Production Management assignment 1

Introduction

This report will outline ideas that I had for the film-making part of my Production management unit, and will also show how i developed my final idea, as well as research into target audience.

Research

18.8 million people aged between 6 and 64 are estimated to play video games in the UK; and on average games aged between 11 and 64 spend 8.8 hours playing games per week in the UK.
Of these gamers, different percentages use different devices to play games:

• 24% use consoles to play games
• 11% use handhelds to play games
• 24% use computers to play games
• 21% use smartphones to play games
• 16% use tablets to play games

The male-female split in the UK is 58% male and 42% female with the largest age/gender demographic being 15-24 year old males.

PEGI (Pan European Game Information) provides age ratings for games as well as showing warnings for what the game involves. 

There are 5 age ratings:

• 3: Suitable for all ages. May contain very mild violence in an appropriate context for younger children, but neither bad language nor frightening content is allowed.
• 7: Suitable for ages 7 and older. May contain mild or unrealistic violence (e.g. violence in a cartoon context), or elements that can be frightening to younger children.
• 12: Suitable for ages 12 and older. May contain violence in either a fantasy context or a sporting action, profanity, mild sexual references or innuendo, or gambling.
• 16: Suitable for ages 16 and older. May contain explicit or realistic-looking violence, strong language, sexual references or content, gambling, or encouragement of drug use.
• 18: Unsuitable for persons under 18. May contain extreme or graphic violence, including "violence towards defenseless people" and "multiple, motiveless killing", strong language, strong sexual content, gambling, drug glamorization, or discrimination ("stereotyping likely to cause hatred").

The warnings are as follows:

Violence- May contain scenes of people getting injured or dying, often by use of weapons, whether realistically or in a fantastical or cartoonish manner. May also contain gore and blood-letting.

-7, 12, 16. 18

Bad language-May contain profanity, sexual innuendo, threats, and all manner of slurs, insults, and epithets. May be an influence or encourage children.

- 12, 16, 18

Fear/Horror- May contain scenes and plot elements too disturbing, overly suspenseful or frightening to younger/sensitive players.

- 12,16,18

Sex- May contain references to and scenes of sexual attraction or sexual intercourse. May also contain nudity (sexualized and otherwise) and characters dressed in suggestive clothing.

-12, 16, 18

Drugs- May contain references to illegal drugs or a fictional substance that has parallels to real-life illegal drugs (in use, possession, or sale), may influence or encourage children.

- 16, 18

Gambling- May contain elements that encourage or teach gambling.

- 12, 16, 18

Discrimination- May contain scenes, behavior, or references to cruelty or harassment to a group of specific people such as race, religion, ethnicity, gender, ability, or sexual preferences.

- 18

Online- 

- 3, 7, 12, 16, 18

Target audience 

As I found during research, the uk games industry has a target audience as young as 15, and this fact would create another target audience- their parents or guardians who buy the consoles for the children. 
Pen profile: Derek is a 34 year old male who lives in Essex with his wife and their 10 year old son. He works part time in Tesco, however has always looked up to David Beckham as he wanted to be a footballer, and looks up to him now as he thinks he is a good dad to his children. Derek spends a lot of time with his son on the weekend and plays games on the playstation with him such as fifa. He is a very family oriented man.

Ideas

My ideas are going to involve parents/ families as I know that the typical playstation audience is teenagers as young as 15 and on average they do not have their own income; therefore relying on parents to buy their games consoles and games for them.

Idea 1 is going to show a young boy playing fifa in his front room, then playing football in real life in a garden setting. The advert is then going to show an older boy playing fifa to portray the idea that the child has grown up playing fifa and that it is as much a game for children as it is for adults. The only personnel I would need for this idea are the young male and the older male. The thumbnail for this advert would show the younger male playing football.











Idea 2 is going to simply show a family at Christmas playing a multiplayer game such as Just Dance as it shows that the playstation can bring people together and be fun for all the family. As well as these reasons, I also believe that over the Christmas period adverts which are Christmas themed are more likely to do well with a family audience if families are looking to buy a generic present that everyone will enjoy. The personnel I would need for this idea are two parents and two young people. The thumbnail for this advert would show a younger person playing just dance with an older person.











Idea 3 will show two siblings battling on a game of Mario-kart with one playing as Mario and one playing as Luigi which enhances families spending time together and bonding over a playstation. The only personnel I would need for this idea are two older children. The thumbnail would show the two siblings shoulder to shoulder. 

