1. Use of Filter in Editing- Used by us to create a sombre atmosphere, this foreshadows the fate of our protagonist. This is a common feature of Thrillers; and is used heavily in 'Sin City'.
2. Use of Enigma- We delibrately decided to keep the identity of the Mob Manager a secret leaving the audience questions as to who he really is. We achieved this by using an over the shoulder medium shot that revealed no facial features. This is used well in 'The Usual Suspects', where the audience doesn't know who has just set a man on fire. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6msq8mgdnE. Like this film we have allowed the character some dialogue to intrigue the audience even more.
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| Shot from the 'Usual Suspect' tantalises audience by revealing some bodily features but not facial. |
4. Lighting- We used side lighting and low key lighting to make the Mob Manager seem corrupt. This is a very common feature of Thriller antagonists. This can be seen in the opening of 'The Departed'.
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| The 'shadowy' side of the character suggests corruption. |
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| Example from Citizen Kane: Low Angle implies characters growing empire |
7. Soundtrack- We used a soundtrack which paralleled the gait of the mystery man. This made him seem purposeful and proffesional. This is unlike De ja vu (One of the Thrillers I researched) which uses contrapuntal as the bomb is about to explode.
9. Titling- Our titling inspiration came about from the TV Programme, Lost in which the titles normally play after a moment of disequalibrium allowing the audience to reflect on what they have just seen. This is done to create an eery and unsettling atmosphere before the narrative progresses.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Who is being represented by your product?
- Gender- In our product there are 3 main, male characters. But, no female characters.
- Age- The mystery man and Stan are around the same age (Mid 20's) whereas the Mob Manager is much older (In his 50's/60's)
- Although all 3 characters are male, there are both modern and traditional representations.
- The Mystery Man and Mob Manager both appear to be negative and traditional stereotypes of men. The side lighting in the Mob Manager scene makes him seem corrupt; he has two personalities. The use of the hoody for the mystery man, creates a sense of danger and threat.They both have traditional stereotypical connotations of strength and power over the others around them. The fact that they are criminals could be seen as an extreme of competitiveness and aggression.
- However, we did incorporate this idea from 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', in which a girl wears a hoody we just felt that a girl carrying out the kidnapping was too much of an extreme, modern stereotype.
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| The hoody creates a sense of danger |
- Whereas, Stan is a more modern representation, he appears weak, vunerable and passive in the Mob Manager's plans.
- We took this idea from Inception, in which the audience is immediately emotionally engaged with the male characters' plight. We did not just want a negative, traditional stereotype of males in our piece and it was with this idea that the character of Stan came about.
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| Close Ups of Stan create emotional emphathy |
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| Modern rep in Inception |
- The traditional stereotype of older people is that they are dependant on others, however, through the use of lighting in our sequence, the older mob manager is seen to manipulative to the younger, Stan. The stereotype that older people are wiser but use this for good is turned on its head in our opening where the older mob manager uses his experience to put our protagonist in a dangerous situation.
- This idea stemmed from the representation of an older mob manager in 'The Departed'. In this film, the character played by Jack Nicholson is able to control the people around him without neccesarily having the same strength they have as young people. This is similar to our opening, the mob manager is not in the same location as Stan and therefore cannot be confronted by him on the issue. Our film is for a young audience, but by using an older antagonist, this is likely to unsettle them and leave them 'on the edge of their seat'.
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| Side lighting allowed for the 'darker' side of the character. |
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
- Our product would be distributed by a Britsh distribution company. Possibly a company such as E1 Entertainment Universal which also encompasses areas such as music and TV. They would distribute our product because of the way it tries to connect with younger people. This is the age group that this particular company focuses on.
- Our target audience is the 16-25 market, therefore, by using a mainstream, modern and recognised company like E1 the movie will instantly appeal to those involved.
- It will be released country wide in the mainstream, multiplex market. This market has disadvantages such as cost from prints of the film, but hopefully this can be clawed back by the widespread interest the film will make.
Certificate- I think our certificate would be a 15. This is for two reasons: 1. To hit our target audience and 2. Because of the criminal/violent aspect of the narrative. However, this would have to be certified by the BBFC.
1. Our first method of distribution would be through the internet. This could include a website, a trailer on youtube and adverts on websites. This would interest our young audience because it is a very modern technology. This type of distribution would hopefully create a 'viral buzz' about the film as the word about it spreads. Films like 'Transformers 3' have over a million hits for their trailers on youtube.
- Most internet users are target audience
- If done in the right way chance of 'viral' success.
- Generally cheap, website might be slightly more expensive.
Disadvantages
Advantages
Advantages
- Could completley alienate other people outside intended audience.
- Could become 'viral' for wrong reasons. Internet audience may react negatively and create parodies or write comments that could affect film success.
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| Dedicated film programmes would help promote. |
- Popular source of entertainment, will be wide reaching.
- If talked about in positive light then film may garner more interest.
- Not as easily accessible as internet, will only be shown at certain times when intended audience may not be watching.
- If talked about negatively, then the wide reaching appeal will be a disadvantage as more people will think that the film is poor.
