Monday, 20 January 2014
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
QUESTION 5
How did you attract/address your audience?
We first interviewed Mr Higgins, a teacher under 35. He told us that in an action film the most important things are the explosions, the main character and how he/she looks like. He said that the genre of the main characters is not important, but he thinks that always is better to see a male, knowing that is easier for him to identify himself with the main character. He opened up telling us that he always wanted to be an action film character such as James Bond and Bruce Willis that show us that every time you watch an action film you want to identify yourself with the main character.
The second person we interviewed was Mr Benzie, another male under 35. I think the ideas which are transmitted for every action film are the same. But when we asked Mr Benzie what he wanted to be in an action film who have never saw before he answered a teacher. It does sound ridiculous, but people want to see normal people in strange situations, because you don’t see a crash car every day but you see a teacher more often. That shows us that the people want to see more characters which are easier for identify themselves with.
The third interview was to Jess and Gemma, our secondary Target Audience (females under 35). This interview was helpful because we had two opinions in the same interview. We have Jess, that support action films, and Gemma who is against them. During the whole interview, we saw the reasons why one of them hates action films; however these are the same reasons which make the other girl like this type of films. This information shows us that, either you like or you don’t like action films. If you want to like an action film, you have to like car crashes, naked women, and fighting… This interview also shows us that the genre of the main character sometimes is important, because a muscular girl is not always beautiful. That help us know when we will make the main character, we have to think about how his look like, pay attention for if he is, natural, good looking, and a sexy.
The questions asked were:
Do you like action/thriller films? Why?
Which is you favourite action/thriller film? And why do you like it?
What do you expect to see in an action/thriller film?
Does the genre of the main character affect the movie?
What do you want to see in an action/thriller film that you have never seen before? And why?
Who is your favourite action/thriller character? And why?
Have you ever wanted to be that character before?
Who is you favourite actor or actors and why?
Generally with this interviews we realised that people still loving action and thriller films, but that maybe a change in the pattern of the story or stories is necessary; because as they said, will be good to see things like normal people in the same trouble as the stereotypical characters, introduction and use of both genres or like a mix with two different films.
After this, we presented our ideas, to with their feedback, decide which one was the best idea and to do it.
Although we were said to do the second idea better than the first one because it was too stereotypical, we finally mixed both; so we have a first scene were the assassins meet the boss and they are handed a picture of the victim and then we have the other scene, with the assassins getting into the house and the protector telling the victim to leave.
So finally it's like this:
We planned to attract out TA audience by using good actors that incite to see the film. As the genre indicates, we have included all or most of the conventions of action films to make it more attractive to the Audience.
Also the enigma, which is really important to promote and attract the audience to the film, and all the questions that come with it, makes the people want to watch the movie. As complement, the story and the characters make the audience want to watch it.
Friday, 10 January 2014
QUESTION 4
Who will be the audience for your media product?
In this graphic above we can see that our TA are males under 35 in the part of action film, but that is males over 35 for thriller films, so we decided that our target audience are males under 35. Probably this man under will be in the middle class or working class. we think that everyone can watch our film so we don't have any expectations about the ethnicity of our audience.
About our secondary audience, that is females under 35, we expect 52% of audience enjoying the film we don't expect them to be from the upper class, instead we expect our secondary audience to be middle-working class. We again don't have any expectations about the ethnicity of our audience.
About our secondary audience, that is females under 35, we expect 52% of audience enjoying the film we don't expect them to be from the upper class, instead we expect our secondary audience to be middle-working class. We again don't have any expectations about the ethnicity of our audience.
In the second graphic, we see the people that consider this genre their favourite;
so we have 20% of males under 35 that consider that thriller films are their favourites, while we have 37% of the same people that say that action films are their favourites. In the category of men over 35 referred to thriller, a 28% of them say that this genre is their favourite, and a 25% of them said that action films are their favourites. About our secondary audience that is females under 35, a 25% of them said that this genre is their favourite.
We expected this audience from the beginning, because its people of our age and we understand them and identify ourselves with them. That is one of the reason why this film is rated 15; we don't want little kids watching our film, we want a semi-mature audience between 15 an 35 years, that can appreciate a good action film. I think that rating help to select our audience, because if we rate the film 15, and we don't want 14 or 10 year olds watching the film, they are going to watch it and we will achieve our TA.
