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

Evaluation Task 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

 

Evaluation Task 4: Target Audience

Our film is aimed at a target audience of mid-to-late teens and early twenties, in both genders.
I have interviewed brother and sister who are close in age but very different in tastes when it comes to music, past times and film preferences.


Name: Rose Swan
Age: 19
Employment: I currently am in university studying photography and media.
Favourite Films: I love things like Mean Girls and all those classic girly films, but that doesn't stop me loving a good horror film. My favourite is 'The Hills Have Eyes'
Favourite Music: I'm very into partying, being at university, so at the moment I'm big into house and club music.
Favourite TV Shows: I've just started watching 'Black Mirror' on Channel 4, and I am loving it. It has that political thriller vibe that I love. I also love all the classic girly things like, Made in Chelsea, TOWIE etc.
British or American Films?: 100% American films, they are just more out there and exciting, well of the ones I've seen.
British or American TV?: When it comes to TV I much prefer British as I think it's grittier...well not shows like TOWIE!
Favourite film genre: Don't care as long as I enjoy it. I won't restrict the films I watch because of the genre of it.
Describe yourself in 3 words: Outgoing, fun and creative.

I then interviewed Rose's Brother:


Name: Jack Swan
Age: 17
Subjects Studied: I am in my final year of A-Levels and I am studying Music Tech, English and Psychology.
Past Times: I am an avid skateboarder, I skate everywhere and anywhere. I also love DJ-ing and I often play at parties.
Favourite Music: Being into DJ-ing I have to broaden my knowledge of music. I like Dubstep and rap but I won't object to listening to someone like Ben Howard.
Favourite TV Shows:  I love South Park and The Office. They're both hilarious.
British or American Films?: I love British films, expecially This Is England, that's probably my favourite film ever. Or Kidulthood, that's another good one!
British or American TV? I really don't mind, I'll watch whatever as long as it's funny.
Favourite film genre?: The only things I will object to are chick-flicks and musicals. I'll watch everything else.
Describe yourself in 3 words: Cooler than you. (Am I allowed to say that?)





For our secondary target audience we are aiming towards males of about early 30's. These are the people that wouldn't necessarily be willing to go to the cinema and watch it, but would watch it on DVD, Sky, Netflix etc.
 Looking at the demographics of the film that majorly inspired and influenced us, American Psycho, we can see that there is a pretty even spread over the audience ratings. It would seem that the primary audience is males and female under 18, not too unlike ours. The secondary audience is between 18-29 in both genders, with only a very slight drop in ratings. The major drop occurs when we hit 45+, this could be due to the violent factors or language used. Having seen this, we would know not to target the old audiences and to target the marketing to viewers between 16 and 44. This is a very wide audience and covers a variety of demographics.

Evaluation Task 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?

Our opening sequence is about a young journalist who is working after hours in his office. He believes that no woman is good enough for him so his aim is to chop up different women so he can put them back together to create the perfect woman. It just so happens that there is another beautiful office worker, working late that night. He takes this opportunity to take her out to dinner, but only after he's noticed that she has the perfect ear. Our opening features a lot of internal voice over, which tells the audience the true thoughts of this character.


Obviously the piece we have produced is only at A-Level standard, uses British actors and is set in a small office in Dorking. Having said that, we feel that we could target an American audience. To do this we would go knocking on the doors of Lions Gate Films. Not only do they produce films they also distribute films widely.

The film 'May' is an example of a small scale production that was distributed by Lion's Gate and coincidentally it has a very similar story line to our film. May is trying to find a best friend so in turn she chops up people to then sew them back together to create the perfect best friend\. Sounds a lot like our idea, right? It was produced by a very small company called '2 Loop Productions', they have only made one other film called 'The Elder Son' this gives the impression that they are not very experienced when it comes to producing, but with the help of larger distribution companies they can still get their film out there.

Another film that we have talked about a huge amount is 'American Psycho' which was produced by Lion's Gate. This gives us the indication that Lion's Gate are the best of both worlds. Not only can they produce massive films, like 'American Psycho', they can also widely distribute.

Another plus side to Lion's Gate is they aren't primarily high or low budget. They vary which is great because our film doesn't require a high budget. Using Lion's Gate would branch out to the American audiences. I think they would enjoy a film like this because it would seem that they like this sort of genre (they loved American Psycho and Dexter).

Evaluation Task 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?

We chose to have two characters in our opening,a white male and a white blonde female.

The Blonde Female:
We have chosen to make her a ditsy character, which is fitting with the stereotype of blondes. Her desk is covered with trashy magazines and bright pink stickynotes. This creates a negative representation of female workers who actually have serious jobs. She plays with her hair constantly using it to flirt with the male. She wears a tight short black skirt with a fitted pale pink top. We can assume that most offices around the country will have the fit office girl that everyone fancies. We have drawn on this and heightened it for the purpose of our film. We have stuck with the idea of the stupid blonde dying first, like in a lot of horror/thriller films nowadays.

A classic example is Drew Barrymore in the opening of Scream.

We see our female negatively at the beginning because she is annoying and persistant. As the audience we want to side with the male because he is keeping to himself and trying to 'work'. Once we hear what he is saying in his head, we flip to seeing her positively because she is so unaware of what is going to happen to her.


The White Male:

We have chosen to have an attractive white male as our killer. Unlike the ditsy blonde he is a hard worker and it is clear that he got his job becuase he's smart, not because of his looks. He is clean shaven and wears nice clothes, which is what will attract the female audience. What makes our killer scary is the fact that he is so normal and polite on the outside, but on the inside he is thinking messed up things. It's much more disconcerting knowing that your everyday 'girl or guy next door' could have a stash of bodies in their basement, than a killer that looks different. For example, Dexer uses an attractive male who works at a normal police job fighting crime. They subvert this stereotype of a crazed killer by using his attractive looks and job as a cover. This is what we tried to do.
However films such as Scream, use a killer that obviously looks dangerous. Somehow this sits better with us because we can see the danger head on, and we don't see his face.

Therefore we have subverted the stereotype, just like Dexter and American Psycho, that killers have to look different. Because really, in our world you don't know what a killer looks like - they could be your work collegue.

Evaluation Task 1: In what way does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

 

The Finished Sequence