Wednesday, 4 February 2015

Q2

 Sam played the antagonist or the victim/hero. We looked at other heroes and victims to see what they looked like and how they dressed, we looked at taken first as we knew that it is a popular thriller which uses lots of conventions of traditional thrillers so we thought that it would be a good place to start. We then looked at the Bourne identity but we couldn’t find any characters that were similar to our character so we decided to use the one we had found in taken. We chose to use normal clothing, this fit in with the narrative as he was supposed to blend in with civilians as he was on the run from the men so if he was dressed in army clothes or like a soldier then he would be easily recognised and they would easily be able to find him. Having him dress in normal clothing makes him seem not important and not part of the main plot. We chose to have him sitting down away from the men or running, this symbolises weakness, and being a coward and trying to avoid all conflict by hiding inside of the cabin in the construction yard until the men find him where he then runs away to another hiding place.

I compared this character to “Kim” from Taken; both characters play an important yet lesser role in the films the story couldn’t exist without them however they aren’t constantly in the film and aren’t constantly referred to. Although one character is male and one is female, they are similar in other ways than appearance. They are however different ages, one is a 15 year old teenager and the other is a young adult aged between 20 and 25, they are both wearing similar clothing, they are wearing casual clothing that you would wear when you go out with family or when you just go out with friends. The man from our thriller is only known as the wanted man in the opening he plays an important role as he is wanted by the other men for a reason that is currently unknown to the audience, however you don’t know from the opening if he is the only man they are after or if he is even the main character. In taken Kim is the daughter of Liam Neeson, she plays an important role as she gets kidnapped so the film follows Liam Neeson as he tries to find her and get her back. It follows where Liam Neeson goes through Paris so it follows both characters but mainly it covers Liam Neeson so she only plays a side role. Both characters display similar characteristics and they both act similarly. It seems that neither are trained or want to try to fight off the men that are coming after them. Both characters try to hide from the attackers that are after them and both are alone and look worried like they can’t look for or ask for help in the fear that the men might find and kill or kidnap them. The shot is fairly similar as they are both mid-shots that show most of the characters appearance however they only show the top half of the character so you can’t see all of the characters clothes. Both are filmed inside and inside a house, the angle of the camera shows weakness in the character. Both are in well light rooms however from the shot you can’t see what time of day it is outside.  

The character don’t display similar facial or physical features yet the rest of their features are similar and they   both have very worried looks on their faces which could mean that they both recognise the danger that they are in which would mean that  they are intelligent characters. During taken the girl is in a house with her friend and then she sees her friend get grabbed by some unknown men, this triggers her to ring her father and hide under the bed. This is similar to our thriller as the character is calm and fine until he hears and sees the men coming towards his hiding spot which causes him to leave his things and run out of the place and find a new hiding spot. The narrative of the films is similar because they are both doing the same action however one character is older and one character can ring for help which the older man can’t do that.


Our thriller film is also similar to a film called man on fire as in this film an ex assassin is contracted to protect a family that could be in danger, the main character builds an unusual bond with the family’s daughter, she then gets kidnapped and has to go find her on his own. This is similar to our thriller as all we learn from the opening titles is that there is a man that is on the run from a group of soldiers and we don’t know what his motive is or what he has done wrong, however each different audience member will have a different view and representation of how they picture the rest of the film. The main characters in both films are similar as both have a motive that is why they are doing their mission, however a difference is that the character from man on fire is trying to get something back that means a lot to him whereas we don’t know the motive of the main character from our thriller. They are different in their personalities seem different as one of them runs away from danger and the other one seems to be attracted to danger and action because of what he wants back. One of the men is being hunted by soldiers of an unknown organisation whereas the other seems to be hunting men from an unknown organisation.   

Glen played the role of the main attacker/villain/protagonist. He wore dark clothing so that he could blend in with the time of day and it would be hard for the people he was going after to see him. We decided on what he would wear and how he would wear it by looking at other villains from thrillers to see what they wear normally the first film that we looked at was lone survivor and we looked at the soldiers from that to see the typical clothing that soldiers have to wear. We then looked at the film Bourne identity as it contained soldiers and it was in a city setting so we could do a comparison to our thriller. We compared this shot and character to Mark Wahlberg in lone survivor.  The characters are different in the sense that mark Wahlberg plays the hero and from the opening it seems that the other character is the villain. However both characters wear similar clothing and they both wear body armour, we got the idea to use body armour as many soldiers in films wear body armour to give a more realistic effect.  One character wears a hat to cover more of his face and one character wears a balaclava to hide all of his face and so nobody knows who he is. Despite one character being a hero and one being  a villain, they do display similar features, both shots are done in the outside. One shot is at night and the shot and character is only visible because of the lamppost or lights that are above his head.







