Representation Research

Representation within Dramas and The Filming Industry...

One strength the drama genre has is that it is one of the best genre in terms of representation. Dramas tend to be about hard hitting or "dramatic topics." Due to this, many stories of unrepresented people, groups, or ideas have been able to come to light. Everything from disability, older age, minority groups, and poverty can be shown through dramas. The wide variety of representation that can be shown is what attracted me to this genre in the first place. I wanted a film that could represent a taboo idea/ group in a different light.

Moonlight (2016)
Represents an individual dealing with his sexuality
 within the black community.

Popular Themes Represented in Dramas

• Mental Illness 
• Social Issues
• Teen issues
• Black Lives Matter
• Different Industries
• Different Jobs
• Sexuality
• Poverty

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
Represents a mentally impaired child.

Popular Groups Represented in Dramas

• Different Ethnicities/ Races
• Communities
• Countries
• Workers
• Families
• Disabled people
• Different Age Groups
• LGBTQ+ community

What is Lacking?

Despite the large variety of themes/ groups that are represented in Dramas, we cannot ignore that the representation in the film industry is weak. It is obvious that most featured actors/ film workers are the white males. 

Click to enlarge. From Statistica.com.

In recent years we have been seeing more women actresses. In this chart from Statistica.com, the amount of lead roles is shown from 2011-2019 by gender. There is a rise in female leads, however, males still continue to dominate. According to Jamie Doward from The Guardian, male stars earn more than $1 Million more per film than women. Even if a women manages to get a lead role there is great likelihood that she is getting paid less than her male costars. 

Additionally, we see that white people are the most features on the big screen. Unlike gender representation, this ethnicity/ race gap is not to lessening. We often see Hispanics as the least represented group in Film, despite making up a large part of the American population.

Click to enlarge. From thoughtco.com.

Even the lack of diversity is evident behind the scenes with the majority of directors and writers being males. Again the number of women in this field is beginning to rise, however, they face yet another challenge with being respected in the industry. Women are constantly being walked over and losing awards to their male counterparts. Whether infant or behind the screen, women are poorly represented.

Lastly, drama is a genre with more diversity/ representation than the average film. However, it is still clear that some groups continue to be underrepresented in film. Along with Hispanics, groups such as the disabled, mentally ill, LGBTQ+, and so on continue to be poorly represented. Not enough films are being made about these groups/ ideas. The drama genre does contribute to overcome this lack of representation, however, this cannot be said for the film industry as a whole.

Sources:

Cole, Nicki Lisa. “Just How Bad Is Hollywood's Diversity Problem?” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 28 Sept. 2019, www.thoughtco.com/diversity-in-hollywood-3026690.

The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/15/hollywoods-gender-pay-gap-revealed-male-stars-earn-1m-more-per-film-than-women.

MasterClass. “10 Classic Movie Themes With Examples - 2020.” MasterClass, MasterClass, 22 Oct. 2019, www.masterclass.com/articles/10-classic-movie-themes-with-examples#10-classic-movie-themes-and-why-they-matter.

Watson, Amy. “Gender Distribution of Lead Actors in Movies in the U.S. 2019.” Statista, 17 Feb. 2020, www.statista.com/statistics/692465/distribution-lead-actors-gender/.

Target Audience Research

The Typical Target Audience

Before deciding exactly who we want to target for this movie, Leandro and I thought it would be beneficial to research who typical dramas are targeted to. Although drama subgenera can impact the target audience, this is what I found to be most typical.

Male or Female?

Dramas are usually targeted to women. It seems that within the filming industry, women enjoy to consume more drama and romantic movies while men lean towards action. That being said, the ratio of men to women audience can alter for every movie. Some dramas such as the Titanic (1997) has a more female audience when a drama like Ford V. Ferrari (2019) has a large male audience. Since drama is so broad, the theme/ topic of the movie is really what impacts the audience's "gender."

Click picture to enlarge. Survey from Statista.com. Conducted in
December 2018 with more than 2,000 participants all 18+.

As shown by the online survey from Statistica.com, more women state Dramas as their favorite movie genre than men. It seems as if men prefer Action, Adventure, and Comedy before Drama. While for women, Drama is tied for first as their preferred movie genre.

Old or Young?

Unlike gender, Dramas are very diverse when it comes to age. Usually the target audience will vary depending on what the film is rated or the film's theme. However, we found that the age range for dramas are typically 17-50. This makes sense considering that many dramas cover sensitive or mature topics. A drama like the Joker (2019) may be geared more for the younger side while Roma (2018) leans to the older side of the target audience.

