Evaluation Task #7: What Do I Feel I've Learnt in the Progression from my Preliminary Task to the Full Product?

Evaluation Task #6: What Have I Learnt about Technologies from the Process of Constructing Our Product?

We've made annotations for our video to describe what we have learnt about technologies.

Evaluation Task #5: How Did You Attract/Adress your Audience?

Our target audience will be somewhere from 16 to 40 year-olds. We would like to see experienced people in the cinemas. They will probably be the members of middle-class and upper middle-class, because they will be attracted by the setting. And thriller lovers will appreciate the atmosphere, although it resembles drama in a way.

The beautiful appeals to everyone and we have some beautiful shots like this, so hopefully the audience will appreciate it. And also some very well-known names.

 



Our movie may be boring for the kids less than 15 years old. It is not an action movie, it is a slow-building and hopefully profound thriller-drama. Atmosphere in the movie may be as important as in "American Hustle", although this is a pure drama with elements of crime and melodrama (I don't compare our creation with "American Hustle"). Our movie is going immerse the audience very deeply into feelings of the main character. And only older audience may fully appreciate what we will show in this psychological thriller.

Religious people may like it as well, although when they see the girl killing herself their reaction may be unpredictable. However, after that they will recognize a huge sacrifice of her to God.

 





Overall, this is a multi-level thriller-drama which should attract our target audience by various relevant techniques, including tension, crime, beautiful shots names and profound idea.   

Evaluation task #4: Who Would Be the Target Audience for Our Media Product?

We recorded several interviews with people talking about their attitudes towards the thriller genre and towards the movie that we would probably get in the end.

We've got the interviews of people representing 3 different age groups, namely: females 16-17; males 16-17 and males over 40. 
In the interviews that we've taken there were several patterns. The general tendency is that the people would rather watch it at home than go to the cinema. Only one of the interviewees (female, 17-years-old) claimed that she would watch it in the cinema. The other tendency is that people would rather illegally download our movie rather than buy a DVD. But there was a consistent interest in our movie and all the interviewees assured that they would watch it.

The likely result is that our movie, if it is in the cinema, won't get a huge box office. But taking into consideration that it has law budget he can take our money back. However, I would say that only big movie lovers would show up in the cinema.
So our audience will be predominantly cinemagoers. And our primary target audience will vary from 20 to 40 years-olds and secondary target audience will be over 40. This may turn out to be more complicated story which will mostly appeal to older people.

Evaluation task #3: A Possible Distributor for Our Thriller?

Type of product we've finally got:

To my mind our sequence is from a psychological thriller with some business elements. But mostly it is about contemplation and sufferings of the main hero about his daughter. We see the realization of what he has done and so he takes lots of attempts to change himself during the movie. This is about his atonement. And finally, after he went through all this anguish, he comes to a God - meaning, becomes religious. That's the only thing that he could make for his dear departed girl.

So this a low-budget, indepent British movie. Having said "low-budget", I would like to point out that this means around $4-5 million. Having said "independent", I meant independent and having said "British"... Well, in my opinion, this is closer to the English product. However, we didn't have any particular preferences about the nationality of our characters. To be honest, intially, I intended to make it more American with a Congressman as the main character, but since we had to find a proper link to connect our carracters the issue nationality retreated on the background.

This won't be a great commercial success, if there is any kind of success at all. I assume, this is not that type of movie is not what everyone will crave to see in the first place. Moreover, I doubted that this movie would be critically acclaimed... However, it depends on the director... 

The possible distributor:

Well, there are several companies which I can imagine in the role of the distributor of our movie. In my view, Film4 may be one of the choices. 

Now it specializes on broadcasting huge blockbuster mainstream movies alond side their own movies produced by Film4 Production. It produced such movies as "Sightseers", "In Bruges", "Trance", "Never Let Me Go", "Submarine" and so on. These are very popular British movies who had comparatively small budget. I think we can aim for the same thing.

In their distributor's list, there are some movies from the list above, but it predominantly distributes Hollywodd movies such as "The Fighter" or "Percy Jackson". Still, I think it is quite possible that we can draw their attention. But it's more likely that this kind of movie should be produced by Film4 and then distributed than simply distributed. 