The difference in lighting between the two characters symbolises the different kinds of tasks that they have to do and what kind of character they are.  Both of the camera shots used are close ups of the characters faces, they are used to show facial detail and to show the audience what they look like. Both of the characters use the same prop, a gun, it symbolises that it is an action thriller and that they are soldiers.  

We also found that our character could be compared to the villain in Bourne identity as we wanted to compare it to someone of a similar motive and of a similar mind-set; this gave us a better idea of what they wear and how they act in comparison to heroes.  In the Bourne identity the antagonist is trying to recover his identity as he suffered a head trauma which caused him to have brain damage and memory loss, he is also trying to remember why this villain is after him and trying to kill him  as he doesn’t remember why he is being attacked. The characters are similar as they both have a stern face and they are concentrated on looking directly at something.   
 
 


Monday, 2 February 2015

Q4


Before we began to create our thriller opening titles we had to think of an idea for it, to do this we had to get our target audience which is teenagers aged 15+ up in till 30 years old and we had to work out the kinds of things that they want to see in thrillers and what appeals to them, we had to work out what subgenres they most like whilst watching thriller films. We found out who our target audience were by questionnaire and by a vox pop, we asked people of different ages and of different occupation so that we had a wide range of different answers, we asked people from the age range of our production on wards so that we could get a more specific audience and we had to make sure that we were targeting it at the right age groups by making sure we had some of the things that they asked for in it. To find out our main target audience we sent out a questionnaire to our friends and families, aged between 15-40, we wanted to know what kind of films they watch and what conventions they like to see in a film. I identified that my target audience for my thriller opening titles is people aged 15+ mainly males. To decide what our typical audience members like to see we did a Vox Pop, this is an interview to where we asked a few different people a few questions about thrillers and what they like to see in them. The questions that we asked them were “what is your favourite type of thriller?” “Why do you like thrillers?” and “what is your favourite thriller film?” we chose to ask these three questions as that then gave us an insight into what our audience like and enjoy watching,  from this research I found out that my audience like action and crime thrillers more than any other genre of thriller. That meant that I knew my genre of film but I still had to decide on what I would include in the opening titles. I found out that my audience like thrillers because of the excitement, suspense, mystery and because it gets them on the edge of their seat. This tells me that when I make a thriller opening I need to make it intense and exciting and I need to add some mystery to it. I learnt that it is mostly men that enjoy the action thrillers however some women do also enjoy watching them. The age we chose was 15+ we felt that would be appropriate for our thriller opening as it has action in it and the use of guns and violence would not be appropriate or suitable for younger children, also having a wide audience helps us as it has conventions of most common action thrillers so it doesn’t have a small refined audience, it has a larger mass audience.  
 The magazine ‘Empire’ is a men’s magazine that has different features that can appeal to most men aged 15-40 which is inside of our target audience. It is a magazine that contains brand new stories on the latest films, TV and video games. The average reader of empire is someone who likes to keep up to date with the latest news and enjoys reading and finding more out about their favourite films, games etc. Empire does different editions of their magazine and this is so that they attract a mass audience instead of a niche audience, this will increase their sales and make the business work better. This is an edition with inception as the front cover, this appeals to the thriller audience as they can be interested in the front cover and learn about thriller films that interest them and they will then read the rest of the magazine.








The average person that would watch our thriller opening titles would be very interested in movies and gaming, they would have all the latest technology and they would want to makes sure they bought the latest games and went and watched all the latest films as soon as they could. They would mostly be into one genre of media, they would enjoy action and that is why our thriller would appeal to them as it is a thriller action.  The BBFC age rating that our thriller would have is 15+ BBFC age rating, we felt this would be appropriate as it has guns and violence in it so younger teenagers and children would not understand the violence and it would not be appropriate for them to see that level of violence. The plot also contains mystery and only older teenagers and adults would understand the plot and the language used in it. This largely influenced our choice of target audience as the themes and plot would not suit younger people. As our age rating was 15+ we couldn’t have had our target audience as younger than that so we thought that 15+ would be an effective age for the audience as we knew that this kind of film would appeal to a large audience so we left the target audience age very open to accommodate for all people that would want to watch it. 


Our typical audience member would look like this, they would be a casual gamer and enjoy lots of films, they would be our target audience as they would watch more thriller films than adults, most teenagers enjoy fiction and watching a fiction film can be an escape from reality for them. Teenagers enjoy the thriller action genre as lots of them play video games like call of duty which is a violent war game, this then makes them want to watch more violent films which is why we included guns into our thriller as that attracts young adults to watch the film. As for the socio-economic class and ethnicity it is not really targeted at anyone in particular, it doesn’t contain any racial themes that could offend people. The socio economic class that we have chosen is C1-E. As these are the most common groups within our age range and our target audience. However it doesn’t mean that is the only audience that will watch and enjoy it, that is just the most common audience.