5.) How did you attract/address your audience?

Our group decided to use a questionnaire to find out what our film target audience wanted from a thriller and what genre/ sub genres student in St Mary Redcliffe like the most. Some questions include what age group are you and what is your favourite sub genre of a horror (these were multiple choice questions). The other questions were mostly focused of what the participants liked about horror and what they think should be included.  The questionnaire was mostly designed for the students of the school but we wanted to have a wider result from people so the questions were also asked to staffs, family and friends. 

More than half of the results from the questionnaire from both genders stated that females are not always represented as powerful in thriller films and suggested that they would like for the stereotypical representation to be broken, were men are always the empowering gender. Females are always represented in a thriller film as. They are always seen as a rape victim or a stereotypical female wearing red lip stick and red nail polish.


The questions we used get feedback for our film Retribution. The questions include;

Here are some feed backs we got from our audience. We decided to get our feed backs from year 13 media studies so we could get their thoughts and some advise on future projects.

Our finish film: Retribution and Preliminary Task

7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

A brief of preliminary task including filming and editing;

• One character is sat in an office
• The other character opens the door
• Walks across the room and sits down opposite the other character.
• Both characters exchange a couple of lines (dialogue)
• The other character gets up and stomps out of the room.
• Shot reverse shot
• Continuity editing
• 180 degree rule

A brief of the main task;

• Two minutes clip

• Evidence of some understanding of using different camera angles and shot

• demonstrate understanding of using continuity, shot reverse shot and editing
• use of a copyright free soundtrack or create your own music.

• A man walks down the road
• A girl enters a building
• The girl walks up some stairs looking suspicious
• She then sits down on a table
• The man walks in the room the girl is already in
• The girl says “do you remember me?”

From the time of the preliminary task to the main task, I learnt a lot of genre conventions and spotting them in films and television programs. Given that our preliminary task and main task wasn’t the same genre, we had to do a lot more research.

Pre- production:

Our main task needed a lot of planning which was something we did not do on our preliminary task. For our first task, we just had an idea of what we wanted the sequence to look like and we went straight into filming it. From our preliminary task, I learnt that planning is essential to having a good film.  We did a lot of research to find out more about psychological thriller conventions so that we know what we had to include in our sequence.

We then went on to drawing our storyboard which I later learnt was very important when it came to filming our footage. 

 Me doing some extra research on psychological thriller.

Production:

From the preliminary task,I learnt a lot about using camera equipments. During our preliminary task, some of the shots were handheld and for other shots, the camera was put on a table for stability.

During our main task, I learnt how important it was to use tripod. Because we filmed in an old warehouse, nothing was strong or stable to film from so we had to use the tripod. We shot some scenes as handheld because the scene was viewed from as characters perspective. We also used the tripod to take an establishing shot which although it wasn’t needed in the preliminary task; it gave us the confidence to try out other techniques such as camera angles.


Settings:

Settings of our preliminary task and main task.

 

Post production:

We found the preliminary task difficult to edit because it was filmed from three different cameras. It was difficult having accurate editing from the different cameras and joining them together. This process gave us the confidence to edit our main task.

Because our main task was filmed from a single camera, we thought it was easier to edit the footage compared to the preliminary task. The editing we found most difficult was adding soundtrack and cutting it off in particular scenes we didn’t want. 

 In general, this task has thought me a lot about working with people. We were assigned in groups to do both task. I had to work with people I don’t know before. I have learnt to listen and communicate with them which were out of my comfort zone. The most challenging part was making group decisions. This however helped our group because we all had a vision of what the film should be like and our group strive for the best possible outcome.

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

Before this task, I was not very familiar with digital camera, film lighting, the editing software and creating a blog. The blog meant that we had to start posting our thoughts of what we did each week and how we could improve our work. We were also given access other students work so we can read it and know how to improve our own work. We also had to learn how to use websites such as IMDB, YouTube and other official websites for different companies’ website such as Warp website.

 Before this task, I thought The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) was only used for watching film trailers and finding out more about movie plots. During this task, I learnt that IMBD also has content such as details of the film. These details include; the country where the film was made in, release dates and filming locations etc. Other important things you can find on IMDB about a film include box office budget, company credits and technical specs. People can also read about the film review.

I had used a digital camera before to take shots such as zoom in and long shots which was very effective in our task and was used to create tension. However, during the preliminary task I learnt different techniques such as the 180 degree rule which is mostly used during a conversation to create a good film.

A lot of research was needed in this task and all the research had to be done on the Internet. We explored the Internet, for example what the different types of editing techniques were and to watch film trailer on YouTube and other websites.

 We used Google to research conventions such as sound. 





YouTube was very useful in this task. Because it would have been very expensive to buy movies to analyse them, we used YouTube to watch a lot of our film openings.  We had some fair advantages of using YouTube because we had access to films. However, we struggled to find psychological thrillers on YouTube.

 


 

 YouTube to watch movie openings.














After doing our research and storyboard, we were ready to start filming. Because most of us knew very little about camera settings even after the preliminary task, we were lucky that one member in the group knew a lot on how to use the camera. By the second day of filming, we all knew how to use a digital camera. We knew how to use zoom to show emotion and long shot which shows loneliness. 

