How did you attract/address your audience?
“After giving our film a certificate 15, obviously our audience was going to be people aged above this. The reason we chose this age range was becuase we thought that this was the best suited to the themes that are present in our film. For example, violence will be a theme due to the nature of the genre, so therefore we felt that people aged 15 and over were able to identify and understand the plot line. We addressed our audience in many ways, for one we used young actors and actress’s in the opening to our film, which would attract the target audience as that is what they would want to see. Also we got their attention by the context and genre of the film as we thought that this age range would most like to see a thriller movie due to their interests. We adressed our audience after completing a questionaire and collecting the results which told us that, most people in our audeince demographic would most like to see either a thriller or horror movie. The music we had in our opening two minutes would have attracted our audience as it creates a mysterious atmosphere that leaves you wondering what is going to happen next, so this would have kept our audience interested in the product. We also addressed our audeince by getting a focus group of our target audience and asking what they thought of our ideas and final product. This was extremely useful as we got a clear understanding of what our audience wanted.”
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
“Looking back at our preliminary task, as a group we feel like we have come on leaps and bounds. From the preliminary task we learnt how to operate the camera and explore the program I Movie when we edited our footage. We learnt how to cut on action and how to hold the camera steady. We experimented with different shot types like over the shoulder and mid shots, which helped us when comleting our real product. From the preliminary we got a taster of what it was going to be like when filming our real product, and helped us understand the technologies and conventions of film making”
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
“Whilst filming the opening two minutes to our film, we wanted to get as much footage as we could so that we would have plenty to choose from when it came to the editing process and we could figure out which angles looked better. The shots needed to flow together continuously so we led the walk of the protagonist up to the house step by step and didn’t just jump forward. As the shots were all filmed in the same place it was easier for us to film things in sequence and for us to then separate the individual clips and put them in the correct order. We learnt how to add opening titles to our film clip by using Imovie HD which is the programme that we used to edit our film. We also learnt in more depth how to edit the film clips in Imovie HD which has increased my knowledge of what can be done in terms of editing a film. Neither of us were really experienced when it came to Imovie HD but I think that we have both definitely learnt a lot from it and would feel much more confident about using this in future. We were very lucky that the natural lighting was just accurate at the time of our filming but we were worried that it would get too dark before filming was complete but luckily for us we managed to get it finished in time without making a rushed job of it. We created our own music on Garageband and imported it onto itunes where we had to drag the song onto itunes to alter slightly to fit in with different shots.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
“We both thought that Paramount Pictures would be a good institution to distribute our film as they tend to distribute a lot of Thriller films. This institution will know who our target audience are and then know how to target them and be able to attract our audiences better. They are also a very well known institution and responsible for the big budget films usually.”
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
“We decided to use a Thriller theme as it seems to be an ageless genre. Obviously the types of Thriller have changed over time but they are still the type of film that a majority of the population would watch which is why I think they are so successful and they never seem to get old. Another great thing about thrillers is that they can contain elements of other genres such as romance, horror, comedy etc. This helped us decide what genre we wanted to do as it didn’t really limit us very much. Originally we were going to aim it at younger people around our own age group but then we thought it would appeal to people who were older as well which broadens our demographic. Originally we wanted to do a horror film but decided that Thriller was the better option as we could be more inventive.”
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
“We have now completed our film opening which is just over two minutes in length. We think that this is just the right amount of time to fit in everything that we wanted to fit in, any longer and we feel that it would have dragged on too much as often with Thriller films they are slow moving. We feel that our clip works really well as an opening as it creates an air of mystery all the way through regarding the stalkerish character and I believe that we have made excellent progress from the beginning of the project after a few hiccups and a bit of organisation. We kept coming up with various ideas for our film which has definitely been a learning experience in filming. At first we were not sure what kind of music to put with the film but after using trial and error on Garageband we came up with the soundtrack that we have for the finished piece and conveys the right type of mood we were wanting. We think that the film could easily be continued from this clip as it leaves the audience wonder what will happen next but at the same time we didn’t want to give too much away as the climax of a thriller doesn’t happen until very near the end. I think the film could go in many different directions in terms of storyline from the opening film clip. In the clip we tried to use various shot types and not be too repetitive as this becomes boring for the audience. We started with an establishing shot, and used a variety of mid shots and close ups but made them more creative by shooting them from different angles for example in the bushes. We also did a fair amount of cutting on action which made our film clip look better. The music that we did eventually use created suspense and erupted at the significant moments for example when the letter is pushed through the letter box which we believed worked particularly well.”
Focus Group Unstructured Interview about Thrillers.
*ADD VIDEO OF RICKY*
Inorder to get a understanding of what our target audience thought about thrillers, and what they expected from them, i took a frient who fits the age range of the film (15+) and asked him a few questions and this is what we discovered.
Our demographic audience like’s thrillers because:
– The build up of tension throughout the film.
– The element of surprise and the cliffhangers which thriller films include.
– How fast paced the film is, and how all the action scene’s create an electric atmosphere
-A male lead character is preferred, as they always “catch the bad guy” and girls are seen to be the victims in most thrillers.
– The music and how it creates a certain mood.
jadeandlaurablog 