PRE-PRODUCTION: Confirmed Locations & Recce's

To help write an accurate risk assessment ready for the filming period, I conducted a recce for the houses being used for Tess and Sheila, The Bell Inn and the rural area. I previously did a recce for The Kent Owl Academy before our first test shoot there. 

Tess's house

The house we are using for Tess is in Longfield. It is a moderately sized house, situated the small town of New Ash Green. I visited the house and had a walk around, looking for any potential hazards. We will be primarily using the living room for the film as Tim climbs through that window. At the moment in the living room there are boxes as the house is having an extension, however they are hoping to have this finished before February. 

In order to play out the scene of Tim climbing through the window, we could move the sofa away to give some more room for him this side of the window. He won't actually climb through the window but we still need to accommodate the space as if he has just jumped through it. 

Although the living room has boxes in it at the moment due to the extension, you can still see that it is a neat and tidy house. The decor matches throughout the room, with the matching curtains and pillow. The wood on the door and cabinet also matches well. As a result of these, it can be said that this is a well-kept house, and would suit Tess's personality well.

Once the boxes are out, the living room has a lot of space in it, suitable for bringing in cast, crew and equipment. The main risk here is the trip hazard on the furniture, but there is a big enough space in the middle of the room so this shouldn't happen. We will move the furniture as much as we can to give an even bigger space in the middle of the room. 

We have an alternative location, a modern house in Northfleet, Gravesend if this house becomes unavailable to film in. However, ideally the location pictured above would be our best fit. 

External area

Once Tim leaves Tess’s house he walks down a road and towards a drive. On the drive is sat a van. This is the ‘Vet Van’ that Luke has sourced for their veterinary business. Alex wanted an area that was secluded and had a drive because we want it to look like Luke has just finished fixing up the van outside his house. This wouldn’t have been possible if we just used a road down the street. If we did this, the audience might have wondered how the van and Luke got there. However, as the van will be situated on a drive, the audience will realise that we are at Luke’s house.

The area is located on a quiet road. The road goes round in a slight bend and the drive is situated in the middle. It’s a fairly big drive, big enough for the cast, crew and equipment to stand on it and on the grass either side. This will prevent anyone from having to stand near the road. As the area is quiet, we shouldn’t have any problems with loud noises, just a few cars driving by every so often.

As we are filming outside, weather will always be a risk, and unfortunately one we cannot control. I will keep a check of the weather leading up until the shoot. If it’s due to rain then I will postpone the shoot for another day. All crew will be wearing high vis jackets, so passing vehicles will be able to see us clearly. I have contacted the Kent Film Academy to gain a permit to shoot on public ground. As we are filming handheld, we shouldn’t have any problems any but it’s safer for us to have a permit.

Sheila's house

As we will be filming outside at Sheila's house, the risks are slightly different here than when we are filming inside Tess's house. Looking at the photo below, the drive is very flat and therefore, there should be no uneven patches of ground to trip over. There are steps as you walk out of the house. These pose a trip hazard if you're not careful, but the camera shouldn't need to be that close anyway so we will ensure that Katie is not standing on the steps while filming. 

In this photo it had not long been raining, this can be seen by the dark patches on the ground and water marks on the drain. The drive can become slippery when it's wet, especially that drain. Usually there would be a car over the drain to cover it but because we want both cars out, the drain can pose as a trip hazard when it's wet. 

As I know this house well, I know that the sun rises behind the house and throughout the day slowly makes its way around the side and then to the front. This can be seen in the photo because it was taken early morning and the sun is in the top right hand corner shining down behind the house. I will inform Katie of this as we will want to start filming as soon as possible but at this point during the day, the front of the house will be very dark and dim. This will be the right time to shoot the scene on the road opposite and then when the sunlight has travelled round to the front, we can film at the doorstep.

Continuing with the weather, this is another hazard which we can't guarantee won't have an impact on our shooting time at this location. As this whole scene is filmed outside, bad weather will impact badly on our filming period here. I will keep checking the weather leading up until the shoot in February, and if it is forecasted to rain, I will reschedule the shoot. We want to be able to make the most of the day. Not sit inside waiting for the rain to stop. It's not just the equipment's safety in the rain, the slip and trip hazards are a lot higher when it's been raining.

Sheila's house

Just before the scene at Sheila's house, we will be filming opposite on this strip of road pictured below. It is situated on a quiet road, however this part of the road is at the top which then connects with a main road. There is the risk that cars will come round the corner at a higher speed than they should after leaving the main road. The road gets narrower at the bottom which is when cars will slow down. Being at the top of the road, we could get in peoples way when they are trying to get down the road. However, I will ensure we are over on the right side of the road, and we stay down by the blue Espace rather than up on the corner. This will prevent us from being in the way of other cars.

