Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

1. Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Our project is the opening sequence to a slightly hybrid horror/thriller genre movie. The films Taken and Man on Fire quite heavily influenced our sequence as they both as well revolve around a kidnapping. We saw that these films were very successful and so decided to go with our original idea of a kidnap, which we try to convey in the sequence without giving too much away. I think our sequence effectively incorporates the generic conventions of our horror/thriller genre. The film centers on a man eager to get back at his wife for handing him in to the police and denying him access to his daughter, Alex by kidnapping her. The films themes would consist of revenge, mental illness and some aspects of jealousy towards Alex’s mother because of all the time he missed out on due to his prison sentence. Unlike a typical horror there aren’t many twists in the film other than her kidnapper turns out to be her dad which isn’t made clear from the start. Like in many films of a similar genre the victims is usually a teenage girl as this character is seen as vulnerable and exposed to danger as opposed to characters of a different gender or age. So, our female, teenage character Alex conforms to this idea well especially as the location for our opening sequence is a train station. Alex is dressed in party clothes and is quite obviously still drunk from being out with friends; this again reinforces her defenselessness in a low-lit setting accompanied by tension building music. (Slow piano that builds up into something more dramatic.) Throughout the sequence and between titles we have shown flashes of Alex in her next location, which is her dad’s basement and where he holds her hostage during parts of the film. These flashes of footage interject during the opening sequences hopefully causing slight confusion and interest within the audience, resulting in them wondering what happens next and whether these are flash backs from Alex’s memory or something to come later in the film. This idea of scenes flashing quickly from to the other and being quite abstract we feel is good for the genre and theme of the movie as it works well with the idea of a kidnap, which is usually also very swift. Like in the film Taken, which influenced us also has a lot of shots that move quickly and where the characters perform their actions swiftly to create nervousness and excitement.

2. Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups? We have used very typical characters for the genre of our movie. Our victim, Alex, is a white, teenage female; characteristics considered as vulnerable and defenceless when in danger. Our villain again, very representative of a thriller themed movie is much older than Alex. He is male and stronger than her able to cause her harm. These characters are stereotypical of this genre. She is represented as fragile and innocent, even through her costume. Alex wears a dress and small jacket further emphasising her weakness in the cold. She stumbles through the sequences continuing to show her disadvantage should danger occur. However, our stronger more in control character, the kidnapper, is bolder and dressed in block colours e.g. black to portray his sinister personality. He on the other hand walks in swift strides towards his victim and clearly has much more power throughout. Although we wanted to represent our kidnapper (Alex’s father) as an older man he would most likely fall into the ‘British hoodie’ group as he dressed in full black with his faced unexposed and hidden by a hood. This is normally only common in younger characters and we found that it slightly lowered the authority of our kidnapper. Our only prop we included was a white bag that is placed over Alex’s head during the kidnapping. The kidnapper pulls this out his pocket just as he is closing in on her and so we know what is about t happen and this easily confirms this characters role as villain for the movie.

3. Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Our film would be of high budget and so a lot of marketing through advertisement and press would be necessary to make sure enough people go to watch it. Advertising in magazines, on the television, through radio and definitely via the internet are all good way of getting to the whole of our audience and maybe other interest viewers who like the sound of the movie. Interviews with the director and members of the cast are another way distributors would attract attention to the film, again doing this through television and radio people don’t necessarily have to be looking for our film but they could stumble across it. Using distributors such as 20th Century Fox, who have a lot of money, gives us a lot more opportunity to do outdoor advertising such as billboards and posters on the sides of transport e.g. buses, taxis. The cast for our movie consist of a few big Hollywood stars including Kristen Stewart and David Morse. Taking into consideration our genre and choice of actors I think our own production would almost definitely be distributed by a big company like 20th Century Fox. We were heavily influenced by existing films such as Taken and Man on Fire which both revolve around the issue of kidnappings. Man on Fire made $22,751,490 in the opening weekend alone, with Taken topping this and making $24,717,037. Both of these films were distributed by 20th Century Fox and were extremely successful. They also hold a lot of similar conventions to our own product due to related themes and storyline so our movie would be distributed in a similar way to these, being shown in major cinemas instead of going straight to DVD.

4. Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product? We want to the film to definitely attract both a male and female audience, with a wide range of ages from 15-40. We decided to give our film a certificate 15 as it allows for a much bigger audience that most other thriller/horror films rated at an 18. As our film is based around a young girl getting kidnapped it can easily be related to real life circumstances. Being an older viewer you could associate it with being your own child or if you were younger you could put yourself in the same situation as the character. We hope for the audience to feel some kind of link to the film so they are absorbed by the story line and enjoy it. We were quite heavily influence by the film Taken as we originally liked the idea of a kidnap and this film had a similar storyline. The success of the film also had an impact on our choice to have it as one of our main inspirations as it grossed $9.4 million in the United States, on its opening day. The film, like ours, was also rated a 15 and so we knew these ideas were popular with this aged audience and would be successful. Our main character, Alex, the victim of the kidnapping would be played by Kristen Stewart. We chose her because she is a teenage icon due to her successful role in the Twilight series. Kristen plays an ordinary school girl who falls in love and we feel giving her a similar role in our own film (the victim) we will attract her fans. She has already gained a huge fan base just down to her part in Twilight and so having her as the leading role in our film would automatically create enthusiasm for our film and her fans as they haven’t really seen her in any other big movies. Alex is kidnapped by her father and we have chosen David Morse to play this role. He strongly portrayed his ‘bad guy’ image and sinister personality in the film Disturbia. Fans and the audience will relate to him being an actor who has played similar roles before and if they have seen him in these films where he plays the villain they will already have a certain feeling about him from the start of the film.

