Graphics- Titles

TS

Sound Research

The beginning to our film is planned as having quite a dark tone, and as we will try and film this wherever possible, the music is an extremely important ingredient in the mixture of the feeling of our film. This extract from the sound track to shutter island, we feel, certainly creates the effect that we're looking for, with the slow but loud low string phrases at the beginning creating quite a moody image in ones head, perfect for our film.



Our main character is an author who has moved into a house, and while spending days alone inside, with his wife out at work, he begins to see apparitions and other signs that lead him to having 'writers block' as he struggles to keep sanity. His wife doesn't understand his demeanour and calls for help from the doctor, but our author is constantly haunted by a doll which is featured in the trailer.

We took inspiration from The track above and found a piece of uncopy-righted music on 'freeplaymusic.com' which sounded similar.



The piece is called alley and reflects the dark tone that we want to set in our film trailer.
This would be used in the scenes of him walking through the woods, discovering the box containing the doll, and would also appear at the end, when the final credits come up on screen.

we would use diegetic sound for the shots in which there was speech, as well as the first sequence of shots as the couple move into their new home.

There will be sound effects used in the last sequence for the transition between the shots leading to the end, as well as sound effects to alert the main character to the shadow standing in the door:



here are 3 sound effects that we could possibly use for the transitions at the end of our trailer:



JT TS

Storyboard

JT

Recce

nb: please view in 720p or higher

JT TS

Costume

Estate Agent

As the estate agent is trying to impress the couple to encourage them to buy the house, he will therefore be 'dressed to impress'.  He will be dressed in:

A blue shirt with white collars and cuffs, often seen on young inexperienced businessmen.

Grey pinstripe trousers. They are smart but not as formal as a black pair of trousers.

A predominately red tie but with little pattern, bright but not to garish.

Brown brogues. not overly formal but not too casual either. The estate agent is still young and will therefore care about his image.













Husband


The husband will be casually dressed throughout as he does not have a formal job.
When they are shown around the house he may wear just a T-shirt and jeans with casual trainers.

Once they have moved in he will mostly wear plain pyjama trousers and a t-shirt, possibly with a dressing gown and slippers to take away the divide between day and night and to show his abnormal behaviour, as most people get dressed during the day.

 Wife


The wife will be dressed very formally throughout as she is a high powered business woman. she will therefore be dressed in a formal business suit for almost the entirety of the trailer.

                                                              Doctor 

The doctor will be dressed in very smart clothes as he is in a formal profession.  He will probably wear a smart suit and a beige work coat with smart work shoes and a tie.

TS

Studio Research

because of the nature of horror films the audience is fairly limited. it would therefore be beneficial for  us to extend our audience internationally. As we want to avoid using a mainstream Hollywood production company. To extend our audience internationally, in particular to the United States (where the biggest market for the horror genre is), we would therefore need to use two production companies. One would be a  British independent production company and the other would be an 'indiewood' production company.

UK production company: Hammer Film Productions:
Hammer Film Productions are a UK based company that are well known for making low key, not overdramatic, horror films. recently the have produced "The Woman in Black" a film about a man in an isolated position who falls victim to the serial and the supernatural, a film similar in style and tone to our own. The company has recently made a come back after a long pause between films.  A UK based company will also allow us to tap into the mainland european market.

http://www.imdb.com/company/co0103101/

US production company: Ghost House Pictures
Ghost house pictures is a US based company that specialises in Horror movies. although the horrors that they make are more high key they will allow us to release our film in the US with a greater chance of success as this is where the greatest market for horror films is. the company is known for films including The Grudge series, Drag Me to Hell and 30 Days of Night amongst many others.

http://www.imdb.com/company/co0116611/

JT TS

Music

This music is brooding and sinister which would fit with the tone of our film. It is also fairly slow paced which keeps tension. As the fear created in our film would be more based around tension than action this would be appropriate fast paced music, however, would be inappropriate. We particularly like the effect of the loud string sounds at the beginning and we will try to find music that replicates this.

JT TS

Character Plans

please view in full screen

View more presentations from TSunter.

TS

Location

The use of this window could prove to be very effective. There are curtians behind which something/someone could appear from the garden, but upon inspection in the room, it is clear that no such intruder was present.

