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

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

We decided as a group that we should have Miramax Films to be our distributor. We felt it matched the genre and also the mood we created in our opening sequence. Miramax was founded by two brothers; Bob and Harvey Weinstein and they were known for distributing independant films that are low budget or foreign films. Miramax have distributed flms such as Bridget jones's diary, Dirty pretty things and The switch.

This film company is very unique because they distribute films that have been rejected from larger companies such as paramount. These films would have a lower budget and this makes distributing them that much easier and cheaper. I wouldn't say that Miramax was well-known but I also would'nt say that they were. This company is very different from others and that was one of the reasons we chose that company; because its different.

Miramax Films is a unique kind of Distribution Company because they sell directly and license globally through strategic partnerships such as Lionsgate, Hulu and StudioCanal. This is unusual because most Distribution companies do not sell directly, and this is part of the reason why we decided to choose them. Miramax have a name for distributing films that have had previous rejections from larger and more prestigious companies such as Paramount. These films would generally have a reasonable budget. However, Paramount focus more on pleasing wider range of audiences such as families, and our film doesn’t fit this criteria and our target audience is quite narrow and niche, therefore we thought that Miramax would suit us and our general style, better.

Miramax are neither large nor small, and I wouldn’t say they were ‘indie’ or ‘well-known’ which is another reason why we picked them as although our film is mainly ‘Thriller’ is would contain elements of horror, action and espionage. So like the distributor, it is varied. Some films that Miramax have distributed are Scream, Hellraiser, Pulp Fiction and The English Patient. All of which have been very successful, not just in America but all over the globe. Being successful has been the route which many of Miramax’s films have taken, however it hasn’t necessarily been the route that all of their films have taken.

Miramax Films use similar advertising techniques to many other films when they are first released. This will include billboard advertisements, television, radio, magazines, newspapers, etc. The scale on which this is done however, will be different according to both the film itself (whether it is suitable for advertisement) and the budget that it actually has. The kind of audience that we are targeting is male and female, aged from 16 to 30 year olds.

Directors commentry

Question 6

1) what technologies have you used?

From studying t.v dramas, i have used many different technologies to make my work supervisual. i have used technologies such as: Bubbl, Prezi, screencast, youtube annotations, animoto, macs, imovie, still and moving image camera.

Question 7 (Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?)

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

From looking back at my preliminary task i found that my camera skills had improved, and
 I learnt  how to make the scenes flow together nicely . I learnt how to put effects on the scene to make it look frighening and mysterious.I learnt how use i-movie, and also more tricky programmes such as Photoshop and final cut to make production logos and the titles for our movie. 

Firstly, in my preliminary task you see me walking into the room and sitting down at the table with Megan, we used a mid shot when you can see both me and Megan and an over the shoulder shot to show each others point of view. Our preliminary task is an example of continuity editing because it sticks to the rules and runs smoothly and was a smooth edit. The conversation we have follows the 180 degree rule because if it didn't, we may disorientate and could confuse the audience.

I have used these camerawork skills in my opening sequence when we see Jacob's feet walk into the bathroom. The continuity editing makes the film easier for the audience to watch,  it seems natural. I feel my skills have developed since my preliminary to now as i can apply many different and skillful techniques to my work.

My Opening Sequence also shows match on action but in a more sophisticated and creative way. Match on action is when an action commenced in shot A is carried on and completed in shot B this makes the movement smooth and looks natural. It is shown in my sequence when Jacob is sitting on his bed, he then picks up his glasses and in the next shot it shows him putting his glasses on and it flowed smoothly.

 

We have used techniques in our opening sequence that would have been too complicated for our preliminary task. For example we used a focus pull when me and Jacob walked across the bridge, talking and being average teenagers/young adults. It was blurred for most of the scene and the effect we wanted to create was to make us appear mysterious,  because you can't see our faces. I like the affect this created because it suited our genre and makes the storyline more appealing to the target audience.  

question 5

We targeted our opening sequence to males and females aged betweeen 16 to 24. We wanted to find out what people of that ages group would expect and want to see in a thriller film. We carried out a course of questions, and analysed the results we accumilated. the questions we asked were:

- Are you male or female?

- How old are you?

- What types of characters are expected to see in a thiller opening sequence?

- What do you expect to see in the first 20 seconds of a Thriller film?

- What sounds/music are you expected to hear?

The results we collected from our target audience is very typical of a teenager/young adult. Most of them expected to see a damsel in distress and also to hear eerie music, this helps to set the tone of the opening sequence. Aswell as that they would also expect to be introduced to the mains characters near enough straight away so they get an idea who the programme/film/opening sequence is going to be based around.

Final Pie Charts

Analysing My Genre Through Vox Pops.

Besides the questionaires and the analysis, we carried out Vox pops which meant we had to ask many different people about what they thought of our opening sequence and what they would expect to see in the thriller genre. The vox pops made us accumilate data faster and helped us to plan our opening sequence and gave us many ideas of what to add in to it.

