R + P Post 10: Reflections so far/looking ahead

Retrospective Podcast
Below I have produced a 6 minute podcast looking back on the last 2 weeks and thinking about what went well and what could have been done even better. i used a podcast format as I feel it is the best suited method for me to discuss my feelings on the progress of the group in the last week. I feel that in order to get the most out of the podcast, it is best to have read some of my previous posts on titles, structure of the opening, representation of the LGBTQ community and our ideas for the story.

R + P Post 9: Our script

When it came to developing our script, we thought it was important that it introduced Craig to the audience and made it immediately apparent who he was. We also thought that it was important that it was a convincing and true to life portrayal of our characters. Therefore, we spent a lot of time nit picking over exact wording and examples given top illustrate points. For instance, at one point the script included a short segment bashing the vanity of instagram, however this was eventually cut from the script due to not being the sort of thing we believed Craig would use to illustrate a point, as well as causing his voice over to last for far too long.

However, in the end of the day, our group has some small qualms with the script, especially with the dialogue and therefore I am sure this script, although deemed final now, will in fact be altered and adapted over time as we see small improvements that can be made.

R + P Post 8:Our opening sequence idea, to include sound and titles

Structure of Events
In our opening sequence we briefly see Craig get up and leave the house, before going for a walk to the local park with his notebook to escape the world. Whilst out and about, he sees a fellow gay male receive abuse and decides to intervene, which ends in Craig getting punched. Craig getting ready and his walk are done in a largely montage style, in order to provide a good backdrop to the titles as well as enhance the voice over's ability to introduce the character of Craig to the audience. Following this we have a short mini sequence and then a chapter title. This structure was largely borrowed from the opening of Elephant (2003) which features the same structure of titles, mini scene and the chapter title. Below are screenshots of these features from Elephant.

Sound
On the subject of sound, we made three decisions that can be broken down into the voiceover, the music and the SFX.

Voiceover
For our voiceover we wanted to introduce Craig and let the audience get a deeper understanding of who he was. It was very important to us that the voiceover was plausible and when supported by some appropriate visuals made Craig a quick and easy to recognize character. This voiceover was heavily inspired by the voiceover in Submarine's opening, which is used through out the film to highlight nuances in Oliver Tate's character and his though processes at the time. The voiceover is used in the opening to introduce the audience to what kind of person Oliver Tate is and as a group we decided we wanted to do something similar.

Music For the music we chose to use an instrumental of the song "Let it go" by James Bay. The slightly melancholic melody and acoustic guitar definitely suited the mise-en-scen in the opening and having found it was not too difficult to play on guitar, I produced an instrumental cover of the song for our opening sequence. The music starts with the moment the record begins to play and thus starts as diagetic sound, but as the montage continues it would become apparent that the music was no longer diagetic sound. I have seen such techniques used in many of GoPros youtube videos about music artists and therefore thought it would really suit the opening of our film.

SFX
Finally, for SFX we really wanted to use the white noise of a vinyl just before it begins playing. We thought this would be relevant to the character as currently vinyls have become very trendy, especially amongst more alternative teenagers, such as our main character. We also felt that when the music isn't playing it added something to the mood of our piece over just silence.

Titles
Finally, for our titles we were heavily inspired by the titling of Elephant. We really liked the superimposition of white text on the sky and thus chose to pay homage to this in one of our own titles, however we did not like how they would sometimes put three actors names on the same title. We felt this looked a little cluttered and meant the shot would have to last a really long time to allow the audience to read all three names. We also chose to mimic the wording used in Elephant as we felt it was professional and minimalist, which is something we felt our text should have, so that it did not clash with the background footage. In order to get an idea of what fonts and colours we wanted to use, as well as see some similar titling to our piece in other parts of the media, Phoebe constructed a titling mood board, with the help of the website Art of the Title. After she had done this, it allowed the group to have a conversation about the style of our titles, with some sort of visual aid to help us express our ideas to the rest of the group.

Phoebe's Mood Board

R + P Post 7: Our film's title and plot outline

Title

Surrealist Artwork

We have had two strong working titles with one having a particularly strong concept behind it, which we are hoping to reuse in our final choice of title. Our first idea for a title was Surreal, as originally we planned to add a more fantasy or "trippy" feel to our film, which would hopefully connote a sense of isolation and lack of a "homebase" in terms of his emotions and friendships, that our protagonist would feel. This would also have posed interesting technical and creative challenges to the group, however we eventually felt this would detract too much from the story and particularly from the realism of the story and therefore decided against it.

