Evaluation Question 5

M.H.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our aims

As a whole:

• Achieve a sense of tension, suspense and mystery in order to entice the audience and make them want to carry on watching the film to find out what is truly happening.
• Using the social realism to build a stronger relationship with the audience as they are able to relate to the content of the film further.
• Use modern aspects of cinema (e.g. inter-racial relationships) to address a young adult audience as it is a realistic representation of today’s society.

Camerawork and editing:

• Using a shallow depth of field (so the protagonist is in focus and the background blurred/out of focus) in order for our cinematography to look aesthetically pleasing, and to help the audience build an intimacy with the protagonist as she is the centre of focus.
• Using a combination of lengthy shots and fast paced editing/quick jump cuts, as the contrast between the two enhances the tension at the end of the opening - the fast pace is juxtaposed with the poignance at the start which emphasises the suspense of the red flashback and the phone call.
• Using a combination of handheld and tripod shots. The handheld shots helps to build intimacy between the audience and the protagonist as it gives the feeling of a personal insight. The tripod shots help to frame the shots and improve the cinematography.

The flashbacks:

• Helps to break the opening up into sections which adds another level of depth to the film and adds further intrigue and complexity.
• This also allows further emotions to be conveyed which will help the audience to connect further with the film.

The use of red and ambiguity:

• The red colouring gives semiotics and colour connotations to the film; red usually signifies danger, blood, death and threat. This will give the audience to an insight to the themes of the film, and also help them to understand what is going on in the scene.
• However, the use of ambiguity prevents the audience from knowing what is fully happening. This helps to entice the audience as they want to carry on watching to find out more.
• Both the red colouring and the ambiguity masks the person in the flashback, which heightens the mystery and suspense. This is good as it keeps the audience guessing.

Music and sound:

• We chose to use an emotive soundtrack rather than using dialogue. We did this for a number of reasons.

1. The protagonist appears alone for most of the opening, so dialogue is not necessary.
2. We wanted to give the cafe flashback a hazed/distant feel, and the lack of dialogue gives this distance.
3. Soundtrack can intensely build an atmosphere and emotion. This helped us convey sentiment and the start of the story in the street scenes even though the protagonist was doing nothing but walking. This keeps the audience engaged and allows them to build ideas in their heads
4. Most importantly, we decided to use soundtrack instead of dialogue as it aids to build the mystery and suspense, as the audience are revealed much less about both the story and the characters, and will therefore leave them guessing and wanting to watch more. It also hides what is truly going on as the audience do not have the clarification through the use of dialogue.

• We used ambient sound in order to ground the film and help build the atmosphere.

1. We used it for sound bridges and soft background noise - helping to enhance the street scene and to give an immediate feel for the location. This places the audience in the film and helps them to engage.
2. Sound matches - helping to blend the memories of the past with the present. These sounds are enhanced and louder than they would normally be, so the audience acknowledges the sounds.

• For a little part of the opening we used no soundtrack at all, which helps to break up the scenes and allows a new atmosphere to begin. This helps the audience notice and understand the change in mood.

These are some responses from our target audience. In the video they talk about aspects of the film that they enjoyed, and why they were drawn to them.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be your audience for your media product?

F.L.

We had a screening of our film to an audience of 14 people, 7 men and 7 women, all in the age range of 15-25, and asked them to fill out a questionnaire about our film. Having this audience worked really well as this was our target audience anyway, so their feedback would likely represent how our demographic may also feel as a whole.

Summary of feedback:

When asking about gender of protagonists, 3 prefer female protagonists, and the rest don’t mind. It was useful to know that for most people it didn’t matter either way, but it was also clear to see that people would like to see more women in lead roles.

It was good that the majority of our audience recognised that our film is part of the thriller genre, with the opening also developing some of the tropes of psychological and crime thrillers, and horror movies.

When asking about what the plot of the opening was, most people understood the dynamic of the relationship between two characters, and most recognising that the coffee scene and the scene with the knife was in the past. All of the viewers knew that the man getting coffee with the female protagonist was the man that she later calls.

We asked our audience what their favourite part of the opening was to see what really drew people to our film. 7 people preferred the way the film was shot, the bus stop scene in particular, with the stylised mood shown through the lights. 1 person said that the clarity of our shots made our work look very professional, and not cliché, which our social-realism themes contributed to. 3 people said the flashback scenes were their favourite, as they brought a lot to the mood of the opening. 1 person thought the casting stood out too. 3 people liked the sound the most, as it added to the general tone of the opening, with 1 person specifically mentioning how the unanswered call tone at the end was especially creepy.

For some of our viewers, which some mentioned in the penultimate question about what they would change, the ending was quite confusing. When we asked our audience to summarise the plot, some didn’t know who had been killed, or who was the murderer in the final flashback. However, we still think this is a positive: our aim in the second flashback in red was to make it ambiguous as to who the killer and the victim were due to the use of black gloves to conceal identity and focus on the movement of the knife. By leaving questions unanswered at the end of the opening we hoped people would want to keep watching the film, which is exactly what we achieved: 100% of our viewers said they would keep watching the film in our questionnaire.

Evaluation Question 3

M.H. 

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

1. Vertigo Films is a British film production and film distribution company based in London. They have distributed the film ‘Bronson’, which is a film based on true events of an aggressive, violent young man in 1970’s London. Bronson has similar themes to our film - gritty, urban and dark - as well as it being British. The production cost of this film was £150,000. This company would therefore distribute our film as it is very low budget - to put into perspective, the average production cost alone of a major film is around 52 million pounds.

We also chose this distributor as it looks aesthetically similar to our own. The red and black colour palette is clear and distinctive, and would therefore draw the audience in as it is eye-catching and vibrant.

2. eOne, or entertainment one films, is a UK independent film and theatrical distributor. They have distributed many thriller and horror films such as Girl On The Train, Insidious and The Woman in Black - this company may therefore distribute our film as our genre is the same as these movies. Entertainment one would be likely to make money as there would already be a keen audience that would be drawn to watching our film due to the themes and genre.  

3. Metrodome is a small UK film distributor who distributed the film 'Shifty', which Frankie and I have used as a major influence for the style, tone, genre and even soundtrack for our film. Metrodome would therefore distribute our film as, again, they will make a profit as there would be a guaranteed audience that would be interested in watching.

They are responsible for the publishing of many small, independent films such as 'Chasing Amy' and 'We Are The Best!' As these films are relatively low budget, Metrodome is likely to distribute our film as we worked with almost no production costs. 

Evaluation Question 2

M.H.

Here is the link to my Prezi:

http://prezi.com/kudds5ykpw9l/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Evaluation Question 1

F.L. 

Here's a link to my prezi for question 1: 

https://prezi.com/lj8a3d0dqafj/evaluation-q1/