Audience Reactions

Shahla - Interesting stroyline, and i like the fact it was done on a mobile phone it added to the dramatic effect.

Ross- I enjoyed the way all of the cameras were timed to play at the same time. And i liked the idea of using phones to create a realistic feeling.

George- I think it is really clever how you used different camera angles and mobile phones, all shown at the same time. I like the special effects. I am not too keen on the gun sound effects as they do not sound realistic.

YouTube comments:
hurtwoodhousemedia i really like the idea its different!!! well done
fatboy22222222222222 reminds me of elephant which is a proper good film just like this one
stephaniemareen Great idea - reminds me a little of the movie "rec". However i really like the idea and the way in which it is edited.

The ways in which our media product uses, develope or challenge forms or conventions of real media products

1. Our film subverted the traditional norms of film making by not having a full screen and not showing both characters in focus, this reinforces the fact that the opening sequence was filmed on mobile phone which is not typical of hollywood films.

2. We then introduced another character again on mobile phone cameras this challenges the conventional forms of filmmaking that rarely use mobile phone footage to begin a film. This challenges the audience to follow different narrative strands at the same time in the same vein as Mike Figgis Timecode.

3. FilmFour is the name of our production company, the majority of all films have a production company in their title sequence therefore we conformed to the traditional title sequence.

4. In this sequence we introduced the name of our lead actor, this conforms to traditional forms of film making where the actors name is often found in the title sequence. However throughout our title sequence we subverted this however, by having four different screens in our title sequence thus making it difficult to identify who the actor was in the moment in time.

5. In this sequence we conformed to traditional forms of film making where the Director's name is shown in the title sequence. It is traditional to have the role of Director in small text with their name in larger text.

6. After a title sequence in a film that features split screens, the film would generally revertback to type and would concentrate on a full a screen shot however we have subverted this by continuing with a split screen, we did this to give the audience different angles of the action and reinforce that it is being taken by four mobile phones. The light hearted action that is taking place helps to build tension for the violence to follow, this is traditional of film making.

7. For this shot we introduced a fifth screen, this indicates to the audience that there is now a change in the action, this subverts Hollywood style of film making as at this point in the storyline it would revert back to one screen however we have challenged audience expectations and continued to use a split screen, giving the audience five angles of the action from the five different phones.

8. For the final scene of our opening sequence we chose to show the deaths of different characters, this subverts Hollywood as we have continued to show the dead bodies on screentime whereas in traditional forms of film making the deaths are either suggested or we do not continually see the body after the death. We continued to keep all five screens up and allow the audience to choose which narrative strand to follow.

9. Our product developed traditional forms of film making in our last shot by using the conventions of Hollywood. We decided to use the title of our film as the last shot of the title sequence, this gives the audience an insight to the rest of the film and creates tension and drama as to what is going to follow.

How does our product represent social groups

Overall our product represents one major social group, young people (teenagers); our main target age that we are representing is 16-18 year olds. However, we are specifically representing two groups within this social group; specifically victims of violence from their own peers and the young people who inflict this violence on their peers. We based the events in our film on the Columbine High School Massacre. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and one teacher. They also injured 21 other students directly, and three people were injured while attempting to escape. The pair then committed suicide. Therefore in our product we hope to represent the young people involved in a non-glamorous way to reinforce the horrific events. Currently there has been a rise in violence affecting teenagers involving gun and knife crime, our product reinforces this and makes people aware that this violence does happen.

The main film we based our idea around is Elephant which is about two high school students Eric and Alex who calmly plan and perform a mass execution of their classmates and school administrators in the course of one day. Eric and Alex are ordinary and very much a part of the fabric of the high school and its array of student actions. In fact it’s hard to distinguish them from all the other students. The school is filled with various students discussing each other, playing sports, and learning about Science and Civics. Alex plays classical piano and Eric plays video games and they are interested in seemingly average things. They calmly watch Nazi programs on TV and purchase and demo automatic weaponry that they buy over the Internet. They seem just as ordinary and interesting as any of the other students. They analytically draw up plans for their killing spree, indicating that they have enough bombs and ordinance to last the afternoon. They walk through the school killing their school peers and there is no rescue from the authorities. Another example of a media product that represents violent teenagers is Kidulthood. Kidulthood is a British film which follows a day in the lives of four poor youths living in an impoverished neighborhood in West London, where the pressure and desperation of poverty propels each of them towards the choice between a life of bleakness, violence, and crime.

