Robert Thurgood Phillips AS 6365: May 2012

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Monday 7 May 2012

What have you learnt about new technologies from the process of completing the project?

What have you learnt about new technologies from the process of constructing the product? on Prezi

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our media product is an independent film, stereotypically these type of media products are targeted for a niche audience as they have not accumulated the budget to afford the distrobution for the mass audience that a lot of the psychological thrillers we have looked at cater for, we have used a lot of generic conventions found in these more mainstream releases, such as uses of locations, props and character profiles.

Our film is not targetted at a completely niche audience and we believe that due to the mainstream tendancies and after applying for funding out product become very succesful like some of the other films we researched such as The Inbetweeners Movie and Kick Ass.

Kick Ass, although starring american actors,
is a British independant film,
one of the most successful ever created in fact.

The infamous British 2011 film
The Inbetweeners Movie recieved a huge boxoffice
succes after it was released as an independent
british film following it's televison success.

The certification for our film is a 15, the opening when looked at in regard to certifications was a PG/12 due to adult themes (Drug use) but later on in the film the certificate of fifteen is given due to some scenes of violence and some other adult themes.
This means that children of the age 15 or younger would not be legally allowed to view this product, but our research discovered that would not be a great loss of revenue as our surveys show that they would prefer t watch different genres such as comedies of fantasy adventures.

Male students aged 15 - 19 are our target audience.

Like the two films shown above our target audience is male students, although they are both of different genres they relate as our film contains the same ambitions and also the same target audience, although stereotypically comedies are more successful than films with the genre of a psychological thriller.

Our film is specifically geared towards males in the demographic group of E or C1 as we believe they would relate more to the characters, nevertheless it is certainly not a niche audience we are catering for, audience feedback suggests people of all ages, genders and demographic groups will watch our film and enjoy it without it being aimed at them specifically as it appeals to everyone who enjoys a psychological thriller as the conventions are mostly stuck to.

Male students were chosen as they are seen to enjoy psychological thrillers but also because a lot of the characters featured are the same as as our target audience, causing our target audience to empathise with some of the characters and discover connotations of underlying social realism in the form of stereotypical problems of events for the target audiences to relate with.

Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze Theory' would also be presented within the film, although it is not in the opening as no females are shown, but the target audiences are the stereotypical audience for the male gaze theory so this is a very useful tool for attracting our target audience.

Notes on audience genre certification

After thinking of a certificate and genre to give our film we wanted to check we were creating the right piece.
This is the top ten thriller films, although we are looking more at psychological thrillers I found it would be more helpful to look at thrillers and then look at certificates they have been given. By looking at this I can determine if the certificate my group have given is correct to what the BBFC would give.

Pulp Fiction (1994) - 18
The Dark Knight (2008) - 12A
Inception (2010) - 12A
Goodfellas (1990) -18
Rear Window (1954) - PG
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - 18
The Usual Suspects (1995) - 18
Psycho (1960) - 15
Se7en (1995) - 18
Leon (1994) - 18

From these I have found that most thrillers are put at certificate 18, this is most likely because they are often made for an active audience. Meaning the mind could become over active and psychologically the audience could be effected. There are often also scene of violence and gore, for instance in Se7en (1995).

As most of these film are certificated at 18 however I have thought about who our target audience and realised we wanted to aim to a wider range. This means using a certificate 15 would appeal to more people. We didn't want to put the certificate to low as our story is quite effective and could upset younger children. There will be use of drugs etc in our piece so this has to be thought about and therefore certificate 15 is most convention for thriller.

Audience expectations

We as a group decided to look at different genres and their expected conventions within them, we asked people of different backgrounds and different ages to answer a few questions on our proposed genre about what they expect to see and what age certification they expect a typical comedy to be. I came up with a few relevant questions for the participants to answer about their opinions for the expectations of a comedic film.

5 People where asked to answer these questions.

1. Would you consider watching a comedy film?
2.What 3 things would you typically associate with a comedy film you would consider watching?
3. Which certification would you expect your typical comedy to be?
4.When would you expect to watch a film of this genre?

I believed that from these questions I would be able to collect enough information about the conventions expected from this particular genre.

Stuart Thurgood Phillips - 17

1. Yes
2. Sexual Themes, teen humour and spoofs/parodies
3.15 - 18
4. With friends or at home when bored

Mark Phillips -50

1.Yes
2. Gags, far'fetched events, slapstick
3. 15
4. At home with family.

