Audience Feedback

Hurtwoodhousemedia: I dont get the whole baby bit but i like the titles and the wall building by what looks like on its own. 4 weeks ago

Hurtwoodhousemedia: gets quite repetative after a while but amazing titles!!! 1 month ago

Bumblebeemadness: I like the way the titles flicker like the title of the film suggests. Im not sure about the background on the titles though. 1 month ago

stephaniemareen: nice story, for you never know what's going on. Nice titles. 1 month ago mutemiss I love the titles! 1 month ago

batmanthreee: I loved the titles and the eyes at the end! 4 weeks ago

tremblemasochist: I like the bloood. 1 month ago

7.What i've learned since the Prelim task last term

Our preliminary tasks were carried out in during the first term of my Media education when I was not very comfortable with a camera or with the terminology needed when shooting. Though the task went well for my group, we managed to take the shots we needed and our end result was not bad, I think, for a first try I realise now that we could have done a lot better.
The main learning curve this term was getting to grips with Final Cut Pro; a software that has become quite prolific in the media industry in making cutting shots together in order to form a coherent montage or narrative much easier. This piece of engineering enables the editor (i.e. me, or a member of my group) to see exactly where each shot is positioned on the timeline, how long it is and what it looks like. Editing is basically made a lot simpler with Final Cut Pro and although we did use it for the prelim task as well, it still felt quite foreign to me then. Now it feels like I’ve been doing it years and it really does make the whole process a lot faster. Leading on from that, there is a another programme called Adobe After Effects that allows the editor to create more interesting effects on title pages and shots which really adds to the final look of the piece. Both of these programmes have proved very useful so far.
In terms of the shooting day itself I was a lot more confident with our thriller sequence than I was when shooting the Preliminary task. That confidence came from knowing the correct terminology, understanding the equipment; lighting and camera ect...and knowing exactly which shots we wanted for our sequence. Shot angles and techniques have also improved since the prelim task after having watched more films and seen more photo’s in class.
During the time between Prelim task and Thriller sequence most of my media time seems to have been spent working on our ‘working document’ folder; drawing the storyboards, organising lighting and sound, figuring out which shots we wanted and creating an actual plot for our sequence. The most interesting of which, I found to be the storyboards which were my main task and something I learned quite a bit from as well. For example, I now know that a storyboard frame looks a lot better when outlined in black ink and scribbled (for want of a better word) over. I also know that storyboards are very useful on the shoot day and that the more accurate they are the better!
Since the Preliminary task in the first term I feel I have really improved as a Media student.

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

5.How we attracted our ideal audience member to our Thriller product

Media powerpoint

View more presentations from hurtwoodhousemedia.

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

Our main target audience member is the educated, middle-class man between 30 and 35 years old. Preferably someone who has studied psychology or is interested in that field as a hobby.

We chose the psychology teacher at our school as our preferred audience member because obviously he is interested in psychology and upon interviewing him we found that he is university educated and enjoys thrillers as well.

Someone who was not an ideal audience member at all was our 62 year old female librarian who hates thrillers, doesn't like psychological concepts and was not further educated. We think a male audience is more likely to be attracted to our piece because our protagonist is a pretty blond and this would probably entice men.

Because teenagers (16-25 year old) go to the cinema a lot they would be a target audience too however, we would still be directing our sequence at the male population. However, most men would take their girlfriends or female partners to see a thriller in order to protect them and through that the girls would get the 'safe' fear vicariously.

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

A media institution is an established, often profit-based organization that deals in the creation and distribution of advertising, entertainment and information services. They are largely trans-national in nature but can exist in a smaller/national form. Examples of worldwide media institution would be; News International, The Walt Disney Company, 21st Century Fox and Time Warner.
As our media product is a psychological thriller that does not look very typically English or Hollywood like, we decided that we wanted to make it more of a foreign film with French money and input. However, we still wanted there to be some British flare to it as well. Hence, it is now a French and English independent film shot in France with a French director but with actors of both nationalities. We decided this would work as an idea because at the moment the latest psychological British independent film to have been made; ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ by Bryan Forbes, was made in 2002, this means that the last chart-topping psychological thriller to have been made in the UK was 8 years ago! With this in mind we thought therefore that our media product should be the one to change the monotony of the non-psychological thrillers we keep seeing. This is exactly what we plan to do, just in a quirky way.
By having a well-known British actress as our lead and all supporting actors being well-known French actors we would secure a higher audience demographic almost immediately. As well as this, the plot of the film will be one that both nationalities can identify with. Being that it is a psychological thriller, however, our main target audience is one of intellect; people who would be comfortable with thinking outside of the metaphorical box.
Knowing these facts we thought that the French film Distribution Company; Gaumont Film Company based in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France that has been in production since 1895 would be a good choice for the production of our thriller. In order to keep the British influence within the piece, however, we would like to include Big Ben Films as collaboration. It that was established in 1912, and in merging the two together we hope, to further the chances of a bigger audience demographic.
Though our film is an original production there is a film that follows some of our ideas; The Gift, made in 2000 by director Sam Raimi it tells the story of a woman with psychic powers who has visions that lead her to find the corpse of a murdered woman from the village where she lives. Given that our opening sequence is essentially a montage of visions from a girl’s past (or even future) this film does share a critical line of thought. However, with A-listers such as Kate Blanchette and Hillary Swank involved in the film it is obvious that The Gift was a Hollywood made film and so on this point the two films are very dissimilar.
Being an independent film, the budget would not be very high, however, neither would the cost of filming because we plan to film in cheap locations not using any hi-tech technology.

2. How does your product represent particular social groups?

Our Media product has just three actors in it; a man and two girls. The protagonist is of course Sarah who is a German caucasian between the age of 16-17. This is a challenging representation of a teenage girl and this sequence focuses on the feeling of isolation that teenagers feel growing up. We also touch on the trauma from childhood that can form who we become. The fact that both Sarah and Hermione (who plays her mother) are blonde and both are attacked by Luke, we were adherring to the common stereotype that blondes are vulnerable or even stupid.
The man, Luke represents a typical criminal, he works alone and he is ruthless. Although he does not manage to kill Sarah he does kill Hermione, rendering the baby Hermione was carrying, an orphan.

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

Many films use different angles for different shots to portray different character emotions and/or grow the relationship between audience and characters. We decided to use this angle-changing technique, particularly close ups in our thriller product for two reasons; to create the feeling of isolation that the character feels, and to create a sense of empathy from the audience for the character.

Shots with very dark backgrounds such as the brick shots provide the sense of isolation more fully and though this is something seen in other films we feel we have developed the shot by having the bricks coming in as if by themselves.

The motion/action shots [two above left and right] both use the convention of a) the dark, shadowy, mysterious villain against the vulnerable female character and b) they are both shot within close proxemity of the action ggrabbing the audience's attention.