Jonah - Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

• By the general use of the cameras i mean using functions like 'white balance' and using different lens to create a different atmosphere.
• In additional to learning new software i learnt how use the hardware of Apple macs, as i have used PC all my life.

The images to the left and right are from filming on location the bottom left is from location research and the one of the bottom right is from the filming of our preliminary task.

(These are the logos to the software i used most during editing, 'Garageband'  and 'Final cut pro')

Jonah - Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

[Liam Neeson in Taken]

• Without addressing an audience of some sort a film is not going go succeed, so for my thriller i tried to attract my target audience by making it exciting and appealing to that age group. The aim for any successful thriller is come to capture the audience and have them on the edge of their seats and dying to find out what happens next, i tried to achieve this in my thriller.
• As i have found that the majority audience that watches psychological thrillers are males. Making my thriller appealing to men is priority, to some extent i have done this. With a climax/death within the first 2 minutes of the film its likely to grab the attention of the audience regardless if they are male or female because with the use of sound and editing the death is very exciting and 'Thrilling' but maybe more appealing to men as its high action and suspense. I used minimalist Non-Diegetic sound to build up to the climax and create tension and with the use of editing, cutting away from the action, it kept the audience in suspense creating further tension until the climax grabbing the audience and pulling them in within the first two minutes of the film. 
• This will appeal to the younger bracket of males in my target audience most as statistically they watch the most horror and thriller movies and enjoy the fright.
• Because i was limited to a short deadline and limited length video it was critical to engage the audience as quickly as possible. By using stereotypes this helps the audience identify the protagonist and antagonist quickly, so by having the male as the antagonist audiences can quickly identify him as being the 'bad guy' and begin to analysis him as a character.
• To attract the female audience i tried to make the main female character identifiable to the female audience by having her act out a regular routine that they would go through everyday, which adds to realism and make the thriller more 'scary' for that audience because in their minds this event could actually happen as the character may reflect their own life's.

Use of camera

• By having the camera moving as much as possible during the shoots with the antagonist creates a more exciting scene, camera techniques i used are as listed: 
• Pan
• Tilt
• Focus pulling
• dolly pan
• Obviously i didn't use many camera movements but that was all that was required, and having to many gimmicky camera techniques may have detracted from what was actually happening on screen and the audience may lose track of the story.

Mise en scene

• Both main character are dressed very well and look appealing which audiences will be attracted by, as to being dressed poorly which may not have been as attractive.

Sound

• Sound is very important in my thriller as the Non-Diegetic soundtrack build suspense and tension throughout the clip. Without the soundtrack there the audience would have been lost and put off as they would not  understand or expect a climax to happen soon.
• Just before the female character is killed i added a Non-Diegetic sound of violins slowly building until the spade comes down and the violins explode with sound making for an exciting climax after all the tension had built. This attracted audiences as they would expect an exciting story and something that would get them on the edge of their seats.

 

Jonah - Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• I tried to make the thriller opening appeal to the older audience of about 18-35 as it was going to progress into a psychological thriller, and statistics show that older audiences are more likely to watch psychological thrillers such as Silence of the lambs. The chart shows what age groups, and gender, ranked the film but this chart also gives a clue to who watched the film. The age group that watched the film the most is the 18-29 which is in the brackets of my target audience meaning that targeting that age group would be the best to target.
• The chart also shows that male audiences completely dominate in the number of votes which suggests a huge majority that watched this film where male, although this chart of not reliable because it comes from a film database website which may be dominated by males.
• Targeting the male audience between the ages of 18-35 as statistics show that they make up the majority of who watched Silence of the lambs which is the same target audience i want to target.
• Being a small UK film the majority of the audience will be from the UK and not overseas, which is not a bad thing considering British thrillers have not been a huge success overseas.  
• I have got some feedback from Youtube and comments from friends and family. The comments from Youtube are: 

"Nice work guys! Keep making more films and i'll keeping watching them :)" - Aged 20

"A good opening! I love the soundtrack, it really adds to it." - Aged 19

And comments from friend and family

"I love the soundtrack, it really adds to it." - Aged 34

"Its shot really well, good work!" - Aged 28

• From the comments above they are all aged within the brackets i wanted to target, they are positive feedback, so from this i suggest that audiences from the ages 18-35 will be attracted to my thriller. other Thrillers my target audience may be interested might be:

