Who would be the audience for your media product?

4. The audience for our media product was decided to be aimed at people aged between 15 to 25 year olds. We decided this because our story line is to complex and violent for some one younger than 15 to take in and understand. We also believed that any one older than 25 would not be that interested in our media product as the film relates to a younger teenage audience.
After receiving our feedback we realised that our media product predominately attracted young men. Our film is set in dark alleys and back roads like kidulthood and adulthood. Both those films had a huge response from young adults as they know what life on the streets are and they also get the humour and slang which our script has.
We recieved the feedback from our questionaires and facebook pages we created. We used the feedback to improve our product. Once we finished the film we kept the feedback it recieved so we could use it improve our next pruject that we will undertake.

Number 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

2. Whilst creating our media product we decided to go against stereotypes therefore we used a young black man to chase a college student and once he has caught her he gives the girl her media textbook and then leaves her in peace. Whilst watching it you are thinking the black boy is going to mug or rape the girl, however he goes against what you think and plays the good guy buy giving her the book back.
Whilst filming we wanted to make the boy look like a gangster and a thug, we done this by putting his hood up, only revealing half his face, and making him walk and talk like a thug. We wanted to make the college girl the, protagonist, look innocent, young and vulnerable, so we made her dress in colourful clothes and told her to smile alot. Also the camera shots we got of her are long and slow to show that she is peaceful and no one is bothering her, however when we cut to the black boy the camera shots change and get faster to show his anxiety to get to her and to give the impression he wants her for something.
When the college girls leaves the thug she walks to the end of the alley where she bumps into another girl. We made this second college girl look just as innocent so that the viewers believe there is no trouble or that she has no relevance to the film. We wanted to put the audience on the edge of their seat as they are waiting for something to happen they just do not know when. So to surprise the audience we decided to make the second college girl, the antagonist, to knock out the protagonist and surprise every one.
Going against the stereotypes that people have is a good way to surprise and keep the audience interested.

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

7. After we created our Preliminary task my confidence was low as the footage we shot was of a very poor standard. We had to film twice because once we started editing we realized how many mistakes we had made. Our second filming was a lot better and easier because we had a good idea how to use the camera and what shots we wanted and had to include.

Whilst filming the second the time we realized that we should shoot a lot of different shots, even though we may not need them. The more footage you shoot the more the editor has to work with. If you filmed your whole sequence perfectly but then right at the end you forgot a shot or you realized you could of done with another one you would be very annoyed.

We used the method trial and error, we would try out a shot then watch it back and see if it went how we wanted it to or not. Though this took long we believed it was the most efficient way to get the filming done first time.

We experimented with many shots when we filmed our final media product that we wouldn’t have even dreamt of doing when we shot our preliminary task. The best shot I believed we got was the punch scene. We made our actor throw a punch directed just to the side of the camera so she would punch some ones hand, at the sound of contact we tilted the camera to one side and let it drop onto a bag. We tried several different techniques and shots to make it unique and exciting.

Once the filming was finished the editor took the tape and started editing. The editing was done quick and of a good standard because we had to edit our preliminary task twice and also other footage we had practiced filming.

Overall our final media product was a lot better than our preliminary task due to practice and learning from our mistakes. By the end of the coursework I can comfortably use all the equipment well and with confidence and so can the other people in our group.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

4. The audience for our media product was decided to be aimed at people aged between 15 to 25 year olds. We decided this because our story line is to complex and violent for some one younger than 15 to take in and understand. We also believed that any one older than 25 would not be that interested in our media product as the film relates to a younger teenage audience.
After receiving our feedback we realised that our media product predominately attracted young men. Our film is set in dark alleys and back roads like kidulthood and adulthood. Both those films had a huge response from young adults as they know what life on the streets are and they also get the humour and slang which our script has.

This is my final product that me and my group created, it took 3 weeks to film and edit. We also we worked with six different actors until we finally fount the right actors for the roles. I am very happy with the final out come of our product and the work i put towards it.

