Evaluation Point 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?

I uploaded our film to YouTube and annotated the film with tags...

Evaluation Point 4- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

Our target audience would be female and in the age range of 15-35 years old.  However our movie specifically is aimed at teenage girls. Therefore our ideal audience member would need to be a 17 year old girl in her first  or second year of sixth form. In order to find the character of Mikey attractive she would have to have a keen almost superficial interest in boys (as most teenage girls have a typical famous teenage crush on boy band members such as Niall Horan and George Shelley).

The type of girl we would be targeting is informally known as a "townie" or a "styler". These are the average  girls you would find on the high street laughing and shopping with friends. They are the type of girls who like what is "in" at the moment and don't see a problem in following the crowd. They have a keen interest in fashion (as long as it's up to date) and will wear whatever the most popular celebrity of the week has been spotted out wearing. Therefore we would have to do a lot of publicising. We would also have to make sure our film was good enough to be a "must see" by including key elements of the genres that appeal most to teenage girls.

Here is the UK Tribes definition of a "townie"...

 

 

Our perfect audience member would enjoy watching films like 'Gone' but also enjoy things like 'I am Number 4' and other movies that are a combination of thrilling action and teen romance. They will enjoy going out with their friends and seeing popular films in the cinema just for the expeince of going out and they will be drawn to film by the high-profile and attractive actors and the intriguing plot. Townies often follow what is seen as being "in" and the main method to attract them would be word of mouth and chat shows/publicity stunts with the actors. We have used an actress that is pretty for the main role but she is still an image that the audience can relate to. In the film we would have used an attractive male to play the role of the love interest, a character that these girls could lust over!

Evaluation Point 3- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Point 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The blonde girl is the actress Erin Gerasimovich from the 2012 film Prisoners.

This film is similar to ours as it is in the same genre and they are both about a child/children that go missing and the search to find them. These films are both thrillers about abductions.

And this is Chloe Chapman, the little girl we used in our opening titles.

 

 

We conformed to the typical little girly girl stereotype by using a cute girl with blonde hair and an innocent face. We had her wearing pink and purple because they are the colours that people always associate with girls. She is small and has a high pitched voice and giggle, making her the kind of kid that the audience will find adorable and will make them emotional when she goes missing. When they are crossing the road, Chloe is holding Tammy's hand making her look dependant on Tammy and showing that Tammy is a caregiver for Chloe. In the real film, the little girl is on her dad's shoulders, making her look tiny in comparison with the adults and also showing the child's dependence on her father. Also in that same image, all the adults are wearing quite dull and dark clothes, making the pink of the little girl's jacket and clothes seem bright and lively. This could symbolise the importance of their daughter in their lives and how she brings colour and happiness. her messy hair makes her look scruffy and like she needs someone to take care of her.

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

 

Shot 1. Our company production name is TaLK Productions and we thought that a mouth would be the best way to represent this in our ident. Films often start  with the relevant distribution/production company idents and so we made an ident to include at the beginning of our piece. Some idents are silent but we thought that it would fit with the style of our company to include a voice. We reflected the clip and put our company logo in the middle, choosing effects that made it look bright and quirky. We used other idents like the ident for Bad Robots as inspiration for ours, especially in regard to using the voice in the clip. We decided to put it right at the beginning, before the other ident because of the use of a voice in the clip and we wanted to keep the other clip silent with only the background soundtrack to allow the audience to settle into the the mellower and more suspenseful atmosphere.

Shot 2.  Lakeshore Entertainment is a distribution company that has distributed, produced and exhibited many other films in this thriller genre. It is one of the genres that they are most well known for and they have distributed many successful films too. They also produced lots of other films aimed towards our target audience of teenage girls and young adults. Finally, the ident for this company is simple and the sepia tones make it quite mellow. This really helped to support to atmosphere we wanted to create at the start of the film. Some film idents have sounds that are iconic to their ident however we decided that it would ruin the atmosphere and decided instead to keep the clip silent but include the backing sound-track to help the flow between clips.