The media (newspapers, magazines, television) tells us there are various reasons for the young committing violence on their peers. It could be a lack of education, poor mental health, poor parenting, drug problems, bullying and abuse which they therefore inflict on others; some argue that a fascination with violence (computer games, Nazi history etc) leads to influencing young people to commit violence. Influence of their peers (gang violence) also leads to young people being peer pressured into committing crimes. The media reinforces this, if the media tells a person they are a criminal it leads them to act like one for example wearing a hooded top.

Skins is a British television drama set in Bristol purely based on young people. It explores themes of violence, death, love, drugs and substance abuse, bullying, sexuality, friendship and personality disorders. Skins explores perhaps exaggerated (to create entertainment and set it apart from soap-operas) situations that teenagers in reality face but also the consequences of ‘living the fast life.’ On the whole Skins represents teenagers dissimilarly to our media product as we focus specifically on two teenagers who choose to commit violence on their peers. The rest of the teenagers in our product are portrayed as happy, ‘normal’ young people up until the actual shooting. Cook, a character in Skins is perhaps a similar representation to the characters in our product. Cook represents a violent teenager who cannot control his emotions and therefore lashes out and causes harm to his peers. However Cook is less extreme as we do not witness him committing murder in Skins.

Media instituition for the distribuition of our product

Film4 Productions is a British film production company owned by Channel 4. The company has been responsible for backing a large number of low budget and ‘indie’ and ‘alternative’ films made in the United Kingdom. Our film is low budget and therefore Film4 is good for marketing and promoting our thriller as they will be able to advertise it on their film and TV channel. They also have links with European distributors which will help sell our film in Europe. Due to that our film would be a platform release due to its low budget, it would only need a short release window between cinema and Film4 TV channel. This could benefit us as advertising through its television appearence could beenfit our DVD sales. 'Indie' and 'art house' films tend to provoke the audience to ‘think’ more than a Hollywood blockbuster would and have deeper and more intricate plots. Therefore the film institution that would be appropriate for my product would most likely be Film4 as it is not appropriate to glamorise the violence shown in the film as it is a sensitive issue and based on true events. There are not lots of large scale, violent scenes with extensive special effects and explosions, which therefore indicates that it is not a Hollywood Blockbuster. The film requires a low budget because it does not need many special effects, ‘what you see is what you get.’ The opening sequence is shot on mobile phone, throughout the film a large amount of equipment is not needed making Film4 the clear appropriate institution to distribute the product. Gus Van Sant’s film Elephant is also based on the events of the Columbine High School Massacre which was produced by HBO and Fine Line Features (which was the specialty films division of New Line Cinema. It produced, purchased, distributed and marketed films of a more "indie" flavour than its parent company) this reflects the subject. The film’s budget was only 3,000,000 million dollars which shows that it is unnecessary to be produced by a large Hollywood institution. Eden Lake was produced by the independent film companies Rollercoaster Films and The Weinstein Company. It is also a low budget film containing actors that would be appropriate for my own film. This indicates to me that it is most appropriate to have a low budget for my film and an independent film company like Film4.

