Evaluation 7- Hannah Walker (7172)

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

Here is our Preliminary Task:

For our preliminary task we were not given a lot of time to plan. Infact, we did the whole process within four lessons. Hence, it was nowhere near the standard of "Unmasked". You can see how lighting was a particularly weak point for our group, as was editing as the camera is evidently unsteady and had we edited it now we would have been able to fix many errors.

I learnt a lot more about pre production when creating "Unmasked", which we planned a lot more efficiently. There was a lot more to think about such as a script, props, setting, costume and makeup. We also made a storyboard to make sure we had a structure, we then developed this by making an animatic storyboard, equipped with a soundtrack. This is something we did not do for our preliminary.

We have learnt a lot since our preliminary, particularly in regard to editing and camera work.

In "unmasked", there is clear evidence of continuity editing and the part we take most pride in is when the protagonist shuts the door when leaving her bedroom. This was also an example of match on action. Something, which we would not have been effectively about to do when doing our Preliminary Task. Consequently, we were able to make our thriller opening much more realistic and believable. A snapshot comparison between our preliminary task and our "unmasked" can be seen to the right.
When watching you will notice that we actually
show the protagonise in "unmasked" shut the door on the other side, unlike our preliminary task where we failed to achieve effective match on action.

We did not feel as though we needed to include the 180 degree rule in "unmasked" as there was never two characters in a scene at the same time.


Althoug we found we established how to get an effective mid- shot when the protagonist was getting ready in the mirror. I think this was effective because we were able to perform the technique and shot in such a way so that the camera could not be seen in the reflection.

Also, for "Unmasked" we found that we were able to practice and perfect "panning", and used this technique on various occasions as we found it helped to build suspense. Here is an example of an image of our Protagonist, we panned this shot.


We found that our preliminary task, taught us how to use the equipement we were given but our thriller opening allowed us to grow and excell in the subject and we found ourselves picking new skills and techniques up all the time.

We found we were all able to use Final Cut Pro more efficiently this time, including transitions allowing our piece to look more professional, something we did not think about in our preliminary. We were able to explore titles and credits and their transitions also.




Our title was more developed and looked more professional in "Unmasked" unlike our preliminary which we just put the title over a black screen.

 We were also able to use Garage Band in order to create our originally music track. As well as this we were also able to use the "Stabilize" option on final cut pro in order to rectify any mistakes and make our footage as smooth as possible.

Evaluation 6 (GROUP POST) Hannah Walker 7172

Evaluation Activity 5 - Hannah Walker (7172) (GROUP POST)

How did you attract/address your audience? (GROUP)


Marketing and advertising is how companies generally attract an audience. Examples of this include, posters on buses, adshells, social media accounts, merchandise, trailers and more! Budget plays a huge role in creating an effective marketing campaign to attract an audience. For example, companies which are transnational have the ability to make bigger, more interesting campaigns attracting a bigger and wider audience. An example of this type of company would be Walt Disney as if you were to take a trip to your local shopping centre you would find some sort of Disney merchandise, accessories and even the actual Disney store.

Our target audience:

"Unmasked" is a certificate 15. We decided that our target audience would be for men and women from the age of 15 - 24 years old. We found that this was an appropriate audiecne as they have the most leisure time, and consequently we would be able to make more of a profit.

What aspects of our opening would appeal to our target audience?

- The upbeat music, as it is something we would listen to as 16 and 17 year olds.
- Our protagonist is of a similar age to  our target audience, hence they would be able to possibly relate to her.

Aspects such as the upbeat music, may not appeal to an older audience, as it is quite a young, upbeat track. The body language and make up of our protagonist may also not appeal to an older audience, this is because our protagonist may come across as quite self obsessed/insecure of her image and so spends a lot of time getting ready. This could be because of the increasing pressure on young people to look a certain way, a subject which an older generation may not have such knowledge about. However the storyline may be appealing to an older audience because, it is about a girl loosing her father and the pyschological effects and journey it takes her on, it is a relatable storyline so our storyline may attract a wider audience.


The audience will be drawn into our film by the eerie, mysterious music which helps to build the tension. The audience will also be drawn in by our blurred shot of the protagonist's father' shands, this is because the blurr is likely to create a sense of curiousity from the audience. Another scene which would draw the audience in is when hand-held camera effect in the woods as it builds suspense.

