Who would be the audience for your media product?

My main audience would be older teenagers/ young adults as my questionnaire shows that they are more likely to watch Thriller films, especially one with a storyline like mine. Also, they would identify better with the main character as they are of a similar age, making it easier to sympathise with him. I wouldn't target at one gender over another as my research showed that the audience for thrillers is roughly equal.

 My main character is a white male young adult. I don't this would offend anyone or make them less likely to watch as he is very stereotypical for a thriller.
The audience for my thriller would most likely be males as my research also found that they were more likely to watch a thriller, particularly with a storyline like mine.
The audience for my film would also be British people, considering it is only a small budget, student film it wouldn't be likely for it to be seen in other countries, especially not English speaking ones.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My thriller only has one character in it. He represents 'indie' teens by the costume he is wearing. Although the coat could represent any group as it was raining outside and very cold, he is wearing a headband and tie-dye shirt that fit in with the 'indie' style. 
However, other than this he doesn't really represent a particular social group as he is in an atypical situation, making it hard to stereotype him.

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract my audience, the main thing I did was stick to thriller conventions. This already attracts people as they search for films in the particular genre they like. 
I also attracted an audience of young adults by using a male of their age. This makes them more likely to relate to the main character and more likely to watch the film as they can empathise with him more than a younger or older person. I did this as my research showed that older teens and young adults were the ones most likely to watch a thriller, therefore it is easier to attract them than people who don't generally watch the thriller genre. Also as most thrillers, such as 'Silence of the Lamb' or 'The Sixth Sense' are 15's or 18's. Therefore it would make no sense to try and attract younger teens or children.
The location I chose would attract people as it is a familiar location that most people are used to. This means they can relate to the film better and it can feel more realistic, which often attracts people as it's not far fetched and ridiculous. It is also an opening that is not very stereotypical, meaning people will more likely go and see it as it unique and hasn't been done hundreds of times before.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back, I think the filming in the Preliminary task was more creative than in my final opening and I mainly used boring straight shots in my final task. However, I did learn how to control exposure and white balance etc. as this is something I had to work out to make sure the video quality was all right. This was something I learnt for the final task as I did not do it in the prelim task. 
I do believe I have improved vastly on my editing. For my final opening, I spent many hours of my own free time editing, as well as time in lessons. I think this allowed me to do more complicated editing and gave me more of a chance to try out multiple things to see which was best. Although I didn't do much editing between the clips, I am very happy with how the titles came out as I think it gave them more of an interesting look, being integrated into the filming, than having plain cuts as the beginning.
I also think the storyline is much better as it suits the conventions of a thriller more than the prelim did as it contains more suspense and mystery then the 'drug deal' storyline did. I feel that doing the research into the genre allowed me to gain more knowledge into the genre and I learnt how to use the conventions effectively.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

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

To distribute my film, I would use an independent company as it is a small budget British film. I would use a company similar to ones used in films such as ‘London To Brighton’ or ‘This Is England’ as my film is a similar thriller to theirs and would only be distributed by a small company, not a big blockbuster company like Fox or Warner Brothers.

I uploaded this video to YouTube, another form of distribution to audiences.  YouTube is a very useful tool for low-budget films to be seen by larger audience and is free, meaning it is one of the best distribution tools available. However, monetising your video doesn't always mean you will get much money off it as you only get money per 1,000 views. This means that earning money from it is often unreliable. Also, putting a film online makes it very easy for people to copy and distribute for free, however it is often worth it for getting the film out there in the first place.

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

My film follows the conventions of theme as it mysterious and has a sense of crime and danger. It does this by having the main character seem shady and troubled. I got the crime aspect by having him take a large knife with him when he disappears. As you do not know what he has done or where he is going, you can infer that he has done something possibly criminal and it leaves you guessing as to that he has done and what he is going to do. The title of my thriller ‘Derelict’ means to abandon ones duties or obligation. This also gives the sense of mystery as you do not know what he is running away from. By using low key lighting in the start, it makes the opening seem mysterious. However, when the character goes inside, I used a makeshift ‘spotlight’ this is supposed to represent the feeling of all his emotions being on show and making him seem vulnerable during the breakdown. After this the lighting goes back to being low key or ambient.

It follows the convention of setting by being set in a familiar setting, a house. It starts in a quiet neighbourhood. This is similar to another thriller I researched, Blue Velvet, which starts off on a quiet street.

