Institutional Logo Research

 Institutional logo's are always shown at the start of films and have been around for a very long time. They are important as it puts their company name to the film and if the logo is memorable than it will be easily remembered along with the film. At first institutional logos were very simple and did not have any form of animation or sound. As technology and films have evolved so have the logos. By 1976 all major production companies had introduced sound and animation to their logos, except for Universal Studios. in 1990 Universal finally animated their logo. By 2007 all institution logos were being created through a computer.

For an Independent Institute, the logo of the company will not be as lavish and elaborate as a mainstream company because funding of that kind of work would not be an option. Therefore, instead of making something that's animated, Independent logo's are often still and relatively simple. By not using animation costs are lower. They get to the point and inform the audience of the name and relate to the organisation and usually have one main base colour that relates again to the company. Three examples of Independent Logo's are below.

Mainstream companies however, can afford to create much more complex logos that are animated and attract attention before the film starts. Like an Independent logo, the image relates to the name, but in this case the image moves. Colours are also not an issue as well as complex shadowing and shading. As you can see below, these logo's are much more extravagant than the Independent logos, which shows the wealth of the company.  

From doing this research  we have found out that as we are an Independent institution we will need to keep our logo fairly simple, with little or no animation and no sound. It also shows that it would be best if we stuck to just two different contrasting colours. 

By Abby P and Hayley

The Characters in Our Film Opening

Katie Lawson-Main Character
Katie is a 13 year old, brunette female, she is very independent, quiet and very reserved within herself due to her bad relationship with her parents. This also means she takes a while to trust other people and she really has to get to know someone before she opens up, thus making her relationship with Amy very special.

The use of this character will enable us to attract a female audience over the age of 25. This is because she is a child, as older females are likely to feel more sorry for her as females over the age of 25 are the most likely to have children, therefore being able to sympathise with her. As our film opening will be a Tragedy Drama, Katie's illness and death will help us stick to the guidelines of this, as a Tragedy Drama will generally focus on the downfall of one character, that will eventually result in death.

Amy West-Katie's Best Friend
Amy is has blonde hair and is also 13 years old. Her family have moved from London to Walton. She has quite a strong character but doesn't make friends easily. She has a brother called Tom and has a good relationship with her parents.


We have chosen to give Katie a best friend so she has someone to relate to and just has someone she can talk freely to. It also adds a more dramatic and tragic elements to the film as Katie will be leaving behind a good friend when she passes.Making the audience feel a large amount of sympathy to her as well, as many of the audience would have a best friend.

Tom West-Amy's Brother

Tom is 18 years old, has dark blonde hair and is very caring. He is like a brother to Katie as he knows about her bad relationship with her parents. He is very protective of Amy and Katie.

Using a character such as Tom West will help attract a younger audience. Males who have a sister may be able to relate to this character, therefore attracting a wider audience to come and see the film.

Paul Lawson- Katie's Father

Paul Lawson is 43 years old and has dark hair. He has a high pressured job that takes up a lot of his time meaning he is not really there for his family. He is in a lot of debt, adding to the family problems. He has a kind heart and is much kinder to Katie than her mother.

Lauren Lawson-Katie's Mother
Lauren Lawson is 37 years old and also has dark hair. She has an alcohol problem, this not helping with Paul Lawson's debts and her relationship with Katie and her ability to care for her. Both Paul Lawson and Lauren Lawson know of Katie's illness but they do not know that it is fatal.

Making both Paul and Lauren Lawson have significant problems within their lives will mean the sympathy towards the main character is even greater. Using two adults in the our film will help attract an older audience but not many people will be able to relate to them due to their alcohol and money problems.

Karen West - Amy's Mother
Karen West is 40 years old with light brown hair. She is a kind-hearted woman who loves her children very much and her life revolves around her family. She does not work and so is there for the children when they have problems.

Matthew West - Amy's Father
Matthew West is 44 years old with grey hair. He has moved towns for his job and although he can be grumpy he has good morals and will always put his family first. He can be hot-headed and will clash with Paul's stressed out personality.

The characters of Amy and Katie will be the only two characters present in the opening. This is so the audience understand that they are the main characters and that the story will focus around their lives.

Posted by Abby P

Twenty Five Word Film Brief

The misdiagnosis of a girl with a bad relationship with her parents. Finds a best mate, finds out she's dying. Dies holding best friends hand.

