosen genre in the materials recorded.

Codes and conventions are what define different genres. The codes and conventions of an adventure film are not going to be the same as the codes and conventions of a romantic comedy. The technical codes of an urban drama are based around how mise-en-scene and sound is used. The lighting is usually quite dark and the sound is very distinctive, using grime and rap based music as the basis for the soundtrack, and distinctive dialogue such as slang to show how people in urban locations usually talk making the film more believable. In terms of genre. 'The Boggart' is more of an urban horror as it has the added threat of people going missing.

One way that 'The Boggart' shows the conventions of it's genre (Urban Horror) is through it's choice of setting. In most urban films, the locations are all based around where teenagers go; schools, parks, their homes, the streets. For example, the opening scenes of 'Attack the Block' are all set either on the streets or in the park. In order to replicate their use of the genre we also used settings such as the streets and the parks.

In both these shots (top left: 'The Boggart', bottom right: 'Attack the Block')  the setting for the scene is set on the streets of London and shows its urban genre through that. However, both shots show the urban genre through the technical codes as well; both shots are shot from a low angle to show how the subject of the shot has significance. 

To improve how the urban genre could have been applied in this shot of 'The Boggart', would be to have the lighting be more dim, as the shot is quite bright in comparison to the lighting in the shot of 'Attack the Block' and most urban films. 

Furthermore, another use of how mise-en-scene can have an influence on genre is through the costume design. Most Urban dramas are about teenagers and them dealing with their problems. We showed this convention through teenagers being the main characters of the film. Within 'The Boggart' we presented the urban genre as the teenagers are wearing 'classic' teenage attire such as jeans and overly large coats. This can also be shown in 'Attack the Block', where the young people are presented as wearing large coats and baggy clothes.

In our film, as evidenced by the picture above, the costumes were quite generic, meaning that they were not specific to the Urban Horror genre, but simply to teenagers themselves. In 'Attack the Block', the costume design is more specific to teenagers who live in urban locations such as hoodies and caps as well as bandanas. To improve this we should have done some more specific research into the costume design for the characters and given them items to wear such as hoodies, or caps.

Additionally, a convention of urban drama films is the music. In 'Attack the Block', it is evident that the music composers were heavily influenced by modern rap and grime music when creating their soundtrack, as well as this, it features urban songs such as "Sound Of Da Police". In 'The Boggart' we showed this convention through also using music of modern rap and grime genre.

In urban genre films, composition is used to show off the genre through specific details in the background. For example, the use of graffiti to show the setting of east London. This technique is also used in the opening of 'Attack the Block' to show the setting of South London and that the neighbourhood is full of teenaged fans who vandalise.

D1- Resubmission

Explain how meaning was created within the materials created.

In film, meaning is about what the audience take out of a piece of film. This is shown through the mise-en-scene, the sound, the genre, narratives, editing and any enigmas that are created within the film. In 'The Boggart' these features are also present.

In 'The Boggart', meaning is created through the use of mise-en-scene. Sets create meaning through the use of locations, particularly iconic locations that link with urban settings and the target audience. Teenagers (the target audience) are known for hanging out in chip shops and in parks and on streets, therefore meaning is created through the locations. The characters and costumes create meaning in 'The Boggart' as the characters are all wearing thick coats which not only associates them more with the youth of today as teenagers always wear big coats in all weathers, but it also helps the audience understand what the weather is like in the film. Meaning is created through the different camera angles and shot types. Within the film, the frequent wide shots showing the physical distance between the characters also reflects the emotional conflict that the characters are going through after their varied arguments.

In this shot, Sean is centred in the middle of the medium close-up. This shows the audience that he is thinking intensely about something as himself and his head are the focus of the shot. This creates meaning as the audience learn that despite the physical and emotional distance that the teenagers are going through, the group are still friends and care for each other.

Another way that meaning is created is through sound. In 'The Boggart' there are three types of on-screen sound; ambient sound, soundtrack, and dialogue. The ambient sounds have little impact to the overall meaning of the film, ambient sounds like birds chirping, pond water rippling, wind, and cars rushing by. These ambient sounds affect the overall verisimilitude of the film, as without them the story would seam faked and it the atmosphere would be uneasy as the audience would realise that something was missing. But ultimately, they create limited meaning for the film. The dialogue creates a greater meaning for the film as this is how the story is told. Colloquial language such as "chippy" and sarcastic attitude such as "err-- and why would we need to do this?" create meaning for the audience as the verisimilitude of the realistic nature of the lines as they would actually be lines that the audience might say in similar situations. The final way meaning is created through sound is through the soundtrack in our film, we create meaning through the soundtrack because of how it is linked to the genre of the film. The genre of the film is urban, and the target audience is teenagers ages 15-19. With this age group and this genre is was easy to work out that the soundtrack be of the rap and pop genre of music. 