Click picture to enlarge. Graph from Stephenfollows.com.

Overall we can define the target audience as adults (young to older adults). Just as the chart shows, adults seem to consume and be targeted by dramas. However, there it is evident that dramas are enjoyed more by older adults.

Race/ Ethnicity?

Dramas are targeted and consumed by a wide variety of races/ ethnicities. Typically the target audience's race/ ethnicity is impacted by the films representation/ theme. A film such as The Hate U Give (2018) focuses around the theme of police brutality and black lives matter. Therefore causing the target audience to mainly consist of African Americans. While the film Little Women (2019) is about a white women and therefore has a more "white" audience.

Sources:

“How Do Movie Genre Tastes Change with Age?” Stephen Follows, 16 July 2018, stephenfollows.com/changes-in-movie-genre-tastes-with-age/.

Levin, Gary. “Who's Watching What: TV Shows Ranked by Racial and Ethnic Groups.” USA Today,  Gannett Satellite Information Network, 28 June 2017, www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2017/06/27/whos-watching-what-tv-shows-ranked-racial-and-ethnic-groups/103199848/.

Watson, Amy. “Favorite Movie Genres in the U.S. by Gender 2018.” Statista, 12 Dec. 2019,
www.statista.com/statistics/254115/favorite-movie-genres-in-the-us/.

Props

Preparing the Props

Since filming day is just 5 days away, Leandro and I had to finalize our props. More specifically, we had to finish making some of the props. Like mentioned before, we wanted to have the credits appear on objects around the car. Leandro made about half of the objects while I did the others.

Our first step to making the props was to do a sketch so I drew out some ideas of objects we could put the credits on. This allowed us to divide the props easily and have a game plan going into it. Although we didn't completely stick to these sketches, it really helped to envision and create our props.

This is probably my least favorite of the group.
Leandro and I may cut this out of the film
opener, however, we are still deciding.

Again this is one of my favorites. It looks pretty
realistic in person.

Instead of putting the credits on a chip bag,
 we decided to put it on a cracker box. This
was much larger/ easier to read.
Probably my favorite credit prop.

We kept this idea true to the sketch.

Now that we have all of our more specific props made, we can just focus on collecting the rest of the set design. We still need to collect toiletries, blankets, bags, snacks, and so on.

Set Design Research

One Week Until Filming

As we get closer to the filming date we need to finalize our set and gather our props. On top of that we need to gather the props that we wanted to write the credits on. Before finalizing any set designs, we wanted to compile some research. We specifically researched movies that had to showcase poverty/ low class families through set design.

Examples of Low Class through Set Design

Joker (2019)

This film showcases the Joker as someone who is poor and struggling. In order to showcase that his living conditions are not the best, he is shown in an old styled apartment. Many dull colors such as beige, orange, and yellow are used throughout. Additionally 70s florals and worn out furniture give the impression that the family cannot afford new things.

The Hunger Games (2012)

This film portrays a whole district that is poor. One of the tactics used to have this idea come across is by playing with the set design. Again very dull colors are used throughout such as whites, beiges, and browns. This time we see a lack of items to show that they cannot afford many things. The furniture and walls also appear to be dirty which can be associated with poverty.

The Blind Side (2009)

This film is about a homeless teen who gets taken in by a rich family and eventually becomes an NFL player. In the scenes where the audience sees his home town, it is evident that he is/ was in a low income family. His mother's house appears to be filled with trash and is very cluttered. This gives the appearance that she is distressed or has no time to clean which many poor people deal with. Again dull colors and low lighting are used to give the place a gloomy and poor look.

Overall we see that poverty/ low income status can be shown in various ways. To portray that our homeless man is living in his car, we will take some of these well-produced movies into consideration. We want to incorporate dull colors as well as having a cluttered/ dirty space. However, we also need to remember that poor/ homeless people cannot afford much so we don't want to overdo it.

Music

Last Minute Music

Although Leandro and I have not even filmed/ edited our film yet, we were already thinking of what songs we wanted to incorporate. We know we want to use a more upbeat and aggressive song to play on the radio as he is driving in the first couple of seconds. This will serve as a diegetic sound that may or may not become non-diegetic (we are still playing around with this idea). We also want a non- diegetic song to play at the end of the opening and when the title is shown. Leandro and I want this song to be more somber and slow.