Posted by Hayley

Audience consideration when making our film opening.

When making our film opening, considering what the audience want is imperative. This is because, if we do not meet the audience needs/expectations, they would not want to watch our opening.

Our film opening will be the beginning of an independent drama. This means that we need to meet certain expectations of the audience, for example, there shouldn't be too many complex scenes (one's that you would expect to find in a mainstream film), there shouldn't be any well known actors as they would cost too much. It should also be kept basic, this is a requirement for an independent film as an independent film company, money is tight and there isn't the funding to create something which is a jam-packed, thrilling film opening. These are just some of the basic expectations of any independent film opening, not just a drama. Furthermore, the overall feel of the film opening shouldn't feel like that of a mainstream film, which is an obvious statement, but an easy mistake to make. 

Our film opening has been aimed at people 25 years or above. This is because there is a 12 year old girl who has been misdiagnosed with an illness, she also has a bad relationship with her parents. Therefore, we thought as a group that our target audience should be aimed at people who are planning to have families etc. It could also appeal to teenagers who have bad relationships with their parents alike. Having a wider target audience increases the chance of more people liking our film opening, rather than a small, specific target audience. But it could be argued that having a film opening that appeals to more people, rather than a niche audience, is too mainstream for an independent film.

If audience consideration wasn't the pinnacle of our project, it could cause problems further down the line when it comes to releasing our film opening. This is because as previously stated, without our audience feeling like their needs/desires have been met with our film opening, it could be detrimental to the film opening as a whole. This is why so much time, effort and thought has gone in to considering our audience. 

Audience consideration in our group is still an ongoing thought. As we continue to think about our audience, it enables us to change things slightly here and there to improve the audience feedback once they have watched our film opening. 

Colm Gerlach. 

How will we attract the audience?

Having a target audience is important in itself, but actually attracting that target audience is another thing. It's all good saying that our target audience is women 25 years and above who are planning a family/have a family, as they'd be able to sympathise with our story line, but no film was made successful by just their target audience, and doing nothing to get them to come and see the film. We, as a production company, need to entice our audience to actually come and see the film.

Doing independent research into other film companies, of the same institution and make generally the same types of films as us is most important. This is because we need to know what makes the audiences want to come and see the film, what they like, what they don't like etc. This isn't just to do with marketing and advertisement, but what they actually like their film's to include, what sort of setting, story line, what sort of characters, who plays the characters etc.

For example, I done some independent research on the film 'Third Star' as it follows a similar theme to our film. The main character has an illness, and towards the end of the film he will die. This relates to our film as our main character is misdiagnosed with an illness which will result in her passing, i.e similar to Third Star.

Colm Gerlach.

Certification of Our Film

The British Board of Film Classification(BBFC) are in charge of rating any films that are shown in cinemas and are released on DVD. They will provide a rating of either U, PG, 12/12A, 15 or 18, this depending on the discrimination, drugs, horror, imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sexual content, themes and violence within the film. We need to give our film opening a certification as it is a legal obligation. It is also important as it provides protection for some audiences from items and scenes that may cause harm to the viewer.



We have decided to rate our film as a 15, as though out the rest of the film it is likely to contain some upsetting scenes, the main one being the deterioration of the main character due to her ill health and her eventual death at the end of the film. There will also be some violence involved due to the main characters parents, with whom she has a difficult relationship. As the film is a 15 and not a higher rating there will only be a small amount of references to child abuse and will not dwell on the detail of it. We want to keep this at a minimum as this is upsetting for many different types of audience. The film will also contain some strong language but it will not be repeated a huge amount.

We have chosen the 15 rating as we feel the content and theme of this film would be too upsetting to anyone younger and they would not fully understand some of the details of the film.




Posted by Abby P

Title Timelines Evaluation

After studying time lines from various films in the drama genre, we have discovered that the titles almost always come in a certain order, with the companies producing the film coming at the beginning of the film, followed by the main actors, then the title, smaller actors, significant people who contribute to the film and finally the director. The companies, big actors, title and director have longer screen time in comparison to the smaller actors and other people who worked on the film such as costume designers, etc etc. From this, we have concluded to follow the same guideline with our own film opening in order to remain professional and make sure our opening looks good and works as well as it possibly can.

An example of what we found is in Forrest Gump (1994) with the institute first, then actor, then title. This is what we will echo in our opening because it is effective and what is usually used within the film industry.

Posted by Hayley