Meaning is also created through the different questions and enigmas that the audience are forced to ask themselves. In our film, these enigmas are presented through the mysteries surrounding the mythical creature, the 'Boggart'. Questions like: what is a 'Boggart'?, and what happened to Joseph? Other enigmas are presented in the form of the cliffhanger at the end of the film as the audience do not know whether Sean was successful in his attempt to save Jaymie, or whether the three will make it safely out of the park.

Meaning can also be created through the genre of the film. 'The Boggart' is an urban genre urban legend. Genre gives the film meaning through the locations, the way the characters speak and the narrative through which the story is told. 

Narrative gives the film meaning through the way that narrative theory can be applied to it. Barthes theory of enigma codes shows us that meaning is created by the questions that the film is asking the audience; this can be shown through the cliffhanger ending. Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposites is presented through the difference between reality and fiction, myth and legend. Todorov's theory of equilibrium shows us that meaning is created through the cyclical nature of stories. That all stories have five key plots to them. This is presented in 'The Boggart' here:

- Stage 1: Equilibrium; Jaymie is on her way to meet her peers to start working on their joint homework project. As far as she knows, nothing can go wrong.

-Stage 2: Disruption; disruption is presented through the argument that Jaymie and her peers have when neither of the other two come prepared for the day. And then Joseph goes missing.

-Stage 3: Recognition; Jaymie and Sean recognise that Joseph is gone and attempt to go and search for him.

-Stage 4: Solution; the characters try to find Joseph but end up going missing themselves.

-Stage 5: New Equilibrium; the three peers are missing and they have no way to warn people to stay away from the park and so the cycle is doomed to start again with more people who go to the park. 

M3- Resubmission

Evaluate feedback from the audience, identifying strengths and weaknesses.

After the first edit of 'The Boggart',  our group did a survey and a focus group with some people who were in the target audience age bracket for our film. We gained both some positive feedback and negative feedback. Some of the questions we asked them included: what did they think about the soundtrack?, were the characters relatable?, and did they understand the narrative?. From this feedback we were able to ascertain what changes needed to be made in order to improve the film.

Some of the positive feedback we received was that the locations were easily recognisable. This was really good feedback as easily recognisable locations was an important part of making sure that the urban genre was applied to our film. Some other positive feedback that we received was that we had applied the codes and conventions of the urban genre so that our film matched the required genre that we desired. This was great news as we needed to make sure that the film was of the urban genre so that it could be successfully entered into the East London Urban Film Festival, which was the overall point of making the film. Some other positive feedback that we received was that the character's personalities were relatable when they were shown. This was good to hear as large parts of the story and reason for the target audience was based on the strong and relatable personalities of the characters; sarcastic, bored, and adventurous.

Unfortunately, there was also lots of negative feedback that needed improving. One piece of negative feedback was about the sound. The sound was inconsistent between each scene so that it became a distraction to the audience as they were watching. In order to make sure that the audience could enjoy the film without being distracted by the inconsistent sound, we made sure that all the sound levels were the same. As well as this, we discovered that the music we had chosen for the into did not fit well with the rest of the genre of the film. In order to fix this, we tasked one member of our team who is particularly well versed in the style of music we wanted, to find us a better choice of music. Another piece of negative feedback was that they didn't understand what a 'Boggart' is and therefore the narrative did not make much sense to them. In order to improve this, we added a voice-over where the characters discussed what it was exactly that they were looking for when searching for the 'Boggart' so that the characters would understand what it was that they were looking for.

Completing audience research and doing a focus group was very useful and helpful in the creation of the film as it meant that we were able to make improvements to our film in order to perfect it. 

Here are some of the original surveys from our audience feedback.

P1- Resubmission

Treatment/ proposal:

The Boggart was created for the East London Urban film festival in order to promote the local area of East London. The film is about three teenagers who are looking for evidence of a dangerous mythical creature living in Victoria Park. The film is about what happens to the three youngster’s whist trying to do this. The short film promotes the local area by showing key locations of the area, and by having the antagonist being mythical, there is no part of the area made to look bad.

The target audience for the film is teenagers ages 15-19 because that is the same age range that the characters and actors are. Both the target audience and the characters are the same age because it is easier for the audience to relate to the characters if they are of similar age or background. We decided that the target audience for the film should be teenagers between the ages of 15-19 because the film is about teenagers trying to complete a homework project and this is a relatable thing for teenagers ages 15-19 as they would either still be in school and have homework, or would have recently finished school and will remember homework more recently than someone who is older. The film is to be shown as part of the East London Urban Film Festival,and will then apply for it to be shown at other London film festivals as it will be a good way to show off the local area of Tower Hamlets.

The genre of the film is urban because that is what was requested in the client’s brief, it is also an urban film because the genre makes it easier to show off East London. Within the urban genre, it is an urban legend. One reason why it is an urban legend is because urban legends are easy stories to tell in the time limit the brief requested; five minutes. The film clearly shows the urban genre through it’s use of urban locations such as the park.