As we will be 'running over the dog' in this scene, I will make sure to let the other residents at the top part of this road know. As we are carrying out a scene involving something getting hit by a car, it could prove to be upsetting or confusing for the neighbours looking out the window. As a result of this, I will post a leaflet through the nearby doors informing them of what we are doing. 

As we are filming outside on a public road, I will ensure all crew are wearing high vis jackets so we are clearly visible by other road users. 

Road opposite Sheila's house

The Bell Inn

The Bell Inn is a small, friendly pub in Bearsted. As it is local to the studios, I visited it for a recce. Pictured below is the area we want to film in. The first photo is where Tim and Luke will sit with the barrel tables and then across the bar on the small table and chairs is where Sheila and Mark will sit. For a small pub, the area is actually quiet spacious, meaning that we should be able to fit in equipment, cast and crew. 

Although there is a lot of space, there are also a lot of chairs and tables around which could be hurtful if walked into one. Because of the time of day that we are filming, we are hoping that the pub won't be very busy and then we will be able to move some of the furniture around, in order to keep it away from the filming area if it's not needed which will then prevent any trip hazards.

As we are filming in a pub, we will be close to drinks which can be dangerous if knocked over. We also have two pints as props in the scene as well. I will ensure we have no unnecessary drinks near us, and we will film away from the public so their drinks don't cause a hazard as well. 

The Bell Inn risk assessment

The very last scene is in the carpark at The Bell Inn. As we are filming in an area with moving cars we will be very careful where we set up the equipment. The photo below shows the area we would like to film in, it's at the back of the car park and as there is nothing behind it, cars won't have to drive past us to get elsewhere. They can stay clear from us and park at the front if the car park is empty. At the time we are hoping to film, the car park should be relatively empty. 

We will wear high vis jackets while filming in the car park so we are clearly marked for cars to see. I will also ask permission to put a couple of cones around our filming area, in order to prevent cars from getting close to us. This scene isn't long so we won't need to block off the area for long. 

Again, as we are outside for the entirety of this scene, the weather will play a part in my risk assessment. If it is bad weather I will postpone filming to prevent damage to the equipment and to prevent slip hazards. 

The Bell Inn car park

With all these locations there is the risk of tripping over camera, sound and lighting wires. In order to prevent this, I will ensure the wires are off the ground or if this is not possible, I will make everyone aware where exactly the wires are.

After evaluating the risks and control methods. I believe that all these locations are low risk areas to carry out filming. 

PRE-PRODUCTION: Organising the Auditions

The deadline on our casting advert on Mandy.com was the 31st October. The advert was online for 2 weeks which is quite a long time for the potential actors to wait if they applied at the beginning of this time period.

We had 32 applications when the deadline for the advert had passed. The next job was to sit down with Alex and look through the different profiles and show reels in order to narrow down the amount of candidates. Keeping in mind our limited budget and the possibility of a re-shoot, we narrowed them down in terms of their location. We were aiming to work with people from Kent or London but there were a few who lived further than this.

After we narrowed down the candidates, I sent out emails to everyone. Below is the email I sent for the people we invited for an audition. I made sure to sound professional so the candidates knew that even though this is a student project, we still want it to be serious and successful. I repeated the fact that we weren't paying for travel to and from the auditions due to keeping our budget down, I had stated this in the original advert but the candidates may not have read this part.

We have organised two different audition days, the 12th and 14th November as we had quite a few candidates. We have also spoke about keeping the 16th free incase anyone cannot make the other two dates. I thought that giving them certain times to come in on our two audition days would be best, but understandably there were a few people who I had to rearrange with as not everyone could make an allotted time slot. I felt it would make sense to get all the Tim’s and Luke’s in on one day, and the Tess’s and Pete’s in on the other day, with one Sheila on each day. However, I scheduled them so we had a Tim audition, then a Luke audition, and then a Tim audition, and so on. This way, the actors going for the same role wouldn’t see each other as they leave and enter the audition room. I simply felt that this was a fair way to carry out the auditions.

Example of my audition schedule

This worked well because even though I had to re-schedule some of the auditions, I managed to keep the pattern of having a different role after one another. We lost two of the candidates while I was organising the auditions, one withdrew because he had gained paid job opportunities during this time, and the other one was also interested in paid work.

