Audience Profiles for Method 2

From our group's research into audience (audience research 1 and audience research 2) we have drawn up a plan of who will be our film's target audience.

Age Group: From looking at both of our questionnaire results, it would become apparent and clearer that the age group which would be most attracted into watching our thriller "Iniquity" is an audience demographic between the ages of 15 and 25 years. This is because that this particular age group would be more attracted to lots of action and be able to identify with male lead characters, who this demographic would idolise.

Gender: The gender which would most likely be attracted and drawn into watching our thriller is males. This is because they would be drawn to the fast paced action and adventure portrayed in the film, and secretly they would wish they were like the male protagonist. Furthermore, from the results of our questionnaire more males than females in our demographic said they preferred action thrillers and fast paced films. However, we intend to capture a wider audience, consisting of more females, due to having a main female role and voice over, and the narrative from the perspective of this character.

Occupation: The vast majority of our audience will be mainly made up of students, because between the ages of 15 and 25 years, you grow from being a sixth form student to a University student. This is again, backed from our questionnaires when in aspirations; a vast majority of our demographic stated that they would like to attend University.

Ethnicity: We intend and are aiming to have a mixed variety of audience, because we plan to have a mixed cast to give the film a wider range of audience and demographic.

Aspirations: The audience for our thriller film will mostly aspire to be fully educated with perhaps a degree, because on our questionnaires participants stated that they wanted to aspire to attend University. They would also aspire gain experience, and this is backed up by evidence on our questionnaires as a vast majority of the participants said they would also like to travel. Therefore, our audience will have high aims, and aspirations.

Interests: They will have typical male interests such as meeting up with there mates, having a good time and playing sports such as football or rugby. From looking at our questionnaires, we discovered that this group would enjoy action and comedy TV programmes and films, and they will also enjoy listening to music such as pop or rock .Our questionnaires also showed that participants enjoyed listening to the radio, such as stations like Radio 1 and Kiss and Broadland (local area stations). However, about only half of our participants said they enjoyed reading Newspapers and Magazines, but the participants who did enjoy reading Newspapers said they did pay attention to the news, therefore indicating some more of their interests. Films that they may enjoy include 'Layer Cake', 'Essex Boys' and television shows such as 'CPS.'

Our characters for our Thriller

After the idea of our thriller had changed, our characters also had! Instead of having a gang of male protagonist's, we kept to only having two characters. A female lead which was playing the role of being chased and being the voice for our voice over. Then the only other character we needed was a lead male which was chasing the girl with the thriller signifier of the gun. Luckily, we found two sixth form students to play the part. Mary Collins aged 16, and Guy Walker also aged 16.

Life on Mars

Life on Mars is a British, police drama TV series, which is broadcasted on BBC1 at 9.00pm. The programme tells the story of a policeman Tyler, who after being hit by a car in 2006, he finds himself in the year 1973.
At the beginning of the scene, straightaway the audience is faced with a close-up camera angle shot of some patterned shirts hanging on the washing line, and the camera angle zooms in through the shirts, to give the audience an overview of the setting. Straight away, the fact that people hang out there shirts in the open shows they live in a close-knit community, yet also that it is quite poor, as the houses are small in a rough area. The non-diegetic music is up-beat to start of with, but soon dies down when you the policemen Hunt and Tyler drive there orange car over some bins. This tells the audience, that the police in the 1970’s were actually quite rude and arrogant, as now-days policeman are respectable of other people’s properties. The policeman hunt is also seemingly dis-interested in the Irish man’s conversation as well; by the way he keeps his arms folded as he speaks. The camera keeps shooting back and from Hunt and Tyler to the Irish man, and reason why the camera is doing this is probably to enable the audience the view of being able to see the reaction of Hunt and Tyler, and the camera is giving the audience platform to accuse Hunt. The Irish man has also been notably beaten up, yet doesn’t seem to gain any sympathy from either of Hunt and Tyler. However, out of the two, Tyler is paying the most attention, and there is a contrast between both Hunt and Tyler’s expression; as the close up camera angle shots show how un-interested Hunt is in the Irishman’s conversations.
The symbol of racism is also portrayed within the scene, as Hunt refers to a woman as “pakki” when an African/American couple are moving into there new house. This is outrageous, and wouldn’t be allowed now-a-days, yet it shows how much time has moved on from the 1970’s, and how people’s attitudes were different. Again, this shows the care free and arrogant attitude of the police. When the scene changes, a symbol of racism and discrimination are again portrayed, as Hunt refers to his friends that he’s “never known an Irishman who has refused a drink.” The scene changes with the non-diegetic music starting up again, and opens with a panning up medium camera shot of Tyler walking in. This is to enable the audience to see how a cosy mise-en-scene of a 1970’s pub looked like, which is that it has a nice, warm atmosphere. There the symbols of the men and woman openly drinking and smoking, and in the corner there is the 1970’s iconic juke box. The diegetic music of the juke box adds to the warm atmosphere of the pub, and there are zooming in medium shots of Hunt and his friends so the audience can hear there conversation clearly. There’s also the diegetic noise of the red telephone ringing, and a long shot going back and from Tyler’s gaze and phone. This to enable the audience to see Tyler’s reaction clearly.
The smoke drifting around the pub gives the scene character and shows of the true style of what an original pub was like. It shows the audience a contrast from what a pub used to be like and how it is now-a-days, as now the smoking ban has been introduced, a pubs atmosphere has changed.

