17. Checklist of Expectations

I have researched some expectations of a thriller from our target audience of 15+, some of which we will be including in the opening of our film. They expect to;

• A hero/heroin to save the day but loose something along the way or endure a tragic experience
• suspense and mystery
• A victim and criminal
• Kidnap or Murder
• Drugs and alcohol
• High suspense chases from car or foot
• Darkness
• Tense Music
• Love interest/romance
• Death/loss of loved one
• Suspicion
• Range of editing
• Mise en scene- lighting, shots, colour, make-up, costume etc. 
• Range of shots

These are a few things that we will be including in our opening sequence;

• Love interest
• Traumatic experience
• Quick editing
• Kidnapper and Victims
• Tense, fats moving soundtrack
• Naturalistic lighting, costume and make-up

16. Institutions That Might Produce, Distribute and Exhibit Our Film

After some research, I have found seven production and distribution studios that have supported other movies that are similar in genre and target audience to our film idea.

Lakeshore Entertainment has produced many films in a variety of genres. One genre that it is known for is Thriller. In this genre they have produced Gone (2012) and Untraceable (2008). Both of these films and other similar films produced by this company, are aimed at teenage-young adult girls.

Summit Entertainment is most well-known for producing The Twilight Saga. While our film isn't of the supernatural classification, it is directed towards the same audience and there are certain aspects of familiarity between our film brief and Twilight. Both have a female lead role and there is thrilling action as well. Other movies produced by this company include Knowing (2009), The Hurt Locker (2008) and RED (2010).

Columbia Pictures Entertainment is a very diverse production company that has produced and co-produced many films over roughly 70 years. Therefore, it has a very impressive list of movies and genres that they have produced. In the thriller genre they have produced movies like Angels and Demons (2009) a mystery thriller, Trapped (2002) a crime thriller and Panic Room (2002) a thriller.

20th Century Fox has produced movies similar to our film brief such as Taken (2009) an action thriller film and Runner, Runner (2013) a crime thriller film. 20th Century Fox has produced movies for a vast age range and for many different categories of audience members.

Universal Studios is another company with an impressive range of genres and audiences. In the thriller genre, they have produced the action thriller Bourne series starring Matt Damon, Safe House (2012) also an action thriller and Untraceable (2008) which they co-produced with Lakeshore Entertainment.

Paramount Pictures has distributed many commercially successful movies and is consistently ranked as one of the largest (top-grossing) film studios. In the thriller genre, they have produced Jack Reacher (2012), the psychological thriller Shutter Island (2010) and Suspect Zero (2004).

Lions Gate Entertainment is the most commercially successful independent film distribution company in North America. Our film is an independent thriller film and therefore fits this classification. They have produced many successful thriller films such as Abduction (2011), the psychological-survival thriller Buried (2010) and the vigilante thriller The Next Three Days (2010).

15. How Pearl and Dean Catergorise Their Audiences

 

There were three different catergories on the Pearl and Dean website. They catergorise their audiences as 15+, Family or Art House. We felt that our film brief fit the 15+ genre best. From this information, we can determine that our main target audience would be aged between 15-24 or 35+. They would also be in the ABC1 classes and it would be primarily aimed towards women.

14. Perfect Audience Member

The storyline we have chosen is very gripping but it involves a lot of aspects that would appeal to certain types of teenage girls. For example, our film is going to include a young male character that after years of hiding as a best friend and struggling in the friend zone, finally makes it to be the protagonists love interest. The person we would have chosen to play Michael "Mikey" if we were in fact making the real movie would have been an actor similarly looking to American actor Logan Lerman. He is not going to be included in the beginning of the movie but in order to appeal to our target audience we would have to make him attractive, not only that but he would need to be attractive to a certain group of girls. This links in closely with the picking of an ideal audience member. 

 

Our target audience would be female and in the age range of 15-35 years old.  However our movie specifically is aimed at teenage girls. Therefore our ideal audience member would need to be a 17 year old girl in her first  or second year of sixth form. In order to find the character of Mikey attractive she would have to have a keen almost superficial interest in boys (as most teenage girls have a typical famous teenage crush on boy band members such as Niall Horan and George Shelley).


