Question 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our media product is the indie market, this is because our film lacks the features of a mainstream film (more on this in question 5) 

The characteristics etc of our target audience; 

Gender: Male and female- as its a dark thriller with some action or death and the use of a femme fatale.

Age: Young, men and women below 25 would be what we would expect the mean age of the audience to contain. 

Books/novels: Frankenstein, The Black Sheep, To Kill A Mocking Bird, Lord Of The Rings

Music tastes: alternative rock- "Rise Against", "Pigeon Detectives", "You Me At Six" 

Clothing: Chinos, hoodie, denim jacket, vans, converses (shoes), skinny trousers, darker colours, clothing which is more unisex. 

Favourite films: FourLions, To Kill A Mocking Bird, Leon, Se7en, Pulp Fiction, Animal Kingdom

Clothes store/sites: Primark (cheap), River Island, White Stuff

TV programmes: Skins, Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat, Misfits, How I Met Your Mother

An example of the indie target audience:  

 

What we would expect a male indie target audience to look like. 

Question 5- How did you address/attract your audience?

Our thriller was aiming for the indie target audience, (specific details on this below) this was because we felt that it would give us more experience in creating a film, that if we went along with mainstream films.
This is because, there are many mainstream thrillers, like The King of Plagues or Taken, where there is an abundance of explosions, action, dark settings, heroic men and full blown orchestra pieces for the soundtrack. Making it easy to select a setting/soundtrack/character for our thriller.

So we went "off the tracks" and aimed for something different, our survey which we sent out with the thriller agreed that this film wasn't like big blockbuster films. In ours we have a femme fatale, wearing alternative clothes to what a modern teenager would be expected to wear, using something more subtle for the "weapon" (the poison) and making it have a more modern day scenario (unlike Inglorious Basterds, (SPOILER) where its set in WW2 and they kill Hitler) making our film go against the conventions of a thriller film.


One character wear indie style clothing, or alternative clothing. The main character, wears jeans and a big coat (mainly to cover her identity, see right) going along the lines of a indie film. The other characters wear what we would expect most young people to wear, e.g jeans, hoodie/shirt.

The actions that are carried out in the film, don't really depict any genre, they are basic and not much can be drawn from the actions carried out, apart from that the killer, is slow and methodical, e.g creating the poison and pouring the poison into a mug, are both very slow and purposeful movements.

The soundtrack that we use, (below) very much adds to the feel of the film. It too, goes along with the indie target audience as the sound track is non-intrusive and fades in and out creates the sense of anticipation and mystery, also the track was found off a website, meaning it was low budget and using mainly electronic sounds, appealing to the indie teenagers, as it is also a small, amateur film, not using the conventions that the blockbuster films uses.
Many high budget, professional film companies use massive orchestras and world famous song writers costing thousands (Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Bourne Trilogy to name a few) often block out the diegetic sound, having less of an impact on the audience as what is being played on the screen is more important as the soundtrack.


The locations used in Affliction, also interests the indie target audience, as the sets used are basic, cheap and very common, this would interest the target audience as we kept to real-life locations. Like the living room used at the end of the film, can be found anywhere within a house, making it as close to modern day life as possible, therefore appealing to the indie market.






Looking at the target audience in more detail, the film may interest women more than men, as there is a femme fatale featuring in the film, rather than a male main character, but it can still interest the male market (like the "Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo", (left).

Also another reason why women may be more attracted to our film is that the "The Young Poisoners Handbook" (below) appeals to both the female and male market equally, despite the main character being male, so if the main character is female, it would appeal to more the female target audience more, one reason is because men, when rating, dislike women being the main role (seen in the using ratings on IMDb; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103074/ratings)

The cliff-hanger- the friend dies. 

Finally, to hook our audience in, we used a cliffhanger at the end of the opening, to keep the audience interested into what will happen next, will the killer continue killing? What will become of the rest of her friends? What will happen to the killer? Also with the mise-en-scene and characters it will draw in the indie target audience, so not only will the cliff hanger draw them in but the fact that the film runs along side their fashion and behaviour and that the film could happen in life, (like Skins t.v series, unlike Bourne)
Hopefully these questions would be running through the audiences minds as they exit the cinema.

Question 6- What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this media product?

Question 6- What Have You...

Question 3- What kind of media institution might distribute yourmedia product and why?

Question 3- What Kind of Media Institution Might

Finished thriller AFFLICTION

Finished thriller opening!

Question two- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Gender
Our media product represents women more than anything, as hard, unforgiving and drastic people. There is no male dominance in this film, it focuses on women in a single light. The use of the female role in this film is a contemporary representation of women, the girl becomes a femme fatale, who takes the position of a male role, like in many films the man is doing the dirty work, in this opening, the women has taken that role, becoming a femme fatale, like in Thelma and Louise.

This clip shows the femme fatale role being used. The camera angles, acting of the trucker (dum, foul-mouthed, greedy) add to the female being in control. 