Georgia Phillips - 8

1. Yes
2. Funny people, love and a happy ending
3. U - PG
4. With parents after school.

Maud Hesketh - 25

1. Yes
2. Stereotypes, parodies and a vague storyline
3. 15 - 18
4.With the boyfriend or flatmates

Charlotte Hampel - 14

1. Yes
2. Love, rude guys and happy endings
3. 12A/ 15
4. with my friends at a sleepover.

Scott Burgess - 13

1.No
2.N/A
3.15
4.N/A

Peter Sterne - 30

1.Yes
2. Drugs, sexual themes and "cringey" moments
3. 15 - 18
4. with friends or alone in bedroom if bored.

From the answers collected I have deducted that comedy films are very popular among audiences of any age, this is probably due to the fact that comedies are rapidly developing into different hybrids and each target audience will be persuaded to watch "their type of comedy film" it is obvious that the participants between the age of 15-17 are commonly fans of comedies dubbed 'Teen Comedy' which feature exagerrated high Schools often set in America and involve adolescent sexual adventure and conflicts with authority, for example the American Pie series of films, i believed each were certified a 15 for scenes of a sexual nature and for use of profanity.
It has also been discovered that the location of which comedies are watched is, majority of the time, at home via dvd or television rather than on the big screen, this is down to the lack of comfort audiences may feel in some scenes and watching them in there own home makes the 'Cringey' parts of the film become more bareable.
the certification for most comedies is 15-18 although this is mainly due to the modern hybrids and their content, comedies can still be enjoyed by children whilst being different subgenres, which is what helps to make it probably the most popular genres in the history of film, because it caters to such a mass audience and can be split into so many different hybrids.

Robert Thurgood Phillips

Notes on certification

As we were creating the basis of our final film as a group we spent time looking at certificates and how the audience are classified.
There are two types of audience
Mass Audience
Mainstream films with big stars in them. Large, broad audience. Always played in cinemas like Odeon and Cineworld and are overly advertised
Niche Audience
These are people that are a closely defined audience as they have similar interests. They are not widely published and are played in Picture and Art house cinemas.

There are then different sections called Demographic groups
These are:
A. Top management of companies, doctors
B. Middle class, creative eg artists, teachers
C1. Office supervisors and nurses
C2. Skilled works eg carpenters
D. Semi-skilled and unskilled. Blue collar workers
E. Unemployed, students and pensioners

As well as separate groupings films are sorted into certificates. These are decided by The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). This was founded in 1912 and has sorted films since. The certificates ranges from U to 18.

Looking at these classifications I think our filmed would be aimed at demographic groups C1-E (Mostly E) as these would be most interested in watching our film. and the certificate would be a 15 because it fits conventions of psychological thriller.

consideration of genre

Before creating our piece we needed to think of what genre to follow. By looking at films that were being released at the moment we looked at the sort of things that weren't that common. This way we could reach a totally different market and create more interesrt.

This is a list of the top five films in the USA Box office beginning the date of April 6-12
1. The Hunger Games
2. American Pie; The Reunion
3. Titanic 3D
4. Wrath of the Titans
5. Mirror Mirror.

From looking at these five different films they all have different genres ranging from romantic films, to family films. There are no thrillers and looking down through the top 20 of this week, there are only very few thrillers. This proves to me that our initial idea of creating a thriller will work. As the market is open it will be easy to create a film the audience want.

When looking at thrillers we have to look out for things like
Dark colours, giving a scary and dark feeling.
Murder or Death, whether the story is about the death or it is involved.
Suspense, giving the viewer more interest in what they are watching.
Fast Paced, action sequences are used.
Psychosis- fear of the unknown.

These are common conventions of a thriller and we will bare this in mind when creating a storyboard for our own film opening.

Analysis of Student films

Infected

The genre given is a horror film, this is shown well through the fast cuts and chilling tone to build up before the fast pace chase and phone call shown, generic conventions in the form of the woman dropping her keys, the score and the zombies are used,
The characters shown are a main woman protagonist, and several antagonist children zombies, this woman may have a larger part within the film but one generic convention of these types of horror film is the early death of a character.
There is a vague narrative shown, through the setting we can see that there has been a zombie infection withing a school, this ties in with the name of the film and will engage an active audience to think deeper into the narrative, although it is common for these type of films to not explain the narrative until after the opening.
The themes used are that of horror, zombie films will attract a niche audience simply through the theme of including zombies, also a school theme is used to begin with and then twisted with the horror theme.
The titles given are white, they are in a font that is not particularly conventional and sometimes they are less clear to be able to read, although they follow the rules in regards to ordering in order to make the film look very professional.

