1. How
did your media product (thriller film) represent particular social groups
(target audience/age groups etc)?
For
AS media studies our task was to create the first two minutes of a thriller
film. Our group wanted to make a film that focused on a mystery and the mindset
of a particular character, so we choose the psychological thriller genre. A
Psychological thriller is a sub genre of thriller films
that centres the attention on the characters and it often has elements of
mystery, drama and horror, which seemed to side well with our ideas for our
thriller film.
Our
film included young characters which represented our 15 to 24 target audience.
They were represented not only through the characters but by what the
characters were wearing. The characters wore trainers, jeans and hooded jackets
which are commonly worn by young people aged between 15 – 24 years old.
2.
In
what ways did your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
A good
thriller film should create a sense of danger – creating a character who finds
themselves in a dangerous situation. Fast pace to add to the tension and to
waste no time in the film. The balance of power between the heroes and the
villains, twists and turns to make the audience believe in false security and
character growth, so that the audience understands all the strengths and
weaknesses of the characters including the villains. All good thriller films
abide by these five factors in their films which make them good.
Over the
past eighty years the thriller genre has changed a lot, this could be the
result of an advance in technology and audience as well as the narrative.
Thriller films that were produced in the 1940s to the early 1970s were centred
on people’s actual fears. These fears were considered realistic and could
happen to anyone. This is made evident in the film ‘Psycho’ (1960) which was
directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a notable thriller director. The film was about a
woman who wants to be with a man she whom she loves, but she is held back due
to his current financial status. As a result of this she steals money from her
employer and runs away in the hopes that she will be with her lover, however
when she stops at a hotel she is killed by a mysterious man. This is a
realistic situation as it can happen to anyone. In contrast to this due to
advanced technology fictitious characters can be used to depict unrealistic
scenarios.
Like other
real media products our film used music that created an atmosphere full of
tension and suspense. To some extent our film also developed the characters
that were shown in the film. In the first two minutes of our film a teenage boy
being followed by a teenage girl as he is walking through a wooded park;
however he thinks he is hallucinating.
This challenges the forms and conventions of real media products
because, female characters are always shown as vulnerable and the ones who are
being followed. Silence of the Lambs (1991) is an example of a thriller film
that immediately challenges this convention in the opening stages of the film,
when a woman is running through the wood, however as viewers are anxiously
waiting for something to happen to her they soon find out that she is an FBI
agent.
3. Who
was the target audience for your media product?
A
target audience is a specific group of people within a market at which a
product is aimed at. In this case our target audience was a particular group of
people within the film market which our product was aimed at. In order to
decide upon our target market our group looked at the age ratings and target
audience for a number of psychological thrillers which included: Black Swan, Inception, The Usual Suspects
and Silence of the Lambs. Black Swan
was rated a 15 by the BBFC due to the level of sexual content. From looking at the ratings, reading
analysis’s of the film and watching it we suggested that film may have been
aimed at 18 to 35 year old women. In contrast to this Inception was rated a 12
by the BBFC, however from watching the film and reading analysis’s the films
target audience may have been aimed at those aged 16 to over 40 because of this
complex storyline and the mature actors used in the film.
From analyzing all of these films we decided that our target audience for our
thriller film would be 16 – 24 years old because the plot is about a trending
topic amongst young people. We also choose a 16 to 24 year old target audience
because they are the age group that visit the cinema the most because they have
the most disposable income. However the film would be at a preferred rating of
12A because we found that the older the target audience the lower the age
rating.
4.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product
and why?
A
media institution that might distribute our media product would be Lionsgate or
Summit Entertainment because they are renowned and established companies, who
are known across the world. Furthermore they tend to distribute thriller and
action films.
5.
How did you attract/address your
audience?
Our film was shot in a park, which is a place that
is commonly visited by young people, especially our target audience of 15 to 24
year olds during the summer. Our film also attracts and addresses the audience
by representing particular social groups who are part of our media products
target audience for example, through the two young characters and what they
were wearing.
The originality of our plot also attracts and
addresses the audience of our media product. The Eye of Lucifer is begins with
a teenage boy who is casually walking through a park however, he is being
followed by a girl, who drops a paper, which he picks up. He then follows her
and finds that she is dead. On the paper the eye of Lucifer is shown. This is a
topic that is popular amongst young people however it has never been explored
in many films, apart from Angels and Demons. Although Angels and Demons explored
the Illuminati (a secret society) which relates to the Eye of Lucifer it didn't attract an audience between the ages on 15 and 19. This may have been due to
the lack of representation through the characters Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor.
From looking at this film by Ron Howard we were able to correct this and
incorporate characters that represented our target audience of 15 to 24 years olds and this is how we attracted and addresses our audience.
Finally Twitter is the 8th most popular
website with over 140 million users and according to Quancast in 2009 Sixty three
percent of twitter users were under thirty five years old. This led us to
think that many of the users may have been within our target audience. From this
information we decided to create a twitter page to attract our target audience
and inform them about our media product. We also posted out film on YouTube to
attract viewers of our target audience. The following are links to our media
products video upload and the twitter page:
6.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing
this product?
At
the start of the process of making our thriller film, we received a lesson from
an IT technician about how to film, different techniques one can use whilst
filming and certain rules one should follow when filming e.g. the 180 degree
rule, where two characters are involved in a scene and an imaginary line, called the axis connects the characters and by
keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the
first character will always be frame right of the second character, who is then
always frame left of the first. If the camera passes over the axis, it is
called crossing the line or jumping the line.
I also learnt all the camera angles that are used when filming for
example, master shots, panning, point of view shot, crane etc. In addition to this
I learnt how to use the software Adobe Premiere Elements.
7. Looking
back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
Looking back from my preliminary task I have learnt that in order to complete a film or even a 2
minute opening of a film, a lot of time is needed. I have also learnt the importance of using
various camera angles to depict a certain emotion or even portray a certain message to the
audience and even how music adds to the effectiveness of a film. Furthermore I have learnt
how to use Adobe Premiere Elements in order to edit a film.
Looking back from my preliminary task I have learnt that in order to complete a film or even a 2
minute opening of a film, a lot of time is needed. I have also learnt the importance of using
various camera angles to depict a certain emotion or even portray a certain message to the
audience and even how music adds to the effectiveness of a film. Furthermore I have learnt
how to use Adobe Premiere Elements in order to edit a film.