Shot 3. We made sure that Chloe, the little girl, wore bright and happy colours because we felt that it would show that she represented happiness in her sister's life. This shot shows that well as her bright pink and purple outfit contrast greatly with the grey road and the murky puddle. Also, she is in the process of jumping in the puddle and this represents her youth and energy. In films, you often find that the victim is instantly likable or seen as being innocent and cute and that was the effect we were going for here. As Chloe is taken quite early on in the film, the audience needed to like her immediately and feel the same sense of loss as her sister and family. this emotional attachment makes the film more enjoyable and poignant for the watcher. We felt that the titles needed to be simple so as not to detract from the images that are shown in the film. The white of the font was clear against the background images and the writing is big enough to be read clearly but not so big that the watch can't see anything past them.

Shot 4. Shot 4 is taken from a tracking shot that follows the Frisbee from when Tammy/ "big sister" throws it to when Chloe picks it up off the grass. We chose to include various shot types and angles because most films aren't shown from one stationary camera position. We wanted to keep it dynamic and interesting to watch. We chose a pink Frisbee because it is a very happy colour and it also stands out and is easy to follow. This scene is a very informative one as it shows the fun between the sisters and their relationship. It is cute and makes the audience want the film to go in their favour. I've noticed in many other films of this genre and for this audience, that they often make the main protagonist and 'good guys' likable and people the audience can relate to from the start of the film.

Shot 5. We used flashes of images like this, with Tammy writing a missing child poster with a poster of her, Chloe and their mum. This is foreshadowing the events in the future and the quick flashes mean that the opening is more interesting to watch. I think it brings you closer to the characters too because the watcher knows that the sisters only have a limited time left together before the events unfold. We used a high angle shot to make her look smaller and vulnerable but we were close enough that the writing on the poster could still be read. Pictures of Chloe when she was younger were placed around Tammy, we felt this would make the scene more sentimental and touching as well as give the audience an insight into her childhood.

Shot 6. This shot was one of the more obvious shots from the view of the kidnapper. The audience don't know this is the kidnapper but it is clear that it is a point-of-view shot and the way the person is concealed amongst the branches gives the impression that they don't want to be seen. We added the sound effect of a man breathing heavily to increase the suspense and tension and create and eerie atmosphere. The transition between this clip and the one previous to it is quite a sudden jump cut and there is a loud crackle of leaves, this should make the audience jump out of the false sense of ease they were experiencing before. While the opening is still quite calm and slow paced, this shot give the audience a preview to the suspense that they will experience later in the film. We framed Chloe and Tammy in the park to make it clear that they were the subject of the shot and they were in focus too.

Shot 7. We had originally planned to use the title 'Missing' that was on the poster but to make it clearer that that was the title we chose instead to overlay the title on the poster and then cut to the stark white on black. The title is simple and to-the-point. We took inspiration from film titles like 'Taken' and 'Gone'. We chose the effect because it made the title more dynamic to watch and maintained the tension.

Shot 8. The picture on the missing child poster is a scene from a birthday party with Chloe in the middle and Tammy and Justine (the mum) on either side. The previous shot was of the poster but zoomed in on the title 'Missing'. This shot is after the title and the camera returned back to the poster and zoomed in on the picture instead. The static photo comes to life, showing the scene where the photo was taken. We felt that this was an indication of the timing, showing that these events were happening before Chloe was taken. This also made a good transition between the opening scene and title to the start of the main body of the film. We also showed the change by the shift between the black and white photograph and the full colour of the film.

Shot 9. We set the location to look bright and colourful with party balloons and bright furniture. The scene was clearly a birthday party, shown by the party hats, balloons and birthday cake as well as the singing of 'Happy Birthday'. We had Chloe dressed in a girly party dress too, making her look youthful and a typical girly little girl. We wanted to create a sense of normalcy, this was just a simple birthday party. We chose to film the scene with a hand-held camera to give it the 'home-video' feel. This feels more personal and casual for the audience.

32. Final Edit