1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real products?
These are the 9 frames I chose from our thriller opening. They conform to normal film openings as they contain the production company logo, distributor, the title of the film and in frames 7, 8 & 9, we can see the credits fading in and out. This conforms to normal film openings as they also contain these. I found this out when I did my research using Art of The Title and analysed the opening scene to 'Fight Club' (Fincher, 1999)
Our opening sequence also contains a variety of different camera shots. In frame 8 we can see a close up of the characters hands. In frames 3 and 7 we can see the use of mid-shots. This use of different shots helps to build suspense and highlight key points.
Our production logo comes it at the start of the opening. This conforms to other film openings as they also tend to have the production logo at the start. Our logo is simple but effective.
The font we used for out title and credits is also simple but bold enough to attract attention and create effect.
The use of dark colours and black and white also conforms to thriller openings. It helps to create the sense of mystery and enigma.
The music that is used throughout our opening also helps to create this enigma and tension. The timing of the music that comes it at frame 6 helps to create the illusion that the beat is the heartbeat of our character. This, we thought, was a create way to create tension.
- Frame 8: Close Up
Frame 1: Production Company -
- Frame 5: Title
Frame 3: Mid-shot/Rule of thirds -
2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our main character was played by a teenage girl/young adult. We decided to use someone in between the ages of 16-18 so that it will appeal to our audience more as they can feel like it relates to them/pretend it is them in this situation. The use of a teenage girl will also make the audience sympathise with her and paint her as a 'damsel in distress'. Using a female protagonist and male antagonist follows the convention of most thriller films.
From previous research we found what teenage girls, age 15+, stereotypically tend to dress and act like;
The protagonist is the first, and only, character visually introduced in our opening. This suggests that she is of significance and has a big part to play within the whole film. Introducing her straight away leaves the audience wondering who she is and why it was her that was kidnapped. It leaves the audience asking questions, which is key within thriller openings.
Throughout the first part of the opening she is constantly talking about a man that has taken her. We do not know who he is, why or where he has taken her. We do not see his face or hear his voice, only hear his footsteps. This again adds to the sense of mystery and leaves the audience asking questions, right from the start.
When the girl is talking to the camera she is, of course, very scared and confused, as any teenage girl in this situation would be.
Our character has similarities to characters from other thrillers, such as Cici from 'Scream 2' (Craven, 1997)
Our main character has long blonde hair. The fact that she is female and has long hair adds to her vulnerability as she is physically weaker than males, and her hair being long means that it would be easier for her to be 'dragged' somewhere by her hair.
We can see that a lot of victims within films do infact have long blonde hair;
We were able to stereotype 'young adult female' through our use of mise-en-scene.
First of all the clothing. Our character is wearing jeans, a band t-shirt and converses. This is what a typical teenager would wear. It is also the clothes that the character already had, showing again it is what real teenagers actually wear. She is also wearing a casual jacket and a bag, suggesting she is just out casually going to the shops, wearing everyday clothes.
Next the hair and make up. Our character's make up is very subtle. A lot of teenage girls tend to wear makeup, but when they are just going to the shop or somewhere they may not wear a lot. Her hair is not styled, it is just down and flowing. This again is how a teenager would casually wear their hair.
We can see that this is how teenagers have been presented in other thriller films, such as Chloe-Grace Mortez in 'Carrie 2013'
From this picture we can see that Chloe is also wearing a band t-shirt. Her make up is very subtle and her hair is also down and not styled.
This shows that we have been able to represent teenage girls/young female adults, as this is how they have been presented in other films.
3: What type of media institute might distribute your media product?
4: Who would be the audience for your media product?
Before we could think about what age to certify our thriller, we had to do a lot of research into film audiences and certificate ratings;
4years and above.
Mild bad language e.g. 'damn' and 'hell'.
No overt focus on sexual behaviour.
Mild violence.
Brief scary scenes.
Some moments of emotional stress.
Films send out positive messages.
PG (Parental Guidance)
Suites for ages above 8 years old.
Show challenging issues in life e.g. bullying, bereavement or racism.
Mild bad language e.g. 'shit' 'son of a bitch'.
Sex references are unlikely to be shown.
Mild violence.
May be references to drugs.
12A (cinemas)
Requires adult to accompany any child under 12 to view the film.
12 (Retailers)
No child under the age of 12 can buy a film with the certificate 12.
Films may include some strong language e.g. 'fuck'.
May be some discriminatory language e.g. racist or homophobic terms.
May include nudity.
Moderate violence.
Weapons may present.
Sexual violence may be implied e.g. rape.
Dangerous behaviour may be present e.g. drugs and suicide.
Only children over 15 can view these films.
Strong violence.
Frequent strong language e.g. 'cunt'.
Drug taking.
Brief scenes of sexual violence.
Discriminatory language and/or behaviour.
Strong threat and horror.
The dangers are that some teenagers may be influenced by what the watch e.g. drug taking, suicide, self harming and hanging.