My character follows conventions of costume as the innocent victim. Although you cannot be sure of whether he is the victim or not, he is assumed to be a victim of some crime to stress him out so much. To seem stressed, I make him have a sort of breakdown where he collapses and pulls his hair and covers his face, as well as swearing and slamming his hand against the door. This made him seem erratic and stressed. I made him seem like more of a victim by dressing him in casual clothing. This goes against conventions as I intended for it to be revealed that he was in fact the villain towards the end of the film. This is similar to the film ‘The Usual Suspects’ where you assume someone is the victim but turns out to be the villain.

The camera shots I used suit the theme of thrillers. I use lots of close ups as well as mid shots and establishing shots. The close ups are used to get the audience to sympathise with the character as they can see the emotions clearly. I also use a high angle during the ‘breakdown’ sequence. This is to reflect his loss of power and stability of his mentality. The establishing shots are used to show the quiet neighbourhood that the scene is set in.

My editing doesn’t really fit with traditional thriller editing as often thrillers use quick cuts, whereas most of my shots are long and use simple straight cute. However, I tried to disorientate the audience slightly by using lots of cross dissolves between shots in the ‘breakdown’ shot. This is used to reflect the characters confused state of mind and hazy thought process.

In my thriller, I did not use non-diegetic music and used very little dialogue as there was only one character. However, all my shots contain lots of diegetic sounds, mostly ambient sounds or heavy breathing. I didn’t want added music as I wanted to keep the quiet neighbourhood feel. I also wanted to keep the emphasis on the heavy breathing and murmuring. I did also add the sound effect of a police car. This was to add to the effect that the character was worried about authority as he hides away from the sound.

Final Edit

Editing

To edit I used Adobe Premier Pro CS4. This is a program I have used before, not just in the Preliminary task, and am very used to, although this was a different version from what I have used before, I managed to pick it up very quickly and easily.


The main problem I faced when editing was the program crashing after trying to do certain things. This meant that if I didn't save it, I would loose all my work. However, all I had to do was save frequently to avoid any loss. Eventually, the program stopped crashing, although we could not work out why, it made it much easier to work and I was able to edit much quicker.

I didn't add many transitions in between the clips as I wanted the rough cut appearance for my film opening. Most of the editing I did was cutting down clips and cutting out bits I didn't like. The main transition I added was a cross dissolve in the breakdown sequence. I thought this added more of a confused and disorientated feel to the clip. I did try some other transitions out between clips but decided they didn't look right for feel I wanted.



For the titles, I used lots of transitions and added effects. For the 'A Turner Production' I went through each individual key-frame to make the text get bigger and to get the look I wanted. This was a long process but I really like the outcome and I think it makes the opening look better.

I did a similar thing for the actual title, 'Derelict' so the timing would fit in with the cars passing. I really like the effects this gives as it makes my opening look much more professional and is a creative way to make the title appear and disappear.
For the names of the actors, I wanted it to be very minimalist as I didn't want the names to take away from what was going on screen. I also decided to put the main actor 'Robi Ankers' before the title as he would be the primary character in my film and I thought this would make him stand out more than the other actors.


The only sound I added in was a siren part way through the upstairs sequence.To find this I searched 'Police Car siren' and looked through several websites before finding the one I used. The volume of it was too loud to sound like it was coming from outside, when I added it in so I changed the volume of it to sound more like it was passing by and not like he was sat in it.
 

To create the titles, I found fonts I liked on DaFont.com and imported them into Photoshop CS4 (Which I have also had a lot of experience on) This made it easy or me to create and edit all my titles and since both programs are Adobe, it made it very easy to transfer the titles into Prem Pro.
For the main title font, I selected several different fonts I liked and downloaded them into Photoshop. I then wrote the title in all fonts and chose the one I liked most, which was 'Tarantino'. I also ended up choosing one of those fonts for the actors names, which was 'Heroine'. The colour I chose for the title was not an easy choice as I need it to stand out on the dark clip but I didn't want a white as it looked a bit too clean and harsh. I chose the colour it was as it fits in with the lights from the cars.
I chose white for the actors names as I wanted them to stand out as they are quite small and could be easily missed.

For the companies I used, I wanted to create very simple titles. For the 'Night Life' one, I wanted to create a neon sign look. For this I found a text I liked, 'Space Age', I then chose 2 colours to use and overlayed one on the other. To make it glow, I selected the text and set the effect as glow. I also changed to colour of the glow to match the colour of the writing. I thought this created a nice Neon Sign look.
For the 'Rainy Days' production company, I also wanted a very simplistic title. I selected this company as I thought it fitted with the rainy opening. For the picture, I searched 'Child with umbrella' on google images. I then found the picture I wanted and coloured it in black to make the silhouette. The font I once again downloaded off DaFont, called 'Please Write Me a Love Song'