Storyboard

Here is a copy of our story board. We will use this is allow us to plan what will be filmed in upcoming weeks.

The Uses and Gratifications theory

The Uses and Gratifications theory (1959) focuses on the fact that audiences use media to explore their own feelings, emotions and mind, E.Katz; one of theorists believed that this theory shows “what people do with media” as opposed to “what media does to people”.

The theory is split into five different sections, Identification, Catharsis, Surveillance, Escapism and Social.
Identification is using media to find parts of our identity by either exploring others identity shown in media or by exploring parts of our identity to make understanding of ourselves. For example some teenagers will watch The Only Way is Essex to explore other people’s way of life, however then this will become a part of their identity by using their words or dressing like them.
Catharsis is to feel strong emotions, this is often used with horror movies such as Saw, people watch it to experience extreme fear or adrenaline.
Surveillance is to “make sense of the world”; primarily think the news would help with this as it gives us fact about our surrounding world however reality television programmes' and documentaries help us understand people’s real lives.
Escapism is probably the most well known section of this theory, it is the idea of pure entertainment and to forget about things around you, most people agree that the best form of escapism is in a fantasy novel as it is completely different from the world and we can get lost in the story.
Social is the part of the theory that believes that people use media only to socialize and to feel a part of a group, an example of this at the moment would be Xfactor as people use it as a part of socializing.

Our trailer will show a rebelling teenager, this therefore there will be multiple reactions to it, the audience could identify with the wanting to rebel however some will use it as escapism as their life will be completely different.

Character summary

Protagonist: Male, 17, mother dies suddenly in a car crash causing his dad to go into serious depression. When he is going through his mums belongings he discovers her past of growing up as a mod, consequently leading him into a severe obsession with the Mods and Rockers era. His lifestyle changes dramatically revolving around his new, unhealthy obsession that leads him into a new group of friends but also into drugs and paranoia. The medias representation of teenage boys reflects in our depiction of our protagonist, television shows such as Skins (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC6zFBji_vQ) show teenagers to be drug abusers, obsessive and selfish. However we will try to challenge part of the stereotype as normally the rebelling teenagers have nothing wrong and they are lashing out at nothing however we see that our main character has developed the obsession after a severe trauma. throughout different films and television programmes when a teenagers are involved the lighting is high key and bright, the props are normally alcohol bottles, cluttered rubbish and the soundtrack is normally loud, we will use all of this in our trailer. 

Father: Become depressed and neglects his son after his wife dies. We studied the film “The Hours” to understand how the media portrays depression as many books and documentaries present it as an intensely private affliction, but its effects are much more widespread and we feel the film shows this. The film shows inability  to do simple things such as bake cakes or look after children properly. Low key lighting and quite music was udes and no quick edits this was too create the effect of a slow, dim moving life. we wil use these techniques while editing and filming with the dad.

 

Soundtrack

Fluoxetine has an underlying theme of mods and rockers therefore our soundtrack will need to reflect the era. This track has a happy beat over a slow tempo which we feel would be perfect for our trailer, aswell as this the music is not copyrighted so we can use it with the owners permission.
http://soundcloud.com/rndmbts/60s-rock

At the beginning of our trailer the waves from the sea will be featured therefore these sounds effects will be used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF05Q9CVi0I

Actor choices for the main protagonist

So far we have looked at  guys to play our main part and the part of his friends, the actors range from the age 17 to 18 so are more relatable to the audience. We are looking at these two particular boys as they are all normal boys about to go to university, consequently they will mirror our character well.

Age: 17

Age: 17

Harry Littlefield

Current Representations of the 60's

Volkswagen Beetle 60s inspired campaign

The Volkswagen Beetle advertisement campaign has clearly been inspired by the 1960's era. They have used images of a 60's girl next to a beetle, the mod circle and a 60's look poster. This allows the audience to visualize the 60’s and shows how influential the era was. By using this era Volkswagen Beetle is attempting to create a ‘timeless’ look for their car showing how it has evolved over time but was initially for this period. 

Article from Boohoo Stylefix 

 “Mod Life- The ever popular era, the 1960s is back. Taking inspiration from the 60s librarians, Anna Sui, teamed checks in blue with skirts and jackets creating preppy looks. Clean lines at Marni reminiscent of Vidal Sassoon, with bold blocks of colour and hints of hounds-tooth seen across catwalks. Acne went for a more laid back, mod style, which is set to be THE way to wear the trend, whilst Dsquared opted for Elizabeth Taylor style glamour.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdjbvC3pjBI

Article from Style magazine

This is an article about mod fashion and how it is becoming increasingly popular again. The article also gives examples of inspirational people from that era. The article is closely related to our trailer because we are using the current time period but incorporating characters still fascinated and influenced by the mod era.