Another company is StudioCanal.

This is a reather big French company which distributed such movies as "Inside Llewyn Davis", "Silver Linings Playbook", "The Place Beyond the Pines", "Moonrise Kingdom", "Perfect Sense" and so on. Although these movies are utterly increadible (and I mean each and everyone of them) and ours is not of any comparasion with them, there is a huge variety of other movies which can suit our scale and quality. For instance, "State of Play" and this kind of films.

It is also possible that our movie is produced by StuudioCanal, since almost all of the movies on the list above are also its production projects.

The trird possible distributor is Magnolia Pictures.

Magnolia Pictures is an American production and distribution company. Despite the fact that it is American, I would still say that it suits our thriller. Among Magnolia's last distribution projects are art-house films predominantly. For instance, Lars fon Triers' "Nimphomaniac" and "Melancholia" or Terence Malick's "To the Wonder". Our movie is not from this category, of course, but it may be turned into a real art-house movie about religion and then we may add to the list of Magnolia Pictures distribution projects. 

One more film company which is very likely to distribute our movie is "UK Film Council".

"UK Film Council" was created to develop and promote film industry in the UK. So it produces and distributes British independet movies predominantly such as "Tyrannosaur", "Submarine", "In the Loop", "Nowhere Boy" and so on. I consider this to be a perfect company to produce and distribute our movie, since it is British independent movie. And they are not affraid of making low-budget movies as well. So here is our ideal distributor, to my mind. 

Evaluation task #2: In What Ways Does our Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

We have two major characters in our sequence, namely: a rich businessman and girl, who is actually his daughter. When representing any type of a person (class, education etc.) you're trying to enrich you character with a set of universal stereotypical features that will help the audience to immediately identify the type of personality you intended to show. The clarity is the major component since that gives an audience an understanding of what you are trying to demonstrate and leads to a "preferred reading".

Businessman

Arguably, the businessman in our movie is a member of the upper class. He can find profit in everything he sees. He is also a white man (this is not arguably). There are several features that may give a hint to the audience about the social group (e.g. white skin) where he belongs. 

The first thing is his clothes...

He wears a very nice, neat suit, white shirt and a beautiful tie, incomparable shoes. Well, not everyone can afford to buy such a suit... so we can make an assumption that he is quite a rich person or, at least, economically independent. But his fantastic watch!.. Yes, this explicitly illustrates his social class... upper class. The way he behaves - calm and confident, although he probably doesn't feel comfortable demolishing churches. Also a very expensive pen he uses to sign the papers gives us an idea of how affluent he is (although you won't see much of it in the sequence, you should know that the pen is fabulous).

The second thing is his house and facilities...

The bathroom where he finds himself is mind-boggling. All the surfaces shine and so we can see his reflection in each shot. He has special facilities such as a hand-dryer, which you are very unlikely to meet in the vast majority of the houses. 
The corridor is huge and may remind of some political building (or any kind of a large building). You may also notice a blue carpet on the floor, the symbol of comfort and somewhat affluence.

Another detail which is worth mentioning is the door which we may see at the end of the sequence. This is not simply a door - this is a massive door, carved door, beautiful door.
All in all, we have a very wealthy person whose primary purpose is to make profit out of everything he sees.

Girl
Since the girl is presumably a daughter of the main hero, she must be from the same class. Her clothes doesn't refer to her belonging though. I would say, it's almost impossible to identify who she is in terms of class, education etc. However, this may be a result of religiousness. To my mind (maybe I'm mistaken), there are not so many wealthy and at the same time religious people, especially, if they are economists or children of economists. So here we have an unusual mixture which reflects in girl's appearance.



Her religiousness was shown through a Bible in her hand and a small necklace with cross hanging on her neck. On the other hand, she wears "Nike" boots which doesn't match with bible at all. Probably, she is not sure what she is yet. Perhaps, this mismatch is possible to explain by her age, meaning she is not completely formed yet. And instead of religion there could have been any subculture as well as religion itself. So we tried to present our character as a typical teenager who desperately believes in something and even kills herself because of her beliefs.

Evaluation task #1: In What Ways Does our Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Evaluation task #1 from hurtwoodhousemedia5

Final product