Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Pleasures are aspects of a film that attract viewers as they are enjoyable, Fears are aspects that the audience can relate to and link with there real life fears, typically in more violent/gore films. Pleasures are an important aspect of the viewers expirience, to want to keep watching the film they must enjoy it.

Narrative-

Narrative pleasures are aspects of the story which engage the audience and keep them in anticipation of what is going to happen, on the edge of their seat if you will. Techniques such as foreshadowing and Chekov's gun are commonly used in thriller to make audiences really think about every detail of whats going on, these premonitions are pleasing as they build tension and anticipation for the audience.
My thriller incorporates foreshadowing to a certain extent, by having the protagonist stop and look in the mirror, we then later see her kidnapped through a mirror, this could be interpreted as a narrative pleasure. 

Thematic-

Thematic pleasures are common themes of the genre being repeated. In my thriller, themes of corruption, isolation, fear and vulnerability are all used throughout. Audiences are attracted to these themes as they are rather broad and allow for creative and enigmatic texts.
My thriller allows the audience to make their own impressions of the characters, but overall they should sympathise entirely with the protagonist due to the themes we set out. To pick out a few scenes where these themes were used, the shed scene at the end certainly identifies with all if not most of these themes. The audience enjoys this pleasure due to the fact that it is satisfying for a film to follow themes and stick to its genre while staying engaging and diverse at the same time. Mine does this well with the fast intensity used throughout the middle section.

Aesthetic  -

The overall look of the film is a major part of the general attraction to the product. Cinematography and mise en scene come into this. In my thriller I used doors a lot and made sure to film them in interesting ways, the recurring doors added a labyrinthine  atmosphere to the house, making the character seem lost in her own security. The two kidnappers have matching costumes, this is incredibly aesthetically pleasing and will engage the audience.

Genre-

Defining the films genre and sub genre helps the audience to fully understand the narritive and therefore enhance their pleasure.

My thriller maintained and challenged common conventions of the thriller genre, this is not only pleasing, but thought provoking as it redefines stereotypes and makes people change their perception of crime/thriller roles and gender imbalance. This engages the viewer to a high level and enhances their viewing experience in turn.

Representational -

The representations of people in films can change peoples pleasure, if they are offended by a representation they won't enjoy the product as much. My thriller challenges representations of women, which will widen its audience to include more women who will be interested in how the stereotypes have been fought against, and will also throw other fans of the genre off gaurd as they will be used to male dominant roles who control the camera and narritive. As this is not common it will enhance pleasure by being unique and different, at the risk of being to more remote from mainstream thrillers than originally anticipated.

Fears-

Fears really help the audience connect with the protagonist, the fears in my film are those of which many people can relate to. This increases pleasure by deeply immersing the audience in the characters narrative and making them feel like the protagonist is like them as people see similarities to themselves in others. while a lot of the fears in my film are metaphorical, this will still have the intended psychological affect. There is also the clear fears such as being kidnapped, and claustrophobic environments. Many people in the audience will directly relate to these and increase in engagement with the film  

Question 4

Question 2

Question 1

My product  is a psychological urban thriller

Shot 1 Uses common conventions of thrillers by suggesting the organised, professional and criminal aspects of the characters, mise en scene and location. These themes of the genre stand out due to the layout of the tools. It is very similar to the shot below from Se7en, it not only establishes character, but allows the audience to infer certain characteristics of the pair. The shot also establishes the power struggle between the characters, accentuated by the division and space between the kidnappers. This shot somewhat challenges the stereotypes of male dominance in crime and in general, while promoting the female kidnapper to be more organised and more in control of the situation at hand.

Shot 2 somewhat emphasises the overall power of the criminals. They are lurking in the shadows which really puts across their immorality and capacity to carry out nasty tasks. The light in the window creates a juxtaposition, suggesting the kidnappers are stuck in their life of criminality, the shadows connote that although there is a different path for their lives there is an overwhelming sense that they will never be able to reach a moral high ground. In Double indemnity you can see the chiaroscuro ligting creating a somewhat similar contrast, bringing connotations of power and immorality.