Target Audience for Media Product

My film takes place and essentially centers around a sixth form boarding college, therefore it is logical to say that male/female students aged 16-18 who enjoy Thrillers and who are inquisitive about Columbine and the other high school shootings are the main demographics for our audience. However anyone who has an interest in these events and why they happened would find the film interesting. Therefore because of the content of the sequence and the issues raised, we thought that it may to appeal to older audiences, around 25 and upwards as everyone experiences the fear of terrorist attacks etc. The main target audience is 16-25 year olds as they would be able to relate best to the plot; however there is no reason to suggest that people older than 25 would not enjoy it and relate to it. This due to that our secondary audience are people who are interested in 'indie' or 'arthouse' styles of film as it deals with serious issues. The secondary audience are therefore educated with an interest in current affairs as well as art and music therefore giving them an independant taste in film. The film plays on the natural human instinct to give things a reason and make sense of things that are apparently senseless and is designed to encourage uncomfortable audience voyeurism. The film asks deep questions about life perhaps questions that everyone asks themselves but would never speak aloud. The film would also show how easy it is for a young person to be influenced to commit a sick and twisted crime, the difference between right and wrong and perhaps the flaws in society today. This shows that everyone over the age of 16 would be able to relate somehow to the film.
When reviewing Elephant (which is a similiar style of film to ours) a critic said ‘Van Sant adapted the script from a young-adult novel by Blake Nelson. Though not necessarily the target audience, teenagers will doubtless find a great deal of truth in how these characters talk, interact and lead their thorny lives.’ This is indication for the appropriate audience for my film.

How we addressed and attracted our audience

How we targeted our audience

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What I have learnt about technologies from the constructing of my product

Looking back at preliminary task, what I have learnt in the progression from it to full product

Looking back at our preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot in the progression from it to our final media product. For the preliminary task we planned, prepared, shot and edited the sequence over the course of a week whereas the main task took months to plan, prepare, shoot and edit as we had to come up with a narrative and the process included storyboarding the whole sequence. For the preliminary task everyone in the group shared the roles whereas for the main task everyone had an assigned role and therefore had different jobs to do alone when working towards the shoot day. On the shoot day however, we all got the opportunity to shoot our thriller and also be in our thriller as we were part of the groups of people filming on our phones. Our brief for the preliminary task consisted of wide, mid and close up shots whereas for our final task we had no specific shots and the shot angles depended on where the group member was filming with their phone.

For the preliminary task we were given a short storyboard and the task was more focused on filming techniques and learning to use cut and pro whereas our main task taught us to use after effects and required more detailed editing. However on the actual shoot day, similarly to the preliminary task, we improvised the majority of our sequence as it was shot on different mobile phones from different angles and therefore did not follow our original storyboard. This made all the conversations and the events that happen within our thriller more realistic as it was not extensively rehearsed or scripted. For example, for the preliminary task we did not need a production folder which shows that the planning for the main task was much more in depth and also sophisticated.

In our main task we had a large cast and props however for the preliminary we used members of our group as our cast and had basic props. I found with the main task we had to create more visual stimulation for the audience to keep the focused on the product. We also had a larger set for our main task which covered a wider area, we set it in the cafeteria and used upstairs as well as downstairs and the corridors and stairs within the building. For the preliminary task we used an empty classroom. Overall the preliminary task is an example of small scale film making when in comparison to our main task.

I think my film making skills have improved since the preliminary task as I have now learnt what looks professional in film making and for specifically thrillers, how to build tension, followed by shock on the audience's behalf. I learnt this from the process of planning and also editing the thriller. However my skills using a video camera have not improved since the preliminary task because we only used mobile phones to shoot our thriller. I have improved a lot with my editing skills; I can now use final cut-pro without assistance and have learnt about the different tools to create different effects in a film. I have also learnt how to use after effects to put in ‘muzzle flashes’ to create the effect of shooting guns, we did not use after effects in our preliminary task. We also used cast and crew credits in our main task which was not used in our preliminary to make it seem more like an opening sequence of a film. In our preliminary task we had a lot of assistance from our teacher when planning, shooting and editing. Although we did have some help with our main task, it was not to the same extent and we were therefore left to make a lot of the decisions ourselves. Considering our main task is the second short film we have made, I am proud of what we have achieved.

Although our main task was shot all in one take, it took a whole day to brief and organise the cast, position each group member with their cameras, work out the journey through the cafeteria of the ‘shooters’ and then rehearse the whole sequence to make sure no mistakes were made in our final take. It also took weeks to edit as we had to edit and re-edit a lot of times because to make it look professional it had to be edited in a certain way. Whereas we had worked out a rough cut of our preliminary task in about fifteen minutes as it only required simple shots.

