Group 3 AS 2015/16: March 2016

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

Our thriller conforms to the conventions of a thriller with mise en scene, sound, editing and camera shots and angles.

Through mise en scene we accomplished the dark and crude nature of thrillers in how we clothed ourselves. The mysterious blackened figure is a perfect example. The character that was unnamed was covered head to toe in dark black, costume. He wore a black hat he work a turtle neck top, a long black trench coat, black smart trousers, and black brogues. All this was to hide his identity and create enigma and mystery. i believe this was done very well in my opinion. He seemed in control, experienced and organised. I could tell this because, he showed no sign of fear, and got on the right train at the right time, i can tell this how he checked his watch when he got on. This watch was a key aspect of the film because the taking must be precise and co ordinated and this is accomplished very well a mon avis. Lighting was a hurdle, since the camera could not pick up our figure in poor lighting say at night, so we all agreed to film in daylight and use editing to make the frames darker. We knew the camera couldn't pick up light in poor lighting due to our preliminary task. We found it was better to shoot in daylight and edit it darker, than to shoot in dark/ poor light and enhance the light in editing. The lighting was natural, and we didn't use back lighting to give the mysterious figure a presence of power we wanted it to be natural and an attack that is quick and no foreshadowing. We have used other thrillers as influence such as (Taken, Morel 2008) as we were originally going to call our film stolen, but then we quickly realised that the name was way to obvious

2) How does your Media product represent particular social groups?

The social groups involved are teens from lower class to middle class. We did this through the way our characters were clothed. Our teen girl, was polite, nice and well dressed, like a good school girl would, Our boy was dressed yes in smart trousers and shirt, but he also wore an adidas jumper and a bomber jacket over to show how he deviates from the school rules and therefore kind of like a Bad school boy. We chose this group of people because as a group we can relate to this group as well, and if we can relate to the group we can do better at representing this group.

Like Keyser Soze from The Usual Suspects and Yokai from Big hero 6 I have designed my costume with these two very mysterious characters. Especially with Keyser Soze, nobody knows of his true identity till the end (one of the greatest twists in movie history, in my opinion) and very scary Yokai (sorry i didn't have a hockey mask, thought it was too obvious for a discrete villain).

The difference between my character and Keyser Soze is that i don't wear that dank fedora :( but we have many similarities. like the long overcoat. But also how we remain anonymous and don't give away any thing of our identity and who we maybe. Also like Keyser Soze we wear nothing out of the ordinary, so we don't stand out too much unlike Yokai, from Big hero 6 the character is disguised, but if spotted by a passer by he would easily be traceable since not everyone goes out wearing a unique kaboochi mask. We don't see enough of my character to truly compare it to the other characters, because both characters have motives and so far my character has none, so he seems more of a psychopath rather than a clever evil mastermind.

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

A and E studios have tried to make this film as much British Independent as we could, we don't need Hollywood ruining a plot line, again! And so we have tried to show this a British film, by trying to make the look grimy and the lighting natural, and the setting urban to achieve this.

Here is a Directors commentary of our opening (by Arthur Polley a co-Director.)
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ApcS6l-sOVw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I hope that a big a big media institution distributes my media product, in the hope that it gets recognised and I become famous and live in Hollywood.... that's some people's dream. Realistically we cant afford that as our budget is miniscule, so I really think that just uploading it to YouTube is good enough, we have enough tags relevant to our film that if any of those key words are typed in, our video will pop up. Since uploading to YouTube is cheap, that being the main reason, also its fan base spreads world wide and they have features like "what you may like" if an Australian guy likes thrillers and has recently watched a thriller trailer, then hopefully Our video "Station 43" pops up and they be like " damn, what is that about" and watch it. And if they like it they may share it and then from their the media product does it by its self.

4) Who is your target audience?

My target audience is going to be teens who like thrillers, obviously adults love thrillers, such as people aged from 18-60, however, this is a soft, teen thriller, made by very unexperienced amateurs so it will not be any Quentin Tarantino film. So for that reason i believe the demographic would be lower so an audience from 14-18, so it will be a niche British film. This would vary for boys and girls, this isn't a very gritty, hardcore, full concentration kind of film that i was initially aiming for, so i think this could have a more feminine demographic. Yet i hope some guys will look to this and be interested, for one, i don't think i would go see this film, on just that opening if i am going to be brutally honest, its totally different from my original idea and the filming was rushed i don't think it would attract too many people.

Our target audience is important to us, as we want to make the film relatable, enjoyable and interesting to the target audience. To any director you want to ask as many questions to your audience as possible and ask them in depth questions to understand what they like to see in a film and what they don't like to see in their favourite film genre (in this case a thriller) I conducted an interview with one of my best mates and asked him about what he thought of thrillers, here you go:

We also created our own thriller survey, here try it out;
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/XXSVSB2

We collected the data and tried to make our film as much like as the most frequent results.

