#3 What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

 

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As talked about above we feel that Fox search Light or Lions Gate would most likely produce/distribute our film, however there are others out there. For example Paramount released a film in the last couple of years called STALKER-the film is based on a successful writer and her assistant, who incidentally turns out to be her stalker. Like our film, STALKER brakes the conventions of normal thriller because the main two roles are a female, the young assistant stalks the writer which, in the scheme of things has not been done often, to  have a film with a young female stalker is very uncommon in major films.have released many thrillers/films that defy general film conventions and so we therefore feel that our film FIXATION would have been welcomed by Paramount however we still feel that FIXATION would of been better off with Fox Search Light because they have a higher audience rating with a large scale presence in the world wide film market.
We also decided to change the name of our production company because we felt that the company needed to be portrayed I'm a certain  light hence why we chose 'Scorpion Productions' for example the static electrical sound that scorpion tale makes represents the horror/thriller aspect of our company and the flashing lights represent a comic side that we could look into at a later date.
Unique or similar? 
After deciding to do a thriller stalker we found it very hard to brake the conventions of a normal stalker film purely because there is such a wide variety of stalker films out there and so it is harder for us to do a unique film, however we feel we have accomplished this is some aspects of our film, as previously stated our film has different qualities than other stalker films for example the genders have swapped around, the male stalker is now female and the victim is a young teenage male.Although the genders have been played with in many different stalker films, in most cases it is a woman stalking another woman (an example of this film is 'The roommate'), a young girl stalking her love interest

(generally an older man/teacher) or a man stalking a young woman (Sleep Tight),

because there were so many different versions of a stalker film it was extremaly had to have one that was unique from the others. This is when we decided to have a middle aged woman stalking a teenage boy, although this may have been done before we felt that it had not been studied/done as much of the others, therefor in the aspect of character gender we have successfully made ours unique.
Also in most stalker films the stalker is jealous or has been scorned by the victim or a relavite of the victim's, this is not the case in our film where as the stalker and the victim have no personal connection or running with one and other again this makes the aspect of our film different of others.
However if you strip our film down to the bare basics they are similar to others. Someone abducts another person, the family search and search for the missing person, with no idea who or why they were taken and if they will return. It is obvious to us that its hard to make a well versed genre stand out from the rest and we therefor worked with what we had, I think that some aspects of our film are very different from others but some parts are very similar to other stalker films.
All about the Mise-En-Scene.

The mise-en-scene of our thriller are based around both our main characters.  For example at the very beginning of our film when we first see the map with the stalker sitting in front of the board-the light is dark and gloomy already setting the scene for the audience,the props used at this first shot is obviously the map,the unorganised  look of it adds to the Mise-en-scene it gives the audience an idea of the time scale of this board, it also creates a serious of questions for the audience. Who is she? Why is she using the board? What it is for? What is on the board? Where is it? Who is the boy? Why are the rest crossed out? All these create an enigma code for the audience to latch on to.
 One of the other poignant shots in our film are the shots of the stalker walking up to the victims house,this has a lot of mise-en-scene in it. We used no props because we wanted to focus on the character and their profile(how they came across) for example we wanted the stalker to come across as a mysterious character, we didn't want the audience to have much knowledge of our character, we wanted the audience to have an understanding of what she was doing but not who she is.

Another major aspect of the mise-en-scene is the costume. As you can see she is wearing all black-black coat, black trousers, black heels with sleek ponytail. This shows the audience that the film is set within the 20/21st century, her appearance also indicates that the stalker has little care for her appearance, by wearing all black she wants to blend in with her background, this is another characteristic of a stalker, they hide in plain sight, and blend into the surroundings.
 Her posture is very forward and she walks with confidence this also shows the audience that she is a strong character and knows what she wants/looking for again suggesting to the audience that of she is determined to get what/who she is after.
The background of this shot shows her walking up a pathway to a large house, the background of this shot is very crucial for the audience,this is where they are able to start piecing the different bits together. The background also shows that the film is indeed set in the 21st century.
Because the character is in the centre of the camera shot our whole focus is on her, again this indicates to us that she is one of the main characters, at this point we are able to tell she is the antagonist in the film.
The next vital shot in this sequence is the 'party' shots, these show a group of teenagers enjoying birthday celebrations. We can see that the characters are inside a house which is typical for the 21st century  'birthday party', we used various props in these shots for example the wine bottle, beer cans and birthday badge. This allows the audience to get a better understanding of whats going on. The drink also signifies to the audience what kind of age these teenagers are,which also allows the audience to get a better understand of the plot. The characters in this shot are wearing normal 'party attire' for example some of the girls are wearing dresses others are wearing jeans and smart tops, this again shows to the audience that they are 'normal' teenagers.
The facial expressions of the teens show they are enjoying themselves at this 'party', the strobe lighting also adds to the 'party' effect however because the music is dark and sinful the scene and non-diegetic music contradict each other and therefor give the audience a sense of what will happen in the film. The only thing we see in this shot are the teens, are focus is solely on them which shows to the audience that something will happen to one or all of them.

The final shot of the stalker knocking on the door is the climax to the opening sequence and to the mise-en-scene. No props were used in this shot because we wanted the focus to be solely on the event, again we can tell the two characters apart, the stalker in all black and the boy in the checkered shirt,the background of there is no background to this shot as the entire focus is on the door and who opens it.
In this scene lighting is also very dark because of the atmosphere created, the stalkers body languages suggests that she is very calm and collected, showing to the audience that she has been planning this moment for a very long time which adds to the enigma code.

In conclusion the mise-en-scene of our film is very simplistic, we use little props because we want the audience to pick up on the little hints we give them, with the lighting, clothing and characters, the audience must work out the opening to understand what is going on.