Black and White

Increased Brightness and Contrast

Increased Contrast

Original Image

Increased Brightness

To the enhance the effectiveness of using monochrome filters in our trailer we tried out different ways of doing this.

Contrast: Increasing the contrast emphasizes the gap between bright and dark, it makes the image more defined and decreases the greyness. This makes the image look less dull and can draw attention to a certain aspect of it. A low contrast, with less range in the brightness, may convey serenity and harmony.

Brightness: By increasing the brightness it creates focus on the girl rather than the background. However, in doing this we have lost some of the contrast in the image.



Composition of Light

We deconstructed three photographs showing the composition of light in different ways.
Top Left (Edward Hopper's painting), Middle Right (Our own reconstruction of the painting) Bottom Middle (David Bailey's photograph of man).


In the first picture, a painting by Edward Hopper, the source of lights comes from the natural light from the window. This creates shadows under and behind the woman's body and the lightest point of the photo are in direct contact with the light from the window.


We decided to recreate the lighting from this picture. In our photo the brightest areas of the photo are in direct contact with the natural lights and the darkest comes from the shadows and reflection from the girl. Other aspects we wanted to create included a silhouette figure from the girl.


We also deconstructed a photograph of the man using black and white, high contrast lighting. The source of the lighting is coming from the right side and it is likely that the photograph uses artificial lighting to create the contrast with the light and dark areas. The photograph also has a central line of dark and light contrast.

David Bailey

David Bailey is a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Art, Manufactures & Commerce and Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designer. His work is highly recognised and has recieved several awards.

 

We chose to look at David Bailey as he uses black and white photography with high contrasting light. We are looking at creating our trailer in black and white.

We recreated some of Bailey's photographs here by using artificial lighting to create the high contrast of dark and light. We decided to use the photographs of Mick Jagger, Jack Nicholson and The Kray Brothers as they all use interesting lighting. The top photograph using straight on lighting, the middle and bottom both use lighting from the right side.

Poster ideas

This selection of posters include advertisement of films, album covers, and posters from the 1960-70s. The few we have selected to analyse have relevance to our film poster either because of colour schemes, typography or imagery.

The Beatles 'Beach Boy' album cover

The posters use bright vivid colours and bold typography to draw attention to them. For Example The Beatles have used the image of a face which is made up of bright colour to make it more interesting and more eye catching. Another poster which uses bright colours is 'Narkomani' and also the album cover by The Who- Magic Bus. The vibrant colours gives an impression that the film/music is jolly and upbeat due to the colours used in the posters giving that impression.

The Beegees Album Cover

A theme shown throughout the posters is facial features, for example focus on individual eyes or complete faces the faces are usually representing the protagonist of the film or album, because they are the main focus in the film/album they are used central and close up in the imagery to identify who it is.

Teenage Mother Film Poster

In the film posters (TeenAge Mother, Dr.NO, The Lost World and Breakfast at Tiffany's) the protagonist is in the foreground with supporting characters in the background. 

This is done to keep focus on the main character but also to include supporting characters. For example, the Bond Girls are set back from James Bond. This could also be linked to the actor/actress used as the main character, if the actor/actress is very famous and well known, then a large picture of them is often used to draw attention of people who like or dislike the actor/actress. An example of this is in the film poster for Breakfast at Tiffany's as Audrey Hepburn is the main character and is very well known therefore she is used as the main picture, this is also the same for the James Bond Dr NO poster.

James Bond 'Dr. NO' Film Poster

Unlike some of the other film posters, the James Bond poster uses a colourful background with contrasting writing (yellow against red.) The rest of the poster is then un editied in normal colours, such as James Bond and the Bond Girls. The characters do not need to be edited because they stand out against the bright yellow background.

'Breakfast at Tiffany's' Film Poster

In all of the film posters the credits are placed at the bottom showing this is a trend throughout posters of that time. It also shows that these are the least important pieces of information so are put at the bottom of the poster so that more important things; such as 'Audrey Hepburn,' 'Breakfast at Tiffanys' and the picture can be more centralised and shown clearer with the 'small print' at the bottom in thin writing.

