Final Sequence

 Here is my final opening sequence. 

CCR Task 4 How did you integrate technologies software, hardware and online in this project?

Here is a link to a website I created for my CCR task 4 on how I integrated technologies such as online, software and hardware. 

https://siennafriend1.wixsite.com/sienna-ccr-task-4

CCR Task 3 How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

Here is a link to a Prezi I created on the production skills I have developed during this project. 

\

CCR Task 2 How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

Our Target Audience 

 Our target audience are 18-19 year old males. 

This is based off my research blogger post. 

Link to my target audience post https://siennaa1media1.blogspot.com/2022/03/taget-audience.html

Engaging our audience 

Graphic Violence:

In our opening sequence we included graphic violence. We did this to attract our target audience of 18-19 year old males. It is more common for this audience to want to watch more gory violence. We exaggerated the hits with pleonastic sound effects, essentially making them look harder and more painful. We featured the main character hitting one victim across the face twice with a hammer and another victim being hit hard once in the head with a hammer. We use fake blood and makeup to make the hits and fighting look more severe.  We also added props such as a gun to indicate the rest of the film was going to include action and weapons. We did this in hopes that it would engage our audience by meeting their expectations in regards to our genre. 

Casting:

We also tried to attract our audience by casting a pretty girl. For our sequence she was wearing a green silk dress and heels. She had her makeup and hair done as though she was on a night out. This engages our target audience as the heterosexual males would find her attractive especially when the camera focuses on her body. This links to Laura Mulvey's theory of Male Gaze. 

Setting:

We set our opening sequence in a club. We did this because it is a popular place 18-19 year olds go to. It is familiar, and also exciting. By using a club as our location we caught the audiences attention, therefor engaging them, particularly with the striking neon lights.

Unanswered Questions:

We left our sequence with answer questions. We did this so our audience would be left wanting to find out more. Who is this man? Why has he killed these people? Why has he spared the girls life? Where and what is he going to do next? Does he work for someone? It is typical for the thriller genre to have an element of question and mystery, we copied this theme to meet the viewers expectation of the genre, therefor attracting them to want to watch more. This can be applied to Barthe's theory of enigma code. He says 'producers want audiences to keep watching.' Our group as the producers aimed to get the audience to keep watching by including common thriller trends, like unanswered questions.

Mysterious Protagonist:

To add a layer our mystery to our opening sequence we left the main killer faceless. By not identifying his face he comes across as a dark villain who is intimidating but also interesting. We can tell by his build he is quite strong and masculine. By doing this we leave the audience wanting to see who this man is and question why he has killed these people. Through his actions we can tell he skilful at fighting and has experience. This element engages our audience because there are layers of his character we are yet to discover.

*Screenshots where the main character is faceless 

I think our opening was pretty successful in engaging our target audience. We included thriller genre trends to meet the audiences expectation so they would be interested in watching more. The graphic violence, blood, casting, unanswered questions and mysterious protagonists work together to capture our target audiences attention.  I think we could have improved our sequence by adding more dead bodies to the ground to make the opening that bit more shocking. It also could have been more engaging to add a bit of a fight back from the victims. In our sequence they are very weak and are killed easily. Adding a struggling fight scene keeps the audience on the edges of their seats and engages them because they will want to find out who wins. This can apply to Blumler and Kats theory of uses and gratification, to relation to why audiences react, and engage in media consumption. I believe for our opening sequence it is diversion or escapism, enjoying the entertainment. Over all, i'm happy with how our opening sequence turned out, and I believe we stuck to the conventions of our genre well.

 Link to my blog post for other genre conventions and film comparisons https://siennaa1media1.blogspot.com/2022/03/we-are-researching-into-conventions-of.html

A poster I designed for BareThread:

I hinted at the narrative by including the main girl in the centre of the poster. She is key in our sequence and will be a main character later in the film. Again, this attracts our target audience because she is a pretty girl who older teenage males can appreciate. I hinted at the setting by using bright neon colours and light strips to show that it is based around an urban club location. This attracts our target audience because this is a fresh, new environment they can now go to. The bright pink, blue and red makes the poster stand out from a distance so it is more memorable. I added a layer of mystery by not revelling the faceless villain in the poster. This keeps him unknown and unexpected. Because our film is a violent thriller I decided to release it before halloween, this is the perfect time to attract an audience wanting to watch scary films for halloween. It is typical thriller and horror films come out at this time, so we are primarily following the trend so our film sells better. I added an 18+ symbol to indicate the age guidelines and attract our target audience because they are just old enough to watch it.

BBFC Age Rating Link - https://siennaa1media1.blogspot.com/2022/03/bbfc.html 

I chose Lionsgate Films as the studio that would distribute our film. Lionsgate films produced thriller films such as John Wick and Punisher which are films we took inspiration from. The founder of Lionsgate films is Frank Giustra, he created the film company in 1998 in America. 

Marketing Strategy -

I would start my marketing scheme with both new and old media. For new media, I would use social medias such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tiktok to create awareness and demand. I would create their own accounts for the film however I would also feature the film on Lionsgate's accounts (which has 1M followers) to get it started. I would start hashtags like #hammertime or #Barethread. LionGate often create hashtags for their films. I would create teasers and suspenseful trailers to capture the audiences attention. In the trailers I would attempted to display the thriller conventions and themes to attract our target audience. I would feature moments of graphic violence, blood, fights, unanswered questions, mysterious characters and our youth locations such as a club in the opening. 

