3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our media product is considered to be an independent project alongside the fact that is a historically based movie set in 1917 Russia. The movie is produced by Red Star productions, a production company focused on small independent historical movies that have a small but reliable audience with an interest in these types of movies. As the film cost little to make in relative terms it has a higher and more secure chance of making it's money back due to the stable nature of our audience which will be a helpful factor when it comes to securing a distribution deal. however we need to make sure that the movie will also cover the distribution costs as well as the production costs.

In comes Insurge Pictures, a distribution company targeted towards "Micro-Budget films", with budgets of up to $100,000 each, founded in 2010 by parent company Paramount studios who is known for the distribution of two ctitically acclaimed war movies, Saving private Ryan and Enemy at the Gates (One of the inspirations for making our movie).
Insurge would be a good choice for a distributor due to it's attitude towards indie films and the relationship it has with a well known company such as Paramount studios which allows the movie to reach out to a bigger audience because vertical integration Insurge has with Paramount studios.

Another route we could take would be finding a distributor that could show our movie over terrestrial television as that may be a better and more secure way of gaining an audience for our movie. Channel 4 is well known for it's friendly attitude towards indie movies, the well known Film4 is specifically made to produce movies from well known independent directors, and with Channel 4 being a well known name across UK television it would help spread our movie to a wider audience. Channel 4 also has "almost universal coverage in the United Kingdom and some neighbouring countries" allowing for our movie to be shown overseas as well widening the potential audience we have by a significant amount as our film would most likely find success in a more European audience, due to the nature of the film, compared to trying to market it to a American audience. Film4 also has a very successful history in producing Independent films with very popular films such as Trainspotting and Slumdog millionaire so if our film were to be shown on the Film4 channel brand association with them might also help widen our target audience.
I believe we have been realistic in our choice of potential distribution company, as both these companies have a history of supporting small, arthouse films, and in a lot of cases make them a lot of money.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Due to the historical nature of our film, no social groups are directly respresented by our film. However, the actions of our main character show how the responsibility for the actions taking place rest on this one man's shoulders. The idea of this main charachter may be relatable to by older audiences, or perhaps if we developed more of the film we could explore the idea of him going though a transitional period of having no responsibilities to a position where lives are at risk. The older end of our target audience, generally those 25+ would be able to relate to our characters struggle.The representation in the film is also primarily male, suggesting a similar pattern in the groups represented.

Finally, the military style of the film may be representative of both present day and retired military personnel, and could help show to the audience the struggles faced by those fighting in current wars, and the decisions they need to make in order to keep themselves and thie team safe from harm.



Although not strictly a social group, we felt this film could act as something to inform people about the events of WWI, especially as it is an important part of the UK's history. This representation could cause the film to have success in other European nations, as it represents groups from bygone days in these countries and as it deals with a mainly European event in history it would be unwise to try and market it to an American audience.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? on Prezi

Red october (Working title)

Below is the basic storyboard we came up with for our 2 minute opening. It begins with a suit up scene ( The character "suiting up" to go outside) before the character exits the tent and walks past a camp of refugees/soldiers before stopping at the top of hill and looking down on two bodies which is then followed by a camera pan up in to the sky

This is only our basic storyboard and more ideas have been added as time has gone by. We decided to add in some scenic shots of the forest which is then seperated by credits allowing the suit up scene to run smoothly and to also help establish the area the film will be set in. We may also decide to change and fiddle about with some shots as we film so this storyboard is not 100%

Film Opening - Title Sequence

We came up with the idea of combining the initial shots in our film of the general putting on his military uniform with the screens with the titles. By breaking up these shots with titles, we created a smoother looking transitions between the shots. We also added a unique touch to the title screens to keep things interesting and hold the veiwers attention, as in our opinion we believed that the title sequemces shouldn't be kept on the sidelines, but actually be an interesting part of our production. This was done using a typewriter effect of the text onto the background, accompanied by pictures of famous scenes and people from our era and location. The typewriter effect exagerrated the historic theme of the film opening and allowed us to keep our serious tone.

 Here is an example of one of the opening title slides. The typewriter effect will be animated in Flash CS4 and will be coupled with panning shots of the countryside whilst a slow, sad song will play over the top of them. We feel that this will keep in touch with the serious aesthetic of our movie which means that these credits will not jar the audience and look out of place with our film's historic feel. 

Film opening - Sound

In order to add atmosphere and realism to the film we considered adding enhanced sounds.

- Leather boot straps being tied.
- Sounds of crying
- Sound of the wind
- The sound of gunshots in the distance or shells falling. (this was the sound effect we ended up using)


We also ended up using two pieces of copyright free music we found on youtube. These were :

• Les Feuilles Mortes - Yves Montand. This song had a very calm, slow and sad atmosphere so we decided to use it on the credits and panning shots used in our opening at the start.
• Farwell to Slavianka - The Red army choir. This song has a more serious military theme to it and was used at the end of our opening for dramatic effect

Film Opening - Production company name and logo

We chose the name Red Star Productions. It sums up the genre of film opening we are producing, and is an exciting name that could become associated with producing both historic films, or those based on action and war, to produce titles similar to those found in our research:

• Hunt for Red October
• Saving Private Ryan
• Che

 We brainstormed for ideas for a logo. On paper, we made sketches of potential candidates, deciding we needed a logo that was bold, bright and represented the film we were producing. Eventually we combined two of our ideas coming up with the following logo.
Here is the logo produced to represent what our film company is about: It is simple yet very bold and straight to the point. The Red colour and hammer and sickle symbol were chosen as they provide a bold and recogniseable image when the logo appears in the opening titles of our film opening.

The logo was created using Adobe photoshop CS4 for the shapes, and Adobe flash CS4 for the filters and shading (flash was used as the filters can be changed in an animation, for example where the logo fades in the titles)