Sunderland 2021 media campaign

First of all, Sunderland 2021 was a northern based media campaign, attempting to earn Sunderland the right to be named City Of Culture. With their attempt to gain their right to this title, they created mass amounts of social media platforms in order to boost their chances of becoming victorious. With this, the platforms they created of note were the top social media platforms, these include twitter and Facebook, whist also having a Youtube account to share their future ideas.

With their media campaigns, for example, in leaflets that they send locally throughout the city, they will include pictures of what they want to do to the city, what they are planning for the future and when they plan to do it by. Also, seen as many people may not sign up to their leaflets, they may prefer to read into their social media. The Sunderland 2021 campaign has various social media channels, these include the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. With the diversity they have in their platforms, with fliers and social media channels, this is a great way to reach out to their target audience. Seen as though this bid is a national effort, it is great that all of the nation can see by just typing the name into a search bar on social media. This bid was rather successful nationally, as it reached its target audience and got national press and reached out to the country as a whole.

The communication channels are used to meet the purpose of the media campaign as it spreads awareness of their campaign and what they're doing. With social media, it can reach out to a wider audience, whereas with newsletters and leaflets they can't really be sent out nationwide, for one the prices would be excessive and of course not everyone will be interested. The purpose of this campaign was to spread awareness of their campaign, to reach out to people about the campaign, and why Sunderland should win the bid to become the City Of Culture. With YouTube, a form of social media which is available for all ages, this gives a one-to-one narrative on their plans for being the City Of Culture, and what they plan on doing to ensure they are successful. YouTube can showcase the culture we already have in full detail, with images showcased of what we already have, and how we can improve. With the social media aspect, I believe that the Sunderland 2021 bid is successful as it reaches out to its target audience, not just the City of Sunderland, but the country as a whole. Their twitter has over 6000 followers, while their Facebook account has racked up over 7000 likes, and 7000 followers. This shows they are rather popular, and seen as though on a few tweets they have 50+ retweets, this can reach out to many more people to see what it's all about.


With the Sunderland 2021 communication channels, i believe they are effective because they reach out to their target audience with persuasive techniques. For example, one of these would be the way they used enticing language to persuade their audience to come and take part in their activities. Their communication channels were effective as, due to their advertising of their events, people turned up in mass numbers to help support their bid. The target audience for these specific events would be the locals, those from the City of Sunderland. Therefore, seen as though people turned up in mass numbers, their communication channels can be seen as a success as people turned up to their events. This of course, was the aim of their events, to get people involved in their events and for them to turn up and help them support their bid for City Of Culture. Of course, with their range in social media accounts, they fulfilled their purpose of the campaign in aiming to raise awareness and spread the word of their bid. With the amount of people involved in their social media accounts, from the thousands who were involved with their twitter and Facebook accounts, they helped the bid grow so that more people could be aware of the campaign. Their campaign should be seen as a success and a main factor of this could be their social media aspects.

                             

pre production

Genre: I believe the genre I have opted to use is action. My reason for this is because I feel I am most    confident with the genre. Having said that, I also watch a lot of comedy/horror films, therefore I am suited to these genres. With this, I also feel that the type of conv0entions and codes are relatively easy to follow. These span from the characters, the props and the locations.

Film title: The Strangest                

Short Logline:  After facing numerous struggles at home, a teenager runs away from home and takes himself to a forest. After visiting the forest, he encounters one of the strangest looking men he has ever seen, the interrogator.

Key characters: Micky (Mitchell Dempsey) Darren (Luke Taylor) The Interrogator (Josh Pool). 


In the short film, Micky runs away from home after facing a series of troubles with his family. Once he leaves his dad, Darren, attempts to find his son and return him home safely. However, everything he sets out to do fails. Micky leads into the woods as he attempts to get as far away as possible from his home. Once he delves further into the woods, he sees every person’s biggest fear, the interrogator. Once he comes across the interrogator, he is subject to a chase from the interrogator. Once the interrogator catches Micky, he kills him and leaves him flat on the floor in the woodland. It is at this point his father finds him after trailing through the forest.

The location of this short movie will be in a variety of places. These places will vary from a woodland to a messy bedroom, as to where Micky escapes to and from.             

For the costumes, Micky prefers to wear tracksuit. Darren is in a wheelchair and the interrogator is masked, with long hair and scruffy looking facial hair, this is to make him loom as scary and intimidating as possible for the short film.

Script

(Darren comes to check on Micky, and wake him up for school. He then finds out he has gone missing)

Darren: What… what’s going on? Where is my son, where is he?

Darren: What am I going to do about my son?

(Skips to Micky running into woodland, and mumbling inaudible words to himself)

Micky: Christ, I’m so happy I finally got out of that house. I can finally live my own life without my parents shouting at me all the time.