5. Keeping our audience in mind we would have to be clever in where we advertise our film. We have to consider the fact our film is a thriller and where it is suitable to promote this kind of film and what it’s about. We could easily broadcast a wide amount of promotion for our film through TV. Things like Sky and Virgin Media have genre specific channels so we would be able to play the trailer for our film on their thriller and horror channels as well as similar channels such as action and sci-fi; automatically getting right at a range of related audiences who watch these channels. We also want to make sure we get advertisement to our younger audience of 15 year olds so we would want to show our trailer on TV that appeals to teens as well. We feel that MTV would be a good channel to play our trailer as it is largely watched by teens and young adults. MTV viewers are also likely to be Kristen Stewart fans another reason why our film would have appeal on that channel. As well as thinking about where to advertise and show our trailer we need to be careful not to do it in unsuitable places, for example we will not be broadcasting on Disney Channel and Cbeebies as under 15’s will be watching these channels and our film is not appropriate for young children. We aim for our film to appeal to both a male and female audience so we need to make sure we get to both genders through advertisement. We think that the best way of doing this is to put advertisements in magazines like Heat and OK for women and FHM and GQ to target the male audience. Q5: How did you attract your audience? We want people knowing and talking about our film as quickly as possible and so we need to successfully attract our audience. One idea we had to do this was by creating fake missing posters for our lead actress, Kristen Stewart, to get people talking and questioning the meaning behind them. Alongside the poster we also wanted to produce some fake news footage of a kidnap, again with our characters to cause a buzz and word of mouth publicity. The posters would be put up in local attractions and public areas for example train stations, bus stations, public toilets and in the street. A launch party would get everyone talking about our film, and is a good way of getting celebrities involved. The party would be as linked to the film as possible with the location decorated similarly to the basement scene for example. The night would be filled with things for the guests to do. We would plan a celebrity catwalk with performances from acts of the films soundtrack, Eminem, Paramore etc. We would want to invite a selection of celebrities including the cast of the film to get the celebrity world excited about the movie as well.

6. Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product? There are a lot of things to take into consideration when filming to make sure you get the message across that you are aiming for. In the opening sequence alone we wanted to successfully establish both characters roles as victim and villain. I think that not only the characters movement and actions determine this but props, costume and makeup as well. For example we dressed Alex, the victim, in little clothing and barefoot to aim to show her fragility. In the hostage scene she also has deliberately messed up makeup applied to her eyes and messy hair to show her distress and insinuate she has been through a struggle. We also used night vision to add to the eerie atmosphere. In our location of the train station shooting Alex and trying to make her look in potential danger was important. We tried to make her look small in her surroundings by using long shots, which emphasised her isolation and vulnerability. She seemed lost in this environment. The only time this changes is when the kidnapper is right behind her about to grab her and the shot comes in really close to the back of her head. Again this is all to try and create atmosphere and let the audience know that she suddenly feels suffocated and uncomfortable by this person so close to her. The sequence is mainly accompanied by non-digetic sound. At the beginning a subtle heartbeat is introduced followed by an eerie tune, interrupted once one of the flashbacks interjects. During this flash back is our only use of digetic sound throughout the opening sequence. This consists of the actress breathing heavily and crying out “Help” when in the basement. Then returning to non-digetic sound where the tension is built up with the introduction of a slow piano and a separate faster beat that ends suddenly when the bag goes over Alex’s head for dramatic effect. The soundtrack really helped to convey the way Alex was feeling throughout the opening sequence starting with something calm e.g. heartbeat when she is in very little danger and building up to something more tense as the kidnapper closes in. I learnt a lot whilst editing, as I hadn’t done much before. This was our chance to really pull the sequence together and emphasise the genre. We used effects like ‘Dip to Black’ between flashbacks so they faded in and out. Our titles were placed in a variety of positions on the screen, usually in blank spaces so they were visible. We chose to use a font called ‘Mom’s Typewriter’ which worked really and added to the thriller genre.

7. Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I think the biggest difference between the preliminary exercise and the full product was that there was more time and freedom to elaborate on mise en scene, with costume, make up and props. These really helped to make the sequence better. Compared to the preliminary the final product looked a lot more professional due to many factors including: titles, sound, effects and variety of locations. I think doing the initial starter exercise helped teach us the basics for what we would have to go into further detail on with the final piece. For example, contributing to editing on the preliminary gave me more confidence to edit on the final product as with other factors and experience with the preliminary. We got a chance to play around with sound, acting, editing, lighting and techniques such as: 180 rule and continuity in the preliminary, which also helped us, improve our final sequence but we could also develop these methods further. Progressing to final product from the preliminary exercise I feel like I have learnt a lot. Contributing to the editing and using a camera whilst bearing in mind all the techniques I think that I have more knowledge on filming and producing a product than when filming before. Also adding in things like effects and titles, which we didn’t use at all in the preliminary. I think that in comparison to the earlier filming the final piece has a very good use of match on action shots and follows the 180 rule successfully. Overall I think that the final product is very good and conveys the conventions of a thriller well in the opening sequence. The representation of characters also helps the sequence to work and the representation of characters aids the audience decipher the genre early on.