So we see a young couple led round a delightful looking house in suburbia

It soon becomes clear that things arent as they seemed at first...

Images appear momentarily that arent there on second glances

when it's dark outside, lights shine in through the curtains to create eerie feelings

apparitions appear throughout the house-

 sillouhettes in doors- created simply with someone standing behind the glass panel and the light behind them showing an outline of their form.

JT

Trailer Plan: Writer's Block

Our trailer will comprise of three acts:

Act 1:

• Slow pace.
• The first thing the audience sees is the ident- production company.
• An initially happy couple are shown around a house.
• The estate agent asks them what they do for a living wife says she's a lawyer and the husband a writer.
• When asked about previous owners the estate agent skirts round the question.
• The couple sign the papers and buy the house.
• They move in and everything is ok for a while and they are a happy young couple in a new house.

Act 2:

• Medium pace.
• While the wife goes out to work the husband sits down to begin writing.
• We see that he is struggling to write.
• Strange things begin to happen to him.
• The wife becomes aware that something isn't right.
• A doctor comes to talk to the husband and says he'll be back.

Act 3:

• Very fast pace.
• In this part of the trailer it becomes apparent that things are getting worse.
• The wife becomes very anxious as the husband appears to be more insane.
• The husband seems to be obsessed with the history of the house.
• The wife tries the doctor again and gets the answering machine
• The strange events become more frequent and more intense as shown in a montage where said strange events and behaviour from the husband are cross cut with images of the anxious wife.
• there is a sudden cut from the montage to the title of the film 'Writers Block' with the cast underneath.

JT TS

Audience Research (Prezi)

Audience Research on Prezi

audience would be aimed at the 14-24 age category

JT TS

What are the conventions of your chosen film genre and which aspects of trailers in this genre influence to you?

My chosen film genre was dramatic thriller, as I think it has the biggest scope for film adverts. The aim of a thriller is to keep an audience captivated so common themes associated with thrillers include action with no obvious outcome, to which audiences will want to know the concluding result. A drama is a series of events having vivid, striking or emotional results, so usually a drama is slower paced, and the audience get closer to the protagonist, build a bond with them and learn about whom their character is, while the narrative is much more of a story rather than a series of events.

                The character types seen in this genre are more often people who are able to really play a role, show their feelings through their character, but at the same time, be able to keep the audience guessing and want to get to know their real personality. A drama character is often the example of ‘playing a role’ because they are players portraying a story, but thriller character types are more often brash and/or terrifying.

                In terms of adverts for this type of film, if the film includes a voice over, the voice over is often the voice of one of the main characters in the film, with extracts from their dialogue within the script, or a carefully written monologue to be overlaid on top of film clips, depicting significant events within the film. This is a method often associated with action films and is used in the film advert for ‘inception’.  Inception also uses text on the screen to explain narrative. The director might also use sound bridges which tell the story but show different scenes, before finally ending up at the ongoing scene from which the sound comes. This tactic is used in the trailer for ‘Sarah’s key.’ Alternatively, film directors can choose to not have any voice over in their advert, and let the narrative do the talking. This is shown extremely well in ‘the ides of March’, a film starring George Clooney and Ryan Gosling, about a presidential campaign.

                Dramatic features used in the trailer for ‘salt’ is her transition from good guy to criminal on the run, while still trying to protest her innocence. A viewer would want to watch the film to find out whether she was telling the truth, and if not, would she succeed in killing the president or would she be caught. There is a build up in tension as she gets accused by the accused, and then as she’s on the run, there are shots of her on CCTV monitors to emphasise the fact that she is now thought of as a criminal. Dramatic features with the trailer for ‘sarah’s key’ derive from the fact that the film is set both during the Second World War, and today. So there is a lot of the story being told by the teacher, then the events being shown on film, which makes the film seem even more lifelike. The pivotal point in the trailer, and the stage at which people would decide whether or not they would go and watch the film is when she says ‘I’m sure they escaped’ because it is here that we realise the film will be about an attempted escape.