To help them prepare for the auditions, I sent over an audition pack which included the address to The Maidstone Studios, local train stations and taxi companies, and the story synopsis and their specific character profile, to remind them of the film and people involved. I also sent over the script and told them to familiarise themselves with their part. A few people asked to send in self-tapes, ideally we wanted to meet each person properly and get a sense of their own personalities but I agreed because I could send over the script and ask them to read a scene which they think best represents their character and performance. By doing this, we were still able to see them perform a part of the script and get an idea of how they would portray their character. For the self-tapes I also sent over an audition form. The form included questions such as location, contact details and dietary requirements. This form was for my benefit so I could work out food from their dietary requirements and travel prices from where they live. I also asked how they were going to get to the shoots e.g. drive or the train, so I could get a rough idea of how I would have to reimburse them. I included contact details so if they are successful I can contact them through their personal emails rather than using Mandy.com, as this is more professional. For Tim and Luke, the main question was are they comfortable with working with animals, as these characters work with the owls.

VET-MAN audition form

We had two full days dedicated to auditions, Monday 12th November and Wednesday 14th November. I received a message from one of the applicants asking if she could be seen on a separate day to these as she was travelling back from Italy just after these dates. We agreed a time on Friday 16th November, which meant we had two full days of half hour auditions, and one extra audition that week. I was very happy with this amount of accepted auditions because we had a big range of people to meet and run through the script with.

Rescheduling auditions 

As I said previously, I had to reschedule a few auditions because not everyone could make the dates I had allocated. This was understandable as some of them had other work commitments. Having to reschedule the auditions taught me how to deal with changing circumstances. I was constantly checking my emails to get back to people as soon as I could. This then made my scheduling easier as I knew quicker whether they could attend or not. The table below was my first schedule for the auditions. The candidates highlighted in green agreed to their allotted time slot, the candidates highlighted in yellow had to be rescheduled or had not replied yet, and the candidates highlighted in red either asked to send over a self-tape or unfortunately withdrew.

Audition schedule 1

Once I had rescheduled auditions and removed the people sending in self-tapes. I created a second audition table. There were a couple of people who still had to get back to me and I had to reschedule. Below is the second audition schedule.

Audition schedule 2

This is the latest audition schedule at the moment. I am currently rearranging Sheila's audition from 16:30 on the Monday to possibly the Friday, I am still waiting to hear back from her. However, there is a possibility that some people may not turn up even though they have confirmed their attendance. I can create a final list of everyone who attended the auditions on the last day - Friday 16th November.

Self-tapes

In total, we had 7 people ask to give in a self-tape. Ideally, we wanted to meet them in person but I wasn't able re-schedule everyone for a day they could make due to their work and personal commitments. For the self-tapes, I asked them to simply pick a scene in which they believe best represents their character. I also set a date for these to be sent to us by which was Friday 16th November (the same day as the final audition day). 

PRE-PRODUCTION: Advertising & Marketing

I have never been too sure on what the difference is between advertising and marketing, as they both involve getting a new idea out to the public. All I know is that advertising is a small part of marketing, so because I wasn't sure on what the difference is I carried out some research to answer my question. I also need to be able to apply these to VET-MAN and write up two different pages on both advertising and marketing, so to prevent writing about the same thing or getting them wrong completely, I felt that researching into it was best solution. 

Main differences between advertising and marketing

Both platforms reach a targeted audience to promote products or services, but they are very different. Once I know the difference between them, I can put our film on the path to success.

Advertising is any ad which gives a persuasive message to the public. It is only one component of the overall marketing process. Advertising is that part of marketing that involves directly getting the word out about your business, product or service to those you want to reach most. In our case, we want to advertise our new film to an audience of mainly 16-30 year olds. Advertising includes the placement of an ad in mediums such as newspapers, magazines, direct main, television, radio and online. Increasingly, as the world of print advertising shrinks, people are finding more creative ways to show off their product, such as displaying signs on top of taxis. Advertising in general is the most expensive part of all the marketing plans. This is because it involves different parts in order to make it, for example, art and design, ad placement and frequency.

Marketing however, is the systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products and services. You can think of marketing as a step-by-step process that begins with a unique selling proposition - a short compelling sentence that describes your business. This message then acts as a guiding theme that helps you identify the target audience who are interested in what you are selling (in our case, interesting people in what we are doing - making the film). Marketing as a whole is made up of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, community relations, customer support and sales strategy. 

All marketing elements must work independently but they also must work together towards the bigger goal of one unified marketing campaign with a common message. Marketing can take time to research in order for the plan to be effective. 

Before you buy ad space in any format you must conduct your market research to determine who you target audience is and what the best way to reach them is. This might be a social media platform like Instagram or Facebook. Or it may end up that your client is better served by penning a series of traditional print media op-ed columns. Once this is complete, then all the other parts to the marketing plan fall into place.