#4 Who would be the audience for your media product?

As you can see by the pictures our target audience is the typical teenager. The stero-typical teenager, who enjoys being with friends, people who take pride in their appearence, shopping, and partying. Our characters will be thrill seekers, who enjoy thriller and horror films. Films that have an intense storyline our what our audience will enjoy. Our audience will be into social networking and enjoy sites such as Twitter.

We would also have to consider a secondary audience to branch out into different audience members. Even though are film is a teenage film and our core audience are teenagers, one of the main characters is in fact an older woman. So this could make it relevant for adults as well. Adults that are in to films with a good storyline that makes you think and keeps you on the edge of your seat may be interested in our film.

Overall I feel that we adressed our target audience well throughout our film.

The film Prom Night is very similuar to our film as it is a Thriller, it is age rating 15 and involves a stalker. Because the age rating of this film is a 15 the same as ours, the target audience is aged 15 and above. This film also uses a mainly teenage cast, the same as our film which attracts the audience. All of the teenage cast are attractive and dress well which is what we aimed for in our film as well, because if they are attractive cast members it is known that people will be more likely to go to the film.

#5 How do you attract/address your audience?

Our target audience is teenagers both boys and girls, aged 15-17, and our secondary audience is adults both women and men. As you can see from the annotations within the YouTube clip of our final production, we attracted and addressed our audience in many ways that would apply to them. Using a well known production company automatically attracts the audience as it is something that they would be familiar with, but also using a small production company 'scorpion products' introduces another audience, independent films play a big part in the film industry and many people enjoy independent films, the fact that a small production company is used may encourage more audience members to go and see the film as they enjoy independent films. Because the titles are original and creative this would attract the independent film lovers also, the fact that the titles are homemade and raw show to the audience that a lot of time has been spent making the film on a low budget which some audience members will enjoy. The narrative was a very important part in our film. The fact that you can never see one of the protagonists faces throughout the whole opening, builds up enigma straight away which draws in both the target audience of teenagers and the secondary audience of adults as they will both be asking questions throughout the film, it leaves the audience thinking and asking questions, such as 'who is the woman?' Using familiar items on the stalker board such as train tickets and school reports makes this more personal to our target audience as these

are things that they can relate with, and also involving things such as gym memberships will relate to our secondary audience as they are older. We decided to add in eerie music to address our audience, as they have chosen to go and see a thriller they most probably enjoy thriller films, meaning that they enjoy being scared and having an adrenaline rush. The music helps to build up tension. We decided to have just the music alone and no talking within our opening sequence as this builds up the tension and leaves the audience imaging what the characters may sound like. During the opening credits it allows the audience to take in what is on the stalker board as their are no other distractions, the things on the board could be key clues to what is going to happen on the film later on. After research we found that people that enjoy going to cinema are mainly middle class, we set our film in a middle class house to relate to the audience. The young

teenagers at a party drinking also relates to the target audience as this is most probably something that they are familiar with. This can also relate to the secondary audience as this may provoke memories of them as teenagers and going to parties. The characters are also dressed well and in a similar fashion to what we expect our target audience to be dressed like, this gives them an instant 'likeable' factor. Twitter is also very current to the audience, the target audience most probably use Twitter, and the secondary audience would still be able to relate to it whether or not they use it as it is all over the media. We involved Twitter within our film as not only will the audience be able to relate with twitter but we also wanted to raise awareness.

We wanted to addresses our audience with the danger of putting things on social networking sites, and the consequences.

As stated our narrative was a key factor when creating our opening sequence. The fact that you can never see one of the main characters faces allows the audience to visualise what she may look like.
Overall I feel that we addressed and attracted our target and secondary audience very well. Using things that they are familiar with helps to make the film more personal to them and puts it into perspective.

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

Above is a rapid video listing what equipment we used.
As we planned and created our finial piece we all learnt how much of an impact technology's can affect what we can create and how well the final product will be. We then also had to battle with how each different piece of technology worked together. A key problem we had while filming was reflections of light on windows and that being picked up on the camera and blinding the rest of the shot.

                        Below are photos of us using the equipment on location for the fixation shoot:

Becky and Charlotte using the camera and tripod on location.

Becky using the camera, you can see the affect of the lights we used in this photo

Here is a shot mid filming, you can see the lights in use as well

Here we are using the camera on the tripod, which we have folded the legs down and made one of
the legs predute at 90 degrees perpendicular to the tripod to create a smooth-ish shot in motion

Here the camera is being used at an angle on the tripod to film this static shot.

 

 

In post production we used a selection of different software packages, we used Adobe Premier to cut down each individual clip and stitch the lot of them together. we also used an overlay of the different videos we took to create the 'Ghosting' Affect which is seen throughout the opening. There is an affect in adobe premier called 'ghosting' however we found it not to work as expected resulting in us having to manually create the affect ourselves. In premier we also cut down different pieces of music elements and sound affects then arranged them to fit in with the video elements in our finial piece. We also used a variety of different online programs to write up our evaluation as well as using them for feedback and research. A online programme we used for feedback was Survey Monkey. this allowed us to send out mass emails containing our feedback link as well as the video link. once feedback had been received we were notified by survey monkey where we able to view the feedback from any Internet connected device.

#7 Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task,What Do You Feel That You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

FIXATION Final Cut~feedback.

After watching our final cut of Fixation,media students and people from the rest of school and gave us feedback on their thoughts on the screening, below is the different feedback we received.

Final Piece-FXATION

Above is our final piece, after taking peer and teacher feed back we feel that we have improved massively, I think the hardest things we have had to overcome is the differences between the group, different people wanting different things, but we have overcome it to get our final piece.

And are the best bits of our failed filming!