Planning - The rest of almost all of it.

Risk Assessment -

I have to take into consideration the safety of not only myself, but of my actors and assistants whilst I capture my footage. Certain shots will put us in difficult situations which will will have to deal with maturely in order to ensure the safety of the people on site.

Firstly - the Angel Bay shots will often be shot on uneven surfaces and from high angles atop rocks. To ensure the safety of my actors, I will select the where the camera shall be placed and worked myself based on how easy the position is to negotiate and how safe it would be for an assistant and myself.

Secondly - A couple of shots in my production involve aggresive physcal contact. I must take care to script these actions both on paper and when we come to film the shot in order to make sure there are no accidental injuries.

Equipment -

I have my own equipment which I will use to film my production, the equipment lists as follows:

• Toshiba Camileo X200 HD
• Tripod
• Lens Cleaners
• Remote Record

This equipment should be all I need to create my piece. manipulation of Audio/Video will (obviously) take place after the recording of my production in it's entirity.

Planning - Almost of it.

Name - 

When I looked at the names of Psychological films - I found myself attracted to the titles of the more popular films, the likes of "V for Vendetta", "The Shining", "Shutter Island" and so on, I realised that the titles include hints as to the stories progression or idea. This is something I will have to take into consideration when writing my film as it will have to work in tandem with the title and vice-versa.
My film contains elements of standing up to the powers that be, and not being afraid to point out the flaws in a world which conform to them, it also contains elements of standing out from the crowd is better done behind closed doors nowadays, it also includes an individual outcast.
I would LIKE my title to be something representing a message being delivered and the feeling of isolation or being alone.
The following are words and ideas for titles I have thought up:

• The Courier 
• Locked Out
• Raise The Flags
• ...Within A Circle

Reasoning behind the possible titles:

• A Courier carried important messages back and forth for days on end all alone.
• Locked out from both Social and Mental normality because of their opinion.
• Raising a flag implies showing strongly your beliefs through simple acts which aren't aggressive.
• Within A Circle, as the old phrase goes, "A square within a circle", pretty self explanatory. 

All of these titles hold relevance and are enough to draw you into look at the film whilst still conforming to the conventions of any Psychological title. I will choose my final title later.

Locations -

The locations which I have in mind are easily accessible and are very common settings within Psychological. Nevertheless, I visited the places I had in mind and took notes on elements such as Risk, Themes and the time of day which would be best to film in the condition the environment left me with.

- Angel Bay - 

Establishing shot angle

This is an enclosed bay which faces away from the sunrise leaving most of the bay itself in shadow, whilst providing a pretty sunrise as the background. The risks here are minimal, paths are clearly marked with safety rails, so getting to and from this location will be easy. This location also offers the theme of isolation, as any actors will appear completely alone and cut-off from the world.

- Bryn Elian - 

Exterior Shot

This is the school I attend, and to create a teenage character, I feel it appropriate to introduce him to the environment where I have spent my teenage years to ensure authenticity. The school has long corridors and a stereotypical bell, both of which are things I need to portray my character.



These two locations are the only ones which spring to my as essential at this point in time. My production will be filmed in these locations, however other shots I need can be shot in a number of environments around where I live. The two above remain the most important locations.

Sound -

The sounds used in my production will largely be diegetic (waves, talking, footsteps etc.) as to add to 1, To add to the theme of isolation in my Angel Bay shots, as only diegetic sounds will enhance the effect. 2, To add to the sense of authenticity of the shots in my High School, I want the shots to be as believable as possible.

However, non diegetic sounds provide more of a challenge. The opening shots of my production involve a voice over being layered over footage, the facilities I need to gain access to in order to record this should be relatively easy, as I am aware of 2-3 organisations who would welcome us to record in high quality at very low rates.
As for music, I have permission from my friends band to use one of their songs in my production, this will be the only song in my opening but it will add to the High School aura as the genre is very guitar heavy - something synonymous with High School students.

The only aspect of this which are not set in stone is the Name.

Planning - Initial Plan . . .