Target Audience

Whilst creating our media product we were trying to relate to our target audience. After receiving feed back about our production we decided as a group that our target audience would be aimed at people aged between 16-25.We decided this because we received a lot of positive and constructive feedback from that age group. Our production attracts a high percentage of male audience as well, this is probably because the story line is quite violent and graphic. We got our feed back from our blogs questionnaire and also our face book page.

Filming Journal

5th March 2010
On the Friday we started filming our thriller, our original 2 main characters could not make it and as the deadline was approaching on us we had to ask a class member to do it.
Our Filming started midday at havering college, we had no problems filming how ever our actor was not up to scratch for the part we needed her to play. We also fount out after that we had not shot enough footage so a re-shoot was inevitable.
Our location then changed to an alley in Hornchurch where our snatch scene was to be filmed. The director ordered many shots such as long shot, establishing shot and close ups. The acting was of a poor standard so i had to shoot the scene in away that the poor standard of the acting would not be to obvious.
Whilst filming the director and I observed some horizontal grey line going across the screen, thus being the reason why we lost half our footage whilst editing.

15th March 2010
We had to re-shoot our film as the footage we shot was not of a standard we had hoped for. We purchased a new tape and also got two new actors that had some experience in the past . Learning from our mistakes from the last shooting we decided to shoot more shots at the college and explore different angles.
Once at Hornchurch we more or less did use the same techniques as before however I didn’t have to hide the poor acting as the actors were of a better standard than before.
One of the main problems of the day was the cars driving past infront of the video camera and pedestrians wanting to get past. However the main problem of the day was shooting the dialogue as one of the actors kept laughing and smiling, and this did not fit in with their part.
Our best bit of footage that day was the punch scene, we got somebody to stand behing the camera with their hand to the side of it to give the actor a good target to punch at and also created a good sound effect for the punch. Once she had punched the hand we tilted the camera sideways to give the audience the impression that the girl had been knocked out.

18th March 2010
On Wednesday night we were in the middle of editing when we realised the dialogue scene was not to the quality we had hoped for. Therefore we decided to shoot one last time to get it right. Emmanuel Filmed 50% of the shots including the punch scene, Sophie being dragged and also the sequence were Sophie leaves college
We skipped to the scene where the pursuer catches our protagonist, instead of using a over the shoulder shot we decided to use a point of view shot where I would run along side the pursuer catching the moment where he grabs and pulls back our protagonist. We tried this many times as at first it did not work but with practise it looked better and better. It worked well and looked good when we looked back on our footage. We then re-filmed the dialogue scene, but we did this in a different way and different order. For the dialogue scene we first used a point of view shot, and then cut to an over the shoulder shot. Finally we changed the last scene of the thriller. Instead of a car scene we filmed our protagonist being dragged using a cut in. we filmed her legs moving as if she was getting dragged away. Moreover we got our antagonist to go on the phone as if she was on the phone to “the boss.” We did this by having a close up of the phone; we got a contact the ring the phone as changed the name of that contact to “the boss.” We had a problem of the cameras refection on the phone but finally we managed to get the camera at an appropriate angle and did the shot.

Charactor Profile

Name: Sophie McDonald
Age: 17
Appearance: slim, blond hair, attractive,
Hight: 5ft 7
Costume:hand bag to carry bag, glasses, ipod.
Sophie is a vunrable teenage girl who is cautious about herself but sometimes can be careless which gets her into alot of trouble as we will see as the film goes on.

The character of Sophie would have been played by Keira Stone although due to her not being able to make our filming date she was not in our thriller. We Originally chose Keira to play the character of Sophie because we wanted Sophie to have attractive and studious looks. We believe that Keira has all these attributes as she is studying and has these attractive looks that we are looking for in the character of Sophie.

Weekly Updates

Week 1 - 15/1/10

The first week of the course week we started by creating a blogger where we would upload all our research and the work we have done. Once our blog was finished we started brainstorming our ideas for our thriller. Whilst Sam was creating the brainstorm peter was starting to create a script.

We all took on roles.

