Evaluation – “Bambino”

1. Evaluation – “Bambino” This slideshow will look at the following areas: Genre and Conventions Representation Audience and Certification Use of Technology Institutions and Distributors Development from Preliminary Project

2. Genre and Conventions All members in the group had a specific role to play during the making of the film, though it is important to remember that all decisions were made as a group and that everyone had equal distribution towards the project. My role in the project was with mise-en-scene. We decided as a group that we would create a hybrid genre consisting of aspects of a thriller and drama. This gave me, personally, the chance to experiment with a number of shots in order for the film to look visually interesting. Considering that the main character would be shown to be affected mentally, physically and emotionally, this did give the opportunity to play around with intriguing features. Thriller/dramas are mainly noticed for their use of action shots and dramatic sequences which often occur at the beginning of the film, leaving an interesting situation and a marker for the rest of the film. The opening to these films also needs to be shown with quick, exciting shots to engage with the audience instantly. In our case, a kidnapping was tense enough and thrilling enough to set the pace of the rest of the film. This was down to the quick transactions and tense soundtrack along with the actions in every shot. “Taken” was a film that we mainly studied for our project. This is because it faces a similar plot in that a vulnerable character is kidnapped and it is set up for a protagonist to answer the many questions that follow and ultimately win the victim back. I researched the ways in which the antagonist and the protagonist were represented and discovered that the antagonists are to be shown as very dark characters involving dark clothing, maybe significant facial features or their dialogue is different. In this case I wanted to make our antagonists dress in dark clothing, covering up as much of their body as possible as I believed that it would be more interesting not to give away their identity right at the start of the film. What I believed worked very well in our film was the lighting change. We managed to edit the lighting to create a darker and more sinister opening, almost to suggest to the audience that something awful is about to happen. This is similar to “Three Colours Blue” which was also studied and which we too took the idea of the ball rolling out of the car once it crashed but changed it to a bear that belongs to the child who is eventually to be kidnapped. This causes the audience to feel a sense of shock over the events that have just occurred and ultimately worry for the child as the shot of the bear sums up the situation. We also used a high standard of shadow, again linking back to “Three Colours Blue”; this again creates tension and almost confuses the audience about what is going to prevail. These two shots justify the devastation and confusion of both protagonists due to both situations

3. Representation In terms of representation in our film, a number of minor issues resulted in us leaving it rather negative. For example, the mother in the scene is driving and always checking on her children; therefore she is constantly nurturing her children and therefore supports old fashion stereotypes that women should always be the parent to nurture the children, thus being negative gender representation. However, issues with the casting meant that we had little choice but to pick the driver to be female and cast a female actress. The teenager, to be protagonist, is also shown to be the most dominant out of all the family. This is too negative as the three characters making up the family consists of a young child, a middle age mother and the teenager. The young child is shown as weak, and is ultimately the one to be kidnapped, and the mother is the one to crash the car and lose consciousness, playing no significant part in rescuing the young child. So this is negative in terms of age and gender. Although it may not seem obvious at the time, the two antagonists are too male and young, again forcing poor representation for gender and age as they both succeed in the kidnapping and are the more dominant over the little child. What could be said that is positive is that the protagonist is of younger generation and will ultimately defeat the antagonists despite his age. We see the low, vulnerable image of the child and then the dominant figures of the antagonists and the eventual protagonists

4. Audience and Certification In terms of certification and target audiences, we decided our film will be classed as a 15. As an entire film, we decided it would contain some strong language, some strong violence and perhaps some high emotional scenes again linking in with “Taken”. This comes under the BBFC certification guidelines for a 15. Taking audience surveys and target audiences into account, it seems that thrillers are mainly appealing to males from their late teens to around middle age men. However, having added a dramatic theme to it meant that a more female group would have been attracted to our film. We first viewed our film to a group of 16-18 year olds of both genders and gained very positive feedback. We then showed the film to a range of older adults, again of both genders, and too gained a positive reaction. This is promising as we did look for the film to appeal to a wide age range of 16-50. However, having the film certificate at a 15 and not an 18 means that a younger age range, and ultimately a wider audience will be attracted to the film. I also researched how a number of film’s certificate had been lowered once they had been released to DVD, this again could be a possible method of gaining a wider audience. Considering these figures and that it is a high paced action film has leaded us to believe that our film would be very successful amongst its intended audience. In addition to the viewings of our film to a range of individuals, our film was lucky enough to be sent to the BBFC, in which we gained very positive feedback from Mr John Potter. As a group we were overjoyed with the praise we gained, and on a personal note I am very pleased and proud to have been a part of it.

