G321 - Evaluation Q7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from the progression of it to the full product?

G321 - Evaluation Q6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

G321 - Evaluation Q5 - How did you attract/ address your audience?

G321 - Evaluation Q4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

The intended audience for our media product and the audience I still believe is most likely to view our media product is students between the ages of 18 and 25 who are open minded about new and unconventional ideas as well as potentially some older members of society who are aiming to branch out in terms of their understanding of film and media.

This is because the narrative of our media product is extremely complex and would require the viewer to pay close attention throughout. Further to this, aspects of our media product, such as the split personality being introduced so early on, are unconventional of the genre and would therefore require an open minded viewer in order for this to be accepted.

This also relates to the audience research we did that showed thrillers to be popular within this age range. The certification we gave the film, a 15, still stands as it is suitable for these age ranges yet not for people younger than this.

G321 - Evaluation Q3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

G321 - Evaluation Q2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

G321 - Evaluation Q1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Film Titles

Azier Title                                            VS                                           Seven Title

Our media product uses the convention of using the titles to reflect the narrative of the film. The street-style and slight graffiti appearance of the titles used in our media product reflects Azier's "beginning" of being a street magician and foreshadows his return to this lifestyle at the end of the film. The titles remain unobtrusive throughout, only dominating the screen for the display of the film title itself. This conforms to the way titles are typically used within the genre, such as in Seven and Gone Girl, and helps to establish our film as a thriller.

Editing

Silence of the Lambs tones                 VS                                                 Azier tones

The dark tones of the second scene conform to the generic convention of thrillers being dark and mysterious and this creates an ambiguous atmosphere to entice the viewer. However, the use of bright tones at the beginning of the clip is non-conventional and therefore shows a development of the genre.

Camerawork

Close up in "Gone Girl"                                   VS                             Close up in "Azier"

Our media product uses many close ups which is yet another convention that we have developed due to encompassing their use with other shots. This is an unconventional aspect of our product and indicates that we are pushing some aspects of the genre to its limits. However, some of our shots were inspired directly from other film openings within the same genre, such as Gone Girl.

Setting/ Location

Typically, thriller openings are set in small, enclosed spaces with little reference to location so as to create a higher sense of ambiguity. However, our opening challenges this by establishing two different locations, one of which is outside and the other of which is shown to be some degree of workshop. We did this to aid in the clarity of the narrative, despite risking compromising the presentation of genre. However, this establishment of location can be found in some thrillers, such as Silence of the Lambs.

Special Effects

Like the majority of thrillers, we refrained from using any special effects within our opening. This not only helped to indicate the genre of our piece but also allowed us to keep a low budget. The use of special effects was not present in any of the thriller openings we had previously researched and therefore allowed us to do the same.

Sound

Finally, the eerie non-diegetic music used to accompany our opening is extremely conformative to the genre and is easily comparable to the soundtracks used in both Donnie Darko and Se7en. This makes it clear that these two openings were the main source of inspiration for our piece, despite the other aspects of our media product developing conventions rather than sticking to them completely.

G321 - Final Cut

G321 - Institutional Logo Design

This is the institutional logo I have designed for my group "Porcupine Productions". It features a cartoon porcupine which is circled by the production company's name.

I designed the logo in this way as it reflected the independent nature of our company and the clear font allows the institution name to be easily read. Further to this, the thick spikes helped to indicate a thriller/ horror film to be following the title sequence.

G321 - Institutional Logo Research

The institutional logos used for film companies will differ in quality dependent on whether the production company is an independent or mainstream company.

