Evaluation Question 5

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

To discover our audience's reactions to our film, we created a questionnaire for people of our own age to fill out, and we gave it to about 17 people. This is a clean copy of our questionnaire:

We then annotated our film to clearly show the results of our audience displayed alongside the shots which were particularly successful/unsuccessful: (the annotations only appear on YouTube, so please click on link)

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation question 4:

Who would be the audience of your film?

Towards the start of our planning, we decided our target audience would be people aged 15-24, therefore we decided the certification of our film would be a 15. We thought a 12A certificate would prove too young, as children under the age of 15 may be mentally not mature enough for the theme and idea of rape in our film. On the ‘bbfc’ website, it states that a film with the certificate of 15 must have ‘appropriate treatment’ for 15 year olds. It also says ‘No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a ‘15’ rated DVD.  15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age.’

Works that are certificated as ‘15’ could include:

·      ‘Strong violence

·      Frequent strong language

·      Portrayals of sexual activity

·      Strong verbal references to sex

·      Sexual nudity

·      Brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence

·      Discriminatory language or behavior

·      Drug taking’

This is also stated on the ‘bbfc’ website as the official guidelines of a 15 rated film.

There would be a scene of Ally being raped in ‘Malice’, and although the audience does not get to see the full scene graphically and in detail, the scene would still be clear and what had happened would be obvious.

Another reason we chose the certificate 15 is because we want to attract an older audience, and we would not want them to be put off by a younger certification such as a 12 or a PG. If the film was one of these certifications, the audience may think the film would not be mature enough to qualify as a film they would usually like and want to see. 

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1 Q1. In what ways does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms or conventions of real films?

Evaluation Question 3

Q3. What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?

The institution that would most likely want to distribute our film would most probably be the Commercial Art House. 

Firstly, although the Commercial Art House cinema chain is actually quite popular and large, our film would require small screening places in comparison to the City Centre cinema style of Multi-Screen Cinema. This is because our film generally is aimed at a younger generation who are more interested in studying film than always going to see mainstream action thrillers in mainstream cinemas, and so therefore makes our audience much smaller and so probably would not attract enough people for a place in a huge cinema.

Secondly, because our film obviously is, and looks, low budget (especially as it is obviously shot in England without Hollywood actors), our film may not attract the larger audience for mainstream films, such as Drive. Therefore, if distributed in a Multi-Screen or Multiplex cinema, the majority of people who went there to see mainstream films would not want to watch our film.

Our low budget appeal also means that if our film was distributed in real life, it would be impossible to have enough money to advertise it on a big enough scale for it to feature in main-stream cinemas. Because of our low budget, we also would not be able to carry on distributing our film over a number of weeks in Multiplex cinemas that tend to show the same film repeated over a series of weeks. By distributing it within a 'indie', arthouse cinema, people would come to see it, knowing that it would be of low budget. 

Evaluation question 2

Evaluation question 2:

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our thriller film opening represents particular social group in a subtle way. The main character in the film is Ally Quinn, who is a nineteen-year-old teenager. Our target audience age is 15-24, and our main character represents a member of our target audience. Our film is also probably appealing to around 60% female and around 40% male. The fact that our main character is female also helps to attract this audience. We are representing a middle class, comfortable group of young people, and the person who has committed the crime (Jasper Thomas) is also from this target audience.

It could be said that our media product presents teenagers or adolescents in a way that fits in with the stereotype of the idea that street crime and crime in general is mostly committed by men. However, we want the audience to be unsure as to whether Jasper Thomas has actually committed the rape or if he has just been falsely accused of committing a rape. Also, it fits in with the stereotype that it is usually younger men or teenagers that commit street crime.

Ally Quinn is a young, British, wealthy girl. If Ally turned out to be innocent and simply be the victim of a rape, the social group of young girls would represented in a rather stereotypical way in the idea that they are vulnerable, and targeted by rape and other crimes. However, if Ally turned out to be guilty of making up the fact that she had been raped by Jasper, she would portray the social group of young girls in a different way, and imply that they are prone to attention seeking and making up events or exaggerating events to make themselves seem like the innocent person in the situation.

If Jasper were to be innocent, his social group would be being presented totally differently to if he was guilty. It would make the group of young British wealthy males seem less threatening and more respectable and fair. This would go against many stereotypes of young males being irrespective of the law and committing crimes on innocent people. It would also go against or flip the stereotype of men generally targeting women.

Overall, our media product represents youth as prone to committing crime whilst also becoming the victims of it. However, we have deliberately left the question of whether Ally Quinn or Jasper Thomas is the guilty person in the scenario, which would determine whether the film went with the stereotype and represented males as more prone to committing crime or going against the stereotype, and having a female law breaker.

Evaluation Question 7

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

Looking back at my preliminary task, which I made near the beginning of the school year, it was designed to help me to learn basic camera shots and skills such as match on action, the 180 degree rule and other simplistic things. Although the preliminary task helped me learn a lot about filming and actual practical work, it was not until I started my construction for Willa and my thriller film opening.

I started by looking at different thriller openings, such as fight club. Then, me and Willa got together and shared some of our thoughts and ideas, and started to piece together what sort of opening we wanted to create. The film ‘Broken’ directed by Rufus Norris, and other films such as ‘Fishtank’ inspired us. It was very useful to watch these films, because it helped me to learn how to design the lighting, colours, and mise en scen of our film to look as urban and low budget as possible, similar to the films just listed. Also, I learnt how to make the film opening look typically British, in the way that films such as ‘This is England’ and ‘Trainspotting’.

We were taught how to frame mid shots, long shots and close-ups, and what they all meant and the mood or effects they created. We also learnt how to do different angle shots and what they made the characters or scene look like. For example, we learnt that generally, a high angle shot of a person made them look vulnerable, and a low angle shot made them look threatening and in control.

We also learnt how to use final cut pro. Before studying it, I had no idea how to use it as I never had before. We learnt how to use different transitions such as fades, wipes and ripples. Also, we learnt how to download music and sound effects from freeplay music websites such as ‘sfx’ and ‘freeplaymusic’. These are websites which make music that is not copy-wrighted. This is what we needed as we were not allowed to use copy-wrighted music in our opening piece.

We also learnt about digetic and non-digetic sounds. Digetic sounds are sounds from the set which are actually in the filming you do naturally, where as non-digetic sounds are sounds that one adds after filming during the editing of the film. We had a lesson on how to use different types of microphone, and record different sounds.

For my preliminary task, I was not required to use credits or graphics, where as for mine and Willa’s thriller opening, we learnt how to create an ident where we drew a film role and drew each part of it rolling out. We then animated the ident using final cut pro, and added a sound effect we found on freeplaymusic of an old fashioned film role. I learnt the skill of animating pictures when me I animated our storyboard for our film on final cut pro. Also, during the editing of our film, I learnt how to place credits on the screen and how to customize them to look how I wanted in the way of color and style/font.

Overall, I learnt a significant amount of skills in the time between my preliminary task and me and Willa’s thriller opening. The main skills I have learnt are how to use final cut pro, and how to film different shots and stylize my filming and footage to exactly how I want it to look and make sure it gives the effects I want it to give out.