We think that our film is expected to appear in a big multiplex cinema, because we are expecting a very mainstream and great consumer audience. These genre normally is released in multiplex, because as I already said, its a mainstream audience. As well, our TA belongs to a social class C1-C2 so I think they can afford going to cinema to watch it.
TA MEMBER PROFILE
Name: David Harriman
Age: 18
Career: Student
Top favourite action/thriller film: The film David said that he loves and that matches with or genre, it´s Transporter.
Favourite drink: He said that his favourite is Coke, but he also likes to drink Heineken in parties and special occasions.
Interests: David said that he loves football and music and that these things are very important in his life.
Favourite actor/s: He really likes Tom Cruise. He said that he likes his films and the way he acts as well.
Favourite music: He answer this question saying that his favourite music is hip hop music and sometimes rock music. His hip hop favourite artist is Lil Wayne, and in rock he said that he likes bands as The cars or U2.
Favourite books: David loves mystery and crime old books such as: 'Guilty as sin' by Tami Hoag or 'Last car to Elysian Fields' by James Lee Burke.
Thursday, 9 January 2014
QUESTION 3
A film distributor is a single person or a company that is responsible for the marketing of the film. The distributor also plans about when and where the film will be shown once release. Some of the most popular film distributors are: Universal Studios (The Purge, Ted), 20th Century Fox (Hitman, Taken) , Warner Brothers (Inception, The Hangover), Paramount (Shutter Island, Tropic Thunder) or Sony Pictures Entertainment (Django: Unchained, The King's Speech).
I think that our film needs to be distributed by a major distributor, as the kind of films we are trying to 'imitate'. I think that the major distributor will be correct because this is the kind of film the people goes to the cinema to watch.
We decided as a group that the best film distributor for our film, will be 20th Century FOX, because one of the best films in our genre is covered by this company. Apart of that, we think that this company is good to cover big action productions. Although we in fact don't have a big budget, we think our film will have it in real life, so we think that our audience will be a mainstream audience.The Boomdock Saints is an example of a film with a small budget that has made a major success. This film had a budget of 3 million dollars, but then it get 30.6 millions of dollars.
Knowing our Target Audience and our expected big budget, I think that our film might be go to a multiplex, to DVD's or to online place to watch films.
I can't find a film distributor that is specialised in or genre, but I found that many action films like ours are covered by 20th Century FOX or Universal studios instead.
Our Target Audience is men under 35, so we think that the best way to reach our TA will be to advertise it in places like YouTube, the cinema when they go to watch other movies, TV or in public places in the street.
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
QUESTION 2
The social class is divided in:
Upper class: The upper class is the social class composed of those who are wealthy, well-born, or both. They usually wield the greatest political power. In some countries, wealth alone is sufficient to allow entry into the upper class.
Middle class: The middle class is the most contested of the three categorizations, the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the lower and upper classes.
Lower class: Lower class; sometimes described as working class are those employed in low-paying wage jobs with very little economic security.
In our film we don not try to represent any concrete social class. But in fact, the audience will think that the objective (the girl they try to kill) might be someone that belongs to an upper class and that it's someone that might have big amounts of money; in the other side, we have the assassins, that because of the enigma that there is on the film, we don't know if they belong to a middle, lower or upper class, but more probably they belong to a middle class, because they have car and suits.
We don't try to put any stereotypes in the film; so all are just representations of something that may happen anywhere: a white 'rich?' woman is tried to be attacked by two white assassins while she is at home, but her guardian saves her and fight for her life.
If we try to analyse each character and the social class, we will say that:
The boss (Mrs Sorano) pretends to be middle aged, this fits the convention of action films. She is supposed to be Italian, which in part fits in the stereotypes of action characters, but gives a bad image about Italian people because it suggest that they are into crime. The fact that she is a woman challenge the convention of action films where the powerful people normally are men. This is in part a good and a bad representation of women; first it suggest that woman can achieve the same power that men use to have in this genre, but shows that women are able to the same bad things that men.
She doesn't do any physical activity, so we don't know anything about her physical abilities, which is a bad representation about women, because it suggests that women are weak and don't do physical activities. She doesn't show any emotion during the whole scene, which again challenges the convention that women normally take the caring role.
About the assassins the convention is met, because they are both young; I think this is a bad representation of the young people because it shows that they are able to commit crimes. Both assassins are Caucasians, which fits in the convention but gives a bad image about Caucasian people. They are both male, which fits in the convention of action/thriller films; but again that gives a bad image because it suggests that males are able to do bad things to people. Both assassins are in an unspecified social class, but their clothes may suggest that they belong to the middle class, because they are wearing suits, which fits the convention of assassins films, where assassins normally wear suits. Both assassins show a good physical ability, which fits the stereotype and the convention in action films that men normally have a good physical ability.
The victim is young woman. This might be a bad representation of young people because it suggests that young people easily get in trouble. We don't know her social class, but we suppose that she is in the upper class, because the assassins are after her, she have her own house and she has a guardian to take care of her. The fact that she is a woman, suggest that women are weak and need someone to take care of them, which is a bad representation. She is Caucasian.
The protector (Mr White) is supposed to be an Indian young man. There is a good representation of young people in this case, because this makes us see young people as brave and good because he stands in front of the danger to protect the girl. He is Indian, what breaks the convention, because as we normally see in this genre, the good guy normally is Caucasian. This is a great representation of Indian people because they are seen as brave and kind people that can help people in trouble.
He has good physical ability because he can fight the bad guys. This again a good representation of young people.
Upper class: The upper class is the social class composed of those who are wealthy, well-born, or both. They usually wield the greatest political power. In some countries, wealth alone is sufficient to allow entry into the upper class.
Middle class: The middle class is the most contested of the three categorizations, the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the lower and upper classes.
Lower class: Lower class; sometimes described as working class are those employed in low-paying wage jobs with very little economic security.
In our film we don not try to represent any concrete social class. But in fact, the audience will think that the objective (the girl they try to kill) might be someone that belongs to an upper class and that it's someone that might have big amounts of money; in the other side, we have the assassins, that because of the enigma that there is on the film, we don't know if they belong to a middle, lower or upper class, but more probably they belong to a middle class, because they have car and suits.
We don't try to put any stereotypes in the film; so all are just representations of something that may happen anywhere: a white 'rich?' woman is tried to be attacked by two white assassins while she is at home, but her guardian saves her and fight for her life.
If we try to analyse each character and the social class, we will say that:
The boss (Mrs Sorano) pretends to be middle aged, this fits the convention of action films. She is supposed to be Italian, which in part fits in the stereotypes of action characters, but gives a bad image about Italian people because it suggest that they are into crime. The fact that she is a woman challenge the convention of action films where the powerful people normally are men. This is in part a good and a bad representation of women; first it suggest that woman can achieve the same power that men use to have in this genre, but shows that women are able to the same bad things that men.
She doesn't do any physical activity, so we don't know anything about her physical abilities, which is a bad representation about women, because it suggests that women are weak and don't do physical activities. She doesn't show any emotion during the whole scene, which again challenges the convention that women normally take the caring role.
About the assassins the convention is met, because they are both young; I think this is a bad representation of the young people because it shows that they are able to commit crimes. Both assassins are Caucasians, which fits in the convention but gives a bad image about Caucasian people. They are both male, which fits in the convention of action/thriller films; but again that gives a bad image because it suggests that males are able to do bad things to people. Both assassins are in an unspecified social class, but their clothes may suggest that they belong to the middle class, because they are wearing suits, which fits the convention of assassins films, where assassins normally wear suits. Both assassins show a good physical ability, which fits the stereotype and the convention in action films that men normally have a good physical ability.
The victim is young woman. This might be a bad representation of young people because it suggests that young people easily get in trouble. We don't know her social class, but we suppose that she is in the upper class, because the assassins are after her, she have her own house and she has a guardian to take care of her. The fact that she is a woman, suggest that women are weak and need someone to take care of them, which is a bad representation. She is Caucasian.
He has good physical ability because he can fight the bad guys. This again a good representation of young people.
QUESTION 1 (Part 2)
Conventions in action films:
A strong leader
Evil character
Action
Usually big budgets
Good guys normally win
Conventions met and challenged in our film opening:
The first convention of action films im going to talk about are the characters. We fitted the convention of a strong male good guy character with Leo; Then we challenged the stereotypical view of male boss using Lara, with this we also challenge the view that normally in action films, women are weak and unuseful in the storyline.