It goes against the stereotypical representation of women as well as going against the thriller convention. We represented women in this way, mainly due to the rapid change in views of women in society, instead of having a patriarchal society that it used to be, the film challenges the ideas of that, therefore appealing to women, as it represents them in a modern ideology.
The fact that there is a lack of male dominance could be a progression in the representation of women in the film industry. We also used camera angles which made the killer look more dominating and powerful, like in the shots in Thelma and Louise. Example of the shot below.

The camera angle here shows the dominance the women have, the camera is low down,
behind them, effectively on their side and
they are casually sitting while the man is standing in a arrogant manner. 

Social Class
The group of friends are teenagers, but aren’t specifically seen as in a certain social group, like chavs, emo, Goth or other niche groups. This may be because us, who starred in the film, don’t belong to a social group, or the characters in the film, especially the killer, as it wouldn’t suit the characters characteristics. Or having a particular social group in the film wouldn’t have the same amount of impact on the audience as if the group of friends couldn’t be classed into a group.

Note the big jacket,
suggesting (one of many features of the jacket) their lack of fashion,
 significant for the lower class (no money to spend on clothes) 

On an individual level, we decided that the characters will be all at the same social class level. Although one way you could segregate them into social groups would be clothes being worn. Only the killer’s clothes stand out, wearing a large coat, with the hood up, possible suggesting she is a girl who keeps herself to herself and that she has no real fashion sense, which maybe seen lower class, if you were to critically analyse them.

We decided not to show any ethnic minorities or different ethnic backgrounds, as this subject is very sensitive and we weren’t confident enough in making this film containing ethnic minorities in case we offended anyone.

The representation of Britain is a pessimistic view, the use of dark lighting and suspicious activity adds to this sense of danger and a depressive outlook that the film reveals to the audience. Also the youth are seen as out of control, out of touch and "non-mainstream" compared to other views of contemporary Britain, as the youth have a dull and bleak future ahead of them, with the possibility of no job, no accommodation and no money. 

Question seven- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Discuss the representation of age in the extract from Skins

The extract is of the famous TV series called Skins, and the extract is found in episode one, series one. In the extract we see Tony (the teenager) go about his morning, of getting up, lifting weights and exercises. His sister is walking along the pavement and needs to get into her school uniform without being noticed by her parents, to do this, Tony puts his music on full blast, and his dad (the adult) comes in angrily swearing and demanding he turns the music down, during this his sister slips past and gets into her school uniform, it carries on as the morning wears in. Showing how the teenager always seems to have the upper hand.

We can see in the clip the representation of age, the teenagers are represented in different ways. One is how they are seen as cool, fun and full of energy, this is seen in the clip, when Tony first gets out of bed, he stretches then starts going about his exercises, showing off his muscles in the mirror. This contrasts to the appearance of his dad, he comes in topless, wearing red lose shorts, his hair has turned grey and a beer belly is obvious, this image of an adult expresses them as unfit, old and in some cases “primeval” (dads big, grey beer belly and grey stubble). In this we can see the use of juxtapositions, the dad looking all rough and old, and the teenager, fit, strong, these characteristics are expanded when they are seen next to each other.  Another representation that the teenagers are cool and fun would be when the sister is seen walking down the road, waiting to be let in the house after going out when she has told not to. This adds to the sense that teenagers are fun and cool, as she is also wearing modern and trendy clothes, this appearance contrasts with mother who is seen next to the sink in the kitchen making breakfast, later on in the clip.

Youths can also be seen to have the upper hand in this film. For example , in the clip, despite her parents telling her not to, the sister still managers to go out for the night and get back home, and into her uniform, without her parents finding out, this adds to the sense that the adults are lacking that “teen intelligence”, that they can never control their children completely. Another example would be the camera shots and angles used, when Tony’s dad is shouting at him, the camera stays on Tony longer than his dad, possible suggesting power in the family, added to this the fact that during the argument with Tony, the camera shot cuts his dad out before he finishes his sentence, yet again, highlighting the issue with teenagers having the upper hand, this clip could also suggest a power struggle between Tony and his dad.

The contrast and difference between teenagers and adults in this clip is significant.  In this instance, the camera shots use fast, snappy shots of Tony when he gets up and during his exercises and when his dad enters the room the shot is held longer, and the camera angles are more traditional, like medium or close up shots and eye level shots. The camera seems to stay in one place while the dad is speaking. This shows how the adults are seen as boring, “samey” and dull, while the teenager, having all the quick and different shots used, is seen to be fun, modern, lively and energetic.  Also during the argument the POV is always from the teenager to the adult, suggesting the idea that the audience is supposed to side with the teenager. This goes throughout the clip with the dad unless the teenager has something to show the dad (or us, the audience).

Overall, the representation of age in the extract of Skins, shows that the teenager has the upper hand when it comes to teenagers and adults interacting. The target audience can easily be seen that it is for the teenage or young adult population. Due to how the adults are made out to look it may offend some adults.

For the extract of the clip please go to http://tiny.cc/zlw3n   (i was unable to find the correct video that I could insert into Blogger) the clip goes from 0.30 to 4.25 mintues 

First question on evaluation of the thriller

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions for real media products? on Prezi