Thriller sub-genres

Information gained from imdb)

Within the thriller genre, there are many types of sub-genres, such as action or horror thriller, as there are a wide range of different type of thrillers that you can watch.
For example:
Action thriller - This is where the work often features a race against the clock, contains lots of violence with lots of graphical features, and an obvious antagonist. These films usually contain large amounts of guns, explosions, and large elaborate set pieces for the action to take place.
Crime thriller - This particular genre is a combined type of both crime films and thrillers that offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime . These films often focus on the criminal(s) rather than a policeman. Crime thrillers usually emphasize action over psychological aspects, and mostly focus on just the action and the crime.
Drama thriller - In which the story generally consists of the elements of a thriller and drama film. These films are usually slower paced and not as fastly edited and involves a great deal of character development along with plot twists.
Psychological thriller - In which (until the often violent resolution) the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional, rather than physical. Such as "The Ring."
Spy thriller (also a subgenre of spy fiction) - In which the hero is generally a government agent who must take violent action against agents of a rival government or (in recent years) terrorists. This type of film again, is usually more fast paced.
Supernatural thriller - In which the conflict is between main characters, usually one of which has supernatural powers.

Our Thriller - Iniquity

After much planning, filming and editing, here is our final production!

G321 Foundation Production - Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Throughout the production of our thriller, our media project used developed and challenged forms and conventions of media products. Firstly, our production challenges film conventions in the way that we used a female for our voice over, where stereotypically within thrillers it’s often you hear and see a male as the lead. Films that influenced our choice to use a voice over, were films such as “Sin City,” as the voice over used in that conveyed mystery, yet made the narrative more clear to the audience. However, we did use typical thriller signifiers in our production, such as spiralling staircases and the use of the gun shot at the end. Our mise-en-scene of our production (block of run down flats) is also typical of a thriller setting, as it creates a sense of mystery in itself. The use of camera angles does vary in our production, as for example at one point we used hand held camera, which you don’t often see to much in other thrillers. Therefore I and my group felt that this did challenge certain forms of real media products, as I haven’t viewed a thriller film yet which use this camera technique in the opening. The music in the background was deliberately chosen as it matches the fast paced conveyance of our thriller; furthermore this is very apparent in thrillers, as you often see the openings using up-beat music to engage the audience.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents particular social groups in certain ways. For example, we actually did perceive women in a stereotypical way, as we have our female lead being chased by the man, making her look vulnerable. Therefore this doesn’t challenge the stereotyping, and the only way we do that is that we have the female as the lead, despite not making her look strong. The voice over in our film also makes our female fatale seem quite weak, lost and over powered by men, and it is also sympathetic to the female protagonist. This is because we are encouraging the audience to identify with the character through the use of voice over. We also represent males in a stereotypical way, as we have our male protagonist chasing a young woman with a gun, which is obviously quite apparent in many thrillers, but we haven’t challenged the male stereotyping in terms of thrillers. The age of our characters are also young adults, which we haven’t represented them making them look harmless, instead we are almost portraying them how the outside world expect them to behave. (Gang culture of young teenagers.) Therefore our thriller is actually quite a true picture of what does happen in the outside world.