V for Vendetta - A shadowy freedom fighter known only as "V" uses terrorist tactics to fight against his totalitarian society. Upon rescuing a girl from the secret police, he also finds his best chance at having an ally.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/)

Taken - A retired CIA agent travels across Europe and relies on his old skills to save his estranged daughter, who was kidnapped on a trip to Paris to be sold into prostitution.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/)


American Psycho - A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144084/)


The Usual Suspects - A boat has been destroyed, criminals are dead, and the key to this mystery lies with the only survivor and his twisted, convoluted story beginning with five career crooks in a seemingly random police lineup.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/)

Jonah - Evaluation Question 3

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

• If i where to try and distribute my thriller opening i would go to a distributor like Artisen Entertainment purely because of there success with the Blair Witch Project. With their help to create hype online on websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and especially Youtube the movie could become 'Viral' getting millions of people excited for the release of the film in cinema. Such as the huge success of Cronicle when then released a short Youtube video, not explaining much about what the film. 

                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfn3V1Ygz10 

               (Link to a trailer of Cronicle, similar to the original video) 

• At the end of the video they put a link to Facebook which caused more hype and allowed the audience to go check out what this video was all about, which they did because the trailer as so exciting. 

   A simple Distribution plan for this movie will involve:

Creating Hype - 

• Using social networks and online media to create hype in the online community, by releasing a teaser trailer onto Youtube  and creating a Facebook  and Twitter profile for the film and releasing teasers about the film such as pictures of characters.
• Advertising on buses, in cities, as the advertising will be more profitable as more people will see them  and advertising on bus stops with big exciting posters to catch peoples eyes, as the poster for a film is critical as it will be displayed everywhere.
• Word of mouth  by having free screening, advertising it on the back of magazines, can create huge hype as ten people can advertise a movie to thousands by word of mouth.

(http://www.launchingfilms.tv/marketing.php?video=1&autostart=1) 

• Advertising on the TV/Radio/Cinemas/Newspapers, having the 'Star' actors going onto chat shows to plug the new movie. Creating radio adverts with the audio from the trailer as people will recognize it and want to learn more about it. Advertising in the cinema before the release would be extremely expensive and not a viable option for this movie as it would not weigh up to the profit.  

(http://www.launchingfilms.tv/acquisition.php?video=1&autostart=1)  

Release of the Film -

• Time of release for the film is critical, because my thriller is a very small low-budget film its crucial to have as little competition possible in order to reaches its potential in the box-office.
• Releasing the movie on a Friday would properly be the best day to release the film as their will be little competition and releasing on a work day and not a school holiday will appeal to the target audience of 18-35 as they would not be put off by children in the cinema.
• Releasing the film in all cinemas would be to expensive and would not to viable. So releasing the film in selected cinemas would be more viable and less expensive and overall a better choice. Because this film is a very low budget film it will take a lot of persuading to get in into cinemas.

(http://www.launchingfilms.tv/licensing.php?video=1&autostart=1)

After release - 

• After the release of the film at the box-office the film will be released onto DVD and Blu-ray, and also onto online services such as Lovefilm and Netflix because these online services reach a huge amount of people and usually post B and C rated films which would be perfect for my thriller.
• Lastly the film will be shown on TV channels like Film4 to keep the film alive for as long as possible. 

Jonah - Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my thriller we are introduced too three characters, two female and one male. We have the iconic female victim and the strong evil man but we also have an equilibrium to the characters with the second female character who is shown in a slightly more modern fashion.

Gender

• In my thriller gender is represented very traditionally as the female character who gets killed is over powered by the male character and defenseless to help herself. The second female character who is getting ready for the day ahead is represented slightly less traditionally, although this character doesn't take an active role in the opening so its hard to analysis this character in terms of gender.   
• The iconic female victim is first shown being thrown into the back of a car, defenselessly unconscious, which in modern times is a negative representation as a positive one would have the woman putting up a good fight. The antagonistic male character is shown throughout taking control and having power over this woman, we showed this using camera work, such as POV shots like the one shown above. This is a POV of the male character looking DOWN at the female character which shows he has dominance over this female character, this being a negative representation of women.  