Micky: God knows how I’m going to cope out here in all fairness, anything is better than being stuck inside that house.

(Darren goes searching and looms in the woods for his child)

Darren: Son, son. What are you doing in here? Where have you been all this time... what have you been doing?!

Micky: I'm sorry I'm sorry, i didn't mean for this to happen. i got lost on the way to school, I didn't mean to run away. 

Darren: No, I'm not having any of it, no chance. You're grounded for a week. No, in fact i take that back, you're grounded for a month until you learn to not do this again. No xbox, no mates, nothing, until you learn your lesson.

Micky: No, no. That's unfair please don't, it was a mistake.



i plan to shoot my film across varies weeks, on Mondays and Tuesdays. with this i hope to shoot in a woodland area for the son to run into (as he runs away from home).

With this, i plan to shoot in a woodland and in a suitable room for a bed on Mondays and Tuesdays. for Monday's, i would be shooting from the times 10-13:15, whereas on Tuesdays, i would be shooting from 15:30-17:30. For the room where a bed is required, i believe i will shoot in the VPA building, or in a room in a different building on site.

                                 

Evaluation

Things i would have changed


Looking back at my movie, i believe one thing i would have changed would be the setting for the first scene. This is because i don't fully believe where i shot was a perfect location for a makeshift bed in the movie. The next time where I plan for a short movie, I believe I will take more time scouting the location, to get the best possible shot for my movie. I also believe I would change my actors for the film, this is because sometimes it didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked, for example it would take many more attempts to shoot a scene than I would've hoped. Maybe if i had more confidence in my ability of filming, i may have chosen to use various camera angles at different times.


Camera angles

The most commonly used camera angle I used was the tracking shot. I believe i used this angle most because it fits with the genre of action, its always getting the full detail of the scene. For example, when i used a side tracking shot, it catches the full detail of each shot, for example you can see the attention to detail in the eyes of the character, as well as being able to shoot the whole scene effectively. If I was to vary the camera angles, one shot I would hope to use would be a first person shot, for example, this a shot that is most commonly used in 'Peep Show'. This shot is a good technique for arguments and conversations, so for example in my short film at the end where the father is talking to his son, I could have used this technique for this scene to give the film a sense of diversity.

Props

In my film, I didn't use many props of note. The props I did use were a stick for 'the strangest' character and also a blanket, for when the grandfather reveals that Micky had ran away from home. If I was to change the props used for this film, I would use different clothes for the characters, to ensure it is a bit more realistic in terms of what is happening. For example, as the character Micky was about to go to school, I could've made him wear school uniform, to make the character look suitable for the role.

Location 

For my locations, I thought the scene where Micky escaped to the woods was rather suitable, as it makes sense for a person who is running away from home, to run to a discrete area like a woodland. Therefore this was rather suitable. However for the opening scene, id change the setting of where the bedroom was meant to be. This is because it didn't really feel like a suitable area for a bedroom, especially as we had to make a makeshift bed out of a couch. Therefore to change in the future I will spend more time assessing locations, to try and find the best possible position to shoot.

Actors

For my actors, there were a few things that went wrong when I was producing the film. The first of the problems was the inconsistency when on set. This is because it would often take many takes to get the right shot, therefore it would get rather frustrating over time. In the future, I will test with actors with shots, and decide whether to stick or to twist, this will be effective for the film as I will get the best possible shot without too much frustration.

Sound

For the contents of my film, I included various effects of non-diegetic sound. The first of which was used at the beginning, when the brother enters and discovers that Micky has ran off. I used a windy sound effect, to cause tension within the scene. The weather also relates to the scene that has happened, as wind is seen as a forecast you'd associate with being down, or to signify something bad has happened, therefore it relates. With the 2nd scene, I used a bird chirping sound effect to give the scene an atmosphere, instead of just hearing the voices talk there's an atmosphere in the background

Editing

For my editing of the short film I used 'Adobe Premier Pro'. At first I thought it was quite a struggle as I needed to familiarise myself with this application, seen as though I hadn't used it before. However after a few attempts trying to edit I swiftly got the hang of it. To edit the raw footage I used the cut tool, this tool made sure I could make sure the scenes had what I needed.

Cinematography

As my short film fits an action genre, i used quite a few track shots throughout the film, this is used at the start of the film. I done this to be able thoroughly follow the action in the film when necessary. This shot, pan shots and close ups can be seen throughout action genre films. Throughout the film, i tend to use medium to long shots, with these shots it gives the audience the opportunity to gather whats going on in the shot, as well as the surroundings nearby on set. With the medium to long shot, it also helps the audience gather an understanding of where the character is.