MARKETING

In order to carry out my market research, I first need to sort my short compelling sentence. I felt that our original top line would be appropriate:

Tim has always dreamed of becoming a vet, but after failing his degree, he resorts to illicit means to keep his dream alive. 

This line introduces the idea surrounding the show - someone trying to be a vet, and we can guess that it's going to be disastrous - he resorts to illicit means to keep his dream a live. As this part poses as a cliffhanger at the end, it can engage the audience by them wondering what he'll really do to keep his dream alive.

According to my research, from this sentence I should be able to tell who my target audience are. We have aimed our show towards an audience of 16-30 year olds because of the type of sitcom we are creating. Our top line, which I made as our short compelling sentence aims for this same age range because it states that he failed his degree. Young adults are likely to go to University over any other age range and stating that he failed his degree can engage these young people, as they know what it feels like to be at University and coming to terms with having to get a 'real job' after their education has finished.

As I have determined that our target age group is definitely 16-30 year olds, it's now time to work out the best platform for VET-MAN. To do this, I started by looking at social media. I researched into demographics for the three most popular sites in my opinion - Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. By doing this I was able to see what age groups used the apps more often. 

Facebook
From Facebook's own statistics, I found that in 2018 the highest number of users are 25 to 34 year olds, which were split equally between men and women with 5.6 million of each gender associated with the social media site. The age range before this, 18 to 24 year olds, weren't far behind at 3.8 million. The older the people in an age group, the lower the user numbers became. To look at it in another way, 88% of Facebook users are aged between 18-29 years old. Already, this can show that advertising on Facebook is a good step forward for our film because the age range from the biggest amount of users near enough matches our target age range. 

When people think of Facebook, they think of accessing it on their computer or laptop. Facebook is used by 95.1% of people on their mobile devices, compared with only a 31.8% who use a laptop or computer. This is because people are able to use their phones wherever they are, and at any point in the day. 

Now I have the biggest age range of users that are on Facebook, the next thing to look at was when the social media site was most popular during the day. This will help me decide when to upload my adverts and when to post on our VET-MAN page. I found that the highest amount of people of Facebook occurs mid-week between 1 - 3pm. In addition to this, I also found that a Facebook post at 7pm will result in more clicks on average than posing at 8pm. This means that I am more likely to reach more of my target audience at 1 - 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but I will engage with my target audience more at 7 o'clock in the evening. Another stat I found was that engagement is 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays. I will be able to use this information to my advantage and plan when to update our page and post my adverts. 

As well as these, I found a couple of demographics particularly focusing on advertising on Facebook. These included the following:
- Facebook has over 5 million advertisers as of 2017
- 93% of marketers use Facebook advertising regularly
- Images account for 75-90% of Facebook advertising effectivity and performance.
- 20% of Facebook's mobile ad revenue comes from Instagram 

My thoughts:
After reading these I can see that Facebook is a good place to start advertising VET-MAN. It caters for our target audience age range and is easily accessible on any common device, particularly mobile phones which everyone has. In terms of what I will advertise, after reading the statistic of 'Images account for 75-90% of Facebook advertising effectivity and performance', I will opt for sharing photos rather than writing posts in order to engage more people. I now know when to post on the social media site - 1 to 3pm if I just want a view on the post but I need to post at 7pm if I want to engage with the target audience, and to get them to click on the page to investigate more into VET-MAN. 


Instagram
As the phrase states, a picture is worth a thousand words. Instagram is purely about sharing photos with your followers rather then uploading posts. Instagram is more popular now than it has ever been. This can be shown by their most recent statistic of having 1 billion active users, when only 2 years ago they had just under 500 million users active on the social media site. Ads on this platform are non-intrusive and less likely to annoy your target audience. The engagement rate on Instagram is higher than the engagement rate on any other social media site. 

Although it's not as many as Facebook, the biggest age group that have an account on Instagram are 18-29 year olds at 59%. This is still the biggest amount in each age group, and therefore, this still matches our target age range for VET-MAN. 

Similar to Facebook, most people use their smartphones to read their news, socialise or post their own stories and update their timelines. Most phones nowadays feature high-end camera that can shoot photographs to be immediately posted on Instagram. Anyone can be an amateur photographer, and Instagram is the best channel for this type of media. This is why most mobile users have Instagram accounts.

While conducting my research, I found that 75% of Instagram users take action after looking at an advertising post. This can include visiting the advertisers website. Instagram has new features that let marketers better engage with their audiences, and the platform is becoming increasingly loved by users and it's bringing new users on board all the time. These reasons alone make Instagram the platform for testing innovating marketing ideas. In addition to this, there are currently over 5 million business profiles on Instagram. 