Social class

• From the costume of the male antagonist its clear to see he must be a business man of some kind, his car is not old and it is clean. The second female character who is getting ready in the morning is in a middle class house, with nice furniture and processions. The main female character, who gets killed, doesn't really represent social class as she is not a main character.
• I choose the male to be the antagonist as it is more mainstream and follows traditional conventions of thriller. Having the male as the antagonist was more of an obvious choice as men are usually represented as the stronger gender and as the "Bad guy". 
• Using the red tie on the antagonist may send a very subliminal message to the audience of it resembling blood, which matches his character role as he murders the women. 
• Representing the male as a antagonist is widely used but is a negative representation, because of this using a male to play the antagonist was an obvious choice. 

Age

• The male antagonist is middle aged and the audience knows this from the clothes he is wearing, casual business clothes. The main female character, getting ready in the morning was supposed to be middle ages too as she was getting ready to go for a job interview, although this didn't show on screen. Because of the main characters being middle aged the thriller represents middle aged people only. The male antagonist is represented as a middle aged murderer which follows more modern thriller conventions such the antagonist The Joker from The Dark Knight.



[Antagonist, The Joker] 

• I tried to represent the female character, who gets killed, in a very traditional way of being defenseless and fragile to help herself against the dominating male antagonist. I did this because it is easier for the audience to follow, and without an elaborate story, plot and character depth, its hard to break traditional thriller conventions and make it work.   

Final Thriller opening

Jonah - Evaluation Question 1

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

• Most thrillers aim to create an enigma or mystery to keep the audience guessing throughout the film, although this is not true for all thrillers. One way thrillers keep the audience engaged and guessing is to reveal the ending of the story first, starting with the/a climax of the film e.g. character dying. Which is what my thriller does, it makes the audience ask questions like who died? why did they die?  what lead up to this character dying? This narrative technique is common among thrillers as it begins with the Disruption/Disequilibrium of the story, captivating the audience and "Thrilling them" as the story progresses to reveal the enigma of the climax.

[Made using paint]

• Other then narrative techniques, Editing, Sound, Camera and Mise en scene come together to make a thriller what it is. Cross-cutting editing is used in thrillers to create suspense, in my thriller i tried to create this effect by starting with longer shots and slowly cutting done to shorter and shorter shots leading to the climax, of the female character being murdered, although the two location never actually meet the technique of cross cutting is still used. In this example my thriller follows conventional thriller technique as cross cutting is used throughout real thrillers to build unto a climax, and this technique is used in many other genres such as action/ adventure. An example of cross cutting is in the beginning of the The Dark Knight  the bank robbery scene. The scene is edited so it cuts between the two groups of robbers, as the cuts get more frequent, creating suspense it builds to the climax of the Joker revealing his face to the banker. Effectively creating the suspense needed to thrill the audience and create an enigma of this creepy character. 

• Another way my thriller follows traditional conventions of thrillers is the use of hard and low key lighting. Low key lighting is nearly always used in real thriller films as it creates a enigmatic atmosphere by hiding some of the scene, and quite possibly restricting the narrative, creating tension as some of the plot is hidden from the audience 

• Starting from the top left frame in the 9 frame sequence i will analysis each frame taken from my thriller. The Antagonist is the male character in a casual work uniform, from the clothes he is wearing it  is easy to assume this character is up to no as he has a body and spade in his car. This immediately creates an enigma around this character to why and what he is doing, which follows normal conventions of thriller as it creates tension and a knowing that something is not right.

• The next frame uses camera and lighting techniques well. As the camera pans right and tilts up as the male character walks by it reveals the church making it clear where he is going and creates a thrilling mood as churches normally represent peace, healing, tranquility not first degree murder. The lighting is natural and the church is lit up by a fog light changing the churches iconography and  giving it an eerie presence on screen , which i used to my advantage in the next frame. In the far most right frame on the top row a silhouetted shadow is cast onto the church and the shadow is distorted which reflects the horror and disruption in this male character. 

[comparing lighting to real headlights] 

• On the second row, farthermost left, i used hard lighting to almost recreate car headlights as they cast huge distorted shadows from the hard high key lighting making the scene more intense and important as the whole frame is visible. The next frame along to the right has the shot focused on the female characters arm and out of focus in the mirror which suggests she is blurred out of the scene and just oblivious to the murder. Lastly on the far right the male antagonist is in shadow as the hard light beats down on him. The bottom row are three frames from the end of the thriller which switch between a POV of the female protagonist and POV of the male antagonist, these shots bring out the character of the antagonist as he kills the female with only slight hesitation. The Hard light creates shadows across both characters faces hiding some expressions but creating tension.