question 5- Neve

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted/addressed our audience in many ways, One of the ways we did was setting and costume, Our thriller was set outside a mental health hospital and in a woods, we thought the use of the mental health hospital was intriguing and as we are in the age bracket we found it interesting and would want to watch a film similar. It was also set in a woods which is also an appealing place for teenagers as its private and has a dark feel to it which is usually appealing to teenagers.

Our target audience is around the teenage years and at this stage their is usually a lot of emotions and thoughts, Some may be similar to our main characters, This was another way of attracting our audience in the hope that they may feel they can or could relate to our thriller.
Many people find mental health interesting, Personally i do and as did the rest of my group therefore we thought it would be appropriate to incorporate mental health at a younger age. Our thriller was influenced by shutter island, who has also attracted its audience through the incorporation of mental health. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/plotsummary

Mental health patient shutter island

Our narrative was made to be confusing, We did this through not placing all parts in chronological order, This attracts the audience because they have to pay attention to whats going on. The night to day change could confuse people because it suggests the place took a long time to get to and who runs away in the morning? 

question 4-Neve

4. who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for our media product is 15-24 both genders that are interested in thriller films, we have decided to target this audience because this age tend to be interested in thriller films, this audience are likely to be able to relate to the character with his mental health as mental health is most common in younger people however it will come in different forms. the audience is also a similar age to our main character. we choose to target this audience because they are most likely to watch thrillers. This age audience are also. using this website http://business.pearlanddean.com/films_guide
it seems that our film would fit the focus 15-24 (male and female) because the thriller storyline isn't aimed at men or women, it has parts which will interest both genders.

our thriller would be unsuitable for anyone under the age of 15 as it heavily implies that our character has previously done drugs, the mental health aspect may not appeal to younger audience as to understand it fully you may have to of learnt about it or heard about it to fully understand what mental health problem he has, we haven't said he is schizophrenic so it is ideal that the audience have knowledge of mental health.

Age ratings from British board of film classification (BBFC)

Or thriller has aspects that would be considered an age rating of 15 such as drug taking this isn't filmed however it is heavily implied, their is also reference to violence and self harm which could upset some viewers. our thriller also has aspects of a 12a such as drug misuse, dangerous behaviour, anti social behaviour, due to our storyline being about mental illness we decided to make the target audience older than a 12a as it may be upsetting for viewers.

what other films would/do they like? (red is 15-24 focus)

The table of the pearl and dean website suggests that our target audience would be interested in films such as 'bad neighbours 2', 'warcraft:the beginning', 'gods of egypt','jane got a gun' analysing these titles it suggests they are also thriller or action based films which suggests that our thriller is targeted at the right audience. many 15-24 years old liked Jame's bond films, the revenant and similar.

question 3-Neve

3. what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The kind of media institution that would distribute our media product is a low budget company.
here are some examples of low budget institutions in Britain 

Film organisations 

• film 4- are a British TV and film organisation that are low budget and would promote to our audience.

• BBC film network, are a big institution however they have started to distribute low budget films as well, this would be good for out target audience as they are a bigger organisation and are most likely to get more advertising and a bigger audience.
  

Other ways of distributing our media product

• film festivals http://shortfilms.org.uk/       
• http://ukfilmfestival.com/

why would film festivals be a good place to start?

they have a wider audience, lots of people attending them and there could be talent scouts, the audience is likely to be 15+ which is who we would like to target, there are also other audiences that it may appeal to. the good thing with film festivals is people come from all over and come with an open mind to view all sorts of different things, whereas putting it in front of the public that have a certain taste or want to see a certain thing will narrow our audience an example of this would be advertising in a cinema that is showing a Disney film it is the wrong audience who don't want to see low budget films.

Netflix or Love film

 These two distributors are getting more popular each day, Netflix has a range of films, some high budget and some low budget, this would be a really good way to advertise and distribute our media product because our target audience is 15-24 and these people are most likely Netflix fans as it is very popular with teenagers and young adults due to how cheap it is and you can have it on demand in your house. 

