Audience Research Questionnaire

Questionnaire

1)      What is your name?

2)      What gender are you?

Male                 Female

3)      How old are you?

17-20     20-30      30-40      40-50      50-60      60+

4)      List some of your hobbies

      __________________________________________________________________________

      _________________________________________________________________________

Film in general

1)      How often do you watch films?   Daily     Weekly         Monthly         Yearly         Never

2)      Do you watch short films?    Yes        No

3)      How often do you go to the cinema?   Daily     Weekly     Monthly     Yearly     Never

4)      What is your favourite film genre? __________________________________________

5)      What is your favourite film? _______________________________________________

6)      What is the last film you watched? __________________________________________

7)      Did you enjoy it? _______________________________________________________

8)      If yes, why? ___________________________________________________________

9)      If no, why? ___________________________________________________________

10)   Who is your favourite actor? ______________________________________________

11)   Who is your favourite actress? ____________________________________________

12)   Who is your favourite director? ___________________________________________

13)   What is your favourite music genre? _______________________________________

14)   Who is your favourite artist? _____________________________________________

15)   How often do you listen to music? ________________________________________

Social Realism

1)      Would you watch a Social Realism film? ____________________________________

2)      If yes, why? _________________________________________________________

3)      If no, why? __________________________________________________________

4)      Do you think that Social Realism films have an effect on society?  Yes         No

5)      Why? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Issues related to our film

1)      What is your sexuality?  Heterosexual         Homosexual       Bisexual       Other       Prefer not to say     

2)      What is your opinion on self harm? ___________________________________________

3)      What do you think of domestic abuse? ________________________________________

4)      What do you think of child abuse? ____________________________________________

This is the questionnaire that we gave to some people around college, our family and family friends so that we could get an idea of how often they watch film and what type of films they like to watch. We also asked them what they thought of certain issues that we are exploring in our short film. I think the questions relating to the issues could have been phrased better or a little differently, as people commented on these questions not being worded well. "What do you think of child abuse?" nobody is obviously going to say that it is a good thing, so to have worded it differently to get another type of opinion would have been better.

David Gauntlett- Media in everyday life

We watched this video during our media lesson and it told us how media has changed throughout the years. It explained that media used to be something that needed big equipment and broadcasting stations in order to make a video or a movie television programme. Whereas nowadays we have technologies such as YouTube, laptops and phones, which allow us to make videos of our own and then broadcast them to a wide range of people on the Internet. This video by David Gauntlett explains this media concept very well.

Watching short films

I have just been watching some short films to give me an idea of what other people have made and how they did it and what ideas they had. These are the ones I watched:

This short film is called Strangers and was the first one that me and Rabbi watched, the film was mostly silent and I think it worked very well and so we think that we will have hardly any speech in our short film because we like the effect that silence has on the film and we think that with ours being social realism, having little speech will be appropriate in getting the right effect.

This short film is brilliant, the director has got random people from the street and simply filmed them, we hear them say their name and the way this short film is made and directed makes the audience feel like they have got to know all the people before the 'question' is asked. The way it has been made is so effective. The people are all asked what they would like to happen by the end of the day. Simple question and so many different answers. This is most definitely one of my favourite short films. Our short film is based on a question, but we didn't get the idea from this short film, we just liked that idea in general and so since watching this short film I think the effect will be good.

This was also a very quiet film and most of the 'dialouge' was done by the characters holding up signs to each other, because they were communicating from two different buildings, by seeing each other through the window. When watching this short film you really start to feel for the main character and you want him to do well in his life and to be happy. To start off, he is very lonely, which is an issue that all f our characters will have in some aspect of their life.

This short film is called 'The black hole' is basically follows a man who is at work and the printer he is near prints out a piece of paper with a black hole on it. he soon discovers that he can put his hand through this black hole and it will let his arm go through anything. He then uses this to his advantage by putting the black hole against a vending machine and reaching in and grabbing the food and taking it out again. He then starts to get greedy and uses it to get inside a safe full of money, he puts his whole body inside the safe but unfortunately the piece of paper becomes unstuck from the door of the safe and the man is then trapped in the safe. This is a very very short film and only lasts 2 minutes 49. But it is a nice little story about getting to greedy. It didn't give me and Rabbi any inspiration for our short film but i enjoyed watching it. 