Additional Instagram advertising statistics include:
- 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram per day
- Currently, Instagram has 1 million monthly active advertisers - up from just 200,000 in March 2016
- eMarketer projects that Instagram's global mobile ad revenues will account for over 10% of Facebook's global ad revenues. 

My thoughts:
These reasons above show that Instagram is a highly engaging social media platform that can help advertise our film. Like Facebook, it also mainly interests people of the 18-29 age group, and as this is also our age range for VET-MAN, will should be able to gain interest into the project from the right people.


Twitter
As I believe that photos are the best way to engage with your target audience, it will be interesting to see what Twitters statistics are with photos, to see how they differ from Facebook and Instagram, as Twitter is primarily a site to express your feelings on rather than post photos. 

Although it's not as big as Facebook and Instagram's age demographic, Twitter's biggest age range is 18-29 years old, with 36%. Shortly behind is 30-49 age group at 23%. This still proves that our target audience matches with Twitter's biggest age group. The most recent statistic from October 2018 states that the total amount of monthly users on the social media site are 326 million people, with 500 million tweets sent per day. Similar to both Facebook and Instagram, the percentage of users on mobile phones is very high at 80%. In addition to this, the sites mobile advertising revenue was 88% of the total advertising revenue. Most of the money that Twitter makes comes from the mobile users, this shows how high the amount of people on their phones really is. 

Compared to Facebook the reach of Twitter Ads is weaker, but if you know your target audience and have a strong message then 310 million active users on Twitter is still a large audience to explore. As our target audience is the biggest age range on Twitter then we will have a good chance of advertising to a lot of people. It is also clear that there is value to be found in Twitter advertising, particularly for reaching mobile users. 

My thoughts:
Our group have the ability to create a Facebook page and an Instagram page because we have a lot of evidence of working hard to create the film. Test shoot photos and photos of the owls we'll be using, photos of Alex writing the script and photos of Katie on the camera. We can promote these through a behind the scenes account to get people interested in VET-MAN. However, Twitter is based on thoughts and feelings and the audience don't engage as well with photos on the social media site because they have Instagram for that. Nevertheless, Twitters statistics are still high for our target audience age range, and we would interest a different group of people on this site. As a result of this, I have decided to advertise a different viewpoint on Twitter. Instead of a page dedicated to the making of the film, I will create a Twitter account for Tim Stewart himself, where our followers can keep up to date with his life, rather than our life in making the film.


Print ads
I thought I would research a different route other than social media to see if it was worth advertising on another platform. During my research, I found that a study from 2008 by the Journal of Research in Reading, discovered that reading online may not be as effective as reading prints. They came to this conclusion because when reading online, we have too many distractions. Usually you feel yourself drifting from reading articles to looking at videos, pop-up ads and clicking on other links. Print ads don't come with these distractions. Print can allow readers to properly absorb more of the information they see. This benefits advertisers that want customers actually paying attention to their ads.  

Different print ads target a different group of people. For example, the magazine Cosmopolitan is targeted towards women between the ages of 18-35 so the advertisers look to sell feminine products in here, rather than online as this wouldn't be absorbed any better.

The older generation are more likely to be engaged by leaflets and posters because there are less of them on social media. This can be proved by my research into Facebook that the older the people in an age group, the lower the user numbers became. Although I only described this in the Facebook section, it was the same for both Instagram and Twitter. 

We want to target 16-30 year olds with our film, but this group of people are unlikely to pick up a magazine, newspaper or leaflet. As a result of this, I need to think about the placement of the advert. They wouldn't be interested by someone giving out leaflets in the street or picking up a newspaper. However, a lot of young people can't drive, therefore they rely on public transport to get around. To back this up, I found a survey on statistia.com (pictured below) which shows that the biggest percentage of 'always' get public transport came from 18-29 year olds at 19%. At the other end, this age range was so the smallest percentage to 'never' use public transport at 1%. This can show that young people are more likely to use public transport rather than not use it. 

Survey from statistia.com

My thoughts:

I feel that creating a print ad is worth it for our target audience as long as the placement is relevant. This is why advertising on public transport is a good idea because as I found the majority of people who get public transport are the same age group as our target audience. As I am advertising on social media by creating new accounts and pages, it wouldn't be worth making posters to put on here because I'll be advertising two different ways but to the same audience. Because of this reason, my poster design had to go elsewhere and hypothetically putting them on tubes and buses seemed like the most logical idea. 

ADVERTISING

Now I have established who our target audience are and different ways in which I can show off our film to the public. I can now start creating the adverts. From my market research, I have decided that I will be advertising on Facebook, Instagram and by using print ads on public transport. I wasn't going to advertise on Twitter because I wanted our promotions to be mainly visual based. However, I have decided to go down the different route of advertising the show through Tim's perspective rather than a behind the scenes approach. I found that Twitter was the best way to do this because I can express Tim's thoughts and feelings and get our target audience interested into the character. I can also give our target audience a view into Tim's life, maybe things they wouldn't have got from the film itself. 