 

Shot 3 is cut straight down the middle, not only separating the two characters physically but also in the eyes of the audience. The male kidnappers weakness and innocence is really highlighted. He is watched over by the superior kidnapper as he drinks water. The composition and mise en scene of the shot cuts through displaying his purity in the situation. Potentially the female kidnapper has forced him into criminality. The character makes a loud unproffesional noise when drinking the water, which causes the lead kidnapper to convey mild annoyance, further confirming her dominance. This convention is seen in Alice creed when the kidnappers are against the wall with the line down the middle. this geometry foreshadows the division of the partenership.                                 

Shot 4 shows the protagonist looking into the mirror, The audience gets an idea of her personality as she is checking her appearance in the mirror, this brings about ideas of a higher class. Following this, the shot is reflective, literally and figuratively. The lines in the shot point at the character which brings the attention to her. This is a common theme of the genre. In the third man, all lines point towards the character, making him seem encapsualted and trapped in his position. The same affect could be interpreted to my character as she is not safe in her own home.

Shot 5 Is an extreme close up of the protagonists face in the shed, there is a shadow cast across her face, which represents the metaphorical darkness and hopelessness washing over her. This technique is a common convention of thrillers, but more commonly used to signify corruption. This would mean that my thriller is challenging the convention as it is using the aspect to mean something other than what is typically expected.

Shot 6 is fast paced and extremely disorientating for the audience, which is good because they should feel sympathy for the protagonist. The scream cuts through the scene which further confuses the audience and and leads them to feel claustrophobic as the protagonist must feel that way too.

Shot 7 uses chiaroscuro lighting to cast a dark shadow from the character onto the door, this is a common convention of thrillers, used effectively by double indemnity (shot below), to show a dark side of the character and further encourage motifs of criminality and bad deeds.

Shot 8 is thee font I chose for My main title. It is dirty, grungy, and reminiscent of that used for Essex boys, a similarly dirty nasty film. I put it directly in the centre of the frame as although it is dirty and damaged, it directly translates to missing, but that isnt obvious to the target audience so it adds to the enigmatic feel of the film and fits perfectly with the genre/ sub-genre.

The final shot, shot 9, again shows the protagonist in the mirror, the mirror in which the audience will witness her being kidnapped in view of. It is off centre to increase the tension of the scene and its build up. The character is vulnerable in this shot as she is facing away from the camera and she is again getting unready. The colour pallet of this shot is very bland, the only source of personality coming from the characters clothes, this makes the room overall seem somewhat untrustworthy. The protagonist of se7en also has a dull colour pallet in his bedroom, which would connote that it is not a happy place, but somewhere where he must go. Linking to our thriller, this could suggest that the character does not enjoy being indoors, making her uncomfortable and therefore more vulnerable.

Question 7

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

Demands and requirements of each task

The thriller required a lot more time and effort than the preliminary. Without sufficient research I wouldn't have had the knowledge to understand how to produce the kind of production i was making. The thriller also forced me to think about many various aspects of media. Where the preliminary task allowed me to make mistakes and understand basic techniques, the thriller required more adept techniques and precision. 

Pre-production planning and research
The preliminary task didn't require very much planning at all, and the little planning the group did wasn't very thorough compared to the hours of research spent on the thriller opening. The shoots for the thriller were made less impromptu by creating storyboards, blog posts on fonts and sounds, and by having shooting schedules for organisation. This not only taught me a lot about the positive effects of planning and organisation, but also helped me develop the skills necessary. Finding a location was one of the tasks that took a lot of thought for the thriller, our original choice wasn't safe or easy to get to, so we decided on a location that was suitable and easy to get to, in contrast, finding a location for the preliminary task involved walking around school looking for locations that worked for us, setting up the camera, and filming on the spot. This got me to think about the next time i'm making a film, and how i should make sure to research a wide range of locations to ensure I can film in a place I'm happy with.

Production (the shoot)
Although production was very complex, it was made easier due to the fact that we had developed the skills necessary to film from our preliminary task, some shots would be hard to obtain without sufficient practise. The preliminary taught me that watching back footage on the camera on set and re-shooting sections is important as when it gets to the edit, you don't want to be short of content to work with reshooting directly affects the final product as when editing you can use the shots of highest quality. The preliminary also taught me the importance of the 180 degree rule, in my thriller i was sure to follow it during the walking sequence as i was aware of the impact it would have on the quality of the product.