                Music is an extremely powerful tool in creating atmosphere in film. The music in inception, being of a large orchestral score, builds rhythm through the use of percussion instruments; it starts uncomplicatedly with a solo instrument playing a percussive rhythm and speeds and builds up with more and more layers to become full orchestra when the main action scenes are being shown in the trailer.  The music in the film trailer for ‘Sarah’s key’ is very different to that of inception; it is slower paced and has many fewer layers. This is often seen in dramas as it puts the audience in more of a relaxed and emotional mood, and also gives them an idea as to the mood of the film. The music in the salt trailer is much faster paced than both inception and sarah’s key, as it is more toward the action genre. The music in the ides of march is reminiscent of the film itself, a film about big men doing big things and the music builds up to a fast paced tempo to show this.

                I especially like the dramatic effects used in Sarah’s key, because they really show well the actions of the war, and how they are interpreted today

                The use of titles is widely used, so that they do not have to pack the advert full of voiceovers when they could be playing sound from the film. For this genre, usually they are in the middle of the frame, in plain font as can be seen in inception. 

Inception

1) What cinematic techniques are used to establish mood and tone?

The first 30 odd seconds show scenes from the film without any explanation, and we get many people’s perspectives on what’s going on, yet still we don’t know; there is the air of mystery.

2) How does the trailer establish the themes and narrative?

It establishes the themes that are normal for the action genre, by showing explosions and vast buildings moving. Also, from 37 seconds onwards, there is a gun or some sort of destruction in almost every scene, which really outlines the genre. In terms of establishing the narrative, there is a voice over, spoken by the main character, giving his character’s view on the film, which then affects the storyline. There are also titles on the screen that give facts that would be useful in understanding the film It slightly shows what each character’s role is in the film, yet in so much detail that we can really only tell whether they are a protagonist or baddie. 

3) How does the trailer establish genre?

The trailer establishes itself as an action thriller by showing action scenes and dramatic music right from the start. It also shows that the film has an air of mystery by starting the advert off with a question. The film’s dramatic side is shown by presenting the two main characters at the beginning.

4) Who is the target audience and how is this audience targeted in this trailer?

The target audience would be the core audience, 16-24 year olds, as well as people who like the sort of film like 2021, and this is shown by them using as many similar scenes as they can in the advert, to show this latter group of people that this is a film that they would want to watch.

5) What is the reason/ effect for using the director's name and previous work?

The reason that they show the director’s name is that people will recognise him as having created extremely successful films, and if they went to see it they will remember that they enjoyed his film. The effect is that then people will expect his new film to be of equally good quality, which will result in higher numbers at the box office, so then more money.

Salt

1) How does this trailer promote and focus on the big star? (look at camera work, editing, sound...etc..)

The big star, Angelina Jolie, is in almost every single shot, which shows off to a viewer that she is important, and makes them watch her closely, which is made easier by that fact that they have deliberately chosen someone who is thought of by many as being extremely attractive. There are lots of close up shots of her face, in different positions to show an all round perspective.

2) Action films are thought to appeal to a predominately male audience. How does this trailer target both a female and male audience separately?

Regarding attracting female audiences, she is shown in a position of power and importance in her workplace, which some would see as her being a pioneer, also it is not always that there is a female action hero in a film, so where women might be tired of seeing men always starring in the action genre, having a woman have the lead role would target the female audiences. Male audiences would be attracted by the action genre, but also because of the hero being very pleasing to the eye.

3) How does this trailer use editing to create atmosphere?

The trailer uses editing at the beginning to piece together- using clips from the film- the entire storyline in the interrogation room, to show the audience the build up to the more active part of the film, which leads to excitement.  When she is on the run, the short shots and quick cuts result in tension. The different shots from CCTV images make the audience think that she cant get away but then they show her jumping onto a lorry so immediately there is a feeling of excitement. The confusion that arises in the minds of the viewers means that people will be more inclined to go and see it so that questions they have may be answered.

The ides of march

Common themes- good vs. evil

Young vs. old

                                 Love

                                betrayal

                               

Character types- Older powerful man

                                Young man making difference

                                Beautiful woman- distraction

                                General to genre- protagonist

                                                                Sidekick

                                                                Loved one

                                                                Enemy of sorts

Narrative conveyed with soundbridges and soundbites

Music used to build up image of characters and therefore the film.