The second idea we had for our film title was Aglet, which we have now chosen to use as our film's title. An aglet is the small plastic tube found on the end of a shoelace that prevents it from fraying. Its something that is completely irrelevant and few people know the name of, yet it is still needed as it prevents our shoes from falling apart. The idea was connote the characters feelings that he is kind of irrelevant, yet he needs to keep hanging in there for the prospect of finally being able to come out of the closet to his love interest. However, I was against the name as it was just not a very "nice sounding" word that sounds suitable for our film title, that said I really like the concept and thus now think it makes a good film title.

Plot

Todorov's Narrative Theory

Our story follows Todorov's narrative theory with an equilibrium upset by the arrival of David in Craig's life and eventually reaches an equilibrium again when Craig gathers the courage to ask David out and come out of the closet in doing so. We thought it was very important the story portrayed a true to life image of what being gay and closeted and facing an unrequited love is, yet at the same time the story needed to be simple enough to be easy to follow for an audience and relatable to our target audiences. We felt the story was typical enough of the Coming of Age genre that it would be easy to follow, yet not so simple that it would not be entertaining to watch either.

Our story follows the growing up and discovery of the world from the perspective of a teenage closeted gay called Craig. Craig is an artistic and introvert child who falls in love with an openly gay and slightly effeminate male character called David. Craig's love for David causes him to have to overcome his quiet and awkward personality, as well as come out of the closet in the name of love and whilst doing so learns alot about himself. Eventually he has the courage to do so and David and Craig become a couple.

R + P Post 6: Our chosen genre and how we plan to connote this

Coming of Age

Our primary focus would be that of the "Coming of Age" genre (CoA) with one of our major influences being the film Submarine (2010) about an awkward Welsh boy called Oliver Tate finding himself in the world. Our film would borrow many aspects from this muse, with our group hoping to make Craig a "gay Olvier Tate", however over time Craig grew and developed into a completely different person of his own. Another aspect of the film we wanted to borrow was its clear indie, home grown feel. This indirectly makes the film feel far warmer and has the audience side with the protagonist Oliver Tate through thick and thin. It makes the film easy to laugh and cry at, all at the expense of Oliver, which is exactly what a good CoA movie should aim to achieve. Therefore with our own movie we would be keen to mimic certain aspects of the film's aesthetic, such as costume and grading, in order to achieve the same warm feel as Submarine as this would make the audience side with Craig, which is a common convention of CoA films. In order to illustrate this, I have linked the US Trailer for Submarine below as I believe it is more true to the film than the UK trailer.

LGBTQ+

Another major genre under which our film would fall, would be the LGBTQ+ film genre, being that it has two gay male protagonists. Our main reference point for the LGBTQ+ film genre would be the American indie film Elephant (2003) about a school shooting in 90s, committed by two gay young men. Elephant primarily gave us a strong sense of structure and titling in opening sequences and thus our group mainly sought inspiration in this area from Elephant. Firstly, Elephant super imposed it's titles over shots of the sky, which our group really liked, so we decided to pay homage to this by having one of our film's titles superimposed on the sky. Its titles also informed us about which order the various institutions and creative talents in our titles should appear in and thus we closely followed their order of crediting in the opening sequence. We also sought inspiration from Elephant when it comes to the overall structure of our opening sequence, with the basic structure of titles, followed by a short "mini scene" and then a title. This basic structure we then broke down into a timeline of events which we wanted to incorporate into our storyboard further down the line. Below is a sample of the opening credits as a looping gif.

R + P Post 5: How we plan to attract/address our target audience

In order to attract our target audience, our film must be able to be both entertaining and relatable to our target audience of the LGBTQ+ community.