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

For our thriller, the media institution which might distribute our media product would be an institution such as Working Title Films. This is because our thriller is main stream, in terms of its narrative as it is stereotypical chase scene involving thriller signifiers such as violence and drug use. However, at our age, once we have made the thriller film it would be more likely that we would have to distribute our film straight onto the internet and broadcast it, in hope that a institution such as Working Title Films would discover our film and hopefully fund it. The scheduled time on TV if our film ever made it onto television veiwing, would be that it would be braodcasted around 10.00pm as the certificate for our film would have a 15 certification, therefore wouldn’t be suited for viewings at around 9.00pm as it contains drug use and violence.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product would be mostly males between the ages of fifteen and thirty years. This result has come from audience research, as more males than females were proven to be more attracted to thriller films, especially with the plot of violence and drug use. Males would also be largely attracted to our films as it has a female lead (also wearing a stereotypical skirt which males would be attracted to) and males would be intrigued to watch a thriller film with a female lead instead of a male one. However, the symbol of the stereotypical skirt of sexually objectifying the female, as the character is being judged just by what she is wearing by the male audience. Males are also more attracted to thrillers involving thriller signifiers such as chase scenes, simply because they almost aspire to behold that strong position of power of holding a gun. The other type of dramas which the audience would watch would be programmes such as “24” and “Prison Break” as they also contain similar narratives.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience in many ways. For instance, we used characters that our male audience can relate to, as there young and are carrying the object if a gun which is a male obsession, particularly for males between the ages of about 15-25 years, as its between those ages where men are attracted to video games which use violence such as shootings. Therefore they can relate with the male prospective. If our thriller would also attract a female audience, then they would relate with the female lead and narrative of being chased. We also attracted our audience however, with a 1st person voice over, which encourages the audience to identify with the female character, as you gain a sense of her as an actual person, and you also feel her vulnerability. The male audience would also be attracted to this as they would be intrigued to here the female’s perspective of what’s happening to her. The mise-en-scene would attract males, as the setting if the block of flats is quite a rough area, and is therefore attracting a particular type of a male audience as they like settings which are quite “rough around the edges,” and doesn’t have a calm sense or feel about them. Again, the age group of these males would be around 15-25 years as they would find this type of setting dangerous and also similar of a setting in films such as “Layer Cake,” which this demographic would be interested in watching.

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

Throughout the process of producing our media product, I’ve learnt a huge amount about camera angles, movement and shot types. For example through the process of filming me and my group tried a huge range of varied shot types such as close-ups, medium and long shots, hand held camera, panning shots, birds eye shot, low and high angles shots. Therefore we have learnt the technologies of the camera and how it works, and through this I have also learnt how to keep a steady shot, so it’s not jolty or moving around. Throughout the editing stage, we have learnt what relevant material to keep and what needs to be cut out. I have also learnt how to create both fast and slow paced shots, so you gain a pace to your film. My group and I also used and experimented with a variety of transitions, and how to make our narrative structure more clearly by using a voice over. Finally, we edited our sound mixing our voice over with our background music, to gain a more up-beat sound to our thriller opening, and the voice over to engage the audience.

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

Overall, looking back at our preliminary task, it allowed me and group learn more about the camera, and it enabled us to learn more about how to plan, shoot and edit our final film production. Me and my group found it very successful to be able to plan when to shoot as there were only two of us together. Therefore, when it came to planning and shooting our film, the process went swiftly, and without any complications such as not being able to all meet up on a certain date. We both also contributed equally to our film, and split the responsibilities evenly. After looking at our audience feedback, they all came back better than I expected. The comments were helpful for me and my group to find out on how to improve our thriller and a majority of the comments were all positive with just a few comments explaining the weaknesses, which enabled us to know how improve on our camera skills in future. For example, the lowest score we got out of 10 for any of the categories was a 6, and the highest was a 10. Overall, the category which seemed to reach the highest scores was our framing shots, what relevant material to use, and using image and sound effectively. Quotes from the audience feedback included sayings such as “Loved the music,” “Liked the long shot when there running,” “Liked the staircases,” “Good steady shots,” and “Liked the way the titles faded out.” The main thing which we seemed to score the lowest points on was the narrative and the fact it seemed to be un-clear, and one person commented that “Ending didn’t work with music,” and “didn’t like transitioning of title.” This showed us the strengths and weaknesses of our film, but overall I was happy with them. However, due to the audience feedback me and my group altered the ending of our thriller so it had a clearer narritive that was more readable for the audience. One person from the audience commented that one of our shots could have been mpre steadier, therefore next time we will make sure to hold a more steady shot. The most important thing I have learnt about film making is all the planning that has to happen before, otherwise the whole film production doesn’t work.