Tiny Terror

The genre is given by the name, and reinforced by the film, it is a horror film which uses the conventions of a young couple as protagonists, there is also early gory death which would give this film a certificate of 15 or 18, the idea of using a doll is used sometimes within this genre in films such as the Childs play series.
The characters shown are a young heterosexual couple, this is commonly used within this film, and before the male is introduced there is a build up of tension with our female protagonist, this is stereotypical as it represents the male as strong and safe, the female is found dead which then cause the younger male to cry which goes against stereotype, we will not know how both characters are going to end up throughout the film but it connotes the the audience a stereotypical opening to introduce the antagonist by killing off the first victims.
A simple narrative is given, the young female is home alone and invites her boyfriend over, this is a simple yet effective small narrative, used in many films to set a scene without complicating the viewers, as they are seen to be removed from the film it is safe to presume the narrative will follow the doll antagonist and not the first location or protagonists.
The themes used have been mentioned briefly, but they are the theme of young love, soon torn apart by the murderous doll, the theme of a doll coming to life is supernatural which is a common theme for horror films.
The titles were not stereotypical although fit the order set well, they do not stick to continuity as the beginning titles for the film name and production companies are red and of different fonts to the others, this break in continuity could confuse the audience.

Evaluation Question Five

This is my annotated video for the question ''How did you attract your audience?''

Evaluation Question Seven

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

When looking back at or preliminary task, even without searching for them many mistakes come up, when it was completed at the beginning of the course we did not have the expertise to notice these mistakes therefore they were left, this in itself shows great progress from our preliminary to now, the examples of mistakes are the cuts and their fluency, the mise en scene in regards to costume and setting and the use of technology was not very good.
This was all excused by the group as lack of experience and time, we were given a day to film and as long as the camera angles and movements were included we did not have to take continuity into account, props were used but we just had to use what we had at hand and planning was completed non-existent.
framing was not highly considered and useful enough footage was found only after a fair amount of footage was voided due to inclusion of random people and items.
framing due to the lack of full mise en scene consideration we decided to film within a classroom which did not fit within our era piece including cowboys and maidens, our editing was satisfactory but only done very vaguely, the transitions used were tasteless and when looked back on i detested them, they did not fit the conventions of this story right and broke continuity very frequently.
location and weather was not able to be considered within the time frame so filming was carried out on a very windy day upon our school field, meaning that background noise was prominent and and the horizon shows many contemperary buildings breaking continuity within our actually proposed story,
Editing was difficult though in other respects when it came to customising titles or adding music to our piece.

When comparing this to our final film it is obvious that we have improved in the uses of our technology and also the time we were allocated gave us more freedom beforehand in order to research and plan our product in order to meet the genric conventions of a film and help our film to flourish.
Mise en scene, location, sound, editing, lighting, props costumes and camera work were considered greatly in terms of generic conventions and appeal for our target audience.
In terms of sound a stereoypical generic score is used to connote darkness and a sinister intetions within our film opening, this was highly considered and as music was not even contemplated for our preliminary task improvents were made in regards to music but also the consideration of unwanted background sounds and how this mistake faced in the preliminary could be avoided when filming by simple not genrating noise while the camera was recording or replacing the noise with non-diegetic music we had decided on through considered royalty free music and music created by our group.

The Mise en scene was greatly considered in our final film compared to our preliminary, the time we had to consider each aspect we a great deal more as well so it gave us more freedom and a higher chance for creativity.
where we had little time for organising the costume, location and lighting for our the preliminary film this was quite the contrary for our final project as we were able to organise our entire film in different types of storyboards and plans, for the setting of our film we considered many different locations for each of our scenes within the opening, locations for the bedroom scenes, the bathroom scenes and the kitchen scenes were researched greatly on each strength and weakness in order to choose our final filming locations and come out with the ideal footage. Our bedroom seemed relatively simple and minimalist and containing dark connotations through natural light and the shadowed tones, also the kitchen connotes a front of normality with it's bright high key lighting but this goes against conventions to support the uses and gratifications audience theory comprised Dennis McQuall, as they seek the conventions hidden behind the mise, in this case the sense of hidden danger given by the kitchen.
within our preliminary we had a day to film and so locations were not considered as greatly, we had to decide on our school field which was not ideal and a classroom which ruined continuity for our entire film. The lighting within our final film represents our main antagonist and his state of mental well being, as it it seen to go down the the key of lighting, his thoughts are seen to become darker and his mentality diminishing.
Props were also thought of greatly considered, each less vital prop was even considered in continuity and convention of a psychological thriller, for example, the tea bag packaging is red, and although this is a very minor prop with little screen time the red is used to connote danger and blood, conventions stereotypically used in films such a psychological thrillers such as ours.
When creating our preliminary task we mainly focused on including certain camera angles and movements, we kept to the 180 degree rule and included a match on action shot and a shot reverse shot where necessary in order to keep continuity and to avoid confusing the audience, as we basically only concentrated on this specific element we overlooked a lot of things that were important to concentrate on when completing our final project.