Now I feel comfortable in my research, I can move onto my planning stage. This is purely for my peace of mind that somewhere I will have a list of what to do - 

• Name of Film
• Locations
• Sound
• Characters/Actors
• Equipment
• Risk Assessment 

I will add to this if I need to.

Focus Group Findings #2

Based on the responses I recieved from my second questionnaire - I now feel comfortable in my knowledge of the genre, and feel more than happy to continue on to the planning stage of my production.

The answers I have recieved were what I expected and play strongly to my visions of my production. Firstly, when asked, everyone in my Focus Group stated that they would expect some kind of outcast entity as the main character; some even pointed out (my personal opinion) that to have more than one companion more often than not distracts you from the Protagonist. This means that planning my characters is now 100000% easier.
Next up, my group pointed out that Symbolism was a key concept and responded well to the idea of it's inclusion in my production. They also stated that within the first 5-7 minutes, they would expect to:

1. Be acquainted with the Protagonist and his day-to-day life
2. Understand the idea around which the film will be made 
3. To be "swooned" by the camera shots

These criteria will now be at the foundation of my planning stage, and have given me a structure by which to go about my pre-production work.

Finally - The group divided on opinion of the Protagonist proclaiming that he should be a lovable character but remain unhinged. This to me made zero sense. My Protagonist will instead remain untoward creepy, with a likable exterior.

Focus Group Questionnaire #2

This is the second and final questionnaire I will be handing to my Focus Group - In essence, this is the final information trawl I need before I can begin planning my production.

Focus Group Questionnaire 2

1. In your opinion, does the main character of a Psychological film seem more like an social outcast, or does he/she have friends, is he high up in the popularity hierarchy?


2. Would you expect to see devices such as Symbolism or Misdirection in a Psychological film?


3. What would you expect to be introduced to within the first 5-7 minutes of a Psychological film?


4. How do you most commonly feel about the Protagonist? Do you prefer to find him creepy? or would you prefer, for instance, a sadder or brighter character?

These last few points will give me time to make final adjustments to my "Planning Action Plan".

Audience Profile

The audience for Psychological films varies in many ways - mainly dependent on the sub-genre of the film in question. For instance, Psychological Thriller films, and Psychological Horror films differ in many ways, but as I'm now sure that I will be making a Psychological Thriller, I will now go into detail regarding the type of person I expect will watch my film.

Audience
My audience has an age range of 15-40 years of age, and in my eyes only certain groups of people will watch these films. To evaluate this, we must first look at the conventions of a Psychological Thriller:

• They can often have difficult or complex storylines
• They are quite dark in atmosphere
• They are often used in popular culture by youths 
• There should be a message to the film

These conventions imply that the people who watch it should have a certain level of intelligence, to put it bluntly, nobody who falls under the stereotype of chav or white trash, rather someone who may be perceived to be dark, for example Donnie Darko has a big following among the Rock Music Community as well as a more mature audience.

So I now know that I have to make my film appeal to 15-40 year old people, who are members of the Rock Music Community, who have followed the genre for a long time, Who have the capacity to understand and appreciate my film and who can't enjoy the film without asking questions.

This seems rather vague, but to me it makes life slightly easier.

Focus Group Findings #1

I based my first focus group questionnaire on the very basic of topics; The Protagonist and the Antagonist. I composed my questions in a way which I felt would give a yield of good and useful information from my Focus Group. Whilst most of the answers remain varied, there are some quite surprisingly common answers.

Protagonist based questions
Most of my questions were based more on the aesthetics of the character, however, when looking at my results we can understand that the group wanted a dark protagonist, as all bar one said that he should were a mask. This I find interesting, as it can be taken to either mean 'Superhero' or 'Darkhero', another recurring theme is that the protagonist should be alone, and conform to a stereotype. In my eyes, Donnie Darko springs to mind - a sort of outcast teenager, however in my production he himself would be the villain.

Setting
The ideal setting for most of the group is dense woodland. However, taking into consideration their other answers, this notion (for the most part) doesn't make sense because the idea of a teenage protagonist demands an urban environment. This issue will be debated when I next meet with my Focus Group and also when I reach the location scouting stage.