Post production (the edit)
The preliminary task taught me a lot about premier pro than I already knew, which improved my speed and precision when it came to the thriller edit. In turn, this allowed for a more professional looking product, with smooth visual and audio transitions. Editing is something i enjoy and the preliminary was harder for me to edit as I wasn't comfortable wit the software, without doing the preliminary, my thriller would have been less together and not as smooth. The thrillers soundtrack was easy to manage due to the work i did on the preliminary, it taught me how to change volume using keyframes for certain sections. The music used also helped me to cancel out background noises.

Question 6

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

Pre-Production:

To aid my planning/ research i created a blog upon which i could upload posts outlining my ideas and observations. The blog at first seemed somewhat daunting but within a few sessions i had easily picked up on how to edit and use my blog. The blogs also allow for embedding of powerpoints, videos, and other styles of presentation, all of which Helped me to complete my research and planning. The blog also allows the usage of images to help highlight your points. Another feature is labeling which helped me to keep all of my posts tidy and organised.
during research i viewed youtube videos to help me grasp a concept of how to make a good thriller, this included sound and lighting techniques. I used dropbox to obtain stills from films we ave studied in class to put onto my blog. Group work was achieved by using microsoft one drive, and adding my group members to a group powerpoint. when making my thriller i had to make sure not to infringe on copyright with sound music and font, using sites such as freesound and dafont allowed me to obtain royalty free content for use with my thriller.0-

Production:

To capture my production, i used a HD 1080p camera which allowed me to film at a high quality. The camera was easy to set up and use. For storage it uses a standard SD card, the one I used was 32GB which was more than enough storage for my film. The zoom function on the camera works effectively and allowed me to film some interesting shots. The move-able screen on the camera allowed playback of the shots and let us see the shot before we filmed it, this allowed for precision and helped to get clear concise filming

Post-Production:

The editing software i used was Premier Pro, it is non linear meaning you can edit your film along a timeline and make changes at any point. Premier is very easy to use and has taught me a lot about editing that i didn't know already, for exaple, using in and out points instead of using a split or razor tool. The program also allows for easy editing of the audio, i was able to dim the audio in sections where it jumped or sounded rough. The program and project overall made me think about using fast cuts to minimise the amount of time shots are on screen for a tense atmosphere, I discovered that a fast sequence builds tension extremely well. 

Question 3

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

My thriller isn't a mainstream product, it is more reminiscent of niche low budget independent productions, shot in ambiguous locations in remote parts of the uk. This leads me to think that a distribution company like Cinemanx is ideally suited to distribute my thriller. Cinemanx distributed 'The disappearance of Alice Creed' a thriller very similar to my own, it is dark and gritty and has a unique aesthetic. Cinemanx has distributed a range of British low budget productions, which leads me to infer that they are well established as a distribution company working with niche films, and making use of their maximum marketability. All of the products cinemanx have distributed are quirky independent products including a comedy, a documentary, and an animated crime film, this confirms the institutes diverse range of ventures, and also displays how they would be able to successfully distribute my film. Another company that could distribute my film is picturehouse Entertainment, who've distributed other small budget indie films like 'The Lobster'. This proves their expirience distributing non mainstream films. while Picturehouse entertainment is similar to Cinemanx, I think cinemanx is the better of the two for my film as cinemanx is more suited to the niche of the film. Another choice may be Film 4 as they are good at distributing niche films and promoting new actors and producers, for example the inbetweeners 2 which was globalised after its initial release.

Cinema city is an art house cinema owned by cineworld which runs as an independent cinema and would be perfect for my thriller. It often has special offers for young people, this means that my thriller will be seen by a wider audience. Vue however may not be as good for showcasing our film, as it is far too mainstream and not many people would go to view to see an indie film. None the less vue is the biggest cinema chain in the UK so it would be useful for reaching more people.

Netflix is a very large platform for alternative content, many non mainstream products are put on netflix to be consumed by viewers, and many are very successful via this method. This is because it is cheaper to pay for a subscription than to go out to the cinema often. There are also many films similar to my thriller so it will come up and be suggested to viewers watching similar products. Another service suitable for my thriller is YouTube, on YouTube you can directly purchase products and stream them in high quality. YouTube also allows independent film makers to directly upload their films and get profit via monetisation. YouTube is a platform that all kinds of people have access to.