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

Question 7

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

Since we began constructing this product, I have learnt a great deal in concern to technology; especially with blogs, and new websites that enabled me to upload my work in word documents,  PowerPoint presentations, and diagrams and embed them to my blog via websites such as Prezi, Slideshare, audioboo, and scribd. These helped me a great deal, and I also found it enjoyable learning skills that will be useful later on in life as well as in media studies.

I have learnt that technologies give us a wider range of information than I originally thought, and new websites such as IMDB, and fimsite, helped me to develop my understanding on the thriller genre, and noir films, and the reasoning behind them.

Using blogs enabled me to access my work, wherever and whenever necessary, without carrying vast amounts of paper. It also enabled me to look at the one another’s work, with ease, to give advice, and inspire ideas for our thrillers. It also enabled me to receive useful feedback from tutors, which enabled me to add revisions in order to improve my work.

I have learnt the importance of technology when organising filming times, with peers.  Me and Ruby, found this a struggle, as we both weren’t free when our actors where, or vice versa, which is why we used ourselves instead, this made filming and organisation much easier.  We realised that having less people in the group made it much easier to co-operate, concentrate and crack on.

I also learnt that new technologies can change the meanings of a single shot for example using low angle shots of someone can make them appear powerful and important, and that editing film in a certain way, can change the narrative structure completely and therefore change the meaning of the film altogether, as well as making it much clearer and smoother.  It took a while for us to arrange our footage in an order that we were pleased with, and that made sense to the audience.

Since we started editing our film, I learnt how to capture footage onto the computer, in order to edit my footage, I then picked up how to navigate around ‘Adobe Premiere Elements’ quite quickly. Through the process of editing our film, I learnt how to ‘razor’ the footage in order to re-size the footage to suit the film, I also learnt how to use various effects and transitions, such as ‘Dip to Black’ and ‘Cross Dissolve’ both which are used in our film. The Dip to black helped to make things look much smoother and darker, more tension and build up, while the cross dissolve helped us to create the flash between the homeless girl and the man at the desk, it made it smooth and created an effect which me and Ruby were very pleased with.

I have learnt to use video cameras and additional add ons such as tripods to a great extent, I am now very confident when setting them up and using them.  I learnt that tripods are very useful when filming as they help to prevent the shake and jolts that appear in the film when filming by hand.

I learnt that technology doesn’t work very well in the dark, unless we have high-tech lighting and equipment, we struggled to fit filming in after school, as by the time we had walked to the destination of filming, it was quite dark already.   Luckily we managed to use some of the film which we did during dark hours, due to the fact there was a glare shining on me, which we found very intriguing, and lucky.

 I leant that I need to be patient when it comes to technology and not to panic if something goes wrong, because the likelihood is, that there is a solution and a way to solve the problem, so I think I have learnt not to jump to conclusions too quickly and instead have a clear head ready to tackle the problem head on.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience? on Prezi

We also decided to use this soundtrack rather than ‘Classic Horror 3’

listen to ‘Gloom Horizon’ on Audioboo

We found this was much more suitable for the opening to our thriller, it was much more appropriate and we felt it fit in much better with the mise-en- scene as a whole.  We also found that it created a feel of dread and mystery, which was something that we were aiming for.

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 4

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Question 3: What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

‘ Invisible Lives’  is a low budget independent thriller that explores homelessness and stalking.  The  obscure story line and issues explored within our films, and the low budget film means that our film would be best distributed by Warp Films,  who are commonly known for working with low budget films such as ours. They have distributed many alternative  films which include ‘This is England’ and ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’.  Warp distribute films which tackle social issues and real life problems that occur, our film fits into this category because it is looking at a problem that surrounds us on a day to day basis, and distributing a film that raises awareness could show the population of Britain, that the number of young homeless people are rising, and see the problem that we face.  Film Four is also linked with ‘Warp Films’ and they could be interested in a thriller such as ours, due to the fact it is talking about problems that the country of Britain are ignoring, and because they are  “known  for working with the most innovative talent in the UK, whether new or established’

Film four also host particular genre weeks, that promote upcoming films or films that have recently been released. Our thriller could appeal to Film Four due to our appeal to a niche audience. The internet is also an effective way that we could distribute our media product due to the fact that is at low expense, and if not free. It means that our thriller would be avaible to a wider audience, and many more young people; provided it was distributed on appropriate sites such as:

Twitter

MySpace

Facebook

Forums

Blogs

All these interfaces would help distribute our film, and also allow the audience to engage with the production as well as give their opinions and feedback on our film.

YouTube; is also a website which we could use to distribute our media product as it is used by many companies to distribute their films, ‘Animal Kingdom (2010) used YouTube, as well as many other website to distribute their film. It is easy to upload videos and it is free. The website it also easily accessible by smart – phones such as blackberry’s and iPhones, as well as other iPod models, which are becoming more and more popular as technology improves.

We could also use film festivals that promote film festivals such as those held in Berlin, Budapest as well as London  called ‘Emerge and see’  it works to promote young short-filmmakers, and works to highlight student talents through their events.
Below is one of their posters for an event they held in 2010 in Berlin:

‘Working Title’ would not be a suitable distribution method for our thriller film, due to the low budget, and unknown actors/ actresses that feature in our film. In Working Title’s ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ (2011) features many well known mainstream actors, such as Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, and Benedict Cumberbatch ;that make the film appealing to the audience, but also shows that this film is very mainstream. Working Title, are also very unlikely to fund our thriller, due to the fact it is more suitable for a niche audience, and because the social issues tackled are not targeted at Working Titles mainstream audience.

Warp films market themselves to mainly to an audience of 16-25 British demographic, whether than Working Title work with much higher production values, but target an older audience of people aged 30+, they also have a strong eye for the American Market, not so much a European or British audience. My thriller does not identify much with Working Titles ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ in comparison to other films which are marketed by smaller independent distributers such as Warp.

If our film were to be distributed via cinema, Cinema City Norwich is an independent cinema which is known for showing independent low budget films, and targets a niche audience, for many genres of film, thrillers being one of them.They also films such as:

The Artist

and Foreign films such as Amelie;

Costumes for our thriller

Costumes For Thriller on Prezi

The use of space in thriller films; how the space reflects the moral landscape of the villain’s hunting ground.

In Essex Boys, Jason uses the Essex Marshes to leave his victims. The white van belongs to him; this indicates that he is in familiar territory this therefore suggests to the audience that his victims may be buried in the mud. The landscape is vast, it has no moral boundaries and this reflects Jason’s personality. The marshes are bleak and deserted; they give a sense of isolation. It is a primeval landscape, which connotes danger. It is a wasteland, a ‘no man’s land’ this can be referred to the film ‘No country for Old Men’ when the savannah is a deserted wasteland also. It means the wide space, prey is easy to detect, vulnerable and can easily be hunted.  

The desert landscape can also be referred to the scene in ‘Animal Kingdom’ when Craig attempts to flee from the police in a similar landscape to that in ‘No Country for Old Men’. He was easy to hunt down; like an animal, prey, and see because the landscape was so open, but yet so isolated.

Fargo’ is also another example of how space reflects the moral landscape of the villain’s hunting ground.   This film uses snow and a white landscape in order to be easily seen and have no moral boundaries within it.