'Boom' and 'Narkomani' Film Poster

The use of contrasting colours brings attention to the the central images and text of the posters because dark colours are used around the edges. Both of these posters include images of eyes showing that this is a theme throughout.

The Who 'Magic Bus' Album Cover

Both of the album covers for The Who- Magic Bus and The Beatles- Yellow Submarine use similar typography showing it was a popular font of the 1960-70s. The colouring of the texts matches the images included in the poster creating synchronisation across the poster. The font represents fun due to it being curvy and round, it also represents an enjoyable and laid back atmosphere, the opposite of serious which is what the albums represent

The Beatles 'Yellow Submarine' Album Cover

Both of the album titles include an automobile; (Submarine and Bus,) both of these are featured as images on the album cover, this creates synchronisation accross the cover as the images relative closely to the titles. The differance between the images is that the Bus is a photograph of a colourful bus whereas the submarine is a cartoon which matches the style of writing (being curved and round)

The Who

The Who are an English rock band
formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey,
Pete Townshend, John Entwistle
and Keith Moon,. They became
known for energetic live performances
which often included instrument destruction.


Genres

• Pop/Rock

Styles

• Album Rock
• British Invasion
• British Psychedelia
• Hard Rock
• Mod
• Psychedelic/Garage
• Rock & Roll
• AM Pop

Active

1960s - 2000s

Formed

1964 in London, England

Group Members

• Kenney Jones
• Roger Daltrey
• Keith Moon
• John Entwistle
• Pete Townshend
• Doug Sandom



Fashion Icons of the 1960s

Jean Shrimpton was well known in the 1960's as being a fashion icon. She was a model at the time and was often on the front cover of magazines such as 'Vogue,' 'Cosmopolitan,' 'Bazaar' and 'Newsweek.' She also modelled for advertising of companies such as 'Lambrella' and 'Chanel.' She was often shot in black and white due to her pale clear skin and dark hair, these worked well in lighting to create a dark black and white contrast. She was well known for having big volumised hair, being tall and skinny.

Twiggy was another well known fashion icon throughout the 1960's and 70's. She was well known for her big round eyes, slicked blonde hair and again being tall and skinny. Twiggy featured on similar magazine covers to Shripmton and also advertised similar products.

The magazine article to the left was a feature in the 1960's talking about her teen life and how she was brought up in the mod era. The article talks about her dress sense in her teenage years and what she liked to do. Twiggy talks about how the mod lifestyle inspired her dress sense and how she liked to wear it even though it was slowly becoming unfashionable. Due to her being a fashion icon, it however stayed in fashion because of her being seen as an idol.

Title

Our film is about finding happiness within yourself and being accepted in society. We started to explore the idea of depression and seclusion and how it can make you feel, however we felt we wanted the title to reflect finding happiness instead of the dark times. We then researched about treatments for depression and anxiety; we found that Fluoxetine was a commonly used prescription drug that increased your serotonin level, therefore increasing happiness, and we agreed that it reflected the film well.

After chosing the title name of 'Fluoxetine' we experimented with different fonts. When chosing which fonts to test we researched into 1960/70s film posters and album covers. After trying out a range of fonts we chose these three as our favourites due to them being relevant to the name as its a drug and also them looking similar to old film posters of the relevant era.

Deconstruction of Weekender Trailer

 

Representation and Narrative Theories

Syd Field the American screenwriter has said in any good film the audience will be grabbed in the first ten minutes, therefore we aim to grab the audience’s attention by using past, action packed clips in our teaser trailer therefore grabbing attention. Field also said we had to let the audience know what kind of film we are creating; consequently we will include footage of all the thrilling parts as well as the disheartening moments.

Diagram of Syd Field's Theory

Levi-Strauss

The main narrative theory that our film coincides with is Levi-Strauss’ binary opposition theory, in which it based on opposition or conflict. The conflict in our film is based around the individual and society. The individual doesn't feel accepted and therefore rebels against conformity.


Our protagonist will be a 17 year old boy and we have decided to at first represent him in a stereotypical way, he will be lazy, bored and grumpy and then rebel. This is how society views male youths however we will also represent him using other issues such as loneliness and depression, therefore giving the audience the chance to re-evaluate the people we are signifying.   

Location Ideas

These are some photos of a possible location at the Hamlet of Shellness on the Isle of Sheppy. We are consdering this as a location because it is isolated and would be an interesting location to shoot at because of the features such as the beach, the water and the Block House.