The film is set in East London, in and around Victoria Park and Roman Road. It includes iconic places within these locations, like Roman Road Market, the pavilion, and lake in the park. We decided to use locations such as these because they will be familiar to our audience and also easy to access. The two locations are also very close together, about a five-minute walk from one another, which makes filming convenient and makes the verisimilitude of the film believable rather than filming in two completely different locations.

There were eight members of our crew. The director, Omniya Tajni, has worked on several other short films including a recreation of ‘The Wind’, her skills in the practical and theoretical sides of film made her the best choice for director. The cinematographer, Emma Bollans, was also the scriptwriter for this short film. Her inside knowledge of having created the script, and her creativity as a scriptwriter made her the best choice for this role. She also used her qualifications in music to compose an original piece for the soundtrack. The sound technician, Tawhid Uddin, is fully trained in handling equipment, particularly sound equipment, making him a good choice for sound technician. As well as this, being the sound technician, Tawhid was responsible for locating music for the soundtrack of the film. Abu Taher,the actor who played the character ‘Sean’ used his vast experience of film editing and was the main editor of the film. Other actors included Kadiza Begum, a theatre actress, this film would be her on-screen debut; and Arturs Kravcenko, first time actor. On set we also has David Huyah our faithful production assistant. He made sure that everything ran smoothly on set.

Equipment we used includes a boom pole, a microphone, a camera, a tripod and a camera bag. The funding for this equipment was from the East London Urban Film Festival, we are working along to their brief. We did however use our own budget on buying some of the props, for example; the chips.

Ethically, there is nothing wrong with our film.

 No animals or actors are harmed in the making of the film. Legally, there is nothing wrong as all the actors signed contracts and all the filming happened in public spaces where no permission is needed. All the actors signed forms to say that we were able to use their face in our film. We also only used our own original music or copyright/royalty free music.

The BBFC guidelines for a 12 rated film suggests that there should be no promotion of dangerous behaviour or easily accessible weapons, that infrequent bad language may be permitted, and that the characters may be under moderate threat, on the condition that it is only a small percentage of the overall film. We believe that the BBFC rating for the short film would be a 12 as there is minimal taboo content. With the exception of one profanity used in one instance as a character runs away in fear. Our film should also be categorised as a 12 rated film as the danger that the characters face is minimal and in only few of the scenes in the film. Or should be scheduled to be shown at a time in the evening around 6-8pm, this would be the optimum time for it to be scheduled as younger viewers who should not view it will probably be in bed, whereas older viewers (12+) will still be awake.

Call Sheet:

Location Recce with camera locations:

Storyboards:

Urban Drama Genre Research:

Urban Drama is known for a realistic view of society and problems in the society. Urban Drama films are usually seen to be educational and are made to show audiences the issues in society. Urban Drama films became mainstream around the 2000s but were first created in the 1980s-90s. Urban Drama films often show aspects of urban ‘Black culture’ such as; rap, gangs, racism, drugs, violence, profanity, and murder; these films are called ‘hood films’.

In Urban Drama films, the protagonists tend to be a serious or have more common sense then their friends but usually have a negative outlook on life because of their social status. They tend to be in some sort of romantic relationship and /or come from a dysfunctional home. The antagonists in urban drama films is someone that the protagonist knows, usually a traitor or an ex-girlfriend. The reason for the argument is usually caused by something petty.

The environment in Urban genre films is usually quite negative, somewhere for the protagonist to dislike and want to change. Popular settings include; council estates, parks, alleyways, bars/pubs, prison, high-schools, night-clubs or gang territories.  

Coach Carter (2005):

Coach Carter is a film about a basketball coach who suspended his undefeated high school basketball team in order to teach them a lesson about life and the value of their education. This is an example of an urban drama film as it shares many of the same conventions. For example, several of the protagonists have a negative outlook on life because of the low standards of the society they live in. As well as this, it can be shown as an urban drama film through similar locations like a high-school. It also has several aspects of urban culture such as gangs, guns, and racist language.

Poetic Justice (1993):

Poetic Justice is about a young woman called Justice going through depression after the death of her boyfriend. During this depression she develops as a poet and uses her poetry to express herself. This film is shown to be an urban drama through the use of the gun violence that was the cause of her boyfriend's death, as well as other features.

The Ellington Kid (2012):

The Ellington Kid is a short film about a guy who was stabbed and whether the employees of a chicken-and-chip shop killed his attackers as they have been allegedly accused of  doing. This film shows the conventions of urban drama films through the knife crime, and common urban locations like the chicken-and-chip shop and alleyways. As well as the use of slag.

Shot List:

The Budget:

The Script:

Production Schedule:

Risk Assessment: