The term 'audience' is used in media to describe the customers and consumers of media products. During the research phase of our coursework, we conducted a survey to find out what kinds of thrillers people of different ages liked. The results of this survey showed that most people that watched thriller films were younger adults and adolescents. We also found that more males than females watched thriller films, and so we tried to make it fairly gender neutral but gearing slightly further towards a male audience. We therefore concluded that the audience interested in our production would be aged
We did not want to make our film appeal to a specific interest as we wanted to appeal to a mass audience rather than a niche audience. We also wanted to appeal to all social groups (A-E) and so did not want to make the film too basic or too advanced. We kept our production non-religious, politically neutral and non-controversial in order to appeal to a wider audience without excluding certain groups. We wanted to gain a better understanding of our target audience and what appealed to and interested them that could also be applied to a mass market. We found that a lot of our target audience took an interest in fashion, and so made sure Fern's costumes in the production were fashionable. This was easy and whilst it attracted certain audiences, it did not exclude others in the process. A lot of the people that we asked said they liked current events and controversy to be incorporated into films, however we thought that this was not appropriate for the genre and would have only appealed to a niche audience. We also discovered that the many of our target audience members were feminists, and for this reason we included a female as our lead character. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? - Evaluation1/4/2015 Editing software
For our preliminary task we used the software Final Cut Express to edit. We found that this software worked for the basic nature of our preliminary production, however it would not accept uncompressed HD video. Compressing a HD video significantly decreases its quality, and so we found that Final Cut Pro was capable of importing HD videos without them having to be compressed. Final Cut Pro also allowed batch capturing of footage from tapes, making the importation of footage much more convenient. Music composition software We used GarageBand to compose the music in our production. We did not compose any music for our preliminary task due to time constraints, however GarageBand is user friendly and worked well for our needs. We used the pre loaded instrument loops on GarageBand, changing the instruments and modifying the speeds and keys to get the desired effect. We found that GarageBand allowed us to compose our music (to a good standard) in a relatively short space of time, because of the simple, user friendly layout. Camcorder I did not record the camera that we used for our preliminary task, however it was a simple, standard issue digital camcorder. It worked well, however we found that the sound was not very good quality due to the fact that there was no external microphone (it was just a small microphone in the camera's body). Because of this, we decided to use a bigger camcorder with an external microphone for our actual production. The downside of this was that we had to use a camcorder that used tapes to record on. The tapes were difficult to use and actually meant that we had to have no audio on the videos in our production as the audio had recorded out of sync to the video. Our production “One for the Road” has taken some of the generic conventions we discovered in our research into the neo-noir genre. We took inspiration from neo-noir films such as Pulp Fiction, Touch of Evil, Snatch and Reservoir Dogs, and modern popular thriller films (as shown by our survey) such as Inception and Taken.
We studied many thriller films and the codes and conventions that they adhered to and challenged. These included quick edits (used frequently in 'Inception'). They helped add a fast pace to the film and were consistent with the amount of action going on. Although this is a convention of thriller films, we decided that in our opening sequence we wanted to challenge this idea and instead use freeze frames with a negative image effect. This sort of technique is used in many neo-noir film openings, such as ‘Snatch’. It allowed us to focus on certain characters and props within the freeze frames, emphasising elements of the plot (e.g. we have a freeze frame of the protagonist on the phone, emphasising that this is a key moment in the film). Although we did not use the quick edits convention, we wanted to take inspiration from 'Inception' in some way as our research showed that it is popular among our target audience. 'Inception' features an award winning musical score by Hans Zimmer. Renowned for his contemporary orchestral fusion style, he created a musical score which synced with the scene as the tension amplified. We tried to imitate this effect by combining acoustic guitar riffs with violins and other classical orchestral instruments. We made sure that the key changes within the piece were synced with the increasing tension in the film, as this added atmosphere to what was happening. We also wanted our film to take inspiration from the neo-noir genre. Our research showed cross cutting and low key lighting were popular in the neo noir genre, and we incorporated this into our production. We also found that many thriller films tried to make their films realistic, giving the audience the idea that it could happen to them. To imitate this, we set our opening in a generic car park, somewhere that most people will visit on a regular basis. We looked at specific areas of the car park and how the location related with their storyline, and from this we took location photographs to help us plan our plot line. Our production follows most crime thriller conventions, in order to appeal to a larger target audience. We challenged a few conventions and developed them into our own in order to create a unique selling point for our film and to make it stand out from competitor productions on the market. In the beginning, Fern is seen on the phone and struggling with her shopping bags, making her seem like your archetypal, physically weak woman. She is then struggling with getting them into her car, at which point Jason Cannon offers his assistance. We dressed Jason in dark clothing, with an anorak with a hood to make him look like a stereotypical predatory male. The audience at this point thinks that Jason is going to attack Fern, and that he is the 'bad guy' and she is the 'good guy'. However, Fern dismisses Jason and the stereotypes do a complete 180, when it is revealed that Fern is in fact the bad character and has a hostage in the boot of her car. Jason Canon - Predatory Male (Teen, working class) We wanted Jason's character to act as a red herring for the audience, in that they would think that he was the antagonist when he isn't. To do this, we wanted to use the stereotype of a predatory teenage boy. We wanted to embody the 'chav' element, so we dressed Jason in an anorak with a hood (pulled up). To make sure that he would be intimidating to Fern, we made sure the actor was taller than her. This represents a working class teenage boy stereotypically at first, but then turns out to be a countertypical representation when it is revealed that Jason is not the antagonist Fern Morrey - Young Woman (Middle class)
Fern's character is meant to appear initially innocent and as if she is going to become the victim, and then later on as a psychopathic killer. To do this, we dressed her in black jeans and converse (typical attire for a young middle class woman) and added a leather jacket to give her an edge. She also was represented stereotypically initially, before a countertypical representation is shown (of her having a hostage in her boot). We used the picture below as inspiration for Fern's outfit, as our focus group said that they thought this outfit was representational of a young middle class woman. During the planning and production of our piece, we aimed to split the management roles as evenly as possible. As there is only 2 members in our group, we both had a lot of work to do.
One of the things that I was primarily doing was composing the music. We decided as a group that this would make sense as I am quite musical and have a better knowledge of the technical aspects of music than the other members of my group. I studied the work of one of my favourite composers, Hans Zimmer, as he has composed the music for many famous thriller films, such as inception, Interstellar, The Dark Night trilogy and many more. Zimmer is known for his fresh approach to orchestral music, creating a style of electronic-classical fusion that is very much his own. This kind of music works well for thriller films as it is very easy to build suspense using a combination of synthesisers and classical instruments. The sole piece of technology that I used for creating the music was GarageBand, using their samples of music and mixing these with riffs that I had composed myself. To build tension, I made the music intensify and added layers gradually, creating a crescendo effect. I also added in 2 key changes, to increase the tension of the music, fitting with the film. I had to make sure that the building of the tension in the music was synced with the building of the tension in the film. I was also in charge of filming, and this involved setting up the shots, positioning the camera, giving direction to the actors and also organising the logistics. We used a tripod to ensure that the footage would not be shaky. We had some technical issues when uploading the footage as a member of our team left, and some of the important shots were in her possession. However, we decided as a group that we would have to try to work without these. Our videos also had very out of sync audio, which meant that we had to erase the audio completely. However, this was not too problematic as our music was effective and it also fitted with our style to just have music. Manisha and I did the editing together as she had better knowledge of the editing programme (Final Cut Pro) than I, and we worked together as a team to edit our piece. Fern Morrey (Protagonist) comes back from her shopping trip as she walks back to her car. A young boy (Jason Cannon) stands suspiciously glaring over at Fern, waiting for her to stop whilst he catches her attention. As she stops by her car struggling to put her shopping bags away she is intruded by Jason Cannon, he offers to help but when Fern replies "No" he aggressively pulls the shopping bags away from her wanting to help. A phone suddenly rings and not realising where the sound is coming from Fern ignores it and walks away, until she hears the sudden sound again walks to the boot and realises it’s the young girl who she’s abducted. She slams the boot door shut and gets into the car, beside her is an alcohol bottle, tempted as the bird on the Whiskey bottle glares at her. Previously Fern was an alcoholic and because of all the pressure she is feeling for kidnapping the young girl the temptation slowly gives in, she soon swings back the bottle and heads of for the road. As she’s driving she realises the guilt eating away at her and stops the car at an abandoned road. She then goes to open the boot, release the rope of her hands and feet and notices a necklace the young girl is wearing. Memories start to flash back at Fern as she comes to a realisation she gave that particular necklace to her younger sister 10 years ago when she ran away from home. Eventually after putting the pieces together and understanding that the revenge on whom she is taking it on is someone who was very close to her once in her life.
The meaning behind our title name 'One for the Road' is based on two ideas in our opening.
Firstly, as our film narrative is based on the road therefore we wanted the name to represent the full meaning of our narrative. Secondly, 'one for the road' defines having a final drink before leaving a place and because the main character is a recovering alcoholic, this connotes to the audience. This is our updated logo. The black connotes sophistication, evil and mystery, and the red connotes danger, urgency and seduction. This seemed much more appropriate for our film. This was our original company logo. However, after adding it into our film, we noticed that the colour scheme of the original logo did not fit with the thriller genre. Therefore, we decided to alter it slightly.
In our thriller opening sequence we do not have any dialogue due to technical problems. Because of the technical problems we could not get the non-diegetic sound to feature in the scene were both characters were conversing. Instead we took out all non-diegetic sound and added in our music in the background.
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