Our Continuity Task

We used a range of different shot types in our Continuity. These include, Low angle shots, POV shots, Match on Action, Shot Reverse Shot and we stuck to the 180 degree rule. This influences the audience understands, as by keeping to the 180 degree rule, the camera isn’t all over the place and misleading the audience so they get confused. The Shot Reverse shot helps the audience follow the conversation. POV, Low angle and match on Action shots helps to engage the audience and add variety to the intense atmosphere.We used digital cameras for filming and non linear editing soft ware for editing. We also used You Tube and our Media blogs to present our work. Whilst using this technology we learnt how to keep a steady camera and use a variety of different shot types. We also learnt how to use editing soft ware to create a fast edited short film.Our final product we felt met the brief well, because we used the action it required and also the camera types which they asked us to use.

Evaluation of Skins

The scene begins of with the audience viewing a close-up camera angle shot of Cassie looking spaced out and in her own world, in the mise-en-scene of the back of a bus - the morning after a massive, out of control party. All throughout the bus journey there’s non-diagetic music of children eating food, which is ironic as the audience see a close-up camera angle shot of Cassie discovering a note in her dress with the words “EAT!” written on it. This indicates that the representation of this scene is focusing on Cassie’s eating problem, and the disease anorexia.
Throughout the first scene on the bus, Cassie is almost made out to look like an angle, as she’s wearing a stunning white dress, and her long blonde hair is flowing around her shoulders, overall making her look very childlike. On the bus accompanying her is very much a theme of children, as there are a variety of close-up and medium shots of young children, eating food which exaggerates the theme of Cassie’s anorexia. The camera angle when Cassie is sitting on the bus is positioned in front of her face, so the audience gain a clear view of her spaced out facial expression, and there’s an effective medium-shot of her sticking the note saying “EAT!” upon the bus window.
However, when the scene changes and Cassie is shown walking into her middle-class house, you automatically see the symbol of W.V van, which is the type of vehicle that middle-age hippies own, suggesting to the audience that her parents are going to be quite eccentric. What you notice straightaway when Cassie enters her house, is the naked painting of her mother, which actually appears about three times in different rooms of the house. Automatically, you gain a sense that Cassie’s relationship with her parents is very erratic and not a close one, as you see a zoomed in close-up shot of Cassie’s gormless facial expression when she walks in on her parents in the kitchen just as there about to have sex. Therefore, this induces another representation in this scene, not just anorexia but focusing on the relationship she shares with her parents. When Cassie’s dad pointedly asks if she’s had breakfast, and Cassie is blatant lying when she says how Michelle cooked her breakfast, you can tell that her dad doesn’t even care, yet is more thinking about having sex with her mother.
Cassie’s mum is not a stereotypical mother at all, and all her family are dressed in white, therefore it as if there all acting like children, and can’t let go of there “hippy” childhood, which is why the mise-en-scene of the very clean, middle-class house doesn’t contrast at all with the bright orange hippy van. Therefore, this concludes that Cassie’s loose relationships with her family could be the reason for her controlling her body and eating habits. Therefore, is anorexia really a disease, or is it just a way of teenagers controlling there body? This almost leaves you feeling sympathy toward Cassie, as she is struggling with her illness.
The audience also see Cassie almost turning into the mother, when she takes the liberty of looking after the new born baby. The mise-en-scene of the baby’s bedroom is very stereotypical of a toddler’s room, and Close-ups of Cassie cuddling and comforting the baby portray an image of Cassie almost a child herself. When diagetic music of the baby chimes start playing above the crib, it’s almost armour to cover up the noise of her parents having sex. Cassie still remains looking spaced out, and the scene ends with a wonderful shot which makes Cassie look like the baby in the crib, as it she’s looking above at the chimes, which soon blur out, making the audience almost feel as if there drifting of to sleep.

Method 3: Research into Film Distribution in Norwich

Method 7: Working Titile Films

Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London, England. The company was founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1984. It produces feature films and some television productions. Eric Fellner and Bevan are the co-owners of the company now.
The company gained mainstream traction after the unexpected global box-office success of Hugh Grant-starrer, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Among the company's films are Richard Curtis-scripted romantic comedies, which usually star Grant, and Coen Brothers' films, but has in recent times moved into many other types of film, such as United 93.
In 2004 it made a profit of £17.8 million pounds sterling. As of 2007, all its films are distributed by Universal Studios, which owns a 67% stake in the company, and many of its recent films are co-productions with Studio Canal. The remaining shares are owned by the company's founders, BBC Films, and private investors.
The film company also has a smaller low-budget film brand, WT2 (Working Title 2) which has produced films such as Billy Elliot (2000) and Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Recently the company produced Burn After Reading, a comedy starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
The purpose of Working Title Films is that it keeps the British film industry alive, as it produces many independent and popular British films. It’s also a huge company which produces many jobs for British workers, and it gives the British film industry a huge boost in terms of it having to compete with the USA film industry.