Sarah’s key

Common themes- war

                                Discrimination

                                Young vs. old

                                Old stories ‘the past holds the key’

                                True story

                                From a book

                                Family- loyalty

                               

Character types- innocent children

                                bad person/organisation

                                person finding themselves able to relate

                                family

                                university lecturer/ historian

music used to create sense of adventure

no country for old men

common themes- crime

combat

violence

                                good vs. evil

                                confusion

                                different cultures

                                old fashioned

character types- main villain

                                victim

                                police protagonist sherrif

                                young unsuspecting girl

I like the panoramic shots of settings

                Quick cutting at the end, everything speeds up- closing in

Titles-                   in the middle

                                Bold

                                               

                               

Corageous

Common themes- family

                                Love

                                Loyalty

                                crime

                                Things get worse to get better

                                Good wins

Character types- (useless) father figures

                                Children

                                Villains

                                Heroes

Dramatic feature of this trailer is the fact that they’re good policemen but at home they’re nowhere near as good at being fathers as they are at their job.

Narrative conveyed using text and sound bridges

Titles-                   centre of screen on background of police badge

                               

JT

                                

AS- A2 skills assessment

1 skills development

a) With a digital video camera I can record high quality video images from a variety of different angles, movements and in a number of different places and lights.

b) We use external directional microphones as well as boom microphones in order to achieve better sound quality

c) we developed our editing skills- we learnt to edit together video and sound as well as bring in external sounds on which we learnt how to change the volume. We learnt how to add text and add non diegetic sound.

d) no but it would be a nice idea

e) we were not fans of the mac operating system- and forgot once or twice to turn the microphone on or off.

2 creativity

a)    at AS we were as creative as possible, our narrative was very creative and original but our frames were relatively conventional. The lighting we used was exciting, but our location wasn’t particularly original.

b)   Although our film was conventional for the genre, it was a relatively original film.

3 research and planning

                                          

a)our primary research involved taking inspiration from many films, as we were tapping into a popular genre. We used the internet to gather information on film genres as well as certain audiences.

c)    I would improve my research levels into audience figures as well as to study a larger number of films with similar genres.

d)   We used the Internet for research, as well as ideas, also on the internet there was blogger, a program used for displaying ones information in a personal form on the internet. Our YouTube channel was used to display our practice and then final piece. We would improve this by taking more footage of practice runs then upload it, as well as documenting everything we did on the blog. Keeping the blog up to date was something with which we struggled, so increased focus on blog uploads would be paramount.

4. post production

a) we organised out editing by using a program called ‘final cut pro’ for mac. Each pair at AS had a mac assigned to themselves, on which it was possible to save all our work. We tried to come as regularly as was possible to the media suite to work on our project. The editing was done in stages; importing from external devices i.e. camera, then onto the general cutting to put together the basic story, and then the final stage was the ‘fine tuning’ which included putting in extra sound effects e.g. keys dropping onto a plate, and doorbells.

b) we used sound effects widely, but never so that they would sound out of place. We used a creak of a door for when the main character was opening a cupboard, we used a doorbell to signify when someone was at the door, and as a result of a user error, we had no sound on one of the takes that we used, so we had to find a sound effect for keys ‘jangling.’ We used music found on a copyright-free website to give us the atmosphere we desired, and we also achieved this by using effective fades in and out.

Using conventions from real media texts

a) we followed the conventions of a thriller film, and we created meaning for the audience by really trying to let them get involved with the characters and their lives. We see the main character’s emotions in the taxi, and get a feel for her current demeanour. Through our excellent editing, we had the audience on tenterhooks, as our narrative would lead them to believe that the woman was going to come home to find her partner lying dead on the floor but in reality she comes home and the house is in pristine condition. It is examples like this that would have meant that audiences would have been glued to the screen for the whole length of the feature film. 

JT

Thriller/ emotional trailers

Road to nowhere:

The main key selling point of this trailer circulates around the producer, who produced the well known film ‘reservoir dogs’.

