Evaluation 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

I have chosen to answer this question with a Prezi slide.

As you can see on that slide, I've learnt to use a lot of different types of software and hardware throughout this process, which will be helpful in future and for the next year of A-level media. 

Evaluation 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by including blood and suspense and tension into our opening. These things are typical of classic thriller films, and should be what our audience expects when they watch a thriller film.

Our target audience is 25-34 year old males, as we found that this was the age and gender that most enjoy thriller films.

This is a comparable profile of  the thriller Zero Dark Thirty viewing statistics compared with a film called Green Zone. I found this on Pearl and Deans website.

Thriller films that are popular with the age range 25-34, for example Killing Them Softly, all include suspense and tension throughout, as well as a fair amount of blood/gore. This is why we felt it was so important to include these elements in our opening, to attract and maintain the viewers attention in the first 2 minutes. 

Evaluation 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

To be able to pick a target audience, we need to know the different aspects of our film. We would have to consider things like if our film had swearing, violence, and the genre of our film to help us determine a target audience.
The tags of a youtube video show the different aspects of the video, if our film was a Youtube video, it's tags would probably be thriller, suspense, dark, murder and nightmare.

We also must consider what the appropriate classification for our film would be. Below is the British Board of Classifications List, and a link to their website. They have the guidelines for what classification a film should be given depending on what is in that film.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

Following the BBFC's guidelines, we have decided to rate our film 15. This is because if it was a full film, violence will be included, as well as frequent strong language and threat. In the opening 2 minutes, blood can also be seen from a stab wound, and strong language is also used once. 

In general terms, our target audience would be aged between 25-34 years old males, who enjoy thrillers  and maybe horror films. We think that because they would be at an appropriate age where they can appreciate psychological thrillers, and would want to see maybe a bit of action. We also think that they would be of B or C1 class (see below). We think this because in B and C range they would have the money to see films often at the cinema and would also have the money to buy films to stream off Netflix or to buy off itunes. They would also probably be able to afford hi tech tvs' to watch the films more enjoyably. People in class A probably wouldn't have enough time to take a high interest in films. They are likely to find out about this film on Facebook, and through reviews elsewhere (like on the radio or in a film magazine). 

 Pearl and Dean

Pearl and Dean is a film website that shows the viewing statistics of films. Here is two examples of similar films to ours and their comparable profiles of viewing statistics.

Zero Dark Thirty

Killing Them Softly

Target Audience Profile

In order to get a more specific idea of exactly the type of audience we would have to watch our film, we must have a Target Audience Profile of one of our audience. We have chosen Jack, a 28 year old graphic designer:

• He enjoys thriller, horror, action, and comedy films. His favourite films are Inglorious Basterds, The Silence of The Lambs, The Strangers, and Die Hard. 
• He lives in a 2 bedroom house in North London with his girlfriend.
• He went to a state high school and did well in his A levels, so was able to go on to University and study graphic design. 
• He is a graphic designer and works at Hurricane Media. 
• He usually watches films at home on his own or with his girlfriend, or at the cinemas with his girlfriend.
• His favourite music is 'indie' music, and some of his favourite bands are Grizzly Bear, Arcade Fire, and The Strokes. 
• He takes an interest in film and music, and reads magazines like Q and Empire. He uses his Apple mac and iPhone often.

Evaluation 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Our film will be exhibited through a mainstream cinema release. We have chosen to exhibit it this way as we want our film to be as popular as The Sixth Sense and The Silence of The Lambs, both cinema releases. Our target audience are cinema-goers, so to reach them it would make sense to give this film a mainstream cinema release. After the cinema release, the film could be put on DVD and sold, and could also be streamed YouTube, but as a pay-per-view film, as the distributors and us wouldn't want to lose money by streaming it for free, as people are less likely to pay to watch it then. It could also be bought on iTunes, and streamed on Netflix, as these are all new popular ways that people watch films now.

Evaluation 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social groups represented in my film are mainly just teen males and also 'hoodies'. Hoodies are considered a threat to modern society, as the media usually portray hoodies as menacing youths, usually males, that cause trouble and do illegal things such a underage drinking and taking drugs, typically. The antagonist in my film is a hooded young male, so we are taking the hoodie stereotype and using it for our benefit.

Films which represent these social groups include: Superbad, a comedy about three teen males and their awkward journey through adolescence; F, a horror about murderous youths attacking adults; and Eden Lake; a horror/thriller about a couple who go on a idyllic holiday only to be hunted down by a group of sadistic adolescents.

The poster for Eden \Lake.

In order to represent these social groups well, we focused on the mise-en-scene and what we visually included so that the audience could pick up on social groups that was used in this opening.. For the hoodie group, we simply showed the antagonist in a plain black hoodie, but the hooded protagonist was also carrying a blooded knife. Hoodie youths are often portrayed in media as knife-carrying threats to the rest of society, and with the antagonist in this carrying a knife -and killing someone with it- it plays up to that stereotype. 

The use of blue in the bedroom also suggests to the audience that the characters in the opening will be male, before they even seen all of the characters.

I think our representations were successful as we showed the generic conventions of the male hoodie group, although we probably could have made it clearer that they were teens to fit in with the male teen social group.

Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our film follows typical film openings, and follows the accepted conventions of thrillers in many different ways, however our film also challenges the accepted conventions of thriller films.

As a film opening, we've included idents and titles, so that it is clear to the audience that it is a film opening. We have also included some conventions of thriller films to that is also clear to the audience that it is a thriller film. Comparisons with how we have done our thriller film opening can be made with The Silence of The Lambs -which has a classic thriller opening- as I will show you now:

The Silence of  The Lambs opening:

1/2 Similar to ours, and to most film openings, they have the big production/distribution ident first to attract attention, followed by the smaller independent production/distribution company ident.

3/4/6 They have their titles and name of the main actors like us, except our actor titles come much later than the title of the film, which I think is an error on our part. They also include the names of important crew members, like director of photography and sound and lighting technician, which we follow also.

7 In order to challenge accepted conventions of thriller films, we changed the gender of the protagonist/victim to male- in thriller films it is often female, such as in The Silence of The Lambs. Females are seen as more vulnerable than men, so often play the role of the victim, whereas in this it is a male victim, so the threat towards him isn't as anticipated.

5 Low lighting is used to create tension and uncomfortable viewing for the audience.

8 Extreme close-up of protagonists face to convey the emotion in the scene.

9 Certain amount of threat is shown, as blood is shown on this knife, murdered bodies are shown in The Silence of The Lambs. The blood signifys the oncoming potential threat to both protagonists in both films.