Possible constraints of these adverts include working with younger people as it can be difficult filming them, however a solution I have for this possible problem is to work with children whom I already know such as family friends.

The most time I would need is two days to gather all of the footage needed to complete this advertisement as I would need to add in time for extra takes due to working with young people.

As there aren’t many resources I need for this project, this means that the budget for this project would be low.
With needing the main focus of the advertisement- the playstation I could lend it from someone in order to film this advertisement and that therefore would not cost anything.
To hire a Black-magic pocket cinema camera and tripod for two days would be £41 a day for the camera and £8 a day for a tripod which totals up to £98 for camera equipment for two days.
Adding in additional costs for audio equipment and lighting would be around £100 for two days.
Taking £100 as payment and £100 for food and travel costs over the two days would then make the full budget £398.

Since all of my filming could be done at the actors house as the settings I need are a front room for all ideas and a garden for idea two I would have to abide by the privacy law in a way that I would not give away their location or show parts of their house that they did not want showing. I would also have to use un-copyrighted (royalty free) music and sound effects in my project to abide by the copyright law.



SWOT Analysis

Strengths- 
Strong ideas that I would be able to produce.

Weaknesses-
Time Management

Opportunities-
A chance to develop my time management skills

Threats-
Actors not being available.

Financial systems

Explain there is software to manage vat, invoices, stock, budgets, and payroll. USE SAGE AS EXAMPLE!!!
Credit control list video on canvas
taking/recieving new order-- payment terms must be discussed(when to be paid) signed contract (your right to make interest charges) credit check- sole trader or partnership (need to know names&addresses), write a credit policy
Purchase order-- does value agree with original quote/ is goods&services the same/other payment terms/same customer?
courtecy telephone call-- call to ask level of satisfaction, call finance department if different, highly professional, good customer service
invoices-- clear concise layout (order numberm date reference and total) good description, methof of dispatch

KNOW WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkYT-SnE3KY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6CetcfCuWs

Photos of people- photography

How Media Producers Define Audiences

Audience research is important because they allow the companies to build a picture of their audiences attitudes, knowledge, interests, preferences, or behaviours (By using psychographics and demographics). In building a picture of their audience it enables the companies to see which target audience their product will do best with and then they can market it towards that audience which will gain them the most money as they won't waste money on marketing campaigns aimed at the wrong audience.

Audiences are profiled based on a number of factors.
Simple demographic factors include age, gender, sexual orientation.
Psychographics categorises audiences based on their personalities, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. The 4 C's (Cross Cultural Consumer Categorization) are a way to analyse lifestyles by assigning people into a certain group.




















Another factor companies take into consideration is Geo-demographics which is based on your location in the country. It is assumed by media producers that people in the same area will live through the same conditions and will therefore have similar demands and requirements.
Socio-economic status segments people based on their work experience and theirs or their families economic and social position compared to others. This can be based on income, education and occupation. 
A similar segmentation to this is NRS social grades which are a system of demographic classification used in the UK that was developed by the National Readership Survey to classify readers and is now used by other organisations as a standard for market research.
The grades use occupation to classify people to a grade, as shown below.

These grades are what is mainly used for audience profiling, as an example the profile of the target audience for Assassins Creed Syndicate would be similar to this one below:

The age of the players would range from teenage to 25.
The gender division is mostly males as the main character of the game is male, however there are females which enjoy the action type game such as this.
The socio-economic split would be from B to E because these are typically the types of people who would enjoy gaming.
The main occupations would be students who may have part time jobs.

The target audience for Downton Abbey would be quite different to this:
The age of the viewers would be anywhere from 30 to 60
The gender division would be an equal male/female audience due to both genders being represented in the program.
The socio-economic split would be AB as the characters represented are of higher class.
Their main occupations would be higher managerial jobs such as managers or principals.

Audiences can also be profiled based on the kind of things they like- this is split determined on whether they like Mainstream film, Independent film, or niche film.
Mainstream is commonly liked and is mass produced and distributed due to the popularity of it. Mainstream films are usually commercial successes- films such as The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, and the James Bond series. These films are simple to understand and are based upon a single stranded narrative. More often than not, these films use their stars to market the films and will commonly include product placement. These films have large scale marketing campaigns and a universal appeal.
Independent films are produced outside of the major film studio system and are known for having a complex narrative. These films go against Hollywood conventions and have a limited UK cinema release. These films usually do not have big stars in, however can sometimes provide a breakthrough for their cast or crew to work on bigger projects afterwards. The marketing on these films are limited and Word of Mouth is usually the most useful marketing. An example of an independent film is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre directed by Tobe Hooper in 1974, which was shot for around $140,000
Niche films are serious, independent 'art films' which are aimed at a specific market rather than a mass market audience. These films have targeted marketing campaigns.

