Audience Feedback

We collected feedback on our task from the students of the other classes. This is a summery of the main strengths and weaknesses of our thriller opening sequence.
Starting with the weaknesses, there were many things people liked about our sequence. The definite favourite is the car scene and how we shot it with the go pro cameras. People think that those angles are something special and differ from what others used.

Another often said strength is our good choice of actors. Obviously boys mentioned our “hot” actress Paula, which was exactly what we wanted to target with using her. Also the girls liked her and we succeeded in what we planned, because she has a powerful role of a woman and a nice appearance which girls look up to. The slow emotion hair flick added to our positive views on the actress because she made them look so good. People loved her slow emotion scenes and thought they showed her dangerous appearance and her sexiness very well.

In terms of camera use and editing the students thought of our different camera shots really well and thought we edited them together quite good. They mentioned that we edited the transitions well and they build the tension really well so everyone wanted to know how it is going to continue.

The other students were also supposed to mention our weaknesses. The weakness most people mentioned is that they got confused with the ending. They send that they weren’t sure if there was a gun shot in the end and that it didn’t come across that well. Some boys added that they would want to have more action. The problem why they got confused is that there is the door sound, which could also be a too quiet gun shot and if it was a gun sound the rest wouldn’t make any sense, but it isn’t.

My evolution from the preliminary task to my main task

For the preliminary task we already had our storyboard and plot. We didn’t have to set up the location and costumes. The lighting was also unimportant. We didn’t have to look for good actors, we chose two people who were available. There was no need for props and sound effects. For our thriller we had to draw a storyboard, invent a plot look for really good actors that would suit each role find the props (i.e. the sniper, the guns, a car…). We wanted the room to look like a hotel room; this was difficult as we had to film in a boarding house. We chose Cornhill because it is the boarding house that looks most like a Hotel. We wanted our character to look very sophisticated we needed her to be wearing beautiful cloths so we all had to look for what would be the best outfit for her. The lighting in the room we set our main task was not right so we had to add a light with a blue film on it to make the lighting colder.

The storyboarding process was very long as our idea kept on changing so we did many different storyboards before finding the right one. Storyboarding was very interesting as it made me think in a different way then usually as instead of thinking about words I was thinking about images. It was rely hard to think in a structured way while doing this. This was different form the preliminary task as for that we already had a storyboard so we didn’t have to worry about it. Also in the preliminary task the story was entirely based on dialogue where as for the main task we chose to have none. This made it more difficult as the story line relied entirely on visual signifiers rather then words to tell the story.

It was much more fun to film our thriller then the preliminary task as we could choose exactly what shots we wanted to use as opposed to the preliminary task where the shots had already been decided for us. We chose to do many close-ups of her setting up the gun and of her face and the sniper together to show that she knew what she was doing. We also chose to do so hand held shots as that gave us more liberty with the camera than if we had used a tripod throughout. We also go to use go-pros to film the car, this gave us amazing shots of the car driving, we could not have done them using a camera as it would have been too dangerous as the person filming would have had to hang out of a window while the car was driving. We also filmed parts of our thriller in slow motion. We used it because it made Paula look more attractive and gave the thriller a more personal style that makes it stand out from other thrillers. We did not know how to do this when we filmed our preliminary task. The use of slow motion is an important part of our main task. We also used an eye-line match in our thriller to signify that she is aiming to shoot the man walking outside the car. It was very hard to film in the room because half of the room did not look like a Hotel room so we had to make sure that that half of the room was never seen on camera. This was similar to the preliminary task as we had to pay close attention to respect the 180° rule as it was a dialogue.

The sound in the preliminary task was much easer then in the thriller as it only involved the sound recorded during the filming. For the thriller we had to add loads of sound during editing this was very tedious. We had to find the right sound for the car driving, as there wasn’t always a sound recorded in the go-pro shots. We had to go through all the go-pro shots to find the sound to see if it matched the car driving sequences we choose. We also had to find the right sound for the sniper. There weren’t any slow motion sniper coking sounds on soundtrack pro so we had to elongate many different handgun-coking sounds and edit them together. This took about a day to do properly. We also had to create music to go with the action. We did this using apps on an I-pad and music found and soundtrack pro.

While editing the preliminary task I knew nothing about how to use final cut pro and, being as I am not very good with computers I found it really challenging to edit it. However I spent so much time editing the thriller that little by little I got used to using it and editing became really easy.  I edited the sound for the sniper which took a lot of time but was very satisfying when it was over. I also edited the shots with Simon in it towards the end finding the right moments to add his shots in. We had to add titles in the opening sequence. We chose the font for the titles because we wanted them to look sophisticated but at the same time simple. We chose a strong beat for the first part of the film to speed up the action. When the gun comes up we added a heart beat like sound and eerie music to make suspense rise. This seemed very difficult at first as we never knew where to place them and we had to use two different sizes for most of them. This too became easier and easier as we continued editing.

