4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

At the beginning of the media project we set out to make a poker film aimed at young people in their twenties who had an interest in poker and drama. At the end of the project, with a more elaborate plot, we have found that that target audience of our media project are young Caucasian males between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five with an interest in poker, drama and medical drama. The lower age boundry also indirectly appeals to sixteen year olds and up as films aimed at a certain age range are normally also watched by the age group just below the stated age. Although it is unlikely that there is a gambling medical student who aspires to be a dramatist , any of these genres may appeal to the other as it is a spin on each genre that hasn’t been done widely before.

Another audience would be media students and amateur film makers as the film was produced by these sorts of people. This project would appeal to amateurs and students as those with an interest in film making would probably take interest in the behind the scenes work and thus us, the students who made the film and thus the film.

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

I think The Sundance Film Festival would distribute our product as we are independent film makers and the Festival is in celebration of our kind of people. If we found funding, Columbia Pictures might distribute our product as they distributed the film ‘21’ which had a heavy influence on our piece. Miramax Pictures might distribute our product as they distributed ‘Rounders’ which is of roughly the same genre as it deals with Poker. Finally, Universal Pictures may distribute our product as they distributed ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ which follows the same kind of themes as our product as it is about abstract happenings. As the last three production houses in this list are a part of Sony Entertainment, we should approach this company for our best chance of mass production of our piece.

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

Within the opening of ‘Poker’s Advocate’, various different social groups are represented. Holly, the only female represents both her gender and her upper class society through her gender, wardrobe (being of a classy dress, high heels, a shawl, and pearl jewellery). Through her leaving the game when it became stupid to stay in, it shows that she has the intelligence to save her overwhelming abundance of money. It also shows that she is more mature in gambling. Her leaving also shows that the higher class aren’t particularly the main social group that are to be portrayed in the film.

Gary represented the more wealthy Caucasian male, possibly single with a lot of girls following him around. We based his character around the stereotypical high stakes poker player at a Vegas casino through his cowboy hat and black leather jacket. His language throughout the piece is provoking and against the underdog which should make the audience not like him very much. He should be in his late twenties to mid thirties.

Dave represents the most average of players who don’t have much money and are playing to earn, not for fun. This is shown through his fleece jacket and nonspecific t-shirt. He would be about the same age as Gary. His continuation in playing the game says that he is stupid and doesn’t have much logic. Or possibly he is desperate for the money. Dave also has a brain tumour which represents these people as desperate as well as having action controlling hallucinations in the form of an angel and devil.

The angel and devil themselves represent the good and bad through their hair colour, skin tone, colour scheme and facial expressions. The good being innocent and paler. The bad being evil and dark.

This piece does not represent other ethnicities other than Caucasian except in the case of the devil. This could be seen as a view that Asians are evil (which was not the intention so casting could have been better thought out; maybe played by the same person, or even by the same actor as Dave and using split screens).

We chose to have a range of people from different social backgrounds within the game to show the variety of people playing these games. We also noticed how, in the real poker games in ‘High Stakes Poker’ there was a variety of people within one game. The majority of people playing are males, which was chosen as stereotypically, poker is a man’s sport/hobby. Dave was chosen to be the main character (being a male) as a woman would be less likely to turn to gambling to sort her money problems.

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

The first convention used in real films are the production logos. Originally we wanted these in order to have a sound bridge from something other than blackness. Then, whilst making the logos, we decided to use them to represent the kinds of production companies that might produce our product. ‘B Productions’ is stylish, ‘Bullseye Productions’ could be linked to the poker side of the story and ‘Spark Studios’ could be a studio that made explosive films.

We also placed producer credits at the very beginning of the piece, followed by the actor credits (following the presentation style of ‘Trainspotting’), and then production team credits over the title sequence.

In most films made for the big screen title sequences aren’t used in the way we used them for this is a more TV style of presentation. However, we chose to do this as it mimicked the opening sequences of real life poker shows such as ‘High Stakes Poker’ which I see having a high influence on the style of the piece if it were to go on to a full length film.

The pre-title sequence is a rarity in most films, however was used in films such as ‘Lucky You’. We felt we needed this to set the atmosphere and to use dramatic irony (as used in the film ‘21’).

The abstract sense of the piece is never really used in poker films. Our abstract sense was created through the completely black background and the angel and devil element of the piece. However, conventions surrounding the abnormal were followed such as having a ghost trail around the angel and devil, and allowing the white of the angel’s shirt bleed (which would normally be stopped with different lighting or an off-white shirt instead of the stark white shirt).

Regarding representation of players, a lot of our players followed the slick ideal of poker players that is often used in films surrounding the game. There is often a cocky player (here being Gary) and the main character is often downtrodden and the underdog. These stereotypes are used possibly to gain the viewers sympathy as people tend to support the underdog, and are used widely in films such as ‘21’ and ‘rounders’. However, we did challenge the conventions slightly by adding the character Holly, a rich ‘daddy’s girl’ to the table to add variety, something you don’t normally see.

Editorially, we desaturated the picture which is a commonly used technique to take away the ‘peachy-ness’ of the skin colour. We also used the music to various effects. As in most film media projects, music and background noise levels decrease when important dialogue is being said. We followed these conventions as it was the most logical thing to do.

We also used a convention found in ‘21’ whereby we used a lot of Extreme Tight Close Ups of the players which contained small gestures that flawed the players’ ‘poker face’.

Final Planning Video

The Production Logos

We decided that we needed at least one production logo as we had planned to use a sound bridge from black to the opening shot with ‘Hey Joe’. This also conformed to film techniques as most films have production logos at the beginning. We decided we wanted to create our own. We made three different logos and decided to use them all as we had time (after cutting the unnecessary shots and parts of the story). They were also all of good quality. We added sound effect from iMovie that suited the logos and carried on. I made the ‘B Productions’ logo and Sonia made the ‘Spark Productions’ and ‘Bulls eye Productions’ logos. Sonia used Swish Max3, whilst I used stop motion animation for mine. Not having the software Sonia had, I used PowerPoint Presentation to create a smooth animation. I used ‘Academy Engraved LET’ font and created the shining star with various shapes. I then sent it to Sonia to put it into the software as everything I tried to use couldn’t flash the slides fast enough to make the sequence smooth.