Feedback - Miss Spencer

Audience research feedback - Although you have clearly researched your subject you need much more detail in this post. At the moment this is a level 2 - in order to improve you should:
Use the graphs/statistics you found within your blog, and ensure you say where you got these from (credit your source)
Think about the audience reception theories - we will be covering these in lesson next week. You must discuss these within an audience post


Genre research feedback
Your genre research is much more detailed, and you clearly understand the genre as it is today. At the moment you are nearly in a level 3, in order to improve you should add some history of the development of the genre research. This will help you understand how the genre has developed and decide if you want to use conventions from different eras of the genre.

Task 2.2: Thriller Genre Conventions

A generic thriller film story plot often has a protagonist who is somewhat heroic, or if he's not heroic then he is there to keep the plot going but will usually do good. The antagonist's identity is usually hidden and will uncover as the film goes on. He usually has something to do with the protagonist and his life story. However, this is only an example of generic thriller films, sometimes they are a lot more complex and have much more complicated stories.

Other classic thriller film characters are ones like psychotic killer, spies, assassins, detectives and a lot more. These character are in the film to build intensity for the audience, it's supposed to make it feel like it could happen to the audience. A thriller film's goal is to make the audience feel anticipation and uncertainty whilst at the same time excitement. 

Some of the main themes of a thriller are things like terrorism, political conspiracies or a chase and suspense.  

The iconography consists of things like low lighting and tension music building. Films like 'Fight Club' did this all the time with it's low lighting and it's soundtrack made specifically for the film. For example, the low lighting is shown in this frame of the film: 

Here, the lighting is mainly made up of one above the door and another on the wall. There's probably some lighting behind the camera giving it a miserable and mysterious feel. This kind of lighting is found in other thrillers for the same reason and it makes it a convention for them all. Also, the mise en scene in this frame shows a run down, urban setting which is, again, another convention, done to make it look like a gritty place.

Thriller films add non diegetic music in the background to build up the situation and add intensity. The music will often get louder and faster in situations that's meant to make the audience feel like thy're not going to get out of the dilemma they're in. Some films get their own soundtrack made for them which helps make the film it's own.

Quick cuts are a very common way of changing shots in thriller films as it makes the audience get worried and caught up in the action. It's used a lot in shot reverse shots in order to make the people talking a lot more intense. An example of shot reverse shots used to build intensity is in a film called 'Heat'.

This thriller film uses shot reverse shots quite a lot in this cafe scene as it is the protagonist and antagonist talking to each other. In fact, this thriller film doesn't use the generic 'heroic antagonist', instead, the protagonist is a bank robber and the antagonist is a detective. But still, it uses the convention of having a detective in the story which is quite common.
Another example of detectives being used in thrillers is another David Fincher film called 'Seven' where the two main characters are detectives and they fit into the convention of having a heroic character.

Something that was quite common in noir-thrillers is the use of shadows. This is where dark lighting and shadows first became popular along with its black and white shots. This is done to, again, add a gritty feel to the film along with mystery to the characters.
A classic use of black and white is in Hitchcock's 'Pycho'. This is film has the classic shower scene of someone about to be killed in the shower. The music is also built up in the scene to add to the intensity and horror of the situation.

Task 3.1: Research on Audiences

Our film is a thriller film in the theme of a noir film. Usually thrillers can attract audiences of teenagers and young adults, but our film aims to reach an audience of both male and female and the ages from 16-50. I say we want it to reach to an age of 50 because noir films are old and an older audience would appreciate the themes of a noir more than young teenagers.
Django Unchained, which had two leading characters about a German man who rescues a slave, the audience for that film was 36% 15-24 years old and 26% for 25-34 years old. This shows that both the younger and older generation care about films with themes that send a message and have action and suspense. This is what our film aims to do.

Also, with the main character being a woman, we hope this will attract more of a female audience to it when a lot of thriller films are very male dominated. This way, woman will be able to relate more to the main character. Last year, films with a male main character had more of a male audience, for example, Man of Steel's audience was 68% male and 32% female. Again, with Captain Philips which was an action-thriller, the audience was 69% male and 31% female. But films with a main female character tend to have a larger female audience. Frozen - which had two leading female characters - had a male audience of 34% and a female audience of 66%.
Therefore, we hope that by making our film with a leading female character, the genders in our audience will be fairly equal.

People would want to watch our film because the story is very similar to things like 'Batman' or 'Taken'. With Taken being so popular, this film will appeal to that audience as it's an action story about vengeance. A popular action film that's led by a female character is 'The Hunger Games' which has turned into a series of films which is loved by a lot of people. As our film is an action film which is led by a female character, we would hope that this film would be quite popular.

In conclusion, our films aims to reach quite a diverse audience. We hope with it having themes of noir as well as a female character will make audiences curious and go to watch it.

Feedback - Miss Spencer

Your writing is detailed and you use media language confidently at times.
At the moment this work is a level 3, in order to move up to a level 4 you should:
Use more media language
Talk more about editing
Discuss the iconography and character representation more in each of the genres you have analysed. This will help with your subsequent posts.