Media producers carry out research into their audience by using both Quantitative and Qualitative research.
Quantitative research is data which involves numerical figures such as box office data and viewing figures.
For example, Gravity falls originally aired on Disney Channel as a trial show and has now been moved over to Disney XD Despite only reruns being aired the show still gets in the top ten data for the channel week after week, for example on the BARB website in the week ending 11 september the show was the 4th most watched with figures of 64000.
Another example is the box office data for Finding Dory; as Finding Dory has made $970,135,653 since it's release in June 2016, but had already made $135,060,273 on its opening weekend in the US.
Qualitative data is data which involves words such as a review.
Reviews are normally more based on opinion rather than facts since the reviewer themselves is an audience member when they watch the film, however they give people a taste of the film without spoiling too much but rather explaining the film- This is what the following extract of a review of Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children does.
'The grandfather has old black and white pictures of his friends from the home, all of whom seem vaguely freakish (one is actually invisible.) Jake is a likeable but gauche adolescent who works part time in the local supermarket. His parents fret about him and have sent him to a psychiatrist.'
Wikia is a website created for different films and TV shows with information inputted by audiences, including facts, characters, etc. Wikia has a forum section which is also another form of qualitative audience research as the producers learn what the audience are interested in with the film or TV programme and can take that into consideration when researching into sequels or next episodes. 

More forms of qualitative audience research include focus groups, questionnaires, and face to face interviews.

Photography private study

DSLR Camera Controls

ISO- The relative speed of sensitivity that we set to the camera- can tell the camera to respond to lower light levels when the ISO is higher, which allows more light in. This isn't always a good thing as the higher the ISO is, the more 'noisy' or grainy the picture is, which can significantly make the image worse quality.

Shutter speed- This is used to control movement, as it is the amount of time you give the camera to see the scene you are trying to capture. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second and typically 1/60th of a second is used as faster speeds will result in a blurred result if your camera moves.
High shutter speeds can be useful when trying to take pictures of things that slow shutter speeds wouldn't capture; such as bubbles.

Aperture- Simply known as 'The opening of the lense'- the size of the aperture can let more or less light in. Aperture is measured in 'F- Stops' and the larger the amount of light, the smaller the number (e.g. F/1.4) and the smaller the amount of light, the larger the number (e.g. F/22)
The other thing aperture impacts on is depth of field, as a large aperture such as 1.4 will have the front subject in focus but the background blurred, and a small aperture such as 22 will have everything in focus.

Video Installation Theory

Video producing is an art; and many different companies and people produce art in different ways to express their different views and opinions.

A company whose work I am interested in is Walt Disney Creative Entertainment; who produce the projection work on the castles at the Disney parks in shows such as Disney Dreams in Disneyland Paris or even World of Colour in Disneyland's California Adventure park.

The artist in charge of Disney Dreams is Steve Davison who also created World of Colour and is Lead creative executive for parades and spectaculars at all of the Disney parks. The intention is to tell a story by animating new scenes of the original Disney characters and then projection mapping them onto the iconic Disney castle. To produce the show as accurately as possible, a physical 3D model of the castle was created using pixel accurate video to practice mapping the animations onto the castle when they were created; and a virtual 3D model to work the animations into the architectural design of the castle. The show requires 16 projectors in total to cover 2500 sqm. This projection work is different compared to others as it uses interaction between different technologies such as pyrotechnics, lasers and controlled water to create the magical experience that the Disney parks are known for.
Reviews of this Parisian show vary but overall Disney fans said that they would be disappointed if it replaced one of the American shows; however believed that it was the best show that Disneyland Paris has produced so far.