Preliminary task

Thriller

My thriller

How I attracted/adressed my audience

How Did You Attract

Who would be the target audience for my media product

The age for my target audience would be 15 to 24 year olds. They would be attracted to my film because it’s a thriller and young people enjoy thrillers. Young men enjoy seeing films staring an attractive actress and that have a lot of action like Salt, the girl with the dragon tattoo and Hanna this is why they would go and see my thriller. Young women would go and see it because the protagonist is a very strong woman and they can see themselves in her or admire her strength and courage,she would act as a role model for them. Men also like to go and see a film with their girlfriend and this thriller being aimed at a mainstream audience would allow them to go and see a film that they will both enjoy. I believe their would be a secondary audience for my film of over 25's who still enjoy going out for a date or night out and would enjoy watching my film. Because the narrative deals in universal themes that would attract a global audience I definitely feel that if people saw my film advertised and read the reviews they would want to see it. Precisely because it is a genre piece that deals in action with a strong female lead much like Salt and Hana two other films that have been hits in recent years. If our film achieved good reviews and we developed a strong teaser trailer I definitely feel we wopuld find a wider audience through online marketing. This is the kind of new media technology that our target audience frequently uses so marketing online using youtube, facebook etc would certainly help us find an audience.

An example of someone who will watch my thriller is Tom. He is a teenaged boy enjoys watching thrillers with lots of explosions and girls. He also likes playing videogames and going out with his friends. He is currently studying for his A-levels and plans to go on to university to study business. Some of his favourite films are Salt, Hanna, The girl with the dragon tattoo…

What institution might distribute my media product

Fox searchlight would produce and distribute my film because it fits in with their ethos of making low (by Hollywood standard) budget thrillers.It has an interesting plot, action and beautiful camera shots. It makes thrillers and it is also interested in low budget films and first time directors. Fox searchlight has produced The Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky he had previously made independent films such as requiem for a dream and pii. It would make money at the box office asit is aimed at a mainstream audience so it will attract a large audience and so many people will want to go and see it. Fox searchlight is owned by the conglomerate 20^th century Fox it is their independent arm designed to make commercially viable independent films because they are owned by a conglomerate it is easer to distribute the films and get them to their audience. Although I wouldn’t imagine our film would be a success on the same scale as a high concept film by having an attractive female actress in it the commercially viable plot and action sequences I definitely feel that Fox searchlight could help it find it’s audience. Fox searchlight has also recently produced a film called Shame by second time director Steve Mc Queen. It talks about a sexually deviant person. Although the subject is unpleasant Fox searchlight has managed to find it a larger audience then a British film company would have. This is why I think Fox searchlight would be the perfect producer for my thriller.

How my product represents particular social groups

We have chosen to represent men, women and policemen. We decided to break the stereotype of the ‘dumb blond’ by putting Paula in a position of power. However we didn’t want her to look ugly, as it would not attract a large audience so we chose to have her wearing a sexy and classy outfit and filmed her in slow motion. This goes against the stereotype that powerful women are butch. This conforms to the general conventions as it is expected to see women represented in an attractive way in a film. There are other thrillers that use strong female characters such as Salt, Hanna, The girl with the dragon Tattoo.  However, unlike our thriller the girl with the dragon tattoo chose to have a not so attractive female actress. Our main character is inspired from Angelina Jolie in Salt or in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. She is aiming to shoot a man that has arrived in a Land Rover and is wearing a suit. This implies that he is from upper class. The fact that she is about to shoot him goes against the stereotype that men from a wealthy background are more powerful then women. We chose to have a policeman entering in the room and stopping her from shooting him. This is a stereotypical representation of policemen as it shows them as interfering in crime. However, he is represented in an unorganised way as the lighting where warmer then the one you see Paula in. This shows that she is professional and organised and that he is unprofessional and unorganised. This puts her in a situation of power over him that goes against the stenotype.

I chose to represent men as being week so that the lead female character in comparison seems to be stronger. That creates a reverse binary opposition to the normal one of men being in position of power. This is an uncommon representation of gender as in most media products men are never represented as being weak so it subverts the stereotype.

Women in power tend to be represented in a negative light as generally people consider that women should stay at home with there children. We chose to show our lead actress in a positive light because we wanted to subvert this sexist dominant ideology.

Thrillers similar to mine:

I chose to represent men as being week so that the lead female character in comparison seems to be stronger. That creates a reverse binary opposition to the normal one of men being in position of power. This is an uncommon representation of gender as in most media products men are never represented as being weak so it subverts the stereotype.

Women in power tend to be represented in a negative light as generally people consider that women should stay at home with there children. We chose to show our lead actress in a positive light because we wanted to subvert this sexist dominant ideology.

A good example of successful women with good jobs represented negatively if they don’t have a man with them is the girls from Sex and the city as their life is always incomplete if they don’t have a man in it and are constantly looking for one.