In order to make our film as relatable as possible, we wanted to give the film a very authentic feel. Therefore we wanted to portray characters and events in a very true to life fashion. To achieve this we discussed most of our ideas with a small focus group of 4 to 5 gay, lesbian and bisexual 17 and 18 year olds in order to have them critique our ideas. One area of our production that I feel greatly benefited from this process was our script. We thought it was very important that the monologue given by our gay protagonist was not overly stereotypical and would portray the feelings of a true gay person in a non-belittling manner. This is obviously difficult for our group to achieve seeing as none of us are gay, however through a combination of help from our focus group, critique from the rest of our group and hardwork from Olamide, the script and more specifically the monologue was completed to what I feel is a very high standard. 

A notable element from the piece is when David recieves abuse for his sexual orientation. This is something which I believe every member of the gay community would understand, either from their own experiences or from those of people around them. Nearly 2 in 5 gay men admit to having been bullied due to their sexuality. It was integral to us that this sequence did not glorify such disgusting actions, but instead taught the audience what it was like to be on the recieving end of abuse and it was important to us that although this moment has a mildly comedic element, the bully is still shown in a bad light. I think the script was very important in portraying the bully's actions as wrong and I believe this definitely made our piece more relatable to the gay community.

We also felt our sequence had to be entertaining to watch, as this is extremely common for fictional cinema to achieve in order to be successful. Therefore, we felt it would be important to have both a heart-warming and witty moment in our opening. Again we felt this would be best achieved through the character of Craig and more specifically through the voice over. For our heart-warming moment, we thought this would be easiest to accomplish in the introduction of Craig, when he is delving into his inner working principles. By portraying him as an introvert and awkward character it makes him both pityable and also cute. For our comedic moment, we felt the freeze frame before the punch would make for a "chuckle worthy" moment just before the audience again feels pity for Craig due to him being punched. Such portrayals are often found in our genre of film and would appeal to the audiences softer side. Richard Ayoyade's and Craig Robert's interview with BBC breakfast on the 18th of March 2011 heavily inspired this need to include such "agonising moments" within our own piece as it is partly what made Submarine such a fun film to watch.

R + P Post 4: Representation of social groups in our opening sequence

Representations of LGBTQ+ Community
In our opening sequence, we show two opposing representations of gay males. This is the representation of David as an effeminate gay male who and Craig as more introvert. David is our protagonist's love interest and although he does pay particular attention to his appearance, which is typical of effeminant males, he does not poses the stereotypical fake tan "orange" skin or over exaggerated vowels of stereotypical camp speech. This portrays gay males in a positive light as it shows that they do not need to conform to society's expectations to be considered gay.

Stereotypically Camp Male

David's confidence in his sexuality would become more prominent as the film went on, however in just the opening sequence David would be on the receiving end of abuse for his sexuality, from someone who went to the same school as him and would obviously know of his sexual orientation. This builds on our ideas of representing the LGBTQ+ community in as true to life way as possible, as many gay individuals will have received offensive comments at one point or another due to their sexuality. This would make the film more relatable to the LGBTQ+ community, with one in five Britains admitting to have made homophobic comments, however this number is likely to be much larger in actuality as people would not want to admit to having made such comments.

Waylon Smithers

Our film also has a closeted gay protagonist called Craig, which is commonly found in the media, with examples even appearing in animated series such as the Simpsons, with Mr Burns's assistant Waylon Smithers. Subtle hints suggesting his sexuality are dropped through out our opening sequence, for example in the voice over he mentions trying to find the "perfect guy" to settle down with him, which insinuates not only that he is gay but that he also is uncomfortable with straight up saying so. This connotes that he is still in the closet. Another key element of the opening sequence is where Craig steps in and attempts to help David when he is receiving offensive comments. Although this intervention ends sourly for Craig, he is still shown to be pushing himself out of his comfort zone in an attempt to be less introvert and help another person, which is a positive portrayal of the protagonist and of gay people in general, as one gay male looks to help another in times of distress.

Omar from The Wire is a good example of a
well rounded gay character

However, gay people are obviously still ordinary people and therefore still have other aspects to their personality and interests. We felt that often when a gay character is featured in the media, these areas of their character are not properly explored as the character is purely there to be "the gay guy". Therefore, we thought it was important to portray Craig as a far more three dimensional character with interests and other aspects to his personality, as we felt this portrayed members of the LGBTQ+ community in a more honest and true to life fashion. This meant that when showing Craig's bedroom it was important to include key props such as movie posters, vinyls, etc. that highlighted his likes and dislikes within the media and the drum kit showed a particular interest in music within Craig. This alongside his emotional development that is shown through out the movie through his notebook make Craig a far more fully featured gay character, than often otherwise seen in the media and thus portray gay people in a far better light.

