Monday 14 February 2011

Closing post.

My blog is now complete; I have enjoyed this task and hope I am successful in it. My tool will guild you to the necessary post on my blog. 

Friday 4 February 2011

How did you attract/address your audience?

This is me filming the reaction from my target audience watching my sequence, then asking them a series of questions such as:
  • What opinions to you have on my sequence?
  • Did you enjoy it?
  • Do you understand the concept?
  • Do you think your in the target audience for this product?
My mode of address was very informal as the target audience I was sharing with was close to me; this made me feel more comfortable.

Here are the responses..

    Subject 1) A 40 year old women.



    Subject 1 is a 40 year old woman, she enjoyed the clip and appreciated the choice of music and theme intended. However for this subject it’s very hard to pin a solid reading. She understood the certain things like the theme, this was a preferred reading, and however she failed to gain knowledge to a storyline or the characters motives. This is a aberrant reading.

     Although she pitched that the target audience should be middle age and upwards, agreeing with our intentions.This reaction has made me realise that women in that category have a preferred reading in some contexts but have an aberrant reading in others; she struggled to find the connoting messages. 



    Subject 2) A 42 year old man.


    Subject 2 is a 42 year old man , overall all he liked the clip.
    He received the dramatic feel that we tried to connote which was excellent, this is a preferred reading. However he didn’t understand the concept of sequence, he said it was too complicated and described it has ‘over his head’.

     This is a negotiated reading; he’s in our pitched our target audience. This made me consider that not every man/women would understand our sequence due to everybody is different. He even suggested to us to target the ‘new wave’ audience which consists of, young-adults, this isn’t a market we aimed for but it can be highly considered. Off camera he described the film as ‘French noir’ and comment on the superb type of music, this is great and exactly what we wanted to achieve.

    Who would be the audience for your media product?

    This is a short power point answering the question.


    Thursday 3 February 2011

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

    Our production company has produced a low budget British film which is in the genre of psychological horror. With intention to target an over 18 background who are interested in the this genre and intellectual films.

    The media distribution is worth $60 billion dollars and very much is dominated by the major studios such as Warner, Disney. These are vertically integrated so the profit margin is very large, these films would expect to reach large audiences by been played in main cinemas such as


    ‘Odeon, Vue and Cineworld’. However as we have produced a low budget film we cannot expect to play a major part on the scene, this is why we would target small independent cinemas in our local area and at exhibitions such as Norbury theatre in Droitwich. As the modern day allows us to post videos online will would take full advantage of this, this would allow us to connect to wider audiences and to gain a reputation. This may leads us on to independent film festivals such as one of the largest in London.

    As our film is a student production I strongly agree that in the real professional environment with a larger budget could generate mainstream success and played in the top dog cinemas. I think this because our film is very unique and could be twisted into something worthy also it raises awareness into certain mental stabilities. This is why we’re spreading the awareness so such opportunities could occur.

    Youtube is one of the most accessed site on the internet, it has took of majorly from the last couple of years and it’s a great place for opportunity and marketing. Some short movies mange to generate millions of hits. These videos appear globally and I think this is our best opportunity to access the mainstream audience connoting to our target audience plus more. Here are example a of short movie which have connected with mass audiences.

    http://www.youtube.com/user/RichardGaleFilms

    Tuesday 1 February 2011

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

    Using conventions: 

    From the very beginning of our title sequence we wanted to show a powerful establishing shot from the location where the filming was taken place, this shows the audience the concrete surrounding we wanted to connote. As our sequence is filmed in theater we wanted to show a jazzy art deco mood as well as its initial location, so we researched theatres in Worcester and landed with “Northwick” theatre. This establishing shot very much mimics the shots in the opening sequence of "Manhattan" however we don’t focus on location as heavily “Manhattan” does but we wanted to connote the same effect.  Although, unlike 'Manhattan' our film is not titled 'Northwick', from the start of our sequence until five seconds in we feel we have used a common convention from a real media product successfully.  When studying in our research we noticed that Alfred Hitchcock uses this in such films like 'Psycho' He uses a slow fade-in to reveal the first location of the film, this creates tension and empathises the location. This is very much like our opening 30 seconds; we use the convention of several long and short takes of varied images of our location and ominous, connoting objects.

    Sound is a very important part of our sequence; we wanted to connect our sound with the cinematography. This makes the cinematography a lot more meaningful when matched with appropriate music which enforces the genre. This is very much shown in the opening sequence of 'Seven 'with a screeching synth, this sets the
    psychological genre perfectly however we twisted this convention to suit our sequence. After realising this when creating 'Hurt', knowing that editing would not be enough to create a successful title sequence. We knew we wanted from the beginning a long take that would establish sound and film together efficiently to have full effect on the audience.  

     This is the convention of souned we adapted off 'Seven'.

    This is our first 30 seconds of audio for 'Hurt' is very similar.


    Developing conventions:
    As I said above sound is a very import important for our sequence, our use of sound uses common conventions of the psychological genre, then developing it to create something that allows us to differentiate and individualise our sequence and allow us to include what we wanted. To do this we used http://www.freeplaymusic.com/ to find suitable clips. For the first 30 seconds of 'Hurt' uses a raw, screeching synth  to  agitate the viewer, when researching before the task, we discovered many films of the genre, such as 'Seven' which share this convention of using sound to unsettle their audience, connoting danger from the beginning, this will also connotes the genre and mood of the film. The second peice of audio we used was a trademark free version of Tschakovsky's 'Swan Lake'. This is a very unusual sound choice for this genre but helps to build the story line greatly, also we developed the sound track of “Manhattan” to connote a sophisticated, jazzy mood.

    This is our final soundtrack.


    When studying fonts for titles in other films of our genre, we came across galvanised styles of text, to differentiate our film from others in genre, we had to use a font that would array the normal font. So we didn’t use a fancy font, instead simple, capital lettered font underlined with the title of the film(Hurt).(Right) compared to 'Seven' on the (Left).

    Challenging conventions:
    A run of the mill title sequence contains many titles which establish the actors, producers and directors. We refused to this so will challenged this convention, refused to do this, and simplify a title sequence by showing only the film title, this makes the audience focuses more on the film delvoloping infront of them and the realisation of the location; instead of information on who made it. It would be unique against a genre, that uses titles to such an extent that the audience's attention levels would decline. In my research I found only one other film to keep informative titles hidden, as to remain focus on the film not the titles - this being Capello's 'Apocalypse Now'.

    Mise-En-Scene was a convention of film that we immediately was effected by our choice of genr, instead of morbid, cold instruments seen in Seven, we aimed to challenge the use of objects on stage by connoting person attributes towards the character. Such props as mannequins, masks, suits and red roses.