Facebook

I started the advertising on Facebook by creating a page called VET-MAN. 

Our Facebook page

Once this was up and running, I advertised it on my own Facebook account. I had a couple of people share it who aren't involved in our course, so this means that it then went out to even more viewers who I am not connected with. The people who shared it are around my age, therefore they will have people on their Facebook that are also in this age range, who are our target audience. 

For both Facebook and Instagram you can refine accounts to target particular audiences. Demographic based targeting, interest based targeting and behaviour based targeting. Demographic allows you to refine the target audience to a specific age range and gender. Interest allows you target people with specific interests. This is a good way to target people on Facebook because the interest can be determined by the pages they've liked and apps they've used. Finally, behaviour allows you to target people by their purchase history, events they've liked and devices they use.  

I was able to refine our Facebook audience age and location first, and then I could define the reach by demographic, interest and behaviour, shown in the first photo below. Out of the options I chose comedy film and tv comedies. Due to my previous research and how popular Facebook is for people on mobile devises so I also narrowed it down in terms of this. 

Refining the target reach for our Facebook page

I started by uploading a couple of posts so the people who look at it have a little insight into what we are doing. As you can see from the third photo above, within 12 hours the first post had reached 5 people and the second had reached 6 people. These 11 people have most likely liked comedy films and TV comedies in the past on their accounts. They are also probably between the age range of 16-35, from England and look at Facebook on their phones the most of the time. This is because these are the refinements I made previously. 

Instagram

Instagram was the second account I made. Again, I took a behind the scenes approach to this page. This was because we have a lot of photos of evidence of test shoots and us doing all the elements in order to make the film, I wanted a page to display just these photos. Facebook allows me to write posts as well as share photos but Instagram connects with people that are purely visual based.

Our Instagram page

This is a good way to group together all our photos during the pre-production stage of our film. I tried to use photos that would interest our audience, such as the one with the owl. This will then give off the idea that our vet is using real animals and should increase the believability of it. I urged as many people as I could to follow the vetman_film account and like the posts because other people that they know will be able to see the likes and comments through the activity page on Instagram. 

Twitter 

As a result of Twitter being suitable for our target audience. I decided advertising on there would be a good idea. However, instead of taking the behind the scenes approach, I would make the Twitter account for Tim. This can advertise a different view of the project. I could go in depth on Tim’s life after University and write it similarly to young people nowadays on Twitter. 

Tim's Twitter page

I was able to personalise the Twitter for Tim, for example on the bottom right hand corner of the photo above, I made a ‘bio’ for him, to explain to his followers who he was. I said “Just graduated from the Royal Veterinary College. Currently working as a mobile vet. Contact me for all your vet needs.” I made the tweets sound as if they were coming from another person, and to make them up I thought about what Tim might say. As a mobile vet he would talk about the Vet Van so I had to create something about that. As this is set before anything goes wrong in the film, I acted very positive of the whole idea, later on I could start making our followers think that Tim isn’t having an easy time.

In addition to actually creating the adverts, I looked into different tips in order to help me excel within my advertising:

Spell check: Spelling is very important, as nothing puts the audience off more than a dead link or a typo. If something is spelt wrong then the audience will believe our film is a student project, which we don't want them to think. We will aim for our work to be as polished as possible so it doesn't look like a student project. I will proof read everything I advertise and everything I write in the package, in order to keep my work professional.

Short titles and hashtags: Titles of articles should be short and snappy to get peoples attention. Hashtags are also good to help show new people your information. For example, if you hashtag student film (#studentfilm) then the information you've posted with this hashtag will also be shown on another page with other posts with the same hashtag. Therefore, someone might be looking through #studentfilm and then yours may come up for them to see. This increases the amount of people seeing it as it'll be shown to more people than who you're connected with on the social media site. The hashtag helps increase the effectiveness of the post. I will hashtag different things on the vetman_films Instagram page, with the hopes of people seeing it via the different hashtags.

The first photo below shows the #studentfilm example, but the second photo below is an example of the #vetman hashtag I have also been using. As it is shown in that photo, along with my posts (outlined in red), there are others which also have the #vetman. These are posts of animals and Noel Fitzpatrick, the Supervet, this was inevitable because the posts and the hashtag are related to the word 'vet'. They all come together on the same page because they all have the same hashtag.  