It establishes the genre of gritty drama through the use of setting- in a dark dingy tunnel-

I find that this trailer isn’t particularly successful, it’s not very informative, and doesn’t seem to sell the film. Understandably, the film isn’t exactly action packed and exciting, but if it shows it off to be dull, then it’s unlikely that people will think that the film’s interesting enough to watch.

The target audience would appear to be people who don’t enjoy the action side of film, and more the emotional type of film.  I don’t think that the core audience of 16-24 year olds would necessarily find this film as interesting as a slightly older audience. Also, it would be more likely to appeal to women as men are seen to like action films more than emotional films.

The robber:

The key selling points of this trailer are the use of subtitles and the film being foreign, the sport context, the fact that it’s a true story and the chase scenes. Foreign films are attractive to audiences because they think they can learn about other cultures, while watching a fun film. 

The trailer establishes the genre of sport by starting off with the main character running in races, then shows that it’s a thriller by showing chase scenes, and him robbing a bank. They then intertwine scenes of him running from the police with scenes from the marathon to show his two lives, which is the main idea of the film .

Of the first 2 trailers I believe this one is more successful as it contains more materiel that would be attractive to an audience. It contains quotes that would make an audience take it seriously, even though the Austrian film industry isn’t particularly prolific.

The target audience of this film is more toward the 16-24 age category, as well as people who like foreign films, and this latter group are targeted by the film producers by their use of subtitles and obvious foreign language in the advert.

trailer research

1) What cinematic techniques are used to establish mood and tone?

The first 30 odd seconds show scenes from the film without any explanation, and we get many people’s perspectives on what’s going on, yet still we don’t know; there is the air of mystery.

2) How does the trailer establish the themes and narrative?

It establishes the themes that are normal for the action genre, by showing explosions and vast buildings moving. Also, from 37 seconds onwards, there is a gun or some sort of destruction in almost every scene, which really outlines the genre. In terms of establishing the narrative, there is a voice over, spoken by the main character, giving his character’s view on the film, which then affects the storyline. There are also titles on the screen that give facts that would be useful in understanding the film It slightly shows what each character’s role is in the film, yet in so much detail that we can really only tell whether they are a protagonist or baddie. 

3) How does the trailer establish genre?

The trailer establishes itself as an action thriller by showing action scenes and dramatic music right from the start. It also shows that the film has an air of mystery by starting the advert off with a question. The film’s dramatic side is shown by presenting the two main characters at the beginning.

4) Who is the target audience and how is this audience targeted in this trailer?

The target audience would be the core audience, 16-24 year olds, as well as people who like the sort of film like 2021, and this is shown by them using as many similar scenes as they can in the advert, to show this latter group of people that this is a film that they would want to watch.

5) What is the reason/ effect for using the director's name and previous work?

The reason that they show the director’s name is that people will recognise him as having created extremely successful films, and if they went to see it they will remember that they enjoyed his film. The effect is that then people will expect his new film to be of equally good quality, which will result in higher numbers at the box office, so then more money.

Salt

1) How does this trailer promote and focus on the big star? (look at camera work, editing, sound...etc..)

The big star, Angelina Jolie, is in almost every single shot, which shows off to a viewer that she is important, and makes them watch her closely, which is made easier by that fact that they have deliberately chosen someone who is thought of by many as being extremely attractive. There are lots of close up shots of her face, in different positions to show an all round perspective.

2) Action films are thought to appeal to a predominately male audience. How does this trailer target both a female and male audience separately?

Regarding attracting female audiences, she is shown in a position of power and importance in her workplace, which some would see as her being a pioneer, also it is not always that there is a female action hero in a film, so where women might be tired of seeing men always starring in the action genre, having a woman have the lead role would target the female audiences. Male audiences would be attracted by the action genre, but also because of the hero being very pleasing to the eye.

3) How does this trailer use editing to create atmosphere?

The trailer uses editing at the beginning to piece together- using clips from the film- the entire storyline in the interrogation room, to show the audience the build up to the more active part of the film, which leads to excitement.  When she is on the run, the short shots and quick cuts result in tension. The different shots from CCTV images make the audience think that she cant get away but then they show her jumping onto a lorry so immediately there is a feeling of excitement. The confusion that arises in the minds of the viewers means that people will be more inclined to go and see it so that questions they have may be answered. 