While we were brainstorming a little bit about music, I came up with a song that would fit well for the sad music. The song "Natural Release- Brent Faiyaz" would fit perfectly the only issue is that we would have to ask for his permission to use it. This wouldn't have been too much of an issue if we had asked during week one, but of course we waited until week four. Despite this we still wanted to ask. Maybe some miracle would occur and he would answer. We had trouble trying to figure out how to ask for permission, however, we asked Mrs. Stoklosa (our teacher) and she advised us to contact him on email or social media. The song was produced by him, not a label, so we needed to go to him directly.

I emailed him and texted him on Instagram's direct message while Leandro used Twitter to message him. So far we haven't heard any responses, however, we are still hopeful. We are going to wait for a response up until we have to edit. If Brent Faiyaz does not grant his permission by then we will have to find another song that is free of copyright.

Originally Leandro and I wanted to stick with only using copyright free music to make things easier on us, and we still plan to do so for the other song. The only issue with copyright free music is that is can be hard to find. My teammate and I researched some websites that have royalty free music that we plan on looking through once we reach that stage.

Some Websites with Royalty Free Music

• Royalty free music from Bensoundwww.bensound.com › royalty-free-music
• Free Music For Creators | The Right Music - Rights Free‎Ad·www.evokemusic.ai‎
• Royalty Free Music | 100% Copyright Clear | PremiumBeat.com‎Ad·www.premiumbeat.com‎
• Free Music Archivefreemusicarchive.org
• Royalty Free Music - Find Your Perfect Track - PremiumBeatwww.premiumbeat.com › royalty-free-music

Schedule + Labels

Half Way Point

So now that we are half way through our project, we thought it was necessary to make a schedule. With only 4 weeks left and so much to do, we don't want to fall behind. With a busy schedule, spring break, and school going on at the same time, we need to have a set plan. So we currently have finally set a film date/ time (FINALLY!) and estimated schedule for the editing.

The Schedule

03/04 to 03/14: Finalize the props and costume design. Finish making the props and placing everything in the car. Making sure the costume looks accurate and buy/ borrow anything if necessary.

3/15: Day of filming. Start around 1pm until filming is done. Hopefully only one filming day so that the costume and set design looks the same throughout the film opening.

03/16 to 03/29: Start and finish editing. Here we will need to find some music, titles, sounds, and so on. We also need to sort through all the footage and edit.

03/30 to 04/05: Complete the CCR and do the last touches. We hope to be done with editing as well.

Production Label

Although having a production label was not necessary, my teammate and I wanted to create our own to add into the opener. We believe this will make the credits look more authentic while also giving credit to both my teammate and I. We may decide to add more onto the the logo, however, we have already finalized our "production company name." We want to name the "company" BS productions playing on the fact that my last name is Boyarsky  while my teammate's is Schenquerman. Ironically it also sound like a curse word one uses to call something out for being fake.

Our Production Company Logo

Group Meeting

The Group Meeting + Advice

This week my teacher had us get into groups and talk about our projects. This was meant for us to get advice and feedback by our peers. I enjoyed getting to help others with this tedious project, especially the ones who are working alone and have no one to bounce ideas off of. I am happy to say that a couple of my group members were able to overcome big dilemmas in terms of plot and even film titles. Personally, I would say my experience went very well. My group members really listened and gave me some good pointers on how to tackle some of my problems.

Location

One of the biggest issues my teammate and I were facing was where to film the scene. We obviously knew we wanted to film in a car, however, we were still unsure where to park the car. We needed a parking lot that is empty during the day which can be difficult to find in our home town. Additionally, we didn't want to go anywhere too far because that may waste too much time and be a hassle. My group advised me to check out this Church that is always empty during the day. It is located just 5 minutes away from my house and is always empty during the day. Without the help of the group, I would have probably still been stressing about where to film.

Film Location

Title Name

In terms of our film title, we had some ideas but never finalized any names. My teammate and I really liked the name "Dead End," however, we were unsure if it was too cheesy. After asking for my peers opinion, I can confidently say that "Dead End" will be our film title. My peers thought the name captured the theme of the film without being too cliche. This made my teammate and I feel much more assured with the direction of the film opening.

Makeup

Lastly for costume design, or more specifically make up, my peers gave me some tips on what it should look like. They want our actor to truly look homeless so they advised me to possible put some dark eye shadow under his eyes to make him look tired. They also thought it would look realistic for our actor to grow out some stubble or even put make up on him to give the allusion of a beard. The only issue with this is that our actor (who is also my teammate) doesn't want to have that much makeup on him. So we might not play around with make up too much. I don't want to have the actor/ my teammate feel uncomfortable while acting.