An alternate way to produce video is by remixing found footage so that people can view the clips in a new light. There are many people who do this online; mostly for entertainment purposes. One of the most famous companies that does this is Eclectic Method. Consisting only of one man- Johnny Wilson, he mixes together music with scenes from movies and TV shows. Some of his better known comedic work includes 'The Wolf of Wall Street chest thump remix' and 'Chewie tune' and in an attempt to find the humorous side of the US elections there is a Trump vs Clinton remix video. 
To create a mix of a videos audio and music, Eclectic method use hardware such as Pioneer's DVJ / SVM 1000 which plays a DVD on one side and audio on the other and allows for the audio to be in sync. The software that Eclectic Method use is Serato, Mix Emergency,  DJay Pro, Virtual Djay, and VDMX, as well as apps like Djay/Vjay and Vidibox. Some software is more expensive than others which could set them apart from smaller remix companies that may not be able to afford the more expensive software.
I believe that remixing could be the future of video installation as it enables artists to make something new out of things which already exist- a trend which is popular in current media affairs as old films are remade. 
There are no official reviews of Eclectic method as such but comments on their youtube channel are usually positively rating their videos, for example on their Wolf of Wall Street remix video, one youtube user said that the remix video should've been the official movie trailer, and several other users ask for the audio to be uploaded to streaming sites such as Spotify. 

Bibliography
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IzM2IZOric - An official video by Disney in which the way Disney Dreams is created is discussed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMgD7wQfy1Y - A video of Disney Dreams in Disneyland Paris which allowed me to see the finished production.
http://thedisneyblog.com/2012/04/18/disney-dreams-a-review/ - A review of Disney Dreams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y29hluAqjAY - An official video by Eclectic Method in which they explain the software that is used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jSxU7EBOaw - The Eclectic Method 'Trump vs Clinton' video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR9-y4u9mew The Eclectic Method 'Wolf of Wall Street' video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od2EqkvCC68 - The Eclectic Method 'Chewie Tune' video.

Demographics

NRS Social Grades are a system of demographic classification used in the UK that was developed by the National Readership Survey to classify readers and is now used by other organisations as a standard for market research.
The grades use occupation to classify people to a grade, as shown below.














Audience Profiling

Assassins Creed- Syndicate
The age of the players would range from teenage to 25.
The gender division is mostly males as the main character of the game is male, however there are females which enjoy the action type game such as this.
The socio-economic split would be from B to E because these are typically the types of people who would enjoy gaming.
The main occupations would be students who may have part time jobs.

The Martian
The age of viewers would be 20+ as it seems more aimed at adults.
The gender division would be mostly male.
The socio-economic split would be ABC1



Downton Abbey
The age of the viewers would be anywhere from 30 to 60
The gender division would be an equal male/female audience due to both genders being represented in the program.
The socio-economic split would be AB as the characters represented are of higher class.

Game of Thrones
The age of the viewers

Gaming as an industry

The UK games industry was worth £4.2 bn in 2015 (up 7.4% from 2014) and around 40% of the population from 6 years to 64 years play games. 11 to 16 year olds averagely spend 8.8 hours playing games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7H4EBZ1VvQ This is an advert for the marvel superheroes version of Disney Infinity- 2015/16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcvKOouJKcw This is an advert for an old nintendo games system- 1980's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSWTGMggv7E Tomodachi life advert (Nintendo 3ds) featuring the Vamps.

Audience Profiling

Demographics

Data relating to different groups within the population. For example categorising people by age or gender.

Psychographics

Looking at people based on their personalities, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.

The 4 Cs are a way of categorising peoples psychographics.

http://www.examstutor.com/business/resources/studyroom/marketing/market_analysis/8_psychographic_segmentation.php

Geodemographics

Data relating to people based on the different locations they live in. 

Socio-economic status

Data relating to peoples' incomes/ based on the jobs they have. Six categories are used.

1/80 second

The bubbles are still blurred as the shutter speed is relatively slow, however they are quite sharp.

1/15 second

Because the shutter speed was so slow, it seems that the camera caught the sunlight hitting the soap as the bubble popped.

1/80 second

Working to a brief

https://padlet.com/AndyHarrison/Level3y2

Lesson 2- critical approaches

Primary Research- Firsthand research that you carry out yourself- questionnaires/surveys (quantitative)
Interviews/focus groups/internet forums/audience panels (qualitative)
Secondary Research- Secondhand research that has already been carried out- programme ratings/box office figures/sales of cds and dvds (qualitative)
film reviews/game reviews (quantitative)

Quantitative data is data which involves numerical figures.
Gravity falls originally aired on Disney Channel as a trial show and has now been moved over to Disney XD; despite only reruns being aired the show still gets in the top ten data for the channel week after week, for example in the week ending 11 september the show was the 4th most watched with figures of 64000
http://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-top-10/

Finding Dory has made $970,135,653 since it's release in June 2016, but had already made $135,060,273 on its opening weekend in the US.