Film Opening (please watch in HD)

JT & TS

Evaluation question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression to the final product?

Looking back at our journey from pre-limb to final product, it is clear to see that we have learnt a lot both in the technical and planning stages of our film making.

We learnt a lot about time management, and managing people, locations and equipment. We had to make sure that people were available, in the right place at the right time, as opposed to in school where everything was readily available and the actors we used were people in our class. For our final product, we had to clear with the owners of our location that it was okay to film there, at the right times. We wanted to film at night in a car, so organising someone to drive the taxi was also something new which ad to be done. In school, for the prelimb, the location we used was an empty room that we knew it was possible to film in, but this was not necessarily the case for our final product, so our need to organise location improved significantly. The benefit and importance of planning became clear at the point of filming, where the use of a story board helped us significantly. Whilst filming our pre-limb, the story board was something that was used. We learnt that it was not at all easy to organise actors because of their tight schedules. A good plan means that we can get as much filming done in as little time/takes as possible, because there is less need to retake shots.

The planning stages of storyboarding and shot listing were far more complicated and detailed simply because of the length of our film; a longer film means a longer storyboard, more shots to draw. This was hard to keep accurate because we didn’t know to what extent our film day would pose problems.

During the production, we learnt a lot about the technical side of things. We learnt how to do more diverse camera shots using the tripod, and to be more creative with the lighting and colours. We learnt about the brightness of lights depending on how close up the light is, and how the shadows can create brilliant looking effects and creates different moods. We learnt how to use new technologies such as the microphones, which we hadn’t used for the pre-limb but that we used in our production.

For our pre-limbs, we used final cut pro to the extent that we needed to cut bits of our film, and we could cut both sound and film at the same time. With our final product, it was a whole new kettle of fish, transforming a selection of shots that are roughly cut together to a 2 minute film opening for exam standard. We had to learn how to cut sound and image separately, then we learnt how to use and add effects, how to fade sound and image, how to add on titles or text, and how different lengths of shots, focussing on one thing for half a second longer could emphasise a different point entirely.


JT

Evaluation Question: 6

Evaluation question 3:

When filming, we learnt a lot about the hardware and how it was used and when used differently, what effects that made. The tripod on which we positioned the camera was familiar after having done our pre limb task, but we learnt that in order to do a smooth pan we had to have it at the right firmness otherwise it wouldn’t                             turn quickly enough, or it would be shaky. The camera itself was relatively straightforward to use. We had to make sure that we didn’t rewind the tape then film over the footage that we had already shot, and we had to make sure that the microphone was on; otherwise no sound would be recorded. This, as easy as it may sound, was surprisingly difficult to remember to do whilst concentrating on 

everything else and it was necessary to go back and retake some shots for lack of sound but we ended up with a good set of shots with clear sound. We learnt a lot also about lighting and the difference it makes to the look and feel of a shot. In our film opening, we have used lighting very effectively to create large shadows and also bring out the bright red colour of the wall. In the fight scenes, we used artificial film lighting only, to create the stark effect, but later on, when she returns home, we also used the lighting in the house to create a warmer feel.

 

As my partner and I are both used to using PC computers, at first it was another challenge to use the Mac computers as efficiently, as everything that we were used to is in a different place, but we found that after a short while we were using them with ease.

The editing programme that we used was called ‘Final Cut Express.’ This was something that we had never used before. It was where we chopped and put together all our film footage, then edited it by cutting and tweaking the endings and beginnings of shots. Once everything was in place, we were able to concentrate on the smaller details of visual, like the fade ins and outs of shots and the exact length of the shots (in order to abide by the two minute rule). We then were able to concentrate on the music, for which we imported a track and laid over the sound on the video by adding a new audio track and importing onto there. We used the natural sound from the microphone as well as the music, but turned up the music in the quieter scenes. We were able to dim the sound up and down for smoothness as well as select which track we wanted to play when.

When selecting a sound track for our film opening, we were not allowed to use music that had been copyrighted, so we had to go online and visit a website called ‘freeplaymusic.com’ for non copyrighted music. The download process involved listening to a small extract then downloading the whole track. We would then import it into final cut express to add as a new layer for the sound. We chose 2 tracks to suit different stages in our film and we imported these to final cut.