I think this short film is very clever and energetic. The basic plot is about a man who is asked to take a picture for a family, but right after he has taken the picture he runs off with the camera and we see him being chased by the camera owner. Throughout the chase he continues to take photos of the man chasing him. we then notice that the person chasing him keeps changing, and we then realise that he does this regularly, he steals camera and takes photos during the chase. The short film ends with the man displaying the photos he took in an art gallery as an exhibition. 

Moddboard for our short film

This is the original mood board that we had for our short film, but since then we have changed what some of the issues and stories are and so some of the pictures on this don't relate to our film anymore.

Self control
This relates to all three of our stories because the characters we have could all do with more self control. Stan, in story 1 abuses his girlfriend Emily and therefore if he had more self control then he wouldn't lash out the way he does. This is the same with the story in which Val is abusing her son Ashley, if she has more self control then Ashley wouldn't be getting abused by her. For our other story, the main character Jade has resorted to self harm in order to try and deal with what is going on in her life at that moment. If she had some self control then she would be able to stop herself from self harm.

Alone
All of our main characters (Jade, Ashley and Emily) feel very alone in life. Jade feels rejected by society and her own family because they do not approve of her being gay. Ashley is only 8 years old and he lives with an alcoholic and abusive mother and he feels like he has nowhere to turn to. Emily is in a very vulnerable position having just found out that she is pregnant with her violent boyfriends baby. She feels alone as she doesn't have anybody left but him to turn to, and she knows that he will most likely get angry and hurt her.

Being Trapped
Both Ashley and Emily are trapped by their abusers and they are finding it difficult to escape, Ashley is only 8u years old and so he cannot just walk out because he relies on his mother still because of his young age. He isn't in a position where he can get out easily. Emily only has her boyfriend to turn to, she has nowhere else she can go to get away from him, and now she is tied down by the baby that she has just found out she is carrying. Jade doesn't have her family to talk to about her problems because they do not like who she is because of her sexuality, she is 17 and still lives at home and she can't just walk away because of how they feel.

Depression
None of our characters currently have depression, but we have included this as a main word/theme because either one of them could sink into depression as a result of their problems and issues in their lives.

Forbidden love
This isn't a theme in our short film anymore, but it was going to be when we were going to have a story that was about an Asian girl who wanted to be with someone out of her religion. Her parents wouldn't allow it as they wanted her to have an arranged marriage and live with who they chose for her. so she had to stop seeing this person who she was not allowed to be with.

Lost faith
This also related to our 'arranged marriage' story. The lost faith in her family and in love itself. However, this could also apply to our final 3 stories that we are definitely having. Emily and Ashley have both lost faith in other people, as all they have ever known is abuse from others, so they find it very difficult to have trust in other people. Jade has lost all faith in herself because of how her family and people around her are viewing her as a person all because she is gay. This lost faith has caused her to start harming herself as she doesn't care about herself anymore.

Making a point
This was mainly related to our 'arrabged marriage' story, as the girl who was in love with someone outside of her own religion wanted to fight for the love she wanted so much. She tried to make a point that you cannot choose who you fall in love with and that you can't control your own feelings. She wanted to let her family know that being with someone she truly loved would be the right thing for her life and her happiness, instead of being married to somebody she hardly knew at all.

Imaginary friend
This was another story that we came up with but later decided that it would be too complicated to do. The basic storyline is that there is a girl who has had an imaginary friend ever since she was little (as children sometimes do) but it became such a big part of her life even when she got older, she relied completely on this imaginary friend and she would always think about him. Then one day she is walking through town and she sees a man walk by, he is quite young, only a few years older than herself. she turns round to see him also looking back at her and she realises that this is her imaginary friend stood right in front of her, just as she had always imagined him. He recognised her as well, she was his imaginary friend. The story then goes on to show them falling in love after finally meeting, but then there comes a time when they both disappear from each others lives.
This story would be very difficult to do and we also couldn't find any actors that would be able to play the imaginary friend. We just really liked the storyline but if we were to do this then the short film would be entirely concentrated on this one story rather than having 3 different stories. we decided that it would be easier not to have this story.

T Z V Productions

Me and Rabbi (my other group member) have come up with a logo and a production company name for our film.

The name is: TZV Productions and the logo is seen below. The logo is made up of a T in dark blue, a Z in Turqiouse and a V in purple, and they all fit together to make the logo. This is only the first draft of the logo and so it may develop into something else later but for now this is what we have. We experimented with other thicknesses of lines for the logo but we both said that we thought this was the best looking one.

the other thicknesses looked like this:

We may decide to use one of the others, we will decide on that later when we come to make a poster for our short film, as then we will be able to see what looks best.