Conventions included in our thriller opening:

- A protagonist
-Supsenseful music
-Cliffhangers
-Montage of shots
-Diegetic sound

In "Unmasked" the audience are asked to relate to the protagonist as that is the only character, they properly see. They also witness a scene in which the protagonist is extremely distraught, triggering a sense of sympathy and empathy from the audience due to the death of her father, although this is not obviously revealed but rather subtly hinted as we wanted to keep that sense of msytery as it would not be possible to reveal everything in the opening.

We collected our audience feedback from two 18 year old boys, a 17 year old boy and a 19 year old woman as well as our peers, and teachers. In our film opening, our audience found our music most effective in setting a mysterious atmosphere. Our audience also enjoyed the acting as it made them feel emersed in the action and they believed what they were watching, They also found the reference to the dates helpful in understanding what was happening on the screen. They also enjoyed our continuity editing as it created a sense of verisimilitude.

MARKETING CAMPAIGN:

Social Media:

As our target audience is for 15-24 year old men and women. For most of our target audience, social media is a part of everyday life. . From our research we also found that 94% of British teenagers use at least one form of social media, making a social media campaign most successful for our film.

We would use our various social media pages to post updates and news on our film as well as release dates and reviews. We would also post cast interviews, bloopers as footage allowing our audience to have access to as much content relating to our film as possible. We would also have public profiles, allowing a wider audience to be aware of our film. Below is an example of our twitter page that we especially decided to focus on as we found our target audience use this a lot in comparison to other social media platforms like Facebook.

Our Twitter Page

Posters:

We also designed two posters that are shown below. These can be used on adshells, busses, handed out to the public and also shown and shared on social media. Below we have annotated them as to why they help attract out target audience and the decisions we took in relation to images, colour and text.

Evaluation 4- Hannah Walker (7172)

Below is my response to Evaluation Activity 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

http://www.slideshare.net/HannahWalker40/evaluation-activity-4-74089863

Evaluation 3- Hannah Walker (7172)

Below is my response to Evaluation Activity 3 : What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

https://soundcloud.com/hannah-walker-446811600/media-evaluation-question-3

Evaluation 2- Hannah Walker (7172)

Below is my response to question 2



https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JtaI-NPDQ4teRsp2BMOj-2r8kD55bNGX_NEfW2A0Sr4/edit?usp=sharing

Evaluation 1- Hannah Walker (7172)

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

Here are our nine frames, from left to right you can see:

- Our production logo
-An establishing shot of the victim's hand
-Close up of the victim's hand
-Shot of family photograph
-Medium shot of protagonist
-Medium mirror shot of protagonist
-Close up shot after protagonist shutting the door
-Shot of protagonist walking down the stairs.
-Medium shot of protagonist shutting the door.

Shot one:

Shot one is our production logo. Our production logo, includes the name of our production company, "Shadow Productions", it also is on a black background, which from our research we found that most successful production companies have their logos on a black background.

Shot two:

Our second shot is an establishing shot of part of the victim's hand. We thought this was effective because, not the whole hand. This creates a sense of curiosity for the audience and this is complimented by the fact that the shot is blurred. Shot two also includes a date which is not actually in our final version, we decided to take this date away as it clashes with credits and we found that our audience was not able to acknowledge the date at the start.

Shot three:

Shot three is a shot of the victim's hand and shows a progression from shot two. It also shows more of the victim's hand covered in blood. I think this was effective because while it shows the audience what they want to see it also builds suspense.

Shot four:

Shot four is a shot of the family photograph. We used this shot for a sense of symbolism. The picture is of a mother, father, son and daughter with the father and daughter in the closest proxemics. This was to represent the protagonists relationship with her father which would be later uncovered if the film was made into a full-length film.

Shot five:

Shot five is a medium shot of the protagonist which was achieved through a panning shot. This shot shows a clear image of our protagonist, and is quite simple but allows her to be introduced to the audience clearly. It also allows the audience to see her make up, and conform to the stereotype of women caring about their appearance and the bold, red lipstick makes a statement.

Shot six:

Shot six is another medium shot of our protagonist in the mirror. This is another example of our protagonist conforming to the stereotype of all women caring too much about their appearance as our protagonist spends a while getting ready in the mirror.

Shot seven:

Shot seven is a close of up our protagonist shutting the door. This shot was a prime and effective piece of continuity editing, which created verisimilitude, which was vital in order for our thriller to look professional.