Emmanuel Olobio - Director

Sam Lee - Camera Man

Peter Otuwehinmi - Editor

Week 2 - 18/1/10

In our night class Pianki showed us all the equipment we would be using to create our thriller, after we started our premillinary task. Our premillinary task had to consist of expects such as match on action, 180 degree rule, two shot and shot reverse shot. Due to the incompitance of one of our actors not to laugh we had to stop and shoot again next week.

21/1/10

In our friday lesson Peter finished the script and Emmanuel uploaded the Genre research and the two minute synopsis that he done during the week. We also organised the group members responsibilities, we done this so everyone knew the jobs they had to do. A calander was also made so we could plan out when we was going film and when we was going to hand in each peace of work.

Week 3 - 24/1/10

In Tobys class we analysed a thriller called "The Lady From Shanghai", we had to establish who was the protagonist and antagonist in the film. This would help us establish the differences between them both.

25/1/10

After Pianki showed us what our perliminary task should look like we started refilming again. Using the method trial and error we finally came out with a decent bit of film ready for editing.

28/1/10

Sam started the research on Kyle Cooper a title sequence desighner and finished it. Emmanuel checked over his 2 minture synopsis and the genre research and improved them whilst Peter finished the Script. We also discussed where and when we was going to start to filming.

Week 4 - 1/2/10

We watched Scream and analysed the way it was shot and the different techniques and the classic techniques that were used to make the horror. Peter wrote up some notes about audience and research as me and Emmanuel done questions for the questionaire.

2/2/10

Peter started and finished the editing of the perliminary task, whilst emmanuel started to create the treatment. Sam typed up his title sequence research and put it on the blog.

5/2/10

Pianki checked everyones blog and told us where abouts we were and what grade we were looking at. Once we realised we were behing and that our blog needed to be presented better as it was bland sam changed the background and emmanuel finished of the treatment so more could be presented on the blog. During the week Peter took location shots where we was planning on shooting our thriller.

Week 5 - 8/2/10

Class was cancelled

9/2/10

Though Peter and finished the editing of the perliminary task he forgot to add the opening and ending credits. Once Peter and finished he uploaded the task to our blog. Emmanuel created the production name and logo whilst Sam uploaded the audience research.

12/2/10

Throughout the week Sam and Peter were asking people to be in our production, once we had the correct actors for the job Emmanuel uploaded them and we all wrote the character profiles for each charactor.

Genre/audience Research

Thrillers refer to an emotion, this differs from other genres with refer to a particular location (western) or plot device (science fiction). Thrillers are also known to promote intense excitement, and nerve racking story lines to the audience. A typical thriller usually concentrates on the plot and what is going on around the characters rather than concentrating on the characters. This is why in many thrillers you see a lot of editing, point of view shots and very much of different lighting within the film.

One thing that is very noticeable within the audiences of thrillers is its high number of males in its market. The fasts pace movie with massive concentration on shots, props and scenery has been proven to go down well with the male population. Moreover a huge number of the audience for thrillers are teenagers and young adults. For our film the target audience would be teenagers and young adults, this would be mainly through the use of the sound, characters, props and most Importantly a more modern style of music.

Thrillers tend to also use the actions and sense of humans to build emotion through out their sequence. One way they do this is by almost engaging the audience into the film. For example if there was a murder and the director shows us the scene where the murderer killed his victim, the way in which the director had successfully engaged the audience into the film is by giving the answers to the audience through the sequence.

In the sequence we are doing we are going to use the method of confusing the audience into thinking a stereotypical person with be an antagonist. This is another method a lot of thrillers use. A good example of a thriller that does this is 24. at the end of the first episode where we find out who the real antagonist was, while the audience was thinking it was somebody else.
Below are some key elements that thrillers use within a scene that hopefully we would come around to using within our thriller.


With the picture thrillers use:-
3 point lighting
Key light- main light source
Full light- to take out shadows
Backlight- to take out background
Uses low key light, dim and shadowy which is another way of withholding information from the audience.
They also use continuality editing to add to the expense.
Some thrillers have restricted narration, and hence the audience know more than the protagonist and is equally confused. Thrillers have a complex narrative structure which is non linear, and are multithread.