We also pitched our idea to an audience and they gave us positive and negative feedback, some of my ideas were taken out and some other ideas challenged and some were well embraced by our target audience crowd. The session was good for both sides the audience and us as a group.

5) How did you attract/ address your audience?

For a film with a very very low budget, we had to think cheap. And the one very easy way to get your news around, is by publicising it on the internet, posting posters on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat(which is very new, and very annoying) Twitter. Trying to get shares, likes, screenshots and retweets to get the message across.

For an effective Poster, you need to state the Cast, because if the actors and actresses are known, there is more chance people will go see it, because they know and recognise their favourite stars. The age rating, so parents can judge if the film is appropriate for their kids, but also for the audience to have an understanding of how graphic and explicit the film is. The director, yet again if the audience like the directors past work they are likely to go see it even if ratings are bad. Pictures, pictures stand out from the rest to grab attention and also to visually see what is going on and what the film may entail.

Station 43 posted on youtube with increasing views!
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WFiMKkCc6gE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Directors Commentary:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ApcS6l-sOVw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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

From using the camera and sound mic on a stand we understood the basic functions of a camera, learning how to change focus, brightness, contrast etc. Luckily I had 3 other A-level Photography students in my group, who did speak jibba jabba about cameras a lot, but they helped me understand the functions of a camera, to at least make some shots amateur cinematographer-esk.

Final Cut pro was definitely the most fun. It was easy to use once you understand the basic skills and has a very professional finish to it, although it doesn't take much effort perfect for a novel such as my self and group members. It is confusing to initially upload the media content but once done, very clever and very effortless.

Mainly I have learnt that editing is crucial and one of the most important parts of the film production. As if you have lost a piece of filming or didn't have time or forgot to film that pieces using other or previous footage you can surgically implant it into the film to fill in for that missing piece.

7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression?

In my opinion, I really preferred the preliminary task to the thriller opening, Why? because I feel the editing flowed and the sound was perfect. The thriller opening we over complicated and the plot was not a good one. Yes the preliminary dialogue was poor but that was down to the acting of 3 people who messed about in drama. But i really thought we could do something similar to our preliminary, but we all had different opinions and ideas and we did the worst thing you could do, and it was to merge our ideas to one. however we are done now so there isn't much we can do now.

However in both the preliminary task and the opening, we use the rule of 3rds this is where there is an object right in the middle of the shot, this implies the object or being is important and introduced the audience to the protagonist.

Yet we use shot like the wide shot and duel shot in both to get people to see a different angle and more natural angle. But also the object flows from one side of the rule of thirds to the other. And we of course use the 180 degree rule. Where we implant an imaginary line between the two people in conversation and when we film from different angles we never cross that line, so the conversation flows and feels consistent.

I do like the use of tracking shots, we did do one for the Station 43 but it didn't make the final cut. The use of a tracking shot indulges the audience into the action and feel immersed in the scene. Which gains the audiences attention. As they feel as though they are in the scene and then can relate to the scene leading them to concentrate more

However we learnt from the preliminary task that we should of used the dolly to create a smooth tracking shot, but i feel that the camera swaying as the the camera woman sways makes the audience feel as though they are there too a more realistic walk, but it isn't what we were going for. And since we didn't have the dolly on film day we couldn't do an effective tracking shot, hence why it didn't make the final cut, but we instead placed the camera on the tripod on the train floor and the mysterious figure walked from behind the camera.

When researching a logo for our own 'Company Logo' I found that they were all quite dark, very simple and clear as to who the company was. These were three that really stood out to me, Blumhouse I thought was quite obvious as to producing thrillers; I thought this because it is backed onto a stereotypical creepy wall and the 'H' is in a house which is also very stereotypical. Also, the font stands out and I think we should be careful when picking out a font for out logo. New Line Cinema is a unit of Warner Bros and I think this is made clear in the logo which is really good and perhaps we should incorporate something like the mentioning of another producer in out title because there is four of us and again, the image is very simple but clear to what it is. Lastly, Red Letter Studios I think is clearly obvious to it being a thriller based producer, the red indicates this as it remind the viewer of blood and danger and the cross makes us think of something quite scary. Moreover, the font is representative of a thriller as it is almost like blood written on a wall or typed in an old type writer, this is the most obvious logo of a thriller producer.
From researching logos I think including a good font and a good colour is highly important, I also think that having a simple indication such as the creepy house quietly shown within the logo is important as it is a clear indication to a thriller based producer.