Independent production companies such as Strike will have much less money than mainstream companies and therefore they will be less willing to spend their budget on big, fancy logos. The logo will help to establish the company and will often be more suitable for the specific genre which the company are usually associated with. They also are unlikely to be accompanied by their own soundtrack/ tune. You can see this in the Strike logo, who are most commonly recognised for their action films:
(Strike Logo starts at 0:11 and ends at 0:21)


Mainstream production companies such as 20th Century Fox have higher budgets and therefore are able to spend money on a more extravagant logo. They are suitable for all film genres as mainstream production companies will never be specifically targeted to one genre and therefore their logo needs to be versatile. Mainstream institutional logos are often accompanied by a matching soundtrack/ tune which is recognisable. This is evident with the 20th Century Fox logo:


This research will help me to design a logo which is suitable for our institution as it highlights the necessity behind a memorable image. Further to this, it indicates that, as an independent institution, that our logo should be reflective of genre and does not, necessarily, require a specific soundtrack.

G321 - Our Production Company/ Institution

We plan on being an independent institution as it allows us to have a smaller, more specific target audience when it comes to creating our film which then allows us a wider scope for ideas. Not only this but due to having little to no budget it would be extremely difficult to create an opening which is engaging enough for a mainstream, corporate audience. We believe that by being an independent company we will have a better opportunity to showcase our skills as both writers and creators when it comes to producing our own film opening.

Many independent film companies, such as Strike Entertainment, are immediately associated to a specific genre. This causes the audience to build an understanding of the film's genre/ narrative simply by knowing which company produced the film. By being an independent company we would be able to use this common aspect to benefit ourselves by ensuring that the film's genre is clearly established to the viewer.

G321 - How We Will Attract Audiences

We plan on attracting audiences through using a heightened sense of ambiguity throughout the opening created through the use of many generic conventions of thrillers such as the use of close ups, high contrasting shots and suitably eerie non-diegetic music:



Further to this, by using unconventional characters it is likely that we would be able to create further intrigue within the audience which will attract them further. The conjunction of these factors will contribute towards a more interesting narrative that will be easily enjoyed by audience members.

 

 

G321 - Taken Research

Taken was an action thriller whose narrative focused on a retired CIA agent who travels across Europe to save his daughter, who was kidnapped during a holiday to Paris. The cast was relatively unknown at the time of filming, par main protagonist Liam Neeson. However, with a $25,000,000 budget from EuropaCorp, M6 Films and Grive Productions, Taken seemed like it would do pretty well at the box office. Unfortunately, Taken did not do as well as Se7en at, receiving a mere £1,165,986 in it's opening weekend in the UK and only grossing £6,277,639 in the UK. Taken only won 1 award and was nominated for just 1 other. However, it lead on to a franchise which has grossed $894,535,633 worldwide so far.

This has helped me to realise that a film can benefit more from sequels than a singular film, however the first film must be good enough to generate an initial fan base.

G321 - Se7en Research

Se7en was a drama, mystery thriller whose narrative focused on two homicide detectives' hunt for a serial killer who justifies his crimes as absolution for the world's ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins. An all star cast, including Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, along with a $33,000,000 budget from New Line Cinema set Se7en up for success. Unsurprisingly, this success was produced, taking          £11,434,343 in it's opening weekend in the UK alone and grossing over £20 million in solely the UK. Seven also won 27 awards as well as receiving nominations for 19 others. Seven was regarded as the first "A" production for New Line Cinema, proving that they could attract "A-list" directors and cast.

This has helped us to understand importance of actors in films. An all-star cast in a relatively low budget film can help produce much more success than a high budget film with less-known actors.

G321 - The Impact Of Certification

Lower certifications on films and their openings will limit what can be said and shown due to them needing to suitable for younger ages. A way of avoiding this would be to give the film a  higher rating, however this would limit the film's reach across audiences. This means that production companies must make it very evident who their film is aimed for as well as ensuring that the content of the film is suitable for its target audience. If the company gets either of these aspects wrong, it could result in a major loss of both money and success.