Love film is similar to Netflix however its not as popular with our target audience, However as this institution are less popular they are most likely cheaper to distribute with and we will have some of our target audience watching, This would be our second choice out of home viewing films as its not as popular as Netflix and doesn't catch as much of our target audience. however if our film was liked by viewers it may get put onto other institution's like Netflix.

Youtube 

Youtube is a good way for our thriller to get advertised and get a fan base, the fees on Youtube to advertise are cheap and the amount of people from our target audience using Youtube daily is large, this way we will be able to get a fan base and get improvements. however the risk with putting it on Youtube is that it can go unoticed if we don't advertise and have the right amount of viewers.

Overall i think the best place to go first is to film festival that are specifically for our target audience, then expand from there, Second i think would be Netflix, then Youtube and last would be the private companies whilst they would make more money we cannot guarantee they will distribute it and they will be harder to approach as we haven't had much experience in the film industry, I think once we have a fan base and more experience then we should approach bigger companies.

Neve's evaluation-question 2

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?


Gender is one of the  most important social groups we have made apparent in our media product we have incorporated this by the use of characters, mise en scene, mental illness.

• Through my research into mental health i found that women are more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness most common being anxiety, however men were statistically proven more likely to commit suicide than women. https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health-statistics-men-and-women. I found this statistic surprising and was interested in using a male with mental health rather than a women however using males as a mentally ill character is common in most thriller films as it is stereotypically men that are assumed to be more likely to have a mental illness. 
• All the characters in our thriller are males which follows the fact that men commit more crimes than women (murdering the deceased character). Gender has also been  represented through mise en scene.

Class and Status (lower class/mental health patient)

• The schizophrenic character is of lower class this implies he may not be able to afford the help he needs
• Doesn't have a job or had a successful education.
• Unhealthy relationship with the law
• Dirty and old clothes (cant afford new ones)
• Poor morals.

Ability/Disability (Mental health)

• Our main character has schizophrenia, this is portrayed through his body language and actions
• Made poor decisions due to illness
• His mental health controlled his decision kill someone and nearly himself.
• Inability to look after himself
• Not knowing right from wrong.

Neve's evaluation question 7

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Dan, Ross, Sophie and Neve's Foundation Portfolio: Our Completed Prelim Film- Neve and Sophie's prelim
Neve,Ross's,Dan's.Sophie's final piece.(video)

prelim lighting

 For our prelim our group was split in two, i was with Sophie and Allan, and Ross and Dan were together, so coming together as a group has improved our final pieces as we put all of our knowledge together and made sure we didn't repeat mistakes we had made previously.

Lighting in our prelim vs final piece 

final piece lighting

The lighting in our prelim was very limited, not using spotlights was a mistake we made because this made the scenes all the same, it was filmed inside so we didn't have natural lighting either. it was very dark and the quality wasn't great (as shown below). the lighting in our prelim was low key lighting from classrooms by the art department, This wasn't ideal however we didn't have lighting with us, as shown below we used an iphone for lighting in some parts of our prelim this was a big mistake as it affected the quality of the images and the audience cant see the characters properly which is not ideal. for our final piece we used battery powered LED lights without filters, this created a much better affect as is clearly shown below. the lighting in our final piece is low key however it creates the effect we wanted, it also gives the scene a creepy feel to it.

lighting for final piece

lighting for prelim

In our final piece we used natural lighting as it was outside in the morning however we also used the lighting equipment we used for other scenes to keep continuity. we didn't use lighting stands for our prelim which had a negative affect on the lighting,however we did use lighting stands in our final piece, this made the lighting remain steady and equal throughout the scenes. the lighting is much crisp and brighter in our final piece making the quality look even better.

