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

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Our target audience was students aged 16-24. Our aim was to find out what they expected to see in a thriller opening sequence so we decide to carry out a questionnaire. We analysed our results so we were able to find out whether we were attracting/addressing the right audience. The questions we asked were;

- How old are you?
- Are you male or female?
- What types of characters are expected?
- What do you expect to see in the first 20 seconds of a Thriller film?
- What sounds/music are expected?
The results assured us we we addressing the right audience. Following the stereotypical answers we realised people of this age group do expect to see the usual conventions of a thriller opening sequence, and the even spread of variance in the data supports this. 

Final Pie Charts

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

What is the demographic of our audience?

Our opening sequence is targeted at 17-25 year old males, this is due to nature of the narrative as well as, the age and gender group being able to relate to the characters within the media product. I do not feel the ethnicity of the audience comes into account as we live in a multicultural society that does not tend to take into account ethnicity when choosing what film to watch. I feel the geographical location being Britain prevails in audience demography over ethnicity. Occupation and education coexist as our audience is targeted at full time students. This allows for the large amount of buzz we aim for when releasing our film as this age group is well connected with one another; by crow barring our way into this target audience we hope to shock and please these young students. The JICNARS scale has to be taken into account even when targeting the following age group. We are targeting the lower middle class as they are the ones with the disposable income to freely go and watch films, this ensures the buzz created is satisfactory.

What is the psychographic of your audience? 

My ideal audience member would have personal interests such as being creative, reading thrilling novels and a well established library of music. A good lifestyle assuring they have enriched values so they divulge in great media that keeps them on there toes. Behaviour that has allowed them to succeed in everything they do and assures they are achieving well in every aspect in there life. Lastly, high valued opinions that shape their brain into enjoying a good niche of media. All of these thing's boil down to a culture individual, this doesn't necessarily mean we going for a high browed audience but, instead an audience that can understand the ambition within our piece.

Draft 2

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

Production company

Our production company's name is "Invisible Ink", we felt this name would be valid given the context of the film there is a sense of immorality and tension about the combinations of words invisible and ink. We could relate it to the film in many senses the fact of the main protagonist not being caught for the atrocities he has committed to the darkness of ink. A production company handles budgeting, scheduling, scripting, the supply with talent and resources, the organization of staff, the production itself,post-production, distribution, and marketing.





















We then had to research distributions companies that would distribute our film. 
Momentum

Momentum seems to be the favourite at the moment because of the range of different thrillers it has within its list of films.

Main films include: Tamara Drew, The Kings Speech, The Fighter, Limitless, Chalet Girl, Insidious, Dear John, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Skyline, The Rebound, The Young Victoria, Milk, Let the Right One In, Amelie, P.S. I Love You, Men Who Stare at Goats, Defiance.

Lionsgate

Lionsgate is more based around quite risky films to release mainly in the horror genre. Our film is not risky to release because it is a stereotypical thriller film that most companies would release.

Main films include: Saw Series, Disaster Movie, Bratz: The Movie, Killers, Kick-Ass, The Expendables,  Dirty Dancing, Rambo, American Psycho, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Abduction, The Hunger Games, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Safe, Good Luck Chuck, Why Did I Get Married?.

Miramax

After much debate we decided to go with Miramax pictures, we chose miramax due to the nature of films they produce. We felt our film could be related to the gritty type thrillers they produce.
Main films we'd relate our film to: Pulp Fiction, No country for old men, The debt, There will be blood, Reservoir dogs.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The clearest social group our work represents is definitely gender. Gender plays a key role in asserting power within the main protagonist. This assertion of power withdraws power from the other side of the social group, females.  Representing the male as a criminal lives up to the stereotypes expected in thrillers of this type. We represented our social groups throughout, in particular during the park shots. We chose to have the male leading the conversation goading the female into engaging back in conversation, due to the shots and tone prior to these park shots we know the male has a bad intentions with the female, this causes the audience to feel the female is vulnerable and under threat. 

When choosing how to present the male and female's conversation in the park we chose to use a focus pull distorted by a tilt and set on a banister. This allow for the character to be out of focus drawing attention away from who they but what they represent, almost as if it just their silhouettes. This combined with the fast high pitched score adds tension asserting the threat and vulnerability of the female. The main character has been represented as immoral and psychotic, this representation is also represented in the same shot by the distortion of the frame. As the audience has a hint of what the males intentions are the tilted frame and out of focus presents the immorality within the piece and main protagonist.

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

An opening sequence contains conventions that are typical and found in many different opening sequences. Conventions common to opening sequences are; production and Distribution Company, establishing the mood, the introduction to characters, plot clues, titles, establishing shot, an equilibrium or disequilibrium and finally to get the audience asking questions. These conventions are used in strength of each other; one convention crafting another however, their primary use is to engage the audience. For instance, establishing shots are used to allow the audience to gain their bearings within the film; allowing them to ask questions about the environment and ultimately engaging their thoughts within the narrative of the film. 

Real media texts:

In American Beauty Sam Mendes uses an establishing shot that tracks down towards his street. Kevin Spacey’s voice then narrates introducing the audience to his street, whilst you hear the narration Mendes introduces the slow paced, low pitched soundtrack. By doing so he creates a mundane tone to match the mundane life of Kevin Spacey’s character we are about to be introduced to. By following these introductory steps Mendes is able to chronologically build on each convention and build up a tone/mood within the audience all before the introduction to the disequilibrium.

Conventions of an opening sequence conventions also can be specific to a genre. As we chose to make a thriller we had to follow the conventions that are usually found within a thriller. Convention specific to our genre are; location, low key lighting, ambient sound, soundtrack, extreme close up, loose frames and rule of thirds.

loose frame is a convention that is used that could be detonated to loneliness or isolation. It allows the audience to draw their attention to different aspects of the setting and engage themselves with a character. In this particular shot the audience notices the character but they also notice the characters environment, which is an introduction to the setting.

Another convention specific to our genre are close ups, they could either be of a characters profiles or of things related to the narrative. Close ups are used constantly throughout thrillers, a good example of a close up is in we need to talk about kevin. Lynne Ramsay uses symbolism throughout, in this particular case the close up was related to the plot. 

In our opening sequence we used a close up to represent death/ murder. We decided to get a close up of and hand with ink splattered over it, to represent the idea of blood being on the main protagonists hands. 

In some case directors have challenged or developed on a convention. Not all cases a director will chose to follow the convention by the book, they will develop or challenge them for a greater impact on the audience. In this particular example Lynne Ramsay chose to frame her main protagonist in the middle of the frame in front of these cans of soup, which represents a theme that runs throughout the film.

In our opening sequence we chose to frame the character in certain ways to loosen up the frame and allow for the audience to draw different responses from different things in the loose frame.