Example of our posts appearing with other posts with the same hashtag (our posts are outlined in red)

Getting your team engaged: Get your team involved with the campaigns through their own social media. Two pairs of eyes are better than one. This is something we have already done in our group. I created the GoFundMe page and once I had shared it Katie and Alex had also shared it to advertise it to a larger group of people. As we are all from different areas of Kent, by sharing it on each of our own social media sites, we are sending it out a different set of people. This is the same for the Facebook page and Instagram account, anything I post Alex and Katie can 'like' or 'comment' on it, and then the people they have on their sites, who I don't know, will see the advertisement that I made.

Print ads

The thing that made me think of public transport to start with was that buses and tubes are always covered in posters and adverts. As I have now justified the biggest age group of people who are more likely to use public transport are the same age group that we want to target, putting posters and adverts on buses and tubes may be a good idea, in order to attract the attention from the correct group of people. However, to actually put adverts on buses and tubes will be too expensive and our low-budget wouldn't allow it. Instead of doing this, I have created an example poster which hypothetically would be put up inside tubes and buses:

I created the first poster and I was happy with what was written on it. However, it didn't really stand out. I had someone else's opinion on it as well and they also said it didn't stand out. As a result of this, I decided to reverse the colours, so there is a black background with white writing. The white writing will stand out really well against the black and may stand out better than the black writing on white. I kept with our colour scheme - white, black and red. This was so our branding matches throughout the project.

The black poster stands out a lot more than the white one did. To keep the colours I made VET-MAN red rather than white and made the star rating red as well. The red is essential within our branding as it can stand for the blood in our dark comedy. In amongst the standard white posters inside tubes and buses, I believe that this will stand out over the others and it should be noticed by a large amount of the public and our age group.

I could put leaflets in local places where young people would go, such as the UCA campus and my place of work but I have used these for my fundraising attempts. I will keep these separate to prevent repeating myself. 

References:

- https://ourpastimes.com/the-best-ways-to-advertise-a-tv-show-12190383.html

- Grove, E. (2013). 16 Big Marketing Ideas For Filmmakers On A Small Budget. Available: https://www.raindance.org/16-big-marketing-ideas-for-filmmakers-on-a-small-budget/. Last accessed 13th Nov 2018.

- Lake, L. (2018). The Differences Between Marketing and Advertising.Available: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/marketing-vs-advertising-what-s-the-difference-2294825. Last accessed 10th Nov 2018.

- https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/

- https://www.statista.com/statistics/377808/distribution-of-facebook-users-by-device/

- https://karolakarlson.com/instagram-ad-targeting/

- https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/#instagram

- https://www.onlydigital.com/blog/twitter-advertising-is-it-worth-it/

- https://www.omnicoreagency.com/twitter-statistics/

PRE-PRODUCTION: Feedback to Script Draft 2

After receiving mine and Simon's feedback, Alex created script draft 2. This will be the script that will be used for the auditions. We are aware that the script will change again, but this version contains all the basic points that we want to have in the story. We will tell the candidates that the script will change so they are also aware.

Below is script draft 2:




My feedback:

Page 1 - Continuity issue: Hoodie over blue scrubs but he has a red stain on his shirt?

Page 2 - In terms of risk assessment, Tess needs to wear gloves while cleaning away the glass

It’s quicker - by page 9 we’ve seen him searching for the tools and meet Tess, then we meet Luke and Pete, and run over the dog, try to save the dog, and we meet Sheila

It's punchier at the funny parts

I think the script has progressed well since the first draft. The chat between Pete, Tim and Luke is smaller and doesn't feel too long. The funny parts are punchier as well, This is proved by the reduced amount of pages in the second draft. The first draft had 24 pages and the second now has 18 pages. 

PRE-PRODUCTION: Pre-production Schedule 3

I have been keeping up-to-date with the pre-production schedule, and making sure we are keeping on track. I have had to make a few changes to the second schedule, creating the third schedule. 

Scripts
Alex was on track for the first script draft, however, we had a lot of feedback to the first draft and Alex has had to make a lot of changes so this has taken longer than expected. As a result of this, I've pushed back script draft 2/3 to a week later, giving Alex more time to improve the script, however, at the time this made us lose one script draft. We made up for this as we have decided to not send off for a book a few weeks in advance, instead we are going to find a local shop to bind our book. We wanted longer to create the book, as we all want to work on it up until the deadline. By taking the deadline out to send off for the book we have gained 2 extra weeks in order to get another couple script drafts completed. 

Casting
We have narrowed down our cast and I am currently arranging the auditions with them. I have sent out times and dates for the auditions but a few of the applicants can't do these times and dates, which I was expecting. I will liaise with Alex to see when we should reschedule the auditions so we can both attend them. 

