CCR: HOW MY FILM REPRESENTS SOCIAL GROUPS & ISSUES

This completed section should be posted on your blog before next lesson on Wednesday 2 February 2022

SOCIAL GROUPS - images collected in Pinterest boards, labelled and groups: How does your film opening represent social groups or issues? Find images (= representations) and collate them in different Pinterest boards like this.

• You have identified the social groups featured and presented them visually (in Pinterest). Roles and jobs? You could pull screenshot of your Pinterests here or perhaps take images from your casting post?
• The focus is on how they are represented: stereotypes? anti-stereotypes? What are they like? Gender, status, age? 
• Identify the issues in your film opening: recent 'issues' have included artificial intelligence, people smuggling, bullying, kidnapping, art theft, online fraud. How are they presented in your production?
• Use theorists where relevant, with a light touch: see below the image about how to use Stuart Hall on representation

STUART HALL

For Stuart Hall, there is no one single fixed 'meaning' of any media representation or text; different audiences understand representations differently. So, in Off The Leash, whilst the film makers may have aimed at conveying the Transparent Animals as protesters standing up for democracy some audiences may view them as dangerous anarchists. However, the representation of the newsreader, the mouthpiece for the Government, tends to reinforce the likely preferred dominant meaning: he is coded as calm and composed, well dressed, white, middle class. He warns the audience that the protesters are dangerous and violent. The makers of Off The Leash use animal masks to encode the protesters as dangerous and the film's name reflects this.

For Stuart Hall, stereotypes are generated because of the limited stereotypes the hegemonic elite show us. If the makers of the film intend to develop an anti-Government, pro- freedom agenda in the rest of the film, they will no doubt write about this here. Alternatively, they may have decided to show in their film the explosive danger of withholding basic freedoms from a society that is used to a very much more democratic process.

Video on representation

Video on reception theory

FILM POSTER: MINOR TASK

Minor task: film poster 

• Your film poster is an individual production
• A poster is big: work on an A3 canvas or your proportions will be wrong
• Use Photoshop
• It is part of a promo package so there must be brand cohesion
• Your film title should look the same on your poster, film trailer & social media
• The  centre of visual interest should convey the genre 
• Set up a proper photo shoot for the photo. Screenshots will not do (Examiner's Report below)

• The poster should observe film poster genre conventions (film title, tagline, star talent, image of main characters, release date, billing block, social media links)
• The poster should convey film genre conventions through its choice of colours, characters, setting, layout ( for example, a thriller poster looks different from a romcom poster)
• Sketch it in pencil on paper first - post all stages in its development
• Keep all drafts, even if they feel awkward

Your final poster goes under the page POSTER, followed by an account of its development, followed at the bottom by your poster research (that is already done).

If you were inspired by professional posters, it is fine to acknowledge your inspiration. Talk about your development of ideas, drawing on your research and how it led to your outcome.

There is a lot of helpful CIE guidance here (scroll down to the words film posters). This is what CIE expect if you are to reach the top level.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA: MINOR TASK

It is a new requirement for the syllabus to make a social media page as part of your promo pack. It can be live or embedded in templates. You have all chosen to make live social media some months ago.

Checklist: 

• As we no longer make a website, please add your research into websites into your Page SOCIAL MEDIA below the research on social media. Then delete the Page entitled WEBSITE.
• Ensure that you have explained the importance of your chosen social media in promoting films in general and yours in particular.
• Ensure that your social media feed is updated with recent content.
• Check that the branding across your 3 products is cohesive: your film title must look the same across the three (film trailers, poster, social media feed).

The most recent Examiner's Report:

                            From the FDA Yearbook 2020

From the FDA Yearbook 2019

Audiences: social media traffic

Distributors' digital / online advertising spend