Shot eight: 

Shot eight is a shot of the setting and the protagonist coming down the stairs. This shot is quite light, but the colours of setting which include, whites and greys help to create a mysterious atmosphere. The protagonists legs walking down the stairs is another example of continuity editing. 

Shot nine:

Shot nine is a shot of our protagonist leaving her house. The shot shows how she has opened the door and is closing it to leave. It shows her in a khaki puffer jacket suggesting she is going out somewhere such as to work. It also shows the contrast between the outside light and the light inside her house. This foreshadows what has happened to her father as it is much darker inside, connoting to a sinister atmosphere. 

Our Finished Thriller Opening

Audience Feedback : Thriller Opening

Draft Thriller Opening

Editing process (post production)

Script

In our thriller opening we have decided to use very little dialogue in order to achieve the most sinister and mysterious sequence possible; as a result we only have one piece of dialogue in the whole of our opening.

Hannah: 'Bye dad , love you' 

As a group we decided that this was best to create the eery atmosphere needed. Also through our audience reasearch we found that the audience don't like much to be given away in the intro of a thriller hence why we decided to have little dialouge. 

Soundtracks

Our aim is to have an eerie and suspenseful soundtrack to compliment our thriller opening; these are
a few i thought would accompany our piece well:

I looked up different music that were not copyrighted and although many were good i believe they did not completely fit the feel of music and the atmosphere we were looking for. As when we researched and people filled out our surveys music was a key aspect which was seen to be important, because of this we decided that it would be best to make our own soundtrack to fit our thriller opening best. 

As a result we produced this soundtrack:

Mood Board

This mood board allows us to visualise our thriller opening so we are able to see some key themes and images that will potentially be used in our opening to our thriller 'Unmasked'. 

Costume

At first we would like our protagonist to be well dressed, in formal but feminine wear. We decided this as it is part of her clean, "perfect" image. Another reason why we chose this, is because we thought it would help to highlight the contrast and transformation of her.





We also had ideas of a sort of slouchy, comfortable more scruffy look to show the contrast between her well dressed, polished look.

Location

Our locations would include:





A bathroom that includes a mirror so the protagonist is able to look in it, we would use one of our bathrooms at home and make it look messy, which again, highlights the contrast to the protagonist's clean, polished image. We will use mine and Lauren's bathrooms.





We will use a front door/doorway in two scenes. In one scene the door will be slightly ajar and in the other scene we will use the door so that the protagonist can walk through it.



We would also use an upstairs landing as a point to film from.



We would also use one of our staircases to film on.



Another possible location is a bedroom.

AUDIENCE RESEARCH: storyboard

Storyboard (Still Frames and Animatic)

AUDIENCH REASERCH: Film Listings: Richmond Odeon

Top 5 films at Odeon Richmond:

Sing = Animation 

T2 Trainspotting = Drama

La La Land = Musical , comedy , romance

Split = Horror ,Thriller

Lion = Drama 

In the most demanded and screened films in the local cinema (Richmond Odeon) have a Thriller movie in their top 5 , displaying how popular they are. This discloses to us that there is a clear audience for Thriller films,  in which the cinema fulfils the audiences needs by screening Split. 

Furthermore, these are the Thriller films readily avaliable the local hounslow/ richmond borough being screened at cinema's: 

Top Thriller films of all time:(imdb)

1. The sixth sense

2. The dark knight rises

3.  Inception

4.  psyco

5.  The departed

6.  Shutter Island

7.  se7en

8. The Usual suspects

9. The silence of the lambs

10. Snatch 

AUDIENCE REASERCH- IMDb

This chart shows and ranks Box office statistics for thrillers released in 2016 and also thrillers released in the past that made money in 2016. 

This chart ranks movies by the amount they earned during 2017. It includes movies released in previous years that earned money during 2017.

Conclusion:

These charts show that Thriller films are still popular and that they can still produce an audience and Box Office statistics. Passengers produced the largest profit in 2017 with $34,939,291 and also made $61,264,152  raking it 5th in 2016.

Passengers:
IMDb Passengers: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1355644/

Conclusion:
From this research on Passenger I have found that Sience Fiction thrillers were popular in both 2016 and 2017 as well as being profitable when aimed at a target audience with an age rating of PG-13.