We have decided to do some call backs so the chosen cast can meet each other and we can have a run through of the script. This will be done the week after we've chosen the cast as this will only be a couple of weeks before the Pre-Production deadline. 

Locations
I contacted a local pub, The Bell Inn in Bearsted and they have agreed to let us film in their pub. The landlord I spoke to is very flexible and just said to let him know what sort of look we wanted and he'll sort it for us. I spoke to him over the phone but I am planning to go in and have a look around to create a recce, this will help me write the risk assessment. I have also o,

DoP
Katie's storyboarding and shot lists have been pushed back a couple of weeks, because by then Alex should have completed script draft 4 and be onto number 5. Katie needs a good basic story to base her storyboarding on, and as Alex has changed the script slightly throughout the drafts, by the time script draft 4 is done the story shouldn't change from then.

We are scheduled to carry out test shoot 2 on Thursday 8th and we have contacted the Owl Academy to arrange this. We are still in contact with them through Alex's sister which is good, and they are still happy for us to use their site and the animals for our film. 

I have also scheduled test shoot 3 which Katie has asked to carry out, in order to test out different lighting set-ups. 

Budgeting
I am currently working on the estimate of the budget and this should be completed by next week. The GoFundMe has been online for a couple of weeks and I'll collect up the donations the week before the Pre-Production deadline so I can add this to the budget total. 


Pre-Production schedule 3:

PRE-PRODUCTION: Risk Assessment & Test Shoot 2

As scheduled, we have test shoot 2 coming up on Thursday 8th, therefore, I needed to complete the risk assessment. During this test shoot we will be practising punching the owl, this happens towards the end of VET-MAN. As this is a complicated thing to do, we need to practise it in case it doesn't work and Alex has to change the story. We will also be shooting the animals again and possibly entering their enclosures with the equipment. I'm unsure on whether we'll get this far but I stated it in the assessment to cover ourselves if we did enter the enclosures. 

Risk Assessment 2:

Test shoot 2

Test shoot 2 was primarily about working out the practicality of the owl punch. Previously, to the test shoot I ordered a fake owl kit and Alex combined the wool together creating a small, but weirdly accurate fake barn owl. The fake owl was smaller than the barn owl we used to fly, Dusk, but he was the closest, in terms of colour, to our tester. The punch will happen so quickly that hopefully we won't notice the size of the owl change, but we would notice a colour change if the fake and real owl weren't similar in colour. 

Fake owl tester

We started by flying Dusk to get the shots with the real owl, which will then be cut into the punch with the fake owl in post-production. Alex directed the shoot while being the one the owl flew to. He decided we needed shots from the front, side and back to cover all the angles. Once Katie had all the footage with the real owl, I stepped in with the fake owl to throw to Alex in order for him to punch it out the way. The real owl was behind the camera at this point, in order to keep him safe and away from the punch. 

Photo from test shoot 2

The fake owl was hard to throw as it was very light. It was also slightly top-heavy with the head being the heaviest part. As a result of this, when I threw it towards Alex it always flipped and he ended up punching the back of the owl, whereas a real owl would land with its feet down on the gauntlet and his head upright. At this point we were thinking that using this fake owl wasn't going to work. We tried using the fake owl from the same angles as the real owl, but the fake owl didn't become any easier to use, and I wasn't able to throw it straight because of the weight of the head. 

Photo from test shoot 2

After the test shoot we went back to the Studios and we edited the footage to see what it looked like once it was together. Alex had the idea of masking the owl to make the two different takes fit together better, but in the end it surprisingly worked well without any masking. It happens so quick that you can't see that the fake owl isn't traveling in the same position that the real owl was, and it turning round just looks like the wings are flapping before it gets punched. We are surprisingly happy with the edit, and will most likely use the fake owl for the real shoot. 

The only problem is that in the script, Alex has written that we see the owl on the floor and it twitches. I didn't think of this before when I read the script, but I doubt we will be able to film the fake owl on the floor as it'll look different to the real owl, and the audience may be able to see that it's fake. As the owl punch went better than we expected and we'll be keeping it in the story, Alex may have to change the script so we don't look at the owl once it's hit the ground. 

Like I predicted we didn't get time to go inside the enclosures but we had one of the owls out of the enclosure while we filmed it so the risk assessment still applies.

Below is the edit of the owl punch:

There is a slight continuity issue, but apart from this the test shoot went better than what we thought. I believe that without knowing we had a fake owl, it does genuinely look as if we have just punched an owl. I have asked a couple of people to watch it to see what they think and without knowing what we've done they were all shocked and confused by the video. This proves that the owl punch does look real from their reactions. I will ensure that we state that no animals were harmed in the making of this film.