Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

1. Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Our production is called “Torn Between Two”. It conforms to the psychological thriller genre, it has classic narratives of that genre such as: a mental illness and a twist at the end of the film. The only element of our film that may challenge the conventions of the genre is that we have used a teenage boy as our main character “Alan” who had the mental illness and who commits the kidnappings and crimes. When it is usually an everyday adult man or woman with a everyday, normal job, such as the unnamed main character in fight club. This trailer shows the character’s situation in fight club. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QgFWXLN-ug Focus on 0.16 to 0.26 seconds to illustrate this point. We were inspired by both Fight Club and The Dark Knight. Specifically the split personality elements from Fight Club and the crazy psychotic actions of The Joker in The Dark Knight. We wanted to incorporate these ideas and use them on our psychotic main character. Our sequence incorporates the generic conventions of the psychological thriller genre by involving several themes such as: kidnapping, mental illness, obsession etc. These appear in psychological thrillers such as: Shutter Island, Blair Witch Project and Fight Club. The Mise-en-scene of our sequence also incorporates the generic conventions of the genre. Our location is a normal tunnel from the beach to the road but because of the way it is filmed, it makes it look unnerving and his a sense of discomfort to the audience. The lighting is dim and we have used the night vision setting for some of the shots, giving the notion that it is dark. Which connotes mystery and gives the feeling that something is hiding in the dark. The soundtrack we have used is called House of Leaves. Its spooky and unnerving sound sets the scene perfectly for our opening title sequence.This is the only sound used in our sequence, it is non-diegetic sound.

2. Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? • The character in our film is a teenage boy, aged 17. He is white but it is not clear what race he is, but it is easy to assume he is British. From the character’s costume it appears that the character may be working class, as he is wearing a plain black hoody with black jeans. He is a student at sixth form college. • They are not a typical villain of a psychological thriller. Usually, they are grown men or women. We have gone down a different route and used a teenager. This may achieve to cause a further sense of uncomfort to the audience as it may appear strange for such a young person to possess this mental illness and do such incriminating acts such as kidnapping. • In our opening sequence, our character does not appear obviously violent, but it does insinuate some sort of violence by cutting to the short scenes of hostages in night vision. The character must have obviously used some act of violence to tie the hostage up. • The choice of Mise-en-scene gives our audience clues to what our character is like due to the choice of setting. Just by using the location, our character looks intimidating and mysterious, maybe even dangerous. We have also avoided focussing on the face to maintain the character’s mysteriousness. • With the little footage we have of our main character, I think it says a lot. The character may not be doing a lot but it does pain a picture of what he may be like. Unfortunately we have not been able to convey the split personality message we tried to, but we have achieved to create an unnerving, mysterious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrJL5JxEYIw&feature=fvst • character. Such as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Also contrasting this, the hidden identity and darkness of Batman.

3. Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? • Film companies that may distribute our film “Torn Between Two” may be those such as “20th Century Fox”. This film company distributed both Fight Club and The Dark Knight, which are the two films which our film was inspired by. • It is unlikely that our film would be more profitable if released in the UK on DVD. This is because our film does not contain any regional actors nor is it also not a “social realism” film as many British films are such as “Kidulthood” and “This is England”. • These films tend the have a very small niche audience and are released in small Art House cinemas such as “The Duke of Yorks” in Brighton, East Sussex. • Our film is intended to appeal to a large audience, as it is similar to other films which appeal to a large amount of people. Duke of Yorks Cinema, Brighton

4. Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product? • The core audience of our production is predominantly a male one. People who have a keen interest in psychological thrillers and who may have viewed several other films. Our one off audience may be people who have seen a trailer or been encouraged by a family member or a peer to go and see the film. • Our Target Audience are mainly males, but also females that range from the ages of 15-30. We think that our film will appeal to this age group because it is about a teenage boy, which allows the audience to empathise and relate to this character in some ways. • Our sequence is more likely to appeal to a predominately male audience rather than female. This may be because the main character himself is male. It is also a more traditional male dominated genre. • I would say that our film is similar, in some respects to The Dark Knight. In ways in which the main character of our film has been built upon the foundations of the main characters in this film. The Dark Knight engaged and pulled in their audiences by making any information about the film very quiet and set up a website which involved cracking codes and playing games to find out another clue about the film. To pull in audiences after the release of the film thrived on the tragic death of Heath Ledger. Fortunately, this will not happen for our film, but we could use the technique of keeping it a mystery to create a heightened state of suspense and a positive buzz around the film.

5. Q5. How did you attract your audience? • We thought that one of the best techniques when distributing our film would be both put on a free screening of our film and create rumours and viral campaigns on the internet. • The effect of putting on a free screening of our film would be to create a positive word of mouth and create a buzz about our film. This is such an effective way of advertising because it is completely free and word of mouth is the most powerful persuasion to another to go and see a film. • We thought that the usage of rumours and viral campaigns would be very effective with the type of film ours is. We had inspiration from how The Dark Knight attracted their audiences and thought we should do something similar. • We also had a “Third party promotional partner” in the form of a video camera company. This enabled us to be advertised when they advertised, on the television, on the packaging and in magazines. • We also cast fresh faced, actors to pull in the student audience we are aiming for. • Our USPs are the fact that it is a British Psychological Thriller which goes against all the generic American types. We use a young adult instead of an adult man.

6. Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product? • I have learnt many things about technologies whilst constructing my product. These are: • Learning the importance of story boarding, creating a recce and writing a script. • Directing. I did a lot of organising within the group allocating roles and sorting out scenes. • Filming. I filmed several scenes featured in our opening title sequence, learning skills of white balancing and how to adjust the depth of field. • Learning exactly how to operate and effectively edit using Adobe Premier Pro. • I have also learnt a lot about psychological thrillers through researching for our own film. I have learnt in depth about the genre, the mis-en-scene, including the props, the costume, the lighting etc. • I have also learnt how much work has to be put into creating the fitting atmosphere for the genre. We did this through many things such as the location which I selected and the style of filming used, which was mostly handheld.

7. Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? • I feel that I have learnt a lot of things in the progression from the preliminary exercise to the point of the full product. The main thing which I have learnt is ways in which the distribution and promotion of a film can be the most important. Such as viral advertising, and having a third party promotional party. • I have also learnt in depth, different types of shots and angles and their names. Such as XLS (extreme long shot) and CU (close up). • I have also learnt how to operate a camera effectively to get the best possible result. This includes ensuring the white balance is correcting and adjusting the depth of field. • Editing and ensuring continuity are also big things which I learnt during this process.