 
The type of girl we would be targeting is informally known as a "townie" or a "styler". These are the average  girls you would find on the high street laughing and shopping with friends. They are the type of girls who like what is "in" at the moment and don't see a problem at all in following the crowd. They have a keen interest in fashion (as long as it's up to date) and will wear whatever the most popular celebrity of the week has been spotted out wearing. Therefore we would have to do a lot of publicising. We would also have to make sure our film was good enough to be a "must see" by including key elements of the genres that appeal most to teenage girls.


Here is the UK Tribes definition of a "townie"...

13. Audience Interviews

We interviewed some girls in our target audience range. We asked them which movies they thought had good opening sequences and what draws them and puts them off movies.

12. Mood Board

 These pictures all include elements or ideas that we would like to involve in our film opening. These pictures have angles and lighting that we would like to acheive, especially the shadows, and they also look quite realistic.

 We chose to include family photos because we would like to show the protagonists family in order to get you closer to her and be able to relate to her.To connect to family to the missing child poster, we would like to use the section of our family photo that has the little girl in and use her image as the missing child poster image. This links them together

 We would like to set our scene in the park but have flashes of the little gril cowering somewhere.

The titles etc. will be on objects commonly found in the park. For example we would like to have a name or something similar on a piece of paper that is in a puddle and the little girl will come along and jump in the puddle.

11. 9 Screen Shots From The Dead Zone

1. My first shot is of a large old fashioned American house. I think it is effective because of the use of colour. It is quite a dull looking image, as in it looks quite dark. The sky is an ominous shade of grey that promises rain and the silhouette of the trees and the black on the house are both quite an inky colour. This makes it seem deeper and gives the image more depth. The house also looks empty and isolated.

 

2. In this second shot, two shapes have appeared on screen. In the foreground, you can see wheat and in the background, there are trees and fog. The crops and the colour of the trees indicates that it is autumn. The fog in particular, makes the image look mysterious and creepy. I like this shot because it is a very well composed image and it is mysterious too.

3. In this shot, more of the black shapes have appeared and I really like the growing mystery with the shapes. It makes the watcher wonder why they are there and what their significance is. The colours in this shot are similar to the previous shot and this indicates that it is from the same place. The colours are all quite faded and they have an orange/red tinge to them. In these images, you either don't see any people or they are only in the distance and this gives the impression of isolation and abandonment.

4. Because of the grain in this shot, the watcher gets the impression that the image is old. The fencing and the trees make the place in the image look isolated and closed off, giving the impression of secrecy. All the colours in the image look like they could be bright and cheerful but they are dampened and this makes it darker and gloomier.

 

 

5. More of the black shapes have appeared and they are starting to form the outlines of something. In the image, there is the sweeping corner of a road that disappears behind a wall of trees. The watcher doesn't know where this road leads and they can't see what they are heading towards. The road is abandoned and the way it is surrounded by trees makes it look secluded and scary.

6. This is the first shot where you can really start to put together the shapes and see that they make letters and words. I like this because it is forming the title and it is also very mysterious. In the background, we see a small country road, trees and power-lines leading to a house. The scene is very gloomy and the place looks unwelcoming.

7. The title is becoming clearer and clearer as the shots progress. I like this shot because of the simplicity of the image in the background. Everything above the 'equator' of the image is just trees, but below the equator, we a road and two people on motorbikes/scooters. Their size in comparison to everything else makes then look vulnerable or unimportant.

 8. The title is finally complete and this is when it has started to shrink toward the centre, giving the impression that it is moving away from us. The background image is more trees, fog and houses in the dull and gloomy colours that are featured through-out the opening sequence of this film.

9. The title has continued to shrink and it is fading out and we see an old fashioned school. I like this shot because it is clear that the movie is about to begin because the image is quite different to the others. The colours are clearer and the image looks sharper. I also like the way that the tree frames the image and I think that this also create a connection between all the previous images and this one because they all have trees in them.