Task 2.1: Romantic Comedy Film Intro Analysis - 500 Days Of Summer

The movie starts off with the two main characters sitting on a bench in a park and the audience has no clue to why. The camera starts off in an establishing shot of the city whilst the two have there back to the camera on the bench. It then cuts to a medium shot of them two looking off into the distance - a convention of romantic comedies is usually a man and a woman in a relationship, so whilst the audience doesn't know what's going on, they can still assume that they are in a romantic relationship.

There is a cliche voice over as the introduction goes on explaining about the character's beliefs in love and how different they were - another convention.
A long shot of the main character is shown and the camera slowly zooms in, then it does the same thing again but this time on a teenage boy. The audience connotes from this that these two people are the same person as the camera shot is done in the same way.
The next shot of the other character is shown in a medium shot whilst she is on the phone talking to someone and the camera also zooms in, like it did with the other person. Except, when a teenage version of herself is shown, instead of zooming into a long shot of her like they did with the man, they instead zoom in from her back whilst she looks in the mirror.
This is done to show the parallels of the two characters as one is doing something and the other is sitting staring into space.

When the man looks to his right, the camera then quickly pans to the girl walking through the office and does a close up of her. This could be done to show that she has no idea what's about to happen in her life before she meets him.

The non-diegetic music in the background is done to sound like some sort of fairy tale. This is an ironic use of it and it's also done to sound cliche. But it is also something that romantic comedies do in order for it to sound like it's true love - like a princess and a prince.

Task 2.1: Thriller Film Intro Analysis - Fight Club

The opening to this film starts off with very intense music with visuals and the credits. This tells the audience that the film is going to be very intense and quite violent because of how hard hitting the song is.
The camera is then shown from an extreme close up of a gun in the Narrator's mouth. His eyes are made to look dark and ill to emphasise that he is both incredibly tired and that he has had several fights. It's also done to set the dark theme of this film up along with the lighting. We can see sweat dripping from his forehead, this is put in the shot to show that he is under stress and it makes the audience wonder what is going on.

The character of Tyler never reveals his face. The first shot of him is a close up of his back and as he walks away, it becomes an extreme medium shot as he is out of focus. The denotation is that it's dark and the audience feels rather uncomfortable. Outside of the building, looking into it from a window, it shows a medium shot of Tylers body but we only see up to his face, again, adding to the mystery - not showing the antagonist's face straight away is a convention of thriller films as well.
As the narration goes on, the camera falls and we hear diegetic sounds of cars and police sirens in order to make it feel like the two characters are in danger.
As the camera goes underground, we see a van with a bullet hole in as the camera goes through the bullet hole, this connotes that something dangerous had been going on and it keeps the audience worried.

The non-diegetic sound of the narrator explains about buildings being blown up whilst the camera moves around different rooms showing different bombs. All of these different shots cut to each other very quickly which is also a convention of a thriller film.

At the end of the introduction, there is a medium shot of the narrator staring into the camera as it zooms into his face. This builds up the intensity and the mystery as he narrates. In the background, there are buildings which he has already said are going to blow up and he his sitting in front of them as if to say that all of this is his fault.

Task 2.1: Thriller Film Intro Analysis - Drive

The introduction to 'Drive' starts off pitch black whilst slow, techno music plays in the background as a non-diegetic sound. This is used to build intensity in the beginning and it makes the audience feel a sense of danger as they don't know what's going to happen. It then fades from the black screen to a map with markings on.

The map has a spotlight on it but it's only a small one, making the rest of the room feel very dark. The map's markings are different alleyways in the city. The camera then pans up and we can see the main character looking out a window on his phone.

The mise en scene in this is very well done as his jacket is silver with  scorpion on the back of it. This could connote that this man is dangerous and will 'sting' his enemies if they get in his way - just like a scorpion does.
After this, the camera continues to pan across the room and shows a television playing of a football match, which evidently plays a part later on in the next ten minutes. It then pans across to a heavily packed bag. I believe the first minute of this introduction to the film sums up everything we need to know about the main character. The lighting is dark which shows he is a mysterious character, the markings on the map show us that he plans every detail and the final zoom shot of the city through the window tells us that he works at night. This is also complimented with the diegetic sound of cars in the background, suggesting this man has something to do with driving.

In the next shot, the main character is driving a car and it's almost an over the shoulder shot. In every shot of him driving a car in this introduction, the camera does not leave outside the car at all. It stays inside the car in order to make the audience feel like they are in there with the main character. There is then a low angle shot in the car, facing toward the man. There is no dialogue what so ever in this shot, and it makes the audience feel both awkward and at the same time intimidated by this man.

The next shot shows a man in a garage smoking a cigarette and looking into the night. He is on the right of the screen and the camera is at a medium shot. I believe this was done to make it look like an old fashioned, film noir kind of shot as in those kinds of films, it's always very shady and mysterious, this really adds to the cliche feel of this.

This man then sees the previous driver and talks to him as they walk up the garage. This is done at a long shot and it follows them up the garage. The driver does talk at all in this scene yet his jacket seems to stand out from the other man's even though his character is obviously a lot darker. This could show that maybe he is a good character and not as bad as everyone thinks. At the end of this small introduction, the music starts to become more noticeable by getting louder - this builds up about what's to happen next and keeps the audience on the edge of their seat.