Costume
In our prelim we didn't go into detail with  the costumes, both characters wore what they would usually wear, This did however fit with our story line but could have been better, the main character in our prelim was wearing jeans and a red hoodie and the antagonist was wearing jeans and a pattern t-shirt however this wasn't obvious in the film.

prelim costume

final piece costume

both costumes look similar however the final piece costume is better because it is scruffier and the actor has the look we were aiming for, his hair and makeup was done to fit the narrative,unlike our prelim we didn't use any makeup. we thought a lot about how to dress our characters, for the main character we initially decided to use a hospital gown we changed this because the gown was hard to get hold of and we did research about mental health  hospitals and realised they don't wear hospital gowns. so we decided to put the character in scruffy camouflage trousers and a dark hoodie with scruffy looking trainers, i think with mise en scene (makeup and costume) i improved from our prelim with planning it and putting the plans into action.

camerawork
in our prelim we used a range of different shots and transitions though this is usually a good thing i think we used to many when we didn't really need to, i think this has improved in our final piece because we have used a range of different shots however we haven't over used them to make it look to busy. we had two close up shots of the protagonists hand opening doors, as these were a few seconds apart it looks a bit confusing and disorientates the audience as to where the character is and their positioning. our prelim is also a much faster pace and demands all of the audiences attention otherwise it may get confusing, we have improved on this in our final piece because we have used a range of shots,transitions, and angles but not to many.

second door shot

first door shot

in our prelim we practised the 180 degree rule a few times before we got it right however we didn't have a scene where we would be able to apply the 180 degree rule and show what we had learnt/improved, an improvement to our final piece would be to use what we have learnt about the 180 degree rule especially in conversation.

following character to destination 

pan from final piece

most of our shots are panning shots of our main character in the final piece, i think this is better than than following the protagonist in our prelim because this doesn't show the characters facial expression and emotions whereas in our final piece pan shots the audience can see facial expression and body language. through using this pan the audience can also see the setting better and the shot not be so focused on the main character like in our prelim.
in our prelim we used more cuts which i personally find boring unless its in a fast pace sequence which our prelim wasn't, we used some fades and wipe transitions in our final piece that i think would have worked well in our prelim instead of using lots of cuts.

Angles and transitions and effects

wipe to next shot

effect 1

in our prelim we didn't plan in detail what angles we would use or particularly stick to the storyboard, we ended up with having to think on the spot whilst trying to manage our characters, this could have been much easier if we had planned properly, however we planned in more detail for the final piece, we planned exactly what angles and shots we were going to use and the transition we would edit in. we tried to use continuity editing techniques e.g when the male walks in front of the character, this was a wipe,i think this worked well because it makes the audience notice the transitions rather than watching without taking any notice of the usual cuts. we also used a fade to white and fade back to a blurry image, the effects we used in our final piece work well with the narrative. i feel we should have used effects in the prelim to make it more interesting and create suspense. (effects below)

effect 2

effect 3

effect 4

Editing in our prelim vs final piece.

effect 5

For our prelim we didn't edit as much as we should have, if we had we could have sorted the lighting issue out, used colour correction, used more transitions this would have massively improved our sequence because it looks poor quality while some of the quality issues wasn't our fault, we could have made more changes to it. in our final piece we took much longer to edit to make sure it was just the way we wanted it to be we also experimented with lots of different effects on the images to make them seem disorientated trying to get it just right wasn't easy. we used colour correction in the woods to make the scene feel brighter and the image a better quality.

Sound
In our prelim we recorded the dialogue at the same time, doing this was a mistake we made because we were filming a stairwell that echoed and made the voices sound out of place, however adding the voices after might as well have created an undesired effect as there would be a slight echo, that we wouldn't get recording somewhere else. we also had non diegetic drum beats to build suspense however looking back on this i can see it doesn't fit the narrative or the indoors setting, i think a different background song would have been better.
in our final piece our sound was all recorded after the filming and the sounds that would have been in the shot were replaced by edited versions and enhanced,such as the birds in the trees we added after filming so we could heighten every little sound to add to his mental state. we used a similar instrumental song in both our films however the song corruption fits our final piece much better. i think we could have spent more time trying to find a song that fit our prelim narrative better.
overall on sound for our prelim it wasnt great and could have been improved.

Image quality

bad quality

The image quality in our prelim isn't very good the pictures blurry and because the lighting is also bad we cant see a great deal, the quality begins to improve through the prelim however its still not great, we overcame the problem of  bad quality images because the camera was much better and managed to get the depth of field. also as there was more colour in our final piece it makes the quality look better.

good quality

Overall I think as a group we have improved greatly and as we were in separate groups we have come together and brought all of our knowledge together and improved since our prelim. I think the biggest problem with our prelim was the lighting and quality and for our final piece I feel we have greatly improved it.