- 3. A final method could be posters or billboards. This could be put in a public place to raise awareness for theupcoming release. This could be put on bus stops, at train stations and on top of or on buildings.
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| A 'Wanted' billboard on top of a building. |
- If placed correctly, could significantly increase interest and revenue for the film.
- More memorable than other methods, a large visual reminder that people might see a number of times in one day.
- Because it is in a public place it may become defaced or vandalised.
- Very expensive (especially billboards).
Gender
- Predominantly male audience. It should appeal to the stereotypical male interests through the use of themes such as corruption and crime and through the use of the soundtrack and cuts at fast pace.
- Hopefully some females would connect and appreiciate with the emotional, passive modern representation used with the protagonist something that many Thrillers still seem to ignore.
Age
16-25 year old- Hopefully, the fast pace of our film and how it quickly reaches a state of disequalibrium would attract a 16-25 audience. Perhaps in our film we should of tried to include something for another age group, as this age group appears to go to the cinema the most. http://www.movieadvertising.com/cinema_stats.html
5. How did you attract/ address your audience?
Narrative
- The use of an early disequalibrium would attract a 16-24 audience,as they are thrown straight into the core of the story.
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| This moment is likely to engross the audience |
- Usage of variety of shots to keep target audience interested.
- Close up of protagonist might interest a traditional female audience who can connect with the plight of protagonist. Because target audience is young, it might also connect with a younger, modern male audience.
- Unusual rural setting will interest age group, they do not know exactly where the protagonist is and wish to continue watching to find out.
Character
Target audience is likely to question where he is - Use of traditional, male antagonist is likely to interest male audience.
- Target age group may also feel so emotional connection to Stan as he gets kidnapped.
- Quick cuts, especially nearer the end of the opening is likely to really interest the target audience as the cliff- hanger moment is reached.
- Modern, parallel music should connect with target audience.
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| Comment from 16-25 Year Old Female |
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| Comment from 16-25 Male |
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| Comment from 40-50 year old Male. |
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| 26 year old Male |
- It appears our film appealed much more to male viewers as more commented and most of these were positive
- The female who did comment seemed to dislike the idea of an all male cast and also asked for there to be more stereotypical female elements.
- The most interesting point is from the 26 year old male who commented that he would of liked to have seen a female included somewhere. This is likely to be because he has a lot of similar Thrillers that only include male characters and would like something fresh; he is out of our target audience and now reflecting he finds that their were too many similar Thrillers when he was this age.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?
2. Framing in Final- After getting used to using cameras our framing improved in our final piece. In the 2nd shot only things needed can be seen, compared with the prelim shot which has excess space.
3. Lighting in Prelim- We were very inexperienced with lighting in our preliminary and barely used any. This is why shot 3 looks so poor.
4. Lighting in Final- After trying out lighting techniques in pre-production planning we felt more comfortable and used it to good effect in the Mob Manager scene. We used side lighting to make the character seem corrupt and dangerous if we had not used this lighting this effect would not have been made clear to the audience. Poor lighting can mean themes and ideas are lost and the quality of the shots is poor.
http://thriller11block31.blogspot.com/2011/02/pre-production-planning-lighting-by.html
5. Use of Sound in Prelim- Our sound was very melodramatic in the prelim. During Shot 5, there was a loud wind digetic sound as the Superhero stood there, this did not promote realism at all.
6. Use of Sound in Final- We got used to the Garageband after looking at helpful videos and were able to make the soundtrack reach a crescendo as the phone hit the floor. Garageband allows for superior digetic and non-digetic sound, you can increase and decrease the volume of sound at certain moments as we did in this shot.
7. Mise En Scene (Props) in Prelim- The use of a cuddly cat in the prelim looked comic and unrealistic. We did not use a great deal of props and could not experiment with setting because we were restricted to college. This was coupled with the lack of time we had to prepare props and this rush meant that we didn't take our time in deciding on whether to use the cat or not.
8. Props in Final- The use of a realistic landline phone emphasised the idea that he was a man of power. We were able to expand our setting for the final piece and ended up choosing the eery bridlepath after researching other locations.
http://thriller11block31.blogspot.com/2011/02/pre-production-planning-setting-shots.html
The choice of props and costume as a whole was not rushed for the final, every prop or costume used relates to a theme or idea in our thriller piece. For example, the phone relates to the loss of connection between the Mob Manager and Stan and Stan's frustration that he cannot confront him in person.
http://thriller11block31.blogspot.com/2011/02/pre-production-planning-prop-research.html
9. Titling- When practicising and watching titles we discovered the importance of them and this then allowed us to incorporate some interesting titling to our final, this was a huge step from our preliminary where we barely considered them. Because we did not use titles, our preliminary caused confusion, it had no name and no credits for the people involved. After doing my title research....
http://thriller11block31.blogspot.com/2011/03/titles-and-credit-research-by-nathan.html
....I realised the importance of titles. They credit the people involved, emphasise themes and ideas and can even be used to expand the narrative. That is why we took time over our titling and the final choice of titling was a conscious and carefully considered decision.
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