How did you attract/address
your audience?
Interviewer: Good Morning
Everyone, this morning we have India here, coming to talk to us about
her new film Blanched, premiering on the 7th of June! Hi
India!
India: Hi! Im so excited to
be here
Interviewer: Were excited to
have you, so lets get right to it! What are the pleasures your target
audience can take from your opening sequence?
India: Well, my thriller
features an upper class man who gets drunk. My target audience would
not exactly find that the most appealing thing about the film
however, teenage boys do like the mystery and suspense that is
created in the opening sequence, which will hopefully hook them to
watch the rest of the film.
Interviewer: What genre is
your film?
India: My film, Blanched's,
main genre is a thriller film, however it has other aspects that can
be considered to change or adapt the films actual genre. It has
aspects of a crime thriller, as the protagonist then goes on a hunt
to find out what happened to his daughter. The opening sequence also
reveals elements of horror as he murders someone within the first 2
minutes of the film.
Interviewer:Are there any
other films that you would consider to be influential on yours?
India: We did not have a
specific film in mind when we wrote Blanched, as we were striving for
complete originality however in this industry, almost everything has
been already made into a film. The films that we found relate to
Blanched or have similar aspects, is definitely Taken, as it is a
story about a man who's daughter gets abducted and throughout the
film he is searching for her. Gone Girl relates as it is about a
missing girl, which can be represented as the daughter, as well as
the gory killing of her victims relates to the way in which our
character kills the young girl in the title sequence.
Interviewer: Right, so tell
us about your setting? Does this specifically appeal to the target
audience in any way?
India: The fact that it is
mostly set in a typical English cottage, would not exactly attract
teenage boys however, the cottage gives off a sense of isolation as
the house is secluded. Due to this the girl becomes more personal to
him as she is in his house, not anywhere else. This immediately gives
clues that he has kidnapped her and has planned to do this. All of
which adds to the build of the thriller which is what my target
audience is interested in
Interviewer: I see, you seem
to keep mentioning the build of the thriller, what else builds to the
thriller?
India: Well, many things
contribute to it, however a main aspect that should be considered is
the Music.
Interviewer: Well, of
course! And how did you apply that in your thriller?
India: Through the use of
non diegetic sound we added a soundtrack that created suspense and
anticipation in the scene, as the scene becomes more intense so does
the music and they coincide to create a sinister feeling towards the
scene and the character. We edited the thriller on Adobe Premier Pro,
which allowed us to play with the music and drag around the pieces in
the timeline to parallel the build in the soundtrack to the build in
the shot. Another element of sound that builds up the thriller is the
simple silence in the beginning, as it makes it more uncomfortable
and puts the audience on edge. The music as a whole would be
intriguing to the audience as it adds to the convention of the genre.
Interviewer: How
interesting! Are there any other parts that would be intriguing to
your audience? Perhaps, the names of you actors?
India: Well, because our
film is a low budget film, we found that if we left the names of our
actors out leaving for the audience to come for the narrative not the
celebrities we could attract more viewers as well as hard core fans.
We included few titles, only of the institution, producers and
director, this way our audience could focus solely on the events
happening in the film. I also decided that at the end of our
thriller, when the title comes up, that the title would have some
sort of blurred effect. I searched through Adobe Premier Pro and
found distortion effects that created the perfect blur that would
still make the title readable however with an aspect of distortion to
make it look more sinister.
Interviewer: Now, I see
you've mentioned some editing process that you went through, could
you tell me more about that?
India: The main aspect we
definitely wanted to keep in mind when editing our thriller was the
pace, this is because if we made it too short and static it would
have not conveyed the same intense thriller like feeling that would
make the film as successful. It needs to somehow trigger the audience
and we found that by manipulating the pace to build anticipation, we
would be much more successful with our film. We also wanted to make
it as real as possible which meant we would not be including any
special effects to add to the film, in fear of making it look fake
which would then break the suspension of disbelief within the film.
Interviewer: I see, and
finally, what are the conventions of your thriller? And have you
challenged any conventions?
India: Well the main
conventions that we used in Blanched is suspense, slow paced shots,
silence and a girl screaming. We challenged conventions however by
having a murdered who does not want to actually kill the girl,
creates a humanized side of the villain which is normally not shown
in these types of films.
Interviewer: How exciting!
Thank you so much for speaking with me today, I wish you the best of
luck with your film. Blanched debuts on the 7th of June
2015, watch out for it guys! Its going to be a good one!
Combines a
psychological profile of the consumer, with ideas about how they
conducted their life in the market place
Our target audience would understand the media texts as they are made to appeal to them and what they like, what colours they are most attracted to and what keeps them interested. However, if a person from outside of the target audience were to look at our media texts they would decode the texts negatively as they were not encoded for them specifically.
Two approaches are
useful here:
Star images are
constructed, artificial images, created through a range of products.
Stars are produced and consumed on the strengths of their
'meanings'. Very often a star's meaning is very clear and obvious so
that it is easy for an audience to quickly understand and make a
decision whether to consume. The industry creates a range off stars
with different meanings to meet the needs of different audience
segments
They would be very interested in my film because they already apply to the specific genre my thriller would have which is a crime thriller genre, but they would want to see my film over the other crime thrillers out there because it is a new and completely original idea that many people would want to go see out of curiosity. They would also know that it is an independent film which attracts wider audiences due to the fact that people want to be able to say they first saw the film when it was not famous. 
