The Youth - Update

We went out the other weekend to Ashridge Woods, in which we started filming our thriller, 'The Youth'. Having started editing the footage, we have decided to use it as a title page for the DVD. We have used unwanted footage in order to practise our editing skills by looking at the different effects which we can insert into our film such as contrast, saturation, and bad TV (slightly fuzzy screen, like a badly filmed video). We are continuing filming this Saturday (28th February).

Location and Action shots will be uploaded shortly.

Essay Plan

Institutions and Audiences

Discuss the issues raised by the institutions' need to target specific audiences within a media industry which you have studied.


Introduction
- Outline Institutions (Working Title, Film 4, Handmade Films) and context.

Production Practices
- Where the Institutions are based and who they are.
- What films they are involved in.
- Target Audience e.g. Working Title - Wimbledon - UK/US broad audience appeal - casting - setting - scripting.

Distribution and Marketing
- 2 Films where the same company has done things differently to achieve specific results e.g. Film 4 - Slumdog Millionaire and Yasmin.

Use of Technology
-How the Production companies use technology such as the Internet, 3G, DVD, Blu Ray etc. Specific example of films that have been distributed with this in mind.

Audience Challenges
- People don't go to the cinema, but they buy the film. Find example where audience have thought they will buy the film or watch it online, instead of going to the cinema.

The Youth - Facebook Group

In order to publicise our film and gain volunteers for actors, I created a Facebook group, which contains information on the film to interest the volunteers, this will be updated duly with scripts, synopsis and other details.

ACTORS NEEDED FOR HORROR FILM

Through using sites like Facebook and Myspace during my life, i have noticed ALOT of advertisements for films and quite a few options to be included in films. I think this is a great way to market films as it targets a broad audience, and seeing as these are popular sites, people will think that the film must be good in order for it to be publicised on these sites. However, seeing as we are not selling our film, i used Facebook for another use. I found Facebook a great way to organise events, and so by making a group we could contact everyone at the same time, sending them details about times and locations etc.

In the end we managed to gain 11 people (including ourselves) who wanted to act in our film, of these 11 we choose 8 due to time arrangements, accessibility and skill.

My Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task, we had to make a short film showing someone walking into a room, having a conversation, and walking back out of the room. Here is my footage:

I also drew a storyboard to coincide with my short film:

L4YER CAK3

I have just done a media case study on 'Layer Cake', otherwise known as 'L4YER CAK3'. I found it particularly interesting how they advertised the movie. One way of doing so was to put the very attractive Sienna Miller in her underwear on a poster saying 'Layer Cake'. This was good advertising as the target audience for the film was male, and so having an extremely good looking blond, posing in her underwear, immediately attracts the average males eye, and so intrigues them into what the film is about, and finally makes them go to watch the film itself. Another point i picked up on was the fact that although Sienna Miller had a minor part in the actual motion picture, she was used as a main sales device, putting her on the front and back cover of the DVD box, and on a lot of the promotional posters. Again this was in order to attract the male audience. After all, what more could a guy want in a movie than a sexy blond in her underwear?



In the end, deservingly, 'Layer Cake' made a smashing $11,850,214 worldwide gross.

Thriller

As not only being a Media Studies student, but also an English Literature student, we have been studying the genre of 'Thriller'. In doing so i found a list of key features and conventions of a thriller, and thought that it might come in use for my groups film.

Thriller

• Film is led by the plot
• Fast pace
• Suspense
• Dialogue and Action
• Characters often stereostypes
• Characters easily identifiable as 'goodies' or 'baddies'
• Settings can span the globe
• Chases
• Themes: political conspiracy, international crime, terroism, innocents on the run, individuals suffering from psychosis
• Central figure normally male
• Hero isolated - 'going it alone'
• Not much emphasis on relationships
• Superficial sexual encounters

Inspiring Films

Here are some clips that Kia, Lara, Morgan and I have used as inspiration for our foundation portfolio film...