Research into other films on the market

The research conducted has helped give me an outline on what possible film competitors we will have to face in the film industry through various statistics and facts. The first research is extracted from the 'BFI Weekend Box Office Report between the 21-23 October' which helped me understand the different distributions of the top films as well as my given genre of 'Thriller' thus this will help my group figure out what distribution company we want for our opening sequence. The second research is extracted from 'Top 100 Action&Adventure Movies' from Rotten Tomatoes which helped me clearly see what are the top films in this genre as well as what possible code and conventions I can extract from these films to my own Thriller Opening Sequence. This research has helped us figure out on the importance of distribution, release dates as well as how we should dedicate our time to produce a better, more original work than the films in the box office right now and films that are going to be released the same time as us. There are multiple works(listed below) that will give us an idea of whether or not we want to conform to the stereotypes of any sub-genre listed here which will then enable us to figure out if we want a sub-genre or not. Thus, this research will help us greatly into what the audience generally likes and what we could do to engage the audience further.

Target audience and genre decision

After discussing with members of my group that who would we like our target audience to be and what genre we would like to pursue, we concluded that we wanted our opening sequence to be a psychological-thriller as this would be easy to construct and there are variety of codes and conventions that can be incorporated in our opening sequence. This decision was also made as this genre applies to everyone regardless of their gender or age for e.g. if our opening sequence was romance-comedy then it would only appeal to the female audience. Similarly, the reason why we did not pick the genre of action-thriller is because this would be difficult to construct and this also applies more to the male audience than it does with the female audience. As we did not want a disparity in our target audience, we wanted to appeal to everyone which the genre, psychological-thriller does.

In regards to our target audience, we wanted and believed the target audience of young adults and teenagers, with roughly around the age of 15 to 24, because we know their expectations and preferences as we are roughly around the same age. Also, with the research of psychological-thriller films, we found that they mostly have the age rating of '15' meaning they are aiming at young adults. As psychological-thriller tend to appeal to both females and males, we wouldn't need to alter the codes and conventions of the genre in our opening sequence as it appeals to both genders.

Mindmap

 First draft                         

Second draft- finalised copy- our idea listed here could potentially change but this is just a more realistic mindmap then what we did before. This mind map may be 'finalised' but it doesn't necessarily mean we will incorporate most or possibly all of these ideas to our Thriller opening sequence. 

Evaluation- what I learnt

When we first started putting our ideas in the mind map, we thought it would be enough and we would develop more ideas as our planning research progresses. But, this clearly was not the case as we didn't think logically and how much time it would to take to actually have a flashback in our opening sequence as well as not listing what we would have in the flashback. So, we decided to make a completely new mind map whereby it merely focuses on the technical side of the scenes we will have as well as their importance. Therefore, this second as well as finalised copy of our mind map will help us with our story board, shot list, cast list, any other planning and research task we are meant to complete as well as the evaluation of where we are meant to reflect on everything. So, it is fair to say that this mind map will help us produce the best, possible work. 

Shutter Island movie analysis- code and conventions found

Shutter Island(2010)- Psychological Thriller

Evaluation- what I learnt

This brief movie analysis of 'The Shutter Island' gave me a clear idea of how exactly films grip the audience, especially of a psychological thriller sub genre. It also taught me the importance of editing and sound which are clearly the most importance elements of film as they helped create the sense of uneasiness in the film. Therefore, I must concentrate on this element to help create an effective Thriller opening sequence and if I chose to pick the sub-genre of 'Psychological' then I would incorporate all the key code and conventions shown in the film into my opening sequence with the exact same feelings provoked in the film.

Preliminary task

Preliminary task

Evaluation
Our preliminary task has some strengths as well as flaws that let us down. We used various shots such as medium shot and long shot, which we asked to do and incorporated them all  correctly in our preliminary task so this shows a real understanding of what we were meant to do and enhanced our knowledge of these shots. We added tense music to create a certain mood, which was a very action atmosphere that was needed to be created was done fantastically as we had music to do so.

But, there were major significant drawbacks to our progression in this task. We failed to use one portrait orientation so this affected tremendously to the sequence of our project but the editing made this less obvious. The people who were shown in this project wore different clothes in the duration of the 2 minutes, which affected the mood of the project slightly and the intensity of the project. The major significant disadvantage was the clarity of the IPad as it made our preliminary task unprofessional and pathetic. But, these drawbacks can help us prevent situations like this happening to us in our final task.

If that doesn't work, the link to the video is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r11EplJkPQc&feature=youtu.be

Questionnaire analysis

Evaluation- what I learnt
This questionnaire and analysing the answers we were given made us realise what exactly the audience wants. Therefore, as the audience are gripped by the plot, we must wrap all the answers given by this questionnaire around our plot to satisfy the needs of the people we asked as well as the wider audience by producing an excellent sub genre within Thriller of Horror-orientated(as well as other sub-genres of Thriller) opening sequence through everything the audience wants.

Questionnaire with commentary

Commentary
Our group had to create a questionnaire as it was a vital part of us knowing what we are going to do for our opening thriller project and we need to know how to interact with our age group in our film opening. We chose these questions specifically as they are easy to answer and they are the basic fundamental of our group developing our project as a whole. The questionnaire has enabled our group to know exactly what our story plot will be and how we will be able to interact with our target audience, and everyone as a whole.