Titling work continued

First day of filming

We have just begun filming our first shots for our thriller along our planned route which we had previously planned upon. We kept the exact date for this filming session unknown although we had decided that we were definitely going to shoot shoot at some point this week. This was because we wanted to plan the shoot according to the weather report. We waited until the sky was cloudy enough to suit our genre and create the perfect lighting conditions. We also decided to shoot all of the scenes with the sky in the background to help maintain continuity.

I took a few pictures of our location and setting in between shots:

Audience theories appropriate to our Thriller (Mass vs Niche & Uses and Grarifications)

Our thriller will appeal to a much more niche audience as opposed to a mass audience. This is because our particular genre is something that appeals to only a specific audience who are interested in the themes brought forward. For example corrupt governments and conspiracies. This makes the Mass vs. Niche audience theory applicable to our thriller..

Our thriller also relates to Blulmer and Katz's 'Uses and Gratifications' theory. This is because the audience can use our opening in several different ways. for example, our audience may use our thriller for diversion and may want to escape from their everyday lives and look into the potential future mentioned in the thriller.

 

This will allow us to plan to use open and modern locations that still look as though the thriller is set in the present to give the audience the impression that the near future is not too different from today. This makes it easier for the audience to escape into the world that we have created.

Audience Expectations of the Thriller Genre

Audiences tend to watch thrillers for their highly intense storylines and their gripping action sequences. This is reflected through the average age of people that enjoy watching thrillers is around 18-25 as these much more mature ages can fully grasp the often complex themes often raised by the genre as well as appreciate the mature content involved.

However, the various sub-genres of thriller films can appeal to a much wider audience. For example, one of the more popular, thriller sub-genres, the action thriller, appeals to a much wider, audience. Younger people around the age of 15 may be drawn to this particular sub-genre due to its fast paced edits and camera angles typically used throughout.

Distribution of film research

My research into the distribution of films has helped me understand a lot more about how films are released.

When a film is being produced, there are always people who work out how and when the film should be released to the public. These people are the film distributors. Their job is to determine a marketing strategy, the media by which a film is to be exhibited and may set the release date etc.

The film can be exhibited to the public through many different ways. For example, a cinema or movie theater, where someone will pay for a single viewing of the film (often prior to its release on other types of media.)
Television, where different network stations may purchase the rights to show the film to the public on one of their channels.
Personal home viewing, this includes releases on DVD, Blu-ray disc, download etc. And also includes streaming sites such as Netflix, LoveFilm and Blinkbox where the viewer can own their own copy of the film permanently or have inlimited access to it by subscribing to streaming sites for as long as it remains up.

Marketing and promotion of films

I have started to research the various ways in which film studios and production companies promote their products (films, tv shows etc.) The knowledge I have gained will help us when we come to promoting our thriller when it is complete. It can also help by possibly allowing us to further think about our target audience while we are still shooting and open us up to a wider potential audience.

There are several different methods involved in the marketing and promotion of films. These include advertising campaigns, press releases and other methods including those involved in the production of the film/ tv show. Interviews with the actors, directors and producers for example.

In the early stages of release, production companies will invest a lot of money in marketing campaigns in order to maximise their revenue. Around half of the production budget is spent on marketing which highlights how important it is.

Other ways in which different companies promote their films are through film posters seen at cinemas and sometimes in city streets which advertise the films to any movie-goers that happen to be in the area. Trailers are a vital way to advertise films and are the most popular and most effective way to get a film recognised. These trailers show short clips taken from throughout the film and are used to persuade the viewing audience to go and see the new film. Trailers are very common in cinema and are shown just before the film they are about to watch.

Storyboard

We have created a storyboard to roughly show the plot and direction of our thriller opening. This includes camera shots/ angles, directions and actions for our actors and the order in which each shot will take place (as a lot of our scenes are in a slightly random order on