From our questionaire we have had a mixed response about our ideas and what we are going film. Many people feel that the script doesn't suit the genre of film, as people think this we will have to either change the script or as we film we will have to improvise and try to add more suspense as we film.

Our facebook page also gave us some criticism though it was constructive and helped us change our blog and work. However we also recieved some good feedbacks and this has encouraged us to expand on our idea and take it to the next stage.

From what we have learnt from the questionaire and the facebook page is that our 2 mintue sequence should be aimed at an audience for 15 year olds and above. Also the majority of people who have looked at the blog is male thus making the film generally interesting an young male audience.

The certificate for our film “Ikonic” was decided by our group because we felt our film would not be appropriate for younger viewers as there is violence throughout the film. We also took the feedback from our questionnaire and the face book page we created. The majority of people who gave their opinion and analysed our blog was teenagers over the age of 15, this made our decision easier and also gave us our target audience.

The film was also mainly analysed by a male majority. Few females looked at our blog and this has made us change a couple of ideas so we could bring in a wider range of viewers.

A lot of Thriller films are either 15 certificate or 18, this is because they are normally violent, sexual, contain bad language and also many thriller films take their theme from real life tragedies which can be explicit and disturbing. Taken is a good film that takes a real life situation, the sex trade, and shows the tragic effects it has on young women and their families.

The taking of Pelham 123 is about the hijack of an underground train and the hijackers blackmail the American government to give them money. This is representative of real life for example, at present Somalian pirates have taken several cargo ships and used their crew as hostages to try and extort money from their governments.

Ikonic is rated 15 because there is no sexual content or excessive violence to warrant an 18 rating. However, as there is some violence and the plot is relatively complicated it would not appeal to a younger audience, they may find it disturbing or not understandable.

Title Sequence's

Kyle Cooper

Kyle Cooper is one of the most successful modern designers of motion picture title sequences. He has created many Films such as Flubber (1997), Hulk (2008) and his latest film Tropic Thunder. In addition to this he has created various computer games such as metal gear solid 2 and metal gear solid 3.

These are the some examples of Kyle’s work on the film hulk. The Title sequence basically tells the story and also runs some credits telling the audience who is starring in the film and what is happening in the opening scene. It tells the audience what is happening and gives them a rough idea what the film is about. Kyle wanted to run credits over the opening scene, people believed it would confuse the audience however it was effective and worked well. This title sequence is from the film Dawn of dead, the sequence shows that there is a war going on against the super natural (zombies) and that it is happening all around the world. The white house is shown to represent America; a mosque is shown to represent the Middle East. The overall picture is put together as a collage to represent the clashes with the supernatural on a world wide base.


Saul Bass

Saul Bass was also a notorious title sequence producer. Bass became hugely known in the film industry after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger's, The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The subject of the film was a jazz musician's epic struggle to overcome his heroin addiction. Bass decided to create a controversial title sequence to match the films controversial subject. He chose an arm as his central image, as the arm is a strong image relating to taking heroin and drug addiction. He expected it would cause quite a sensation therefore the title sequence featured an animated, black paper-cut out arm of an heroin addict. Over 40 years bass carried on creating title sequences some of the most famous being Spartacus (1960), Cape fear(1991) and Casino (1995).Bass created many title sequences for thrillers such as Vertigo (1958). The film is about a man trying to find a woman’s identity. Bass uses the story line to get the audience fixed to the film straight away, he does this buy showing each facial feature of the woman’s face in various close up shots. After showing various body parts the camera becomes transfixed on the lady’s eye. The Camera then turns to her face and before her true identity in shown the screen becomes soaked in red thus making the woman anonymous pmce again. Bass does this to make the audience ask the question who was that and it also sets the mood for the film.

My Responsibilities

Sam
Mind Map
Audience Research
Analysing Two Sequences
Weekly Updates
Premilinary Task
Meeting Minutes
Genre Research
Filming Journal