5. Use of Technology We managed to make the protagonist almost have a sense of what happened to his little brother well further confusing the audience yet giving them an idea that he is the heroic figure within the rest of the film. The darkness and shadows are also a deliberate reference to “Three Colours Blue”. Personally, I was very pleased to have Jackson Hogan, who is very talented in the field of editing, to work along side me. This made it very easy for me to put what across I wanted in terms of the mise-en-scene. The darkened screen that was used was perhaps the most effective aspect of the film and this was down to the editing, as were a number of other useful camera angles and effects. This was also down to the technology that was available to us. In this case we used Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 and Adobe After Affects which made our film look more professional at no high cost. The soundtrack was also very pleasing. For a low cost, we were able to add the extra dimension of sound and music to our film. This saved us from having to use dialogue as we decided as a group that dialogue was not needed and it would make our film look cheap. However, the music brings across an added sense of intensity and focus, whereas the sound effects were useful for the general noises. For example, we were able to make it sound as if the car had genuinely crashed with the added sound. This is as the cars are about to crash as it turns into a black screen with the added sound of the cars crashing

6. Institutions and Distributors As a group we decided that a good institution to distribute would be Twentieth Century Fox. We considered the distributor of “Taken” as it was a film that we heavily researched, and we also discovered that there were a number of other films that are of similar genre to our project. Twentieth Century Fox are highly regarded distributors, who are noticed all over the world and recently extended themselves into Bollywood in 2008. This would mean that our film would be distributed in a wider range of countries, increasing the profit and worldwide recognition. There have been many films under this company who have had huge success due to there wide range of audiences, and taking our audience figures and feedback, we believe our film would be perfect for it. We would want to distribute our project as much as possible so it would gain its maximum potential profit. This would include distribution to all mainstream cinemas and then release of DVDs, downloads, their recent launch with blu-ray etc. This further release process would require institutions around the world including “Amazon” (UK, US, Germany, Japan, Canada, France and China), “HMV” (UK, Ireland, Canada and parts of Asia), and other institutions around the world such as “iTunes” and “Media Markt” which is now one of Europe’s largest media store. We want to use as many institutions and distributors as possible.

7. Development from Preliminary Project I have learnt a lot since my preliminary project. I think the most important thing I took out of the preliminary task was time. As a group we planned our time well and made sure we had enough of it to shoot the intended shots, select the most favoured ones and edit them. I also learnt from the preliminary that there was much more room to experiment, especially with the genres we chose. In my preliminary tasks, we were limited by choosing a simple crime and action genre. However with “Bambino” I had the added element of drama and confusing issues to work with. In my preliminary task, my group decided to go for a simple black and white picture, however this time around we were able to play around a bit more and managed to use a more surreal, mood defining set. With Jackson Hogan, an excellent editor in my group, this was achievable. We also had problems with members in our group during our preliminary task resulting in just two of the group’s members including me having to fit the role of all areas of the film. This was an issue as fields such as editing were not a strong point for us. This also gave me an opportunity to work with my desired area; mise-en-scene, in which I had more time to think about and acquire specific features of the project. With the group satisfied and the vast majority of positive feedback, personally I am very pleased with the results that my groups were able to produce and I was very proud to be a part of it. As already mentioned, we also gained yet more positive feedback from an official at the BBFC which is very exciting and just shows the standard that the group as a whole are capable of.