AUDIENCE THEORY

Yet more audience research; I am delving deeper and focusing more on categorising my audience. I have been looking at NRS social grade and the ACORN system. I found it difficult to categorise my audience because dogs seem to break the boundaries (ie lots of people have dogs). Because the breed being used in my film, King Charles Cavaliers are the 6th most popular breed in the UK, and comparatively not that expensive, I decided that on the NRS social grade I would categorise my audience between B, C1 and C2 - which I know is quite broad, but then a large majority of people own dogs. For the ACORN system (which is far, far more specific than the NRS social grade), I decided that the viewers of my film would be somewhere between the categories of Comfortably Off and Moderate Means.

AUDIENCE.

I have decided to look at my audience more closely; I will be examining them (my audience) closely in relation to these things called the 'effects models':

The hypodermic needle model:

The intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.

Two step flow:

The people with most access to media, and highest media literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model.

Uses and gratifications:

People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.

Reception theory:

The meaning of a "text" is not inherent within the text itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural background and life experiences.

Obstinate audience theory:

This theory assumes that there is a transactional communication between the audience and the media. The audience actively selects what messages to pay attention to.

Having looked at the above theories, I believe that the audience of my film will comply with the hypodermic needle model; because I wish to show it after Come Dine With Me (the housewives' mainstay), I imagine that people just keep on watching (ie ambushing them into watching my film).

WHERE WILL MY SHORT FILM REVIEW GO?

I have recently been thinking about what magazine would feature my short film. Personally, I don't think my film would be at home in film magazine Empire, so I put the feelers out, focusing on local magazines.

One magazine that caught my eye is Outline - Norwich's free monthly magazine that focuses on both local, national and international artists and acts which is distributed at local centres like The Arts Centre and The UEA. Its target audience is quite broad, considered to be people aged 18-35, who visits these centres of culture (ooh la la). In Outline, they have a feature called 'Art & About', which is about local arts stuff, exhibitions, etc, and this could be a good section for a feature on upcoming short films and makers.

AUDIO POSSIBILITIES.

After furious searching for music to go with my short film, I have found various pieces that I believe could be a good fit for it.

Below is Beethoven's Piano Sonata Number 1 - I think the subtlety of the piece would be good for my film as it is quite low key.

MUSIC

This afternoon I have been focusing my attentions on the soundtrack to my short film. I am not sure if you are familiar to the film soundtrack of the movie "Up", but the original score, written by Michael Giacchino (which won an Academy Award for best original score, I'll have you know) , is the kind of thing I am looking for. Because the music for my short film, if using more than 30 seconds of it, has to copyright free, I have been trawling the free music sight freeplaymusic.com for music of a similar style.

Having done my musical research, I found that Giacchino uses a technique in his music called 'thematic transformation', which is where more than one theme is involved and related together in one piece of music.

This is the kind of thing I will be looking to include in my short film - taking musical inspiration from one of the earlier scenes in the film, w

here the story of this couple's life is told - the music is continuous throughout, yet changes from happy to sad as their life goes through up and down periods. I hope to have one continuous piece of music throughout my short film, with the musical piece changing as the mood changes.

Having learnt that famous composers Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Liszt also used the technique of thematic transformation, and knowing that music over 50 years old is copyright free (and these musicians were alive and kicking in the 1800s), I have been delving deep into their works.

MY NEW INSPIRATION

I found myself getting rather bored with my idea - it needed more structure. So I have decided to introduce a newer second storyline. This new storyline will tell the story of the older sibling moving away for university, with the death of his dog symbolising the death of his childhood. Therefore, I have decided to change the running order of events for my short film. Here is my shot list (work in progress):

- Shot 1: Long shot of the dog and boy playing in the garden. Will be a still shot, and I will perhaps use a puppy to symbolise the old dog when he was young, and my younger brother to play the boy when he was a young'un. Implied growing up together.

- Shot 2: Mid shot of grown up boy and old dog sitting together.

- Shot 3: Shot of a calendar with dates marked for when the dog will be put down, and the date for the boy's move to uni.

- Shot 3: Time passing, dog aging, boy packing.

- Shot 4: Dog being spoilt by his owners

- Shot 5: Time carries on passing

- Shot 6: Family leaves with dog in car, car drives away

- Shot 7: Family return to house minus dog (implied death), return with his lead.

- Shot 8: Boy packing, mid shot of boy and family loading up the car. The car leaves.

- Shot 9: Boy's family wave him off.

- Shot 10: Family generally being miserable.

- Shot 11: Mother and father enter this house with new dog.

- Shot 12: Family are happy again.

Bear in mid, this is very vague - hopefully my animatic should help with deciding more definite angles and time in each scene, etc.

FILMING PROGRESS

I did some filming over the Christmas holidays - and I decided to focus my filming efforts on what would be the 'filler' of my short film. Having little ideas as to what I wanted to happen in the middle, yet knowing what happens in the beginning and the end has been tricky.