How did you attract/address your audience?

How we attracted an audience

Screen shot 1 of Suspect

One of the main unique selling points our opening sequence withholds is the positioning of the characters and camera.  It is unique to view the sequence in position of one of the characters, as though the audience are right behind the stalker, the suspence builds as they are positioned to feel very included and present. 

Screen Shot 2 of Suspect

By using real life locations, 'Suspect' becomes easy to relate to for the audience.  Including a real English school and the area around it, viewers feel able to emphasise with the characters as the vast majority would of experienced the very same of walking out of school for many years in their lives, whether it be recent or not.  Sign posts, road markings and cars allow realism be introduced to the film and therefore becomes a unique selling point.

After discussing our target audience, then taking accessibility issues into consideration, we gathered a group of people to view our sequence and then asked for feedback.  All interviewees came from Kings Langley School, and was of different ages.


When it comes to rating our opening sequence, and after analysing the bbfc guidlines (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines), i dont feel that it would be of a high rating due to violence not actually being shown, only discussed.  The film remains on the laws side as it follows the polices' investigation, rather than continuing with the criminal.  No bad language, sexual scenes or ones that would discriminate against disabled or ethnic groups appear either.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Attracting a sophisticated audience, i think our opening sequence would attract both viewers of a middle age aswell as late teenage as the characters featured are between 15-16 years old and the young audience could therefore relate to them.  Also, i feel this film raises awareness to teenagers and the importance of being safe at all times, so parents of children would also feel inclined to watch the film.  Any fans of mystery and crime dramas would be attracted to 'Suspect', males beween 24+ would particuarly be intrested in this production. 

A male of age 34, for example, would most probably be intrested in our film.  With a career involving the metropolitan police of London, and withholding a partner of similar age and taste, maybe with a job as a teacher or one that works in the health system, both counterparts of the couple would possibley be intrested in the film as they both work in similar walks of life as the characters that would be presented futher along in the film. 

Potential Audience

Potential Audience

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Social Groups

L.A Suspect

Our Opening Sequence, 'Suspect'

L.A suspect features over the sholder shots of one character following another, just like our opening sequence did.  L.A suspect is also a crime drama film, so similarites with conventions such as that arose.  The Mise-en-scene of costume represents the teenage age of the girls featured, and conveys them as being vunerable and oblivious to the people around her.  Which suggests to the audience that all teenage girls are careless and uneducated of the dangers of being alone in society.  This introduces peadophilic issues which arise in real life occurances, and is a difficult topic to approach.  Stereotypical interpretations of a male being the kidnapper feature in our sequence, and we reflect a particuarly stereotypical view of it being a school girl that is kidnapped.

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

Directors Commentry on 'Suspect'

A police investigation storyline following a kidnapping suggests a mystery drama genre, we used ideas from films produced such as 1997's 'L.A Confidential', North By Northwest (1959), The Usual Suspects (1995) and many others as these films followed the crime/drama/mystery genre which we as a group are intending to meet.  In order to produce an opening sequence to meet this criteria, we presented the sequence by beggining straight into the story.  We made the the storyline easy to understand by not only positioning the 'stalker' infront of the camera, following the school girl, but also by the voice over, which was used to explain what has happened and how the footage sent into the police station was crucial to finding the kidnapper and the girl kidnapped.

Stalker positioned behind the girl, infront of the camera

The narrative enigma remains unanswered in the opening sequence and in order for them to be answered, the entire film must be watched.  The voice over explains that there have been many kidnappings of the late and with an escaped convict, the police are becoming extreamley worried that the convict is linked with the kidnappings and as a result, is the murderer of the bodies being found around the same area.  The enigma would of been underpinned in the rest of the film as the plot is based on a police investigation.  This therefore is very conventional to an opening sequence, as the narrative enigma is usually unfolded throughout the entire film, rather than given away in the opening as the gripping, attention drawing would be lost before the film has even properly began.

The camera work follows conventional shot sizes and angles throughout the sequence, as we wanted the sequence to be easy to follow.  Despite this, we edited the sequence together quite quickly as following a girl walking down the road became quite time consuming to watch and relatively boring, also, we wanted the sequence to appear as home footage so we used a hand held camera for the following scene.  This is very unconventional to a drama, but not so much for a mystery crime film. 