About the costume we just tried to fit the convention that normally assassins wear suits or leather jackets instead, as it´s the case with James.
We have satisfied the convention of the enigma that normally appear in every film opening. The enigma in our opening is good and clear i think. The questions you have in your mind when you watch it are: Who are the assassins? Why does the boss want to kill the girl? Why is Leo protecting the girl?
About the themes, normally in action films the most seem themes are revenge, money or personal interests; in our opening, the themes that appear are revenge (The boss may want to kill the girl for some reason) and money (both assassins accept the money for killing her).
The conventions in action films say that this genre normally have fast and tense music; so we used it. In the first part we broke the convention not using any non-diegetic sound, but then in the second part we played the music to add tension to the opening, and i think it works well.
Usually, the locations in action movies are exotic places or in the other hand dangerous and dark places. We were in Market Rasen, so it was obviously impossible to have an exotic location. So we had in our opening dark places and then we used well lightened places to break with the convention.
We used some of the typical props in action films such as the gun Lewis is holding or the car James is driving. Although are costumes, i think we can consider the clothes the characters are wearing as props.
We followed the convention about narration in action films; because most of the times action films doesn´t have any narration at all so we didn´t add any narration.
Ad it´s the convention in our genre, we tried to use the same type of editing in action films but we have modified it a little bit. This type of editing consist in fast paced scenes, but we made it a bit slower to add tension to the film. Also we added some effects and sounds to make it better and to fit more the conventions with things as lighting.
We have several camera shots very similar to some that we normally can see in action films. In the firs bit of filming in the office of the boss, we used most of the scene a shot with the camera placed behind the assassins so we can´t see their faces and in front of the boss to see her reactions and movements. Another good shot is the dark shot with the camera placed in outside in front of the car; this one makes tension and increases the sense of danger and the enigma. The last relevant shot is that one in Leo´s viewpoint where we can see Lewis pointing him with the gun in the face.
A strong leader
Evil character
Action
Usually big budgets
Exotic location
Good guys normally win
Conventions met and challenged in our film opening:
The first convention of action films im going to talk about are the characters. We fitted the convention of a strong male good guy character with Leo; Then we challenged the stereotypical view of male boss using Lara, with this we also challenge the view that normally in action films, women are weak and unuseful in the storyline.
About the costume we just tried to fit the convention that normally assassins wear suits or leather jackets instead, as it´s the case with James.
We have satisfied the convention of the enigma that normally appear in every film opening. The enigma in our opening is good and clear i think. The questions you have in your mind when you watch it are: Who are the assassins? Why does the boss want to kill the girl? Why is Leo protecting the girl?
About the themes, normally in action films the most seem themes are revenge, money or personal interests; in our opening, the themes that appear are revenge (The boss may want to kill the girl for some reason) and money (both assassins accept the money for killing her).
The conventions in action films say that this genre normally have fast and tense music; so we used it. In the first part we broke the convention not using any non-diegetic sound, but then in the second part we played the music to add tension to the opening, and i think it works well.
Usually, the locations in action movies are exotic places or in the other hand dangerous and dark places. We were in Market Rasen, so it was obviously impossible to have an exotic location. So we had in our opening dark places and then we used well lightened places to break with the convention.
We used some of the typical props in action films such as the gun Lewis is holding or the car James is driving. Although are costumes, i think we can consider the clothes the characters are wearing as props.
We followed the convention about narration in action films; because most of the times action films doesn´t have any narration at all so we didn´t add any narration.
Ad it´s the convention in our genre, we tried to use the same type of editing in action films but we have modified it a little bit. This type of editing consist in fast paced scenes, but we made it a bit slower to add tension to the film. Also we added some effects and sounds to make it better and to fit more the conventions with things as lighting.
We have several camera shots very similar to some that we normally can see in action films. In the firs bit of filming in the office of the boss, we used most of the scene a shot with the camera placed behind the assassins so we can´t see their faces and in front of the boss to see her reactions and movements. Another good shot is the dark shot with the camera placed in outside in front of the car; this one makes tension and increases the sense of danger and the enigma. The last relevant shot is that one in Leo´s viewpoint where we can see Lewis pointing him with the gun in the face.
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