Villain
When I wrote this question, I did not have an actually entity in mind, in my eyes it could have been a seperate person OR part of the Protagonist himself. With that in mind the aspects which have been mentioned throughout the questionnaire depict the Villain to have the mirror opposite features of the Protagonist, this could be played towards by the use of mental illness or something of the like.

This food for thought has given me my first true insight into what my Target Audience want, and after the release of my second questionnaire for my group, I feel I will be ready to begin planning. However, I will first construct and audience profile based on my Focus Group.

Focus Group Questionnaire 1

This questionnaire will be given to the 5 members of my focus group, and will hopefully give me a deeper insight into what the consumer wants from a film of my chosen genre.

Focus Group Questionnaire 1

1. In your opinion, which gender is more commonly the protagonist? What does he/she wear? Doe she/she conform to a stereotype?

2. In which setting would you most likely expect a Pyschological Horror/Thriller to take place?

3. How many characters would you expect to find in the generic group which are together at the start of the film? Or would you prefer the protagonist alone?

4. What is the "Villain"of the film? Is it a person or something else entirely? What does it wear? How does is act?

5. Which features of a "Villain" shock/scare you the most? Which aspects would tell you that he/she is the "Villain"?

These questions are relatively long-winded, and force the focus group to give me lots of detail with regards to what they expect to find in a film of my genre.

 

Basic Questionnaire Findings + Focus Group Selection

Having given out 20 of my Basic Questionnaires, I decided the best thing to do would be to combine my findings with the first stages of my Focus Grouping into one Post.

My Questionnaire was handed to people of around my age (i.e 15-18) as I have already established that this age range will be the group most likely to see my product. The results I obtained were quite surprising, as I expected no-one to say that they preferred Psychological films, however one person did answer so.

Based on my findings, I now know what people expect to find in both Horror, Thriller and (in one instance) Psychological films. These are my findings;

1. Males are more likely to watch both Horror and Thriller - This data IS accurate, as i distrubed questionnaires equally between genders. However, both boys and girls agree that the protagonist (regardless of genre) survives until the end of the film.
2. 70% of the people who were given my questionnaire said they preferred Horror or Thriller - and they all said that they would expect to hear some variation of Rock, Piano or simply "Creepy" music in the film.
3. Every single person answered "Yes" or "If it drew me in enough" when asked if they would watch a film again if they did not understand it. This means that in order to create the re-watch factor, I need to make my piece quite challenging to the viewer, aswell as making it good to watch.
4. 80% of the people I asked to fill in the Questionnaire said they DO like films which make them jump. This means I will have to research the Horror genre to understand how and why this is done.
5. When asked what their biggest fear was, many people answered with something along the lines of being alone. This is interesting as it plays very well towards my genre.

This information gives me an insight into what the public at large would want from a film. And I now know the criteria I need to fill for those who perhaps do not often watch films of  a Psychological Horror/Thriller nature.

Focus Group Selection
Based on the results I obtained, it was relatively easy for me to choose which people I would include within my focus group. This is an important stage, as I want views and opinions which are both specific to genre and public opinion. My Focus Group is as follows.

- Callum Bates
- Kelly Baldwin
- Kirsty Roberts
- Phillip Roberts
- Elliot Parkes

These people will give me an accurate and relavant insight into what viewers want from Psychological films. This information will be invaluable when at the planning stage of my course.

Basic Questionnaire

This questionnaire will be distributed to 15-25 people that I know. Based on their individual results I can group my target audience into a Focus Group. This will later lead to the production of my Audience Profile.
 
Basic Questionnaire
 
1.What is your preferred genre of film?

 
 
2. Are you more likely to watch a film alone or with friends/family?
 
 
 
3. If you do not understand a film, would you watch it a second time?
 
 
 
4. What genre of music would you expect to find in your preferred genre?

 
 
5. Why do you like the genre? Which elements of it attract you?
 
 
 
 
6. Do you like films which make you jump?



7. What is your biggest fear?




This questionnaire is designed to establish which genres people enjoy; I am looking for those who enjoy Horror, Thriller or Pyschological so that I can build up a profile for my genre based on the genres it derives from.