The Harry Potter franchise is a perfect example of how certifications can affect a film's viewing. The first 4 films were all given a PG rating, making the film suitable for children aged 8 and up. However, the last 4 films were all rated a 12A. This shows that despite all being from the same franchise, it was the film content itself which decided the film's certification. Simply being a Harry Potter film was not enough to justify a lower certification and the violent scenes involved in films 5-8 evidently caused the rating to be raised.

The most violent scene from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:

The most violent scene from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2:



This information is important when it comes to making my own film as it will ensure that I pay close attention to the content we are including so that our film would not be certified differently to how we first anticipated. If this were to happen it would lose money as the targeted demographic would not be able to view the film.

G321 - Thriller Titles Timelines

After deciding on the genre for my film opening, it was important to revisit title timelines so as to see whether thrillers had a different order or method of displaying titles to other genres. To ensure I was not solely basing my evidence off one film, I looked at two thriller title sequences, much the same as before, this time paying even closer attention to the presentation of the titles as well as just the order and duration.

Gone Girl Titles Timeline

	Time	Title No.	Title	Duration
Background Music Starts – 0:00                                   Background Music Ends – 1:45	0:03	1	Columbia Pictures And Metro Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Present	1 sec
	0:10	2	A David Fincher Film	1 sec
	0:22	3	Ben Affleck	3 secs
	0:31	4	Rosamund Pike	3 secs
	0:36	5	New Regency Pictures And Pacific Standard	4 secs
	0:42	6	Courtney Martin	2 secs
	0:48	7	Kelsey Wickre	2 secs
	0:51	8	Featuring Carrie Coon Emily Ratjkowski Neil Patrick Harris Tyler Perry	3 secs
	0:59	9	Music By Morgan Pfiffner	3 secs
	1:13	10	Produced By Leslie Dixon Bruna Papandrea Reese Witherspoon	4 secs
	1:22	11	Cinematography By Jeff Cronenweth	3 secs
	1:33	12	Based On A Novel By Gillian Flynn	2 secs
	1:43	13	GONE GIRL	2 secs

Se7en Titles Timeline

	Time	Title No.	Title	Duration
Background Music Starts – 0:00                                                                             Background Music Ends – 2:10	0:03	1	New Line Cinema Presents	2 secs
	0:06	2	An Arnold Kopelson Production	2 secs
	0:10	3	A Film By David Fincher	1 sec
	0:13	4	Brad Pitt	2 secs
	0:18	5	Morgan Freeman	2 secs
	0:24	6	Se7en	4 secs
	0:29	7	Gwyneth Paltrow	2 secs
	0:33	8	Richard Roundtree	2 secs
	0:38	9	R. Lee Ermy	1 sec
	0:41	10	John C. McGinley	2 secs
	0:46	11	Julie Araskog     Mark Boon Junior	2 secs
	0:53	12	John Cassini Reginald E. Cathy      Peter Crombie	3 secs
	0:56	13	Hawthorne James     Michael Massee Leland Orser	3 secs
	1:03	14	Richard Portnow Richard Schiff     Pamala Tyson	3 secs
	1:10	15	Casting By Billy Hopkins, Suzanne Smith Kerry Borden	3 secs
	1:16	16	Music By Howard Shore	2 secs
	1:21	17	Costumes Designed By Michael Kaplan	2 secs
	1:24	18	Edited By Richard Francis-Bruce	1 sec
	1:26	19	Production Designed By Arthur Max	2 secs
	1:34	20	Director of Photography Darius Khondji	2 secs
	1:39	21	Co-Producers Stephen Brown Nana Greenwald     Sanford Panitch	2 secs
	1:43	22	Co-Executive Producers Lynn Harris     Richard Saperstein	3 secs
	1:49	23	Executive Producers Gianni Nunnari    Dan Kolsrud     Anne Kopelsum	3 secs
	1:52	24	Andrew Kevin Walker Written By	2 secs
	1:58	25	Produced By Arnold Kopelson   Phyllis Carlyle	2 secs
	2:03	26	Directed By David Fincher	3 secs