 

We used a tripod to get steady shots.















Unfortunately, during our second day of filming, we forgot our storyboard in school. We had to recall everything we had on the storyboard and improvise other shots. The filming was not accurate to our storyboard when we came back to school so we just had to edit what we filmed because none of us were willing to go back to the location were our sequence was filmed due to the health and safety measures. 

The film was set in an old and dark warehouse. There were broken glasses everywhere in the building which most of us cut our self from. We had to climb through windows to get into to the building which was a terrifying experience for me.  There was no naturally lighting and we forgot to bring a touch during film. We had to lit up our phones during filming to make the clips brighter. 

The scene where we used phone light to light up the scene.

 






We found the editing process really difficult after all the mix up we had during the filming but after some positive feedback from the teacher, we knew we could get some good scenes out of what we had. We had about four hours long of footage but we had to edit it down to a two minutes sequence. The only thing we had to do was to cropping the different parts we didn’t want. When the scenes we needed were selected, the film became easier to edit.

The film was set in both the present and the past. During editing, we used colour to differentiate the times. The natural film colour was use to represent what was happening in the present and we added black and white to show the past. I also learn how to drag particular clips we needed for editing and cut of the parts that we didn’t want. We used “adjustment button” to adjust the clip and audio (included background soundtracks).  I also learnt to use transitions such as Wipe and Cross dissolve which was also used in our preliminary task. 

                                                               


The difference in time is seen through colour ( past is represented in black and white while present is seen in it's normal colour).








I also learn how to download a free copy right soundtrack from SoundCloud onto iTunes. We did not add any background sounds in our preliminary task.

4.) Who would be the audience for your media product?

At the start of the project, we decided to target our audience according to our film genre. 

Because the boys in our group were particularly keen that our group should do a thriller genre, it gave us an idea of which audience are interest in this genre. However, just assuming that only boys were particularly interested in this genre was wrong because the result from our questionnaire showed that even though girls (female) feel like they are not well represented in thriller movies, most of them (female) found it very interesting. In fact the results of both male and female were very similar. 

Even though film industries are able to get the funding to produce a film, they struggle to get enough funding for distribution. This could be due to the fact that most distribution companies turn to target the wrong audience. At the moment, the majority of people who got to the cinemas to watch films are mostly teenager (15-17). 
However, most films distributed are aimed at people over the age of 18. This issues reduces the audience of the film, making it really competitive with other film distributors to attract their specific  audience. 

 Age difference. The majority of people that go to the cinema are age between 15-17 but film distributors aim their movies at over 18 years old.

The films I analysed was The Devil (2010) which had both genders who had prominent roles in it. However they were, slightly older than what we wanted our targeted audience to be. Because some of the feedback from our questionnaire suggested that women should be more representative in thrillers, we decided to make the lead actor of our film a girl. This is because she would be able to connect to both male and female audience. Her age would also possibly leave the audience confuse of her motives and who she is.

Characters in the Devil were age range from 30+ while our film had a teenager and a man in his late 20s. The difference in film audience strongly relies on the ages of the film characters. Our film is likely to attract teenagers and young adults while Devil is likely to attract a slightly older audience.


Our target audience are age range between 15-25 and older people could watch it as well. We want the film to be targeted at both male and female even though we hope to get more audience from females. 

Our sequence is targeted at both young adults and teenagers.

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

If our film was to be distributed, I believe an independent media institution would be more suitable compared to a major institution such as 20^th Century Fox and Warner Home Video. Even though the film is likely to be more success worldwide under these names, it is equally likely to have its disadvantages.

 

Major film distributors

 Hypothetically speaking, if our film was to be distributed by a film institution, Warp Films would be preferable. I prefer Warp Films because it is one of the most respected independent film companies based in England. It produces movies for their qualities and individualism and that is why I think it would be a good company to produce our film. 

Some of their films include; she is Chinese, Four Lions, Dead Man’s Shoes, Hush and This is England which is broadcast by channel 4. They have worked with some of the UKs biggest film producers such as Shane Meadow who won a BAFTA award (on his work on This is England), Chris Morris and Chris Cunningham. 

 

 With their connections to chennel4 through the film series “This is England,” they have the ability to promote other films. Their synergy are also able to advertise their films through billboards and posters which can be usually seen around Britain when a film is about to be released. Audiences are also able to view up coming film trailers on Warp website, YouTube and TV channels such as Channel 4. Film festivals and film premiere are also good ways of promoting films. When actors such as William Ash from the Hush attend a film premiere, they make good promotion to the film because they say what audience would expect from the film.

Billboard advert of "This Is England"

 

 Warp Films is also associated with channel 4.

Other ways of distributing our film is entering short film competitions that could possibly distribute our film if it wins. An example of this is Electric December which is held every year in December for anyone in Europe to take part in it. It gives chance to young filmmakers to show off their talents. Hypothetically, this could be a good distributor for our movie as the winner not only gets their film distributed but are given the chance to attend film premiere and work with professional film makers.