In found some similarities with both tasks, as our lighting was basic for both tasks. We used the cafeterias ordinary lighting to make the sequence realistic and create an everyday atmosphere in our sequence and in the preliminary we turned off the classroom lights and used natural lighting to create a darker atmosphere in the sequence. The sound in the preliminary task was just a basic recording of dialogue which was similar to our sound in the main task. However we used gun shot sound effects and at different points we used final cut to change the volume of the different screens to draw the audiences attention to a single screen and to prevent the sequence from being to busy and chaotic.

Evaluation of Post Production

We edited our piece to make it look like a thriller by using a build up of tension. In the first minute we used four different mobile phone shots to reinforce verisimilitude and importantly to create the light-hearted atmosphere of an 'ordinary' day. This then juxtaposes with the atmosphere created in the shots of the gun fire and therefore creates fear for the audience. The mobile phones create fear and tension as they make the event seem more real because shooting the sequence on a video camera would remind the audience that it is a film and not a real life event and therefore not create the same real life fear a person would experience if they were to actually witness this event in reality that our thriller creates. Our thriller is fast paced so that while watching our thriller the audience does not have time to process the event which creates the feeling of shock and horror.

We created a narrative for our sequence using digetic sound. At various points we turned down the volume on some of the small screens to draw the audiences' attention to a single conversation and screen rather than all four screens at once. An example of this is when the boy is rapping, this would attract our target audience and help the audience relate to the characters. To grab the audiences’ attention, the gun shot sound effects are unexpected and therefore shock the audience. They are joined by enhanced screaming to build a sense of panic. The gun sounds were synced, and then recorded through computer speakers onto a mobile phone before being put it into the film to make the sound seem more realistic.

The mobile phones create a cinema verite style of film making that makes the film seem like a documentary in style and is realistic. We used mobile phones and we tried to make the film fast paced and used a split screen which reinforces this effect and helps target a youthful audience as they can easily relate.

We used titles to make it seem like an actual British film. We used a certain font to target a younger audience and also a documentary style of font which adds to the realism of the film, helping to convince the audience. Film4 being mentioned in our title sequence helps to reinforce that it is a British film as Film4 distribute and produce British films. Film4 has co funded successful films such as 'This Is England' which is also a film about social-realism and therefore Film4 may attract a similar audience to our thriller.

To conclude the use of fast paced editing, digetic sound of conversations, split screens and how they built tension and also the content of the narrative and action that takes place would help to attract our target audience. As well as the attractive members of our cast and production company, Film4 would help to attract our target and secondary target audiences.

Shoot Day

The planning for our shoot day was done prior to the actual date. Our shoot day started quite chaoticly as we had a change of cast from Guy Simpson to Alex Gray and not all of our cast members turned up even though they had agreed prior to the shoot day and therefore we had to brief a very large cast of what we expected them to do. Our storyboard turned out to be more of a guideline, as we ended up shooting the whole sequence on six camera phones from different points of view (victims and shooters). We set up three different groups of cast with members of our production team who would film the sequence as if we too were victims. Therefore it was a joint effort as we all were able to film as well as direct our group. The shooters also used camera phones to film their journey through the cafeteria making their way to each group of people, starting downstairs and then one shooter up the front stairs and one using the back stairs so when the thriller is finaly edited the audience will get to see a variety of perspectives. We then rehearsed the whole sequence a few times (without blood) as the whole thing was to be done in one shot where blood would be used because we were pushed for time to clean up the cafeteria, so there was no time for mistakes in our final take. Everything ran smoothly and we got the take we needed. I then also took two shots of the shooters preparing their guns and also their intentions. We also set up a camera at lunchtime to film a full cafeteria in fast track. After the slight panic of the morning the rest of the day ran smoothly, we worked well as a team and followed Matt's instruction and over all completed all the shots we needed.