Variety of different shot sizes included

Through the structure of the sequence, the characters are introduced to the audience as they say goodbye to eachother at the school gates.  The stalker is not introduced as such as he remains unknown through the film, so the back of the stalker is only shown to the audience. It is conventional for the characters to be introduced in an non obvious way through films, however, conventions are broken when the kidnappers face is kept hidden. As he, argubley, is the main character or concept in this film, and is unidentified to the audience.

Kidnapper remains unknown

Characters dialogue is included in the sequence and is heard over the top of a low tempo, sombre music track which was used to create the intense atmosphere of the situation.  It is conventional to have diegetic dialogue included and non diegetic music within a opening sequence, as it allows the audience to begin to identify with the characters aswell as be instantly introduced with the theme and overall atmosphere that the film is produced with.  The voice over is slightly unconventional to this particular genre but it is not completely uncommon as films often use them in the opening sequence inorder to explain previous stories or characters backgrounds in order for the audience to follow the plot easily.

The mise-en-scene of our opening sequence follows the normal conventions as the characters are dressed in believable costume of the story line, the lighting is natural to the location and the character movement is natural.  Characters make up is also conventional.

Characters conventional costume to the setting

The last step made in editing our opening sequence was to position titles in.  It is conventional for a opening sequence to include titles and upon analysing opening sequences of our choosen genre, we matched the titles we used to the same style that they used.  Small, white typography was used in upper case to list the production company, actors, directors, etc, The text was positioned ontop of a black screen, these transitions was included equally throughout the sequence at seperate times. This was conventional to or genre.  We found that small font presented better than large as it looked more professional.

We found through research that small, upper case font positioned on a black screen was conventional for the titles in our genre

Evaluation- Audience Feedback

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=zriilFwMlRU

Final Opening Sequence

Link below will transfer you onto a website in order to view our opening sequence of, 'Suspect'.
http://youtu.be/mZKSK9mFFrQ

Unforchantly, due to a formatt change through the process of compression, the sequence is slightly out of sync.  However, my teacher will send the clip through in its correct formatt.

Post Production

Post Production Report

The first step that needed to be taken in order to edit, was to capture the footage shot onto the schools editing suite.  We then had to watch through the footage many times in order to decide which shots were to be used, we then produced a table for the logging rushes.  In this we listed each clip we were planning to use and the even the ones which we we not.  The description of each clip, scene number and shot number was included in the table.  This activity became extreamely time consuming and relatively frusterating, however the outcome was positive as it made editing run alot smoother and less confussing than it would be if logging rushes were not completed.

The next step was to use the logging rushes to cut the footage to what we was going to use in the opening sequence, then drag them down onto the timeline.  Once the footage was edited together, we included titles in, which listed actors names, our production company, along with the director, etc.  Sound levels were then mixed and an uncopywrite music was loaded onto the opening sequence.  We then asked a focus group to view the sequence and give us feedback.

Production

Production Report
In order to complete our production of an opening sequence to  a film, we as a group had to met to discuss issues which would arise throughout filming.  The location of which we were going to film had previously been decided-  outside Kings Langley School gates, so timing was now to be discussed.  We produced a filming schedual which outlined all the shots in each scene that had to be shot, and distrubuted our free time between each shot.  Timing was difficult as all three of us had lessons at different times which meant that we did not have much time to film, so we agreed to film throughout lunch times also. The position of the camera had to be discussed as the lighting would be natural which could affect the film, aswell as the effect the surroundings would have upon production.

Upon watching back on what was filmed, we decided as a team that the footage was not as good as it should be.  The rules of continuity was not followed and the whole concept of the sequence was confussing as we all had different interpretations of what we thought we was producing.  The original idea of the plot was to film from the kidnappers point of view in the opening sequence, then for the rest of the film to continue in third person of a police investigation.  We decided that this was too complex and can be very misleading, so decided to restructure our sequence.

Following many group meetings in which we discussed exactly what we was setting out to complete this time, and invited many other students to become involved in the filming acting as extras, we refilmed.  While filming this time, we shot each scene from many different angles and distances in order to have a mix of shot sizes and angles which would follow our conventions of our choosen genre. It also granted us the option of choice when it came to editing the sequence together, we could choose which angles we preffered and what we felt looked the best.