Sci-Fi Mood Board

Film Title Analysis

This film title immediately is associated with the idea of space and Science Fiction. Although the film title seems, almost mismatched, due to the lack of gravity in space. The font in which the word is written is plain and bold, giving a weight to each letter. The contrasting white on the black background also makes them stand out. The light emerging behind the letters looks as though it is appearing from behind a spherical shape, potentially a planet if you are keeping the idea of space. The letters are widely spaced, suggesting there is an abundance of space and area, hinting at the 'gravity' of the events in the movie. 

Similarly with the movie title for 'The Martian', the Science Fiction genre is instantly hinted to purely due to what connotes with Martians (space, aliens, planets etc.) The writing is again bold and widely spaced, suggesting this abundance of space. The light clearly emerges over a planet in this screenshot. 

Audience Research Analysis

The audience research analysis task gave us a clear insight into our target demographic, meaning we can cater to preference.

54% of the people we asked were male. The majority of the people that said they liked Sci-Fi movies were male, with the occasional female. Disaster Films, Alien Films and Monster Films had the highest amount of interest, leading us to do a disaster type film. The information also suggests that remakes are not nearly as popular as original ideas, therefore creating a new idea instead of recycling an old idea would be better. We also found out that the CGI and editing techniques used are important to the audience, suggesting we should use a program such as After Effects to create some high quality edits.

Focus Group Analysis

Why was the focus group useful?

It was useful having a focus group because we then get couple opinions on what is and is not liked about the opening scene of terminator genesis. We found out that they liked the narration over the top of the scene and the title, 'TERMINATOR GENYSIS', appearing on a black screen. In order to get more from this, we should have asked them to explain slightly more. We found that cliches are liked and disliked by different people. One participant said that the film opening itself was more cliche and and therefore would not watch it. Therefore in our film we need to try and avoid the large cliche's like seeing a male hero immediately established.  The opening scene to Terminator elicits feeling of excitement and intrigue, similarly to what we are trying to achieve. Like I said earlier, we should have asked the participants how this feeling is brought about, but that is our own fault for not considering how we could use these answers to establish our own film opening. Both students said that they found that the CGI and editing helped the opening flow smoothly, which is definitely an aspect that we want to incorporate into our shots, utilizing Adobe Premier. We asked about the concept of a flashback which we have on our storyboard. Zack said that he didn't like having a flashback in the beginning as that is typical of a lot of different genre's. In contrast, the other participant said that this is a good concept as it gives the scene context. Taking this into consideration we decided to have only a few quick, flashy shots of me in a flashback, giving it some context but also hiding any huge giveaways. Although they both agreed that the title appearing on a black background, we decided that our film was going to do this. We discussed with them off screen and explained why we think we should do this, showing them a different film as an example. They both said that this does achieve a bold effect and that it would look good in our film opening.

It was nice to work with these two boys as they had very conflicting opinions. Seeing the two of them explaining a few of their answers was fun because it gave us a wide range of options for our film. It also showed us what to avoid, for example, the cliches that I mentioned earlier.

Graphical Representation of the Questionnaire

I expected more males to be interested in answering a questionnaire on Science Fiction because it is typically a man-based genre.

This is not surprising since Marvel and DC have released a lot more superhero TV shows such as Luke Cage, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and The Flash for instance. Other than that I expected Movies to be the most frequently consumed type of Sci Fi. Books and Graphic Novels got the recognition I expected.

I didn't quite know what to expect with these results. I personally would have voted for Aliens & Monsters too. I liked the variety of the answers.

The Diversity Gap in Sci-Fi & Fantasy Films

I found this post whilst researching Gender stereotypes in Science Fiction Media. I found it extremely interesting to find out that, alongside gender differences, there is a lack of black protagonists depicted. 

Secondary Audience Profile's

Name: Sasha Coban

Age: 19

Sasha lives in Brighton with her parents and her younger sister. She subverts the stereotypical 'girly-girl' ideals as she doesn't like the typical female activities. Although she does like to go out with her friends a lot, she also likes to sit at home with her parents and watch movies. Growing up, her father used to make her watch films like the Star Wars franchise, and other Sci-Fi based movies. This has created a positive view of Sci-Fi movies that not many of her friends have.

We think she would like this movie as we see, in the opening scene, a female character. This is not typical of a Sci-Fi movie, which would grab Sasha's attention. In terms of mise-en-scene, the character starts crawling along the floor and then the flash of normality shows her with a glass of water, bubbles, flowers - all things that seemingly represent normal life. The camera work does not give away exactly what is happening, leaving some of the context up to the imagination. 

Audience Profile

Audience Profile: Jared Profitt


Age: 17
Gender: Boy
Hobbies: Watching Luke Cage and Scorpion on Netflix, Watching and actively supporting Marvel movies, Playing PC games such as; World of Warcraft, DayZ and League of Legends, Playing PS4 games such as; Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Battlefield. Cosplaying his favourite characters from video games at Science Fiction Conventions.

Our movie appeals to Jared because he enjoys looking at the dystopian future and life on other planets. The disaster on Mars appeals to him in the opening scene because it makes him use his imagination and forces him to ask questions about the scene. He would be questioning how and why the distress signal was sent out, and why they were on Mars in the first place, why are there dead bodies and what creature destroys the Rover.

Similar things Jared would be interested in are: Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones, Star Trek, Intersteller etc.

Questionnaire

This is a blank copy of the questionnaire that we sent out:

This is the same questionnaire however the numbers in red are the tallied results from the 50 people we asked to fill in the form:

Focus Group

We decided to show two 6th form students the first few minutes of the movie, Terminator Genisys.
Here is the end product of our focus group:

Gender Representation Analysis - Prezi

Narrative Analysis - Terminator Genisys

Soundtrack Analysis - The Scorch Trials

Editing Analysis

Star Trek - Into Darkness
The opening starts with the words CLASS M PLANET - NIBIRU appearing in the top left hand corner. The first take is rather long as it establishes the scene, going through the fog and zooming in on the escape of the main characters. The continuous editing of the man running through the trees uses a shot thats further away and then, when he reappears from around the side of a tree, the shot has zoomed in.

The visual effects created a digital jungle as the chase was filmed on a partial set with minimal foliage. In addition, 20-30 Nibirians, the locals, were on set and digi-doubles were used to create more of the population. For the Nibirians, actors were in motion capture suits, running around the stage, praying and chasing the locals.

The giant CGI creature was recreated from one of the previous Star Trek films, staring in the first movie as the Polarilla. They re-purposed it and created the Niborilla.

The volcano setting was filmed on a green-screen surrounded set and shot with IMAX cameras. To give some form of ambience, the actor was stoof on a green textured rock and had smoke and stuff blowing through the air.