For our titles, we downloaded a font from a website called ‘dafont.com’ as it was a font that suited our film well. We downloaded it and then we were able to create the titles via final cut, as the font appeared in the list with all the original fonts.

In order to make our ident, we used Adobe Flash and used a pen effect to draw a logo, and used the same pen when writing ‘value productions.’

JT

Evaluation Question 5: How would you attract / address your audience?

How would you attract / address your audience?

The main way we would address our audience is through the characters in the product. The characters are fairly young. This means that the majority of our target audience will be there age or thereabouts. This will help the audience relate with our characters. Another factor that may help to address our audience is the fact that mostly our characters are normal people that have been put in certain situations. Sarah is a normal young professional who is forced into violence in order to find and save Robert. Robert is a normal young police officer who is kidnapped and held in captivity. The only one who could be said to be abnormal is Jonathan who is a corrupt and considerably criminally dangerous police officer who kidnaps his colleague and friend. However this is not entirely unrealistic as there are dangerous people in the world. Our characters are easy to relate to in contrast with characters such as spies who, to the majority of the population, are unknown and alien making them difficult to relate to.

We would attract our audience through advertising. We would advertise a lot on public transport as a lot of the people within our target audience would see them there. We would also advertise within cinemas before films of similar genre. This would be effective as the people seeing the film would be likely to be keen on the thriller genre and therefore our film would appeal to them. We would also use the internet to market our product as it is a world wide forum that almost everyone uses particularly those within our target audience. We would consider setting up a website with police case files and reports referring the content of our media product. However we would need to be careful not to give too much away as it would take away the tension from the film. However we would give enough to entice the audience to see more and therefore see the film.

To conclude the addressing and attraction of our audience would be very much tailor mad to our target audience as this is the most effective way of getting people to see a film as it is clear that there is no point in advertising a film for young adults to pensioners nor is there much point in putting trailers on for thrillers before romantic comedys

TS

Evaluation Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

For a target audience, there are usually two possible options; family audience and 16 to 24 year olds. The target audience for our film would be people ranging from 15 to 24 years old. The level of violence automatically puts it up to a 15 certificate, meaning that it is unsuitable for families, and so young children won’t be allowed to watch it.


We asked a group of people to fill in a questionaire, to see what they thought of the film and to see whether they thought it was a successful film opening

            The film is a thriller, so people who like the thriller genre will be more inclined to come and see it. The characters in it are of a young age, around the mid 20s, so people of that age will feel they have something in common with the characters. In the rest of the film, there is one particular couple who together avenge the villain, and couples will feel that they will be able to relate to that, working together, which would entice them to see the film. There is a majority of male actors in our film, maybe meaning that a larger proportion of the audience would be male.

            The location is shown to be England by the style of houses and the writing on the shutters of the shops that she passes in the taxi. This means that maybe it would not appeal so much to a foreign audience, but would mean English speaking people will be able to feel at home and be able to relate to the film in that way. The characters speak with English accents, to show the British-ness of the film; another reason people would want to go and see the film. The use of the metropolitan police badge makes people living in London feel like it could be something that’s happening just outside their front door, so thus is another reason they would come. It is also representing the British police force so people who were strong nationalists would hopefully feel patriotic and come and see the film.

            The setting we used was a middle class modern home, with the majority of the action filmed in the kitchen. The kitchen has some extremely nice red colours that really show up well as a sign of danger when the fight scene is happening, and in the same way that people will go and see The American because of the beautiful shots and scenes created by the photographer director, they will come and see ours for wonderful strong colours.

            The violent aspect turns the film into an action thriller, and this is emphasised by the smashing of plates, and I think it is this aspect of the film that means that it will be shown in multiplexes, and so opens up a whole new audience: the action lovers, which one could argue is a mainly male audience.

            It is a film that could be shown in an art house cinema as well as a multiplex, so this opens up the film to both types of cinema goers. This means that the people who like lower budget films that are shown in cinemas such as the ritzy in Brixton would go to see it, as well as Odeon goers, people who are used to mainly watching big blockbusters. 


JT