R + P Post 3: Our production and distribution institutions

Our Production Company

For our production company we created our own independent, London based, production company called QUAK films. QUAK films focus predominantly on films which portray minority social groups in a true to life and positive light, through the characters and narrative of films.


Distribution Company
To distribute our film, we have chosen to use Film4 Productions as a distribution company. Film4 Productions are known for their British indie films and were involved in the distribution of many films our group looked at, that were similar institutionally and thematically to our film, for example Beautiful Thing (1996). Film4 Productions, despite having "Productions" in their name, often have very little to do with actually producing the film and more often than not provide only funding and a release strategy for the finished movie. This would be one major advantage for us to work with Film4 Productions, as they would not be too interested in changing the artistic look or direction of the film, as long as they have a chance to get a return on their investment. Film4 Productions also offer the advantage of being owned by Channel 4. This means it is very likely that our film will feature on Channel 4 and Film4 TV programmes, which is an advantage because it will expand the viewership for our film and gain reputation for QUAK films amongst the general public, due to the mainstream nature of Channel 4.

R + P Post 2: Our target audience

Core Audience
Our film has a core audience of the LGBTQ+ community, due to our film following a teenage closeted gay protagonist. Nearly the entirety of the community will have at one point or another been a gay teenager and know of the feelings and hardships that our protagonist must go through. Also, much of this audience will be able to associate with his feelings of entrapment, due to being a closeted gay by having once been a closeted gay too. The LGBTQ+ community are also used to having films about being gay being produced and therefore will not see it as a belittling as long as it is a genuine portrayal of what being gay is. Examples of such "true to life" gay movies include Beautiful Thing (1996) which tells the story of a misunderstood and abused gay teenager, or Weekend (2011) which tells a love story about one man falling in love with another following a one night stand and the difficulties that follow.

Bloc Party's Keke Okereke

This audience are stereotypically interested in the arts, such as music and drama and often are big supporters of independent music artists and cinema, such as the film Beautiful Thing (1996) or the band Bloc Party with their gay front man and song writer Kele Okereke, who is known to include gay themes within their music. Therefore, the British indie film production values of our film would make the film more attractive to our target audience. This could also be attributed to the association that indie films are often more about satisfying a nicher audience, such as the LGBTQ+ community, by tailoring directly to them through authenticity and narrative rather than trying to make as much profit as possible.

Wider Markets
However, our film will have wider secondary and tertiary audiences, for example:

• British teenagers
• Bildungsroman genre fans

British teenagers may be persuaded to come and see the film, because in the end of the day, it is about another British teenager dealing with everything that life throws at him and the struggles he must go through to over come it all. This means that although the character is gay, his story would really be relatable to any teenager, however British teenagers are likely to find it far more relatable, due to accents, settings and humour present in the story. The younger generations (15-31 years old) have also typically been far more tolerant of those with different beliefs and sexuality to them, so it is more likely for an adult of the 55+ years old demographic to object to the film based on it having a gay protagonist.

Oliver Tate's comical coming of age in
Submarine (2010)

Secondly, fans of the "Coming of Age" or bildungsroman genre are likely to enjoy the film, due to the film being a part of this feel-good film genre. The personal development of the character as he begins to overcome his fear of being discriminated against, due to his sexuality leads to him coming out of the closet to show his love for another man. These kinds of personal developments are also a common theme in bildungsroman films, with much of the humour coming from such moments in the film, which would make the film appeal to this wider audience.

R + P Post 1: How we intend to work as a group

As a result of our first group meeting, we have decided to have two, one hour long meetings a week in order to accelerate the progress of our group in completing our project. This time will be mainly used to discuss research and do planning for our project. These meetings will take place in our media department at school.

We will have meetings each week on:

My Group

• Wednesday 3:55pm till 4:55pm
• Friday 3:55pm till 4:55pm

The entire group is expected to arrive to each meeting promptly and bring any necessary materials and completed work, that was due to be brought to that meeting. We have also created a facebook group and exchanged emails and phone numbers in order to be able to discuss ideas outside of school.