NO children are allowed to view these films.
Adults can watch, buy and rent.
Very strong language.
Sexual activity and violence.
Strong horror.
Strong blood.
Discriminatory language and behaviour.
Strong and detailed sex scenes.
Strong, crude and explicit sex references.
R18 is a special and legally restricted classification primarily for explicit WORK
of consenting sex or strong fetish material involving adults.
Only adults can view these films at specially licensed cinemas.
From the audience research that we carried out in the research for our thriller opening, we found that our ideal audience would be for teenagers/young adults starting from age 15 going onwards. I didn't want to cap the age for our audience as I feel thrillers can be enjoyed by people from any age. However, if I were to cap the age I would say it would be suitable for people up to the age of 25, as 15-25 are the prime ages for cinema goers.
When Felicity and I interviewed peers at my school, there was a mixture between both boys and girls. So, we can concluded that thriller films can be enjoyed by both genres.
Interviews with sixth formers:
However, in the bottom video, we can hear Jack (right) say that he doesn't like going to the cinema due to other people ruining the experience for him by being too loud or excited. Therefore, from this we can assume that the older generation wouldn't like to go to the cinema as they may get annoyed at others being too loud and distracting and wouldn't enjoy the experience, so the older generation would not be the right audience for our thriller opening.
As well as our thriller opening not being appropriate for the older generation, I also believe it is not suitable for the younger generation. This is because younger children tend to prefer different genres of films, mainly family and comedy, and they tend to prefer animated films for the very young.
As well as them preferring other genres of films, I feel that the storyline that is in thriller films is more suitable for an older audience, and the younger generation may not even understand what is happening. For scenes that build up tension and make people jump, or may even be a bit gruesome, this might scare younger children too much that they don't enjoy it. These points are especially true for more intense and gruesome thriller films, such as 'Law Abiding Citizen' (Gary Gray, 2009)
Therefore I believe that the certificate for our thriller opening should be a 15:
'No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a 15 rated video. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age.'
5: How did you attract/address your audience?
To try and attract our audience to our film, I decided to make a Twitter account for our film. I decided to do this as most people in our audience would use social media sites, such as Twitter, and use them frequently.
I also included a website for a film in the bio of our account. If this website was active, this is where I would publish lots of information about our thriller film, trying to promote it as much as I could and make the audience excited to see it.
From earlier research, I found that most people tend to find out about what new films are coming out through social media sites, especially Twitter. This is because, depending on the people and other film accounts they are already following, accounts of new films that are similar to these will come up as suggested accounts to follow. If there friends are following film accounts, they may tell each other about them, or may retweet them onto each others timelines.
By me following other thriller movie accounts, and following other followers of thriller accounts, it is more likely for fans of thriller movies to see my account, and therefore know that a new thriller film is coming out, maybe even follow me back for new updates about the film.
Using twitter accounts has deemed to be very useful for other films, getting them lots of followers who probably went and saw the film, generating the film producers a lot of profit, such as for:
The Fault In Our Stars;
The Hunger Games;
Star Wars;
and The Avengers;
We can see from these 4 Hollywood films that having a Twitter account to promote your film and attract your audience's attention can get you thousands, even millions of followers, who, hopefully, would all go and watch the film.
However, for less popular, Uk independent films, having a twitter account may not lead to many people following your account, as we can see with:
Monsters;
and Night Bus;
When we compare the two, Hollywood films have a significantly higher amount of followers compared to the UK independents. This is because they can afford to advertise their films in many other ways, such as TV adverts, billboards, magazines etc.
Posters and adshels are both great ways of advertising a film. Our audience will see posters and adshels everyday on their way to school/work. This would be a great way to attract the attention of our audience, however due to limited funds and lack of government permission, we would not be able to print a lot of posters and put them up all over the country. Due to our limited budget, we cannot have a very big marketing campaign, therefore it will be harder for us to attract our audience.
Our title also attracts our audience. It is simple yet effective. From the opening, we already know that she has been taken by someone. The title 'The Missing' suggests that she is not the only person to go missing. Again, this leaves the audience wondering who else could go missing, and whether they will escape or not.
During the actual film opening, we managed to attract our audience by immediately introducing our protagonist. This left the audience guessing and asking questions right from the start. The lack of information and knowledge she reveals at the start also leaves the audience wondering and wanting to know what will happen next. The storyline is mysterious which will appeal to our target audience.
By using someone of similar age to our audience to play our leading character, this will also hopefully keep the audience interested through the entire film.
6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
GIF from slide 6
GIF from slide 8
When filming our preliminary task, we experimented with different camera angles and shots, such as jump-cuts, close-ups and panning. Because we had learnt during the preliminary task, it made it easy for us to film for our final thriller opening. It also made it easier when deciding what different types of shots and angles to do for each scene of our opening.
Close-up of the main protagonist in the first part of the scene where she is talking to the camera and is confused to where she is and whats happened. 
.gif)
.gif)