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Universal Studios has made several
award winning films such as Jaws, made in 1975, directed by Steven
Spielberg. ET the Extra-Terrestrial, made in 1982, also directed by
Steven Spielberg. As well as more recent films such as Les
Miserables, released in 2013, directed by Tom Hooper, starring major
actors such as Hugh Jackman, Russel Crowe and Anne Hathaway. Winning
Golden Globe Awards, Academy Awards, BAFTA's and many other highly
revered awards. They have done very well in the thriller department
as well which further supports my reasoning for choosing Universal
Studios to make my film as they made Psycho, 1960, directed by
Alfred Hitchcock, The Purge: Anarchy, 2014, directed by James
DeMonaco , Scarface, 1983, directed by Brian De Palma as well as
many others.
Due to our low budget they would focus
on marketing via new media tactics, such as creating teaser trailers
that would attract a large target audience as well as creating
advertisement on facebook and various other social networking sites.
Our story is applicable to create a fake scandal on facebook about
the death of a teenage girl, through this manner of advertising we
will be attracting many more audiences as everyone accesses they
internet. Universal Studios would also market our film through
Traditional Media to attract a specific target audience, therefore
there could be posters up near a high school or university or even
in areas more commonly known for thriller fans.
Universal Studios do not specialise in
a specific genre anymore however they are known for making very
successful and high rated Horror and Thriller based films. All of
which have very well known directors or actors in them. They tend to
rear towards the more classic horrors such as Frankenstein, 1931,
and Dracula's Daughter, 1936. This then coincides with the thriller
themes that our thriller has which is why I think Universal Studios
would be the perfect match for an institution to make our film.
From the 1920's up until the 2000's
Universal Studios had mainly focused on a Horror/Thriller vibe,
however in the 2000's they began making more light hearted and
different genre films. Therefore they used to have a pretty direct
target audience being someone from the ages of 15-50 who would enjoy
watching a Horror or Thriller, and usually a boy would prefer seeing
the movie over girls. Nowadays their films range from children's
movies such as Shrek 4-D that applies to all age groups as Shrek is
funny enough to attract older audiences as well, Knocked up a
romantic comedy attracting 15-40 year old women, and The Incredible
Hulk an action film directed towards 12-30 year old boys/men.
This relates to the facial
expressions part of mise-en-scene where we can see when he drinks
that he is used to that kind of alcohol intake therefore supporting
the idea that he is an alcoholic. We can also see that he may be
already quite intoxicated as he fails to pour the whisky into the
glass correctly, spilling around the glass as well. When lighting the
cigarette there is an obvious facial expression of anger as he is
unable to light the cigarette. Here we can see the male aspect of the
character as he loses his temper easily.
His costume is a black,
dirty suit which is typical of a working man. The fact that the suit
is black is a colour connotation to his dark side, and indicates to
the audience that he has a dark side. In relation to representation
the fact that he is wearing a suit shows the audience that he is at
the age where he still has to work, however he is at a stable boring
desk job. He is represented through his costume as a middle aged man
with an unchallenging job, which may be the cause of his drinking
addiction. However, the audience does not immediately assume that he
may be a killer because of his costume, this then adds on to the
element of surprise in our thriller and makes it more suspenseful and
thrilling.
The lighting in our thriller
is natural light in the first room, which gives the impression that
the character is inside and it is during the day. We were lucky
enough to shoot on a sunny day, that way we did not need to use
specific lights to highlight our actor and were able to effectively
convey to the audience that it is the middle of the day, this makes
the thriller more normal therefore creating the contrast into the
other room greater. The second room is quite dark and has small
lights on the walls to create a darker more intimidating tone. This
is effective as all the tension filled action occurs in this scene.
In relation to character
positioning we decided to have the male character, the protagonist,
in a different room to the girl, this way there is a change in
scenery. We also wanted to create a contrast between the two
characters, as our initial plan was to have shots from the different
rooms to confuse the audience however when it came to editing the
footage we found that it was much more effective to keep the
beginning of our sequence in one room and then introduce the girl in
the next room afterwards. We also chose to use two different rooms to
show a sense of isolation between the characters and build tension
when we then show the audience that they are in the same house, and
that the male character is actually going to kill the girl in the
other room. By putting the girl in a different room we can see the
contrast between the two characters, being age and gender.
We included low angles of
the character towards the end of the sequence as the audience begins
to realise that he is actually the villain in the narrative. The low
angle gives him a more mysterious and intimidating look which allows
the audience to believe he is about to do something villainous. The
low angle also gives the actor an older look to near the age that we
want our character to be.
We
then added a sound effect of her toe crunching and the hammer hitting
the ground together which created a more believable and gory effect
when the title appears. At the same time we can hear her screaming
therefore representing the victims gender and age. It is obvious that
she is a teenage girl.
For our title sequence we wanted to
use a flashback to create the mood of our film, like in taken,
however we decided to make a sequence that immediately showed the
father in a depressed and miserable state which is then what the
'Taken' title sequence becomes. We also shot a photo frame of a
young girl as in taken, to create a connection between the father
and daughter for the audience to see. However we chose not to
include this as we did not want to reveal too much in our title
sequence.