Feedback results

Feedback

This is the feedback we got from our media teachers to improve our work and to be able to get our target grade. 

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The general age group we targeted our media product to was 17-25. We feel as a group that it was aimed at males, because we thought that they would enjoy the drama and could relate to them in some way. The sort of person i have in mind is a male student that is interested in media but also likes a good party. They would be from the UK and in university, which means they have good facilities for education and are motivated to achieve the best. In their spare time they would be the type of person to watch films and TV programmes that are crime based such as CSI, Bones, Sixth sense, and se7en. This person would have hobbies such as going out with friends going to the pub and just generally socialising. However, students are the known stereotypically  for budgeting their money so this person’s hobbies would be dependent on how much they earn. They would visit site sucha as twitter, facebook, and instagram to keep in touch with his friends annd keep up to date with everything thats going on around him. Also visiting their blogs to stay in tune with their film and media news/information. They would read a book on the odd occasion but they would be more into magazines about films, gossip, music and fashion. They would listen to Indie/Rock type of music. They would also wear quite dark and simple clothing which would have been bought from clothing shops such as 'Urban outfitters' and 'Size?.' Because of the way they look they would be put in the category of an 'indie' culture. All of this adds up to my demographic target audience.

Question 3 Supervisual

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

We decided as a group that we should have Miramax Films to be our distributor. We felt it matched the genre and also the mood we created in our opening sequence. Our target audience are aged between 16 and 30.Miramax was founded by two brothers; Bob and Harvey Weinstein and they were known for distributing independant films that are low budget or foreign films. Miramax have distributed flms such as Bridget jones's diary, Dirty pretty things and The switch. These films have turnt out very well and have/are successful.

This film company is very unique because they distribute films that have been rejected from larger companies such as paramount. These films would have a lower budget and this makes distributing them that much easier and cheaper. I wouldn't say that Miramax was well-known but I also would'nt say that they were. This company is very different from others and that was one of the reasons we chose that company; because its different. They tend to go for certain target audiences whereas companies such as paramount are mainly family movies.

The advertisements used by Miramax would be pretty similar to other companies trying to promote their product. It would include advertisements on tv and billboards, magazines radio etc. But depending on the budget, it would decide how far and wide these advertisements wll go. The bigger the budget the further the advertisements can go and more viewings on their film so that means more income for the workers at Miramax.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We have shown a few characters throughout our opening sequence involving a teenager who is the suspect and the protagonist who kills the girl. We represented the females to be more vulnerable and the male characters to be strong willed and brave. In our opening sequence we made out as if the two characters were friends so there wasn't really a stronger or weaker character. We didn't use a range of ages in the characters because we felt that we would connect to a younger target audience. The characters were dressing in casual clothing so that everything seemed normal. The protagonist wore a black jumper with black jeans and the victim was wearing purple jeans with  coat, just everyday clothing. But the fact that the protagonist wasn't wearing a coat on a cold day was a bit dodgy. When they were walking through the park everything was like a normal day so there was no suspicions, as to what may happen.    

Question 1.

 z1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When making an opening sequence there  are nine conventions to follow which would make your sequence a high standard. These are distribution/production logo's, clue for the audience, promps for them to ask questions, an establishing shot, titles, an equilibrium or disequilibrium, establishing the theme/mood, soundtrack, and extreme close ups. We used typical conventions that are used in everyday real media products and portrayed them in a way that suited our opening sequence.

All the conventions we used were to enable the audience to understand the genre, the storyline and the characters views on what was going on, without giving too much away and making the storyline obvious. For example in bridget jones' diary, the  producer/director used quite sad and dreary music to give the audience and idea that something bad has happened, to her or someone close to her. you can tel this by her body laguage, she is dressed in her pjamas watching a tv drama, drinking wine, and singing into a hair brush. this shows us ,as the audience, that she if feeling under the weather/upset. You also see many close ups to show that she is the main character, and to show how she is feeling. The titles look like they are handwriten to bring the atention to the fact that its bridget jones' "diary." Our opening sequence.

We have used a disequilibrium because the audience do not know anything about the man as of yet, but they will assume that he is the antagonistic character because of the way he acts around the young girl and he has a more powerful look to him.

Final Pie Charts

Final Pie Charts


From looking at our results we found that the most popular answer from our audience, would be to see a damsel in distress and the least popular would be a young girl in the film. We found out that most people would hear eerie/creepy music as audio because it sets the scene for a thriller and least favourite would be fast paced music because it doesn't really fit the genre of film. Also from doing a survey we found out that most people that watch thrillers would expect to see the main character in the opening sequence to introduce him/her to the audience, and the other and least popular options were the setting, someone in danger, and a gripping story line. I feel that they are all very important when making/watching an opening sequence, and I don't think a film would be complete without them.