John Wick is a good example where they feature these conventions to capture the audiences attention. 

Along with the new media I would also include old media to widen our audience. I would market the film on billboards and posters. This reaches of wider audience because everyone will see them, where as with social media our Tiktok marketing videos will only come up on those who are interested in similar films. 

Lionsgate films promoted their thriller film Punisher on a big billboard, so, those driving past regardless if they are interested in thrillers or not will see the advertisement. The company are reaching a wider audience. 

Distribution - 

In terms of distribution I would have a cinema release because the film features a lot of cinematic experience moments where i believe people will want to pay to it on the big screens. I would have a short distribution chain the release the film of streaming sights such as Sky Go, Tv Cinema, Virgin TV Go, Netflix and Amazon. I choose these streaming platform because these are the streaming platforms Lionsgate film usually uses to exhibit their films. 

Here is an example where Lionsgate films has released their thriller film John Wick 2 on Netflix.

Releasing our film on streaming platforms comes with the problem of Piracy. I would attempt to fight piracy by creating merch, or collectable items that cannot be copied with out paying for it. This relates to Gerd Leonhard's theory of 'Content 2.0'. I would create limited edition steel books, vinyls of the soundtracks, clothing, and collectable cards of the characters. This would also give back to the film company in creating revenue. 

Due to the success of Punisher they released limited edition steel books. 

CCR Task 1 'How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?'

 Here is a presentation I created answering the question of 'how does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues.' 

Post Production Part 2

A reflect on our editing of our final sequence. 

We created tension with the first shot which had a long duration. We made the decision that once the fighting started we wanted to make quick cuts, to add to the action genre. We tried to make our editing choices so that our target audience of males between 18-19 would want to keep watching. We didn't reveal the main killers face, we did this by cropping the shot. This leaves room for curiosity. We also gave the main female actress a lot of screen time as she is very pretty and would appeal to our target audience. 

We made our titles by following the original template. After trying out a few different types we agreed collectively on a white colour. We then read each title quickly to set the duration. We did this so slow readers would have the chance to read them but each title isn't too long for the average person. We made our titles appear at the start and at the end of the sequence so the middle of the opening sequence was just focused on the action. 

At the start we did come across a few issues do to with our audio. Saskia made a piece of music from home for us to use in our sequence. However, once we put it with the visuals it just didn't work together. We needed to find a solution, because all audio needed to be finished that day. 

So, we started by picking foley sounds to match the visuals. This included finding sounds such fighting, punches, guns clicking, deep breaths and bodies falling. Once we had matched all the sounds to the visuals on the timeline, we added a low level of air conditioning buzzing into the space to give the audio depth. Once we had done that we got an un-copyrighted piece of club music, added reverb and other audio techniques to make the music sound as though it was coming from inside the club, rather than a soundtrack. This made the sequence look realistic and made the viewer feel like they were inside the club themselves. 

We included an effect where in the first shot it starts off slow and then over 40 seconds it gets quicker and quicker so by the end it is playing in real time. The gradual effect makes the main female actress look terrified and almost still a bit drunk. On the part of the opening sequence when Mike gets hit with a hammer we did two takes. One where theres no makeup on Mike and one where he has a gory wound on his forehead. We made half of the hit in reverse so it looked like the hammer did that effect.  

I feel really happy with how our title sequence turned out. I think after over coming the audio issues everything came together perfectly.  I loved the especially loved the lighting and concept of our idea. 

Post Production - Part 1

Firstly in our editing process we went over the raw footage found the the area called rushes. After reviewing all our footage we then dragged our favourite shots onto the timeline. If we had more footage we would have created another folder to put all the shots we wanted but we have very little time, so given that we don't have hours of footage this proved to be quicker. Once we had done that we duplicated the timeline so if we wanted to go back or find the original clip it would be easy. 

After watching the footage back we noticed a few mistakes. When our main actor Ted hits our victim Raff across the face you can clearly see he doesn't actually hit his face, making the sequence look unrealistic. We discovered that we can actually crop the frame a bit higher, so you don't actually see the hit. We had the same problem when Ted hits the gun out of Mikes hand. This issue this time was the the subjects were in the middle of the frame, so we couldn't slightly cut the shot. We found our way around it by speeding up the duration of the clip and using fast editing techniques to hide the hit.

We made the choice of sticking with the first backwards panning shot for the first 30-40 seconds without any cut aways. We did this to add tension and give time for titles to appear etc. After that clip we began doing fast cuts in the action. 

If we look back on our story board, it is quite different. We originally started with the girl crying and then a cut away to the club and dead bodies. We had the idea of going back and fourth several times before we introduced the main killer. It is interesting how much our idea has changed, even in the first 30-40 seconds of editing. However, I much prefer the way we shot it.

Another choice we made in the first couple days of editing was to include a reverse shot to convey that Mike had been hit with a hammer. We did the same motion but one take without gory makeup and one with. We then stuck them together and put the second take in reverse to make it look like the hit had made this effect. This technique worked well and helped support the idea that the main killer Ted was ruthless and experienced in killing.