 Electric December encourages young film makers around Europe to enter the competition to meet with professional film makers.

Another way of distributing our film would be through YouTube and other online video distributions. This is because it is easy and quick to upload the video and you could earn a certain amount of money when you become partners with YouTube and when your video is able to attract a number of audience.  YouTube would be easy to attract audience because people have access to it worldwide.

  

 YouTube could also be another way of distributing our film.

Even though companies like this can produce our film, cheap distribution like YouTube and Warp films would be crucial to the success of our low budget film. 

However, some distribution companies find it very expensive to market films so many UK films struggle to get a distribution deal. When it comes to distribution, the film has to get a lot of advertisement in other to meet different target audience. For example, a film distributed by Walt Disney could cost about £36 million to market such as film trailers, billboards, posters, promotions, TV appearances etc. Often, low budget movies are not able to afford marketing a film which ends up not making it in cinemas. 

2.) How does your media product represent particular social group?

Emotional realism is seen through the plot in our sequence. We wanted to create something different from other psychological thrillers. To do this, the sequence had to be focused around the female character. The female character we wanted to portray was someone who is willing to stand up for herself. She is powerful and dominant. She is seeking revenge of the murder of her family which she witnessed at as a young girl and the event define her character. The character is a strong individual who is always in control of a situation.  We wanted to challenge how women are represented in thriller films as vulnerable and weak.

Everything that is happening in the female character's life is due to what happened to her parents when she was younger.

                          she isn't afraid of anything or anyone.

We used just two characters at the start sequence so that the audience can have a real connection with the main characters. The characters we used were a middle age man who is in his early thirties and a teenage girl, about 17 years old. We tried to use real situations that happen in the real world. However, that wasn't very effective as teenagers wouldn’t go out to seek revenge at a very young age.

 Our film focused on this two characters one of which is a teenager and the other one is an adult.

Surface realism is recognisable from the settings. The sequence was shot in an old warehouse “S.S Great Britain Building”. The genre is immediately recognised from the very start of the film when the audience first see a picture of the building. The warehouse has an air of mystery and eeriness in it which would mostly attract teenagers (our film target audience.)

our sequence was filmed in this building.




Technical realism was seen through Mise-En –Scene and editing. The Mise- En- Scene element we used were; colour, costume, setting, framing and props. We used basic clothing that was flexible and relaxing. Rebecca wore a jumper, sports trouser and a pair of trainers. The girls clothing was used to show her attitude to life and the audience could easily identify with her character. The shots were mostly medium shots or eye level shots to replicate a conventional perspective. There was a conversational shot which was used to include our only dialogue “DO YOU REMEMBER ME?” the dialogue was also used through a shot-reverse shot editing. The girl is seen by the audience over the shoulder of the man.

The final Mise- En- Scene element that was used was props. We used a rounder bat as a weapon to show the dangers that are to come. The camera works that were used in the film were high angle on Alistair character which was used to show his vulnerability and a low angle on Rebecca’s camera which shows her power. Other camera setings used were zoom in which was used to show emotion on Rebecca’s character when she said “do you remember me?”
 

 Rebecca's character held a rounders bat for her weapon.








 We used two different genres of soundtrack. In the scenes were the girl is confronting the man, we played songs that are harsh and sharp while for the flash backs, we played a soft song that would show her recovery and power from what she has been through.

However, the social group representation was biased because the questionnaire was distributed to more youths than adults. Even though a number of copies of questionnaires were printed and taken home for parents to answer, about 88 per cent of the answered questionnaire was filled in by students age between 16-19. Therefore our target audience would be mostly teenager as the representation was based on their opinions and perspective. 

 During the filming, we tried to show our film interpretation through camera angles such as high and low angles. We tried to show Rebecca (the girl) from a high angle which would show her superior and Alastair (the man) from a low angle to show his vulnerability. It was very difficult to show the angles because of the difference in height. Alastair is way taller than Rebecca so trying to film him from a high angle as Rebecca’s perspective was difficult.

  

 over the shoulder shot was ued to show that Rebecca is more powerful.

We would have filmed him from a low angle in the shots when he was alone. A scene that would have been good to show his vulnerability in is the shot when he was walking on the street. That would also suggest other dangers to come in the future.

During editing, we decided to focus on the last scene, Rebecca’s (the girl) character. The editing used was over the shoulder shot where the camera zooms into Rebecca’s and then she says “Do you remember me”? This then brings the film to an end.

 
Our film subverts the idea that male characters are usually the villains in a thrillers. Rebecca's character is first seen as an innocent girl who then dramatically changes at the end of the sequence. We did this because we wanted to get a different reaction from our audience. We wanted to challenge the idea that women (especially blond) are weak and vulnerable. Rebecca's character is first introduced in this way and her victim is an older and bigger man. 

An example of a film that uses a young girl as a villain is Hard Candy. The girls is first seen as an innocent vulnerable girl (just like Rebecca's character) driven away by an older man. The audience immediately thinks she is in trouble but at the end, the older man is the victim.