Qualitative data is data which involves words such as a review.
Reviews are normally more based on opinion rather than facts as the reviewer themselves is an audience member when they watch the film, however they give people a taste of the film without spoiling too much but rather explaining the film- This is what the following extract of a review of Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children does.
'The grandfather has old black and white pictures of his friends from the home, all of whom seem vaguely freakish (one is actually invisible.) Jake is a likeable but gauche adolescent who works part time in the local supermarket. His parents fret about him and have sent him to a psychiatrist.'
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children-review-everything-you-want-from-a-tim-burton-movie-a7336906.html

Wikia is a website created for different films and TV shows with information inputted by audiences, including facts, characters, etc. 
http://thesecretlifeofpets.wikia.com/wiki/Max

Wikia has a forum section which is also another form of qualitative audience research.

Photography images

Critical approaches to creative media products

Trailer analysis

Jack Reacher- The target audience is mainly male, from around 17-25 who would be attracted to the film by the action in the trailer.

Marketing campaign: Browser game entitled 'Jack Reacher: Never stop punching' would possibly attract a younger audience of males.

Doctor Strange- The target audience is mainly male, however main actor Benedict Cumberbatch has many female fans. The target age is 14-20.

Marketing campaigns: Concept art shown at D23 (Disney convention) would gain audience that were hardcore disney fans, possibly targeting more females.

Twitter account created (@drstrange) that tweets clips, pictures and promotional information (merchandise). This appeals to the teenage TA as they are more likely to have social media such as twitter.

Three comparable films

Three films which I think are comparable to Doctor strange are Dr Strange (the 1978 made for TV movie), Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Gods of Egypt.

Unit 4- Creative Media Production Management Project

Media sectors

• Radio
• Film
• TV
• Publishing
• Online
• Advertising
• Gaming

Researching the sectors

The film industry will release a main product (film) and then will release a poster and trailer for the main product.

This is the trailer for Moana, 2016, created by walt disney studios. The creators of the trailer are the creators of the film, with additional editors brought in, so the crew would be director, animators, and editors, as well as people that storyboard the trailer.

This is the official poster for Moana; and with Disney being a huge company they would've commisioned a publishing company to create this poster, however their artists would have worked with the publishers.

This is the official homepage for Moana on the Disney website. This uses the poster which would've been created with both Disney artists and outside artists, and would've required more publishing staff to create the website.

Television Production Research

Game.gov

Sky Atlantic commisions- the following information is taken from the Sky website.

"We would like half-hour series that have scale, lift the lid on a subject or are unexpected and could sit alongside the best of the US."

"The way we commission is also different. The biggest difference is that, because we are all about quality and providing something that Free-To-Air TV doesn't, we commission fewer projects, and have a much leaner team than other broadcasters to do this. In turn this means we don't have meetings with every Indie who asks for one we're afraid. Not only do we not have the manpower, but also we only tend to use meetings to discuss a project we are incredibly keen on. We have meetings when there is a strong sense of purpose for a project we think we are going to love - we don't meet as a way of briefing people. Instead we brief people through this page; on the Sky Days we have every six months (in big groups for non-scripted, and smaller groups for scripted) and through public talks and briefings throughout the year at lots of public events. "

"We only commission shows we love, and in our experience good shows usually come from good, very clear, early conversations. We see the shows as collectively owned by you and us - we don't just commission and let you get on with it, and equally we don't commission shows and try and make them for you - we both bring something to the party. We think good notes are helpful and make for a better show; bad notes are demoralising, but we don't think notes in themselves are bad. As we said, we don't see ourselves as executive producers - we are the commissioners, there to guide, encourage, inspire, and ensure the show meets the needs of the audience by best fitting the channel on which it transmits. Once you have our commitment, we are in it together, and will work for the best of the show. It's for this reason we won't be worried if you tell us a show is going wrong - all we want is for the show to be the best it can be - so we value relationships where we can all be open, honest and trusting."

"The talent on board is very important to us and we expect to work with the best filmmakers, producers and distributors in the world, or a combination of those people and newer talent."

From the information presented above, I believe that Sky Atlantic is a good channel to air our TV show on as they take ideas from anyone as long as they are detailed enough and I therefore believe that Sky atlantic would be the perfect partners to work with on Game.gov

From research in books I have determined that the two most important factors of television are good producers, and audiences.

The producer allows everyone to see how well the show is going to go by how much they put into the TV show, for example how creative they are and how knowledgable they are in the genre of the show. 

The audiences determine what type of tv is broadcast on a channel as different channels have different audiences- who have different needs. This has been the case since the 1980's. This information was taken from Television and Society