Friday, 6 May 2011

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

I have come a long way since the Preliminary Task 'Drug Deal Gone Bad'.

'Backstabber' for one is much smoother editing wise. Also the Preliminary Task, had no music and there was a lot of back ground noise. The costumes were ordinary, and the acting was sub-standard. Especially when i scratched my nose mid shot, not exactly Drama College material that. Also the Preliminary Task was completely rushed, whereas we had time with Backstabber to edit properly, plan our shots properly and plan it more efficiently.


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

Wordle: Media Studies

We used these technologies to make our film, obviously we needed to use a video camera. Wikipedia was for the research, as was YouTube.


Technology used in our film
View more presentations from Jaraden Thomas.

We also learnt to use final cut express which is the mac's excellent video editing software, this allowed us to cut and edit our film to how we saw fit.
Also we learnt how to properly use film cameras and tripods and microphones.
We used digital cameras to photograph our storyboards.
We used the internet for our audience research, i.e surveymonkey and Facebook.
We used blogger to write this blog

Advancements in technology made filming this easier than it would have been in say the 1930s. However, it was still quite a challenging product to undertake, meaning i have developed a great admiration for those early film makers who were able to film despite the difficulties.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

People would want to watch my film because of the mystery and suspense in it. Who is this guy? Why is he killing? What happens to the girl at the end.

The actual motives of the antagonist i find are a powerful tool to keep the audience watching. If the audience doesn't know why he is committing these acts the it is human nature to want to find out, if you want to find out you have to keep on watching.
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho used this technique when the murders committed by the main antagonist are not explained straight off, they appear random and unprovoked.

The end of our introduction also ends with a cliffhanger, the villain rises from out of nowhere and the protagonist is trapped. He proceeds to walk towards the protagonist with his arm outstretched. We are led to assume the protagonist has been killed, however there is no clear proof that she has. This is our cliffhanger, what happens to the protagonist now that she is trapped by the antagonist.

Due to the use of an only young cast, our movie will attract audiences of a younger age, and they'll want to keep on watching because they feel they can related to the characters. This is because it is human nature to associate yourself with a person who is like you. What would be the point of associating with someone who is nothing like you? When audiences associate themselves with characters they become much more involved in the development of the character they are most like. This makes audiences want to keep on watching to see what happens to their associated/favourite character.

To distribute my product i would look at my target audience and act accordingly. For advertising on TV (i.e trailers) i would choose channels that usually have a high number of males watching. Also I would use Facebook to advertise as Facebook has millions of users. On Facebook advertising you can select certain criteria for your advert. For example if i thought my film was similar to another thriller, i could target people on Facebook who have liked the other film.

As this film was filmed in Dagenham, where a lot of people are thriller fans but no thriller has ever been shot here, the film can expect to enjoy the viewership of people in Dagenham, people around the surrounding areas and anyone connected to Dagenham in some way.

Also as our film is a British independent film, we can expect viewership from a mainly British audience. The American audience is hard to track when you're a low budget independent British film maker. With the loss of the UK Film Council and Hollywood dominance over the industry, means viewership will significantly lower than the next Hollywood blockbuster.