Neve's evaluation question 6

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

From creating our thriller final product i have learnt a lot about technologies good and bad things.

Mac's for editing 

One thing that is the most significant in my learning process would be  the macs to edit using Garage band and Audacity, As i haven't used macs in the past this was a new experience for me a hard one as well.however using all our knowledge as a group we managed to succeed in the editing process of images, image editing wasn't as hard as garage band which as a group we struggled with. I've learnt how to use the basics of garage band and where to place the different sound effects and volumes of each one, i think that i have improved my skills throughout the process from being unable to use garage band efficiently to being able to edit sequence and add sound alone.

editing figure 1

ross's jumper figure 2

For the non diegetic sound effects i have learnt how to choose the correct sounds and edit them properly to create the right affect on the audience. Using final cut pro was also a new experience which again wasn't easy to start with however once I spent time on it playing around with the different effects it got much better. we initially struggled with colour correction when we wanted to colour correct the yellow noose to make it stand out more we overcome this issue eventually  overall with using macs I feel as if I have improved greatly and learnt new things and how to use them properly. (figure 1)

Digital cameras, Equipment and Lighting 

canon digital camera

I have had previous experience with digital camera as I did media at GCSE so using them wasn't completely new for me, However there were new things that i had to learnt such as white balance, We didn't put the white balance on in our preliminary which was why our film didn't look as good as our final piece that has had the white balance applied, We didn't take a specific object for the white balance so we had to improvise and use ross's white jumper (figure 2) however this worked fine. We used a tripod to steady our camera in most of the scenes getting this in the right position and height for the person recording took time and patience. we also used lighting without filters, as these are simple to use we didn't have any problems other than trying to position them properly.

zoom figure 3

When using zoom on the camera we had a tendency to zoom to fast and it look weird, this has shown in one of our scenes where we zoom in on the noose.(figure 3). We didnt use any depth of field in our final piece which would have been good to add to the quality of the images.

Neve's evaluation question 1

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

In our thriller opening sequence we use different forms and conventions of thriller films such as the use of a protagonist and an antagonist however in our thriller the antagonist is his schizophrenic personality that can take over, the main character is the protagonist. Thriller films usually have a storyline with crime in this is also part of our storyline whilst we tried to work it around mental health crime is still incorporated. We were inspired by shutter island, this gave us the idea of making our thriller about mental health.

Our use of mise en scene is similar to other thriller films, costume being scruffy  and the character looking ill was the desired look we were wanting, the idea of looking like he had done drugs was inspired by a character in shutter island. This character has red lined eyes like ours and is very pale whilst they have very different mental issues (she hasn’t done drugs) we thought the eyes were key in making him look the way we wanted. The costumes used in thrillers are key in showing the characters personality. (inspiration for character).

inspiration for our character.

Thriller films use off screen non diegetic eerie sounds to create suspense and a creepy feel, we have done his throughout to show his mental state and how he is feeling. There is also non diegetic chase music that suggests he is being chased, this is common in thriller films. we have challenged this by using a more upbeat non diegetic song that suggests hes on a mission (he's not!) rather than running away from himself.

children of men title 

our title 

It is common in thriller films to use black and white or dark colours to emphasise the darkness in the film and the thriller genre, our title sequence is white text on a black background this is similar to the thriller se7en however the title font of se7en, is jagged and probably creepier so if we were able to change this we would. The text pace is slow, this slow motion pace creates suspense for the audience, our thriller challenges this because our title sequence is a slow pace and creates a suspense. (screen shots above)

Minority report lighting 

 The lighting in thrillers is usually dark low key light to make the scene have a creepy feeling to it, our thriller is filmed in low key lighting in the evening (figure 4) to create the feeling that the character is doing something wrong and bad (escaping the hospital). lighting is dark in the film minority report which gives it a creepier feel that what going on is dark and evil. Our thriller challenges this along with other thrillers similar.

our lighting 

The narration we used is restricted we did this by not telling the audience what had happened previously in the characters life e.g we didn't say what illness he had, we implied it, we didn't say who killed the boy either, we had to be particularly careful in creating enigma because we didn't want to give the narrative away.our thriller challenges other thrillers that have created ambiguity and enigma in the audience, an example would be shutter island we are not told where the characters are going and to begin with there isn't any dialogue like ours there is just non diegetic sounds. This helps create ambiguity because the audience are having to connote what is happening rather than denote it. we wanted to create enigma which we have successfully achieved.

Tvetzan Todrovs narrative theory applies to our film in some part however not all of it.
equilibrium 
there isn't an obvious equilibrium in our film however it could be argues that the establishing shot by the hospital where a man walks out of the hospital, all people around are unaware of the main character escaping the hospital, for other characters this would be an equilibrium but not the audience as we have seen him escaping. 
disruption  
The disruption in our thriller is when the character has hallucination of the dead body, This is a disruption because the audience aren't aware of what he may have done until he sees the dead body by the tree.
realisation
the realisation is when the character remembers what he has done and begins to run away from the memories.
restored order 
restored order is similar to the realisation as him running away was him trying to restore normality and order to the situation. 
 
 

sound recording

Due to the nature of the sound we needed to externally record being simply voices of two characters, We decided to use the iPhone 6s' built in microphone for the recording. we took to a quite room with our actors of which we needed voiceovers from. This worked well to block out other sounds we didn't want, however the room created an echo in Amy's voice which is noticeable in our film.
        Throughout the film we used non diegetic sounds from garage band and for the background music we used a song from Incompetech, we used the song corruption we thought this best fit our character and state of mind. We didn't use any foley's because we didn't have a seperate microphone and we wanted to create clearer sounds that heighten the mental state of our character, We got these sounds from Garage band and also used Audacity.
https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html

  

audience feedback

audience feedback of our thriller Noose.

We asked Allan Gomez to watch our thriller sequence first, he said that he liked our film however he would of changed the titling, however overall he liked it.

Here is the video of Joe comber giving us his audience feedback. The feedback is towards the end of the clip.

Analysis of Filming at Butcher's Wood

We had a couple of problems with filming at the wood, one being the condition of the dog which we had planned to appear with a walker.

The day before filming, the dog was injured and had a cast/bandage around her leg, meaning she couldn't walk, and as such we had to improvise with another actor, Amy.

Another issue was the noose itself. the tree needed to be fairly high up to allow for the illusion that it could be used to kill oneself, but we couldn't tie it properly round the branch. The colour of the rope also did not particularly contrast with the sun, and we had a few takes where it was not very visible.

Otherwise, the conditions were fairly good. The sun provided some rather nice natural light, causing "God rays" to appear between the trees and branches. The trees themselves provided a nice location to place a noose and still have pathways for people to walk on in and out of the film.

Another risk that we did not anticipate for was mud. While not particularly dangerous, it could lead to damage of clothing and, perhaps less significantly, contingency issues within the film. Luckily, the path we were on was in acceptable condition.

Makeup evaluation- Neve Walder

Tom makeup F1

 Makeup evaluation

 Tom Soulsby makeup - main character
For the first half of filming this was how I did the makeup, In used red lip liner around the eyes and smudged it to make it look like he was ill and had recently done drugs. I used a pale foundation that was a little bit lighter than his skin tone, To create the shiny look I used vaselene petroleum jelly and used a flat brush to dab it all over his face, He also has dark rimmed eyes I created this by using a contouring kit. I prefer the second makeup look, I
think the light complements it to as it was dark with high key lighting on his face highlighting the dark and shiny areas.

Dom our murdered character 
 For this character I needed him to look dead, So I used a paler foundation however the foundation didn't show up much or highlight his skin as he was slightly more tanned than tom, so i changed my plan and made darker circles around his eyes and contoured his face to make the skin appear darker in some places making his skin as a whole look lighter. I used fake blood around the cut (fake) on his neck and coming out his nose and mouth,
Overall
I'm pleased with how the makeup went, especially makeup 2 as the makeup really looks like he is a drug addict and mentally ill.

Doms makeup F3

Makeup 2 F2