Who would be the audience for your media product?

We have decided that our media product would be targeted at the 18+ market due to the themes and issue raised in the text. This is shown through the dominating look of the antagonist who conveys ideas of torment and abuse. Therefore, a younger audience couldn’t watch our thriller as it portrays harsh issues that may upset their viewing. We have also concluded that our target audience would exceed ages between 18-40.

Furthermore, because our actors reflect similar ages to our target audience, our target market would be able to identify themselves between the characters. On the other hand with gender, we believe that male and female viewers would balance out as there is a shared gender between characters. As our representation is stereotypical, this would reinforce this idea that our audience would balance in gender. Furthermore, because our thriller raises issues of typical conventions in content such as a kidnapping, this represents our film with a typical thriller style. Audience’s that continuously enjoy the thriller genre would also watch our film. This would maximise our audience.

Films that we believe are similar to ours can evidently been seen through ‘Misery’ [as seen in slide 8]. As ‘Misery’ became a Hollywood film, audiences ranged massively due to the success and popularity. Therefore based on this judgement, it connects with the idea that our audience would attract people between the age of 18-40 with a equal gender. Another film that relates to our content and genre is ‘Shallow Grave’ as seen in slide 7. This film too includes creepy and unusual themes and this can be related to our thriller. Hence, based on my research on this film I would again say that audiences would balance out in. Again, due to the horrific nature of the film, and through research on the BBFC website, we agreed our age restriction would be 18+. Therefore, based on my judgment I would agree that our audience for our product would be older than 18, and either be male and female.

Target audience feedbackIn order to fully evaluate our finished product, we created a survey to gain feedback from our audience. We used Google Survey to help us design the questions. Here are some comments from our audience feedback:

Did you enjoy our thriller opening? Why?“Yes. Excellent. Very chilling, scary and tense. My attention was held throughout. Wanted it to carry on to find out what was going to happen. The lighting and music especially set the scene really well.”

Did you find our thriller opening engaging?“I liked the contrast between the scene with the mother /detective and then the captive girl and man. Easy to grasp what happening straight away. Music and lighting gave real horror feel to the situation.”

“Yes as right from the beginning, with the deep pessimistic tones of the music, I was eager to find out what was going to happen next. The police interview, although I could sense had been some what rushed during the process of filming, actually set the scene brilliantly, engaging the audience by putting them in a state of wonder as to what the two subjects were talking about.”

Did you like the music? Why? Did you like the titles? Why?“Yes. It echoes the type of film music that you “Yes. It wasn't to fancy so it out more focus would expect in thrillers, slightly chilling and eerie.” on the actual opening of the movie.”

crimepsychological dramaactionhorror

Here shows the results back from the genre question. As you can see the highest score came from a psychological thriller. The next popular answer was crime. This therefore means we have successfully made the specific genre we

wanted as our audience thinks this. Our audience survey ranged from ages between 16-50+. This gives us an idea of what all ages think of our thriller. Therefore, as most of the comments came back complimentary, I would say a range of audiences liked our thriller.

How did you attract/address your audience?By using a close up, the audience is able to indentify the mother’s reactions and emotions. It clearly highlights her facial expressions and this connects to the generic conventions of thrillers. It creates suspense as the audience doesn’t know what they are talking about, hence attracting them. By having a point of view shot,

the audience can directly see what the character is looking at. This includes the audience as they are being allowed to witness what has happened recently in the narrative. This impacts massively on the audience’s perception as they conclude ideas about the character who is reading it.

Stereotypically, by having a mother reveal her emotions it attracts social groups such as females. They are able to feel sympathy towards her and this attracts our audience.

By introducing our male character with a long shot, the audience can identify the location: a study. This involves the audience as they are included in the narrative.

Additionally, by having our female character portray scared emotions through her body language, the audience can directly feel afraid for the character. This is because it is shot in a long shot, revealing her body language.

By calling our thriller ‘Stolen’ we have included a social ideology that the public fear about. Therefore, we have attracted our audience through their beliefs.

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

From the continuity task, to our anamatic, to our thriller opening, I have learnt how to effectively use a digital camera whilst capturing specific shots to create meaning. One strength of using the digital cameras meant we could independently work on our thriller with effective and high quality equipment. One weakness however was lighting. As we wanted to create a dark and mysterious atmosphere, which meant we could only have one weak light source. So in some of our shots the resolution is dark as the camera failed to pick up the shot. [1:50]

Furthermore, throughout the process I have also learnt how to effectively use a tripod whilst filming. I can now produce steady shots from a range of different angles. At the beginning of the process I could not do this, and learning this technique took time and practice. One shot I particularly like is the high angle. A problem I had to over come filming this consisted of changing the levels on the tripod (as I was filming on different levels). This meant I had to make sure they were equally stable as otherwise the shot would be wonky. This enhanced our thriller as we could successfully produce shots from a range of different angles.

Additionally, during the editing process, I have learnt how to use the software ‘Premier Pro’. When I first used this I didn’t quite understand how I would put together our film, nor how to create effects. With the help of my teacher however and with the use of practice, I can now effectively use ‘Premier Pro’ to create a product. This software enabled me to edit precise moments in the clips, whilst creating effects like the fades in the titles. I also learnt how to work with ‘iMovie’. I can now confidently import and export movies/clips from ‘iMovie’ without hassle to create or finish a piece of work.

Throughout the process of filming and editing our crime/psychological thriller, I learnt a variation of editing skills and camera skills in order to present our thriller in the best way. This process of learning contrasts massively to our work in our continuity task, as we took more consideration and time with our thriller. Throughout the process of creating our thriller, we planned each shot carefully so knew exactly what we wanted to film.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.Main task: The titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.

From our preliminary task I have learnt and progressed in many aspects into my full product. With the research and planning, I now understand the importance of organisation. Researching into the specific aspects such as genre, framing, editing and sound all exceed importance. If I could change anything, I would focus extremely hard on the codes and conventions as it massively effects what you are trying to produce. This relates to the significance of storyboarding as I now realise that a strong plan produces a strong product. Our storyboard didn’t plan how long each shot would last for and effected us in filming as we lasted shots for longer than we originally planned, forcing us to cut down in editing.

Physically, my filming has improved as well. I realise shooting from different angles and distances adds more variation and excitement. Furthermore, I feel more confident with the equipment and feel happy that next year I can produce a product on my own. My progress from the continuity task differs immensely to our final product. For example, in out continuity task the time 0:24 cuts out sound completely due to bad filming. However the quality in filming has changed and we are now confident in creating high quality shots.

Here in our first cut the shot and framing shows limited understanding. Furthermore, in out first cut the camera continuously wobbles throughout the video. However, my progression and learning into filming and camera work is evident in our final product:Personally, I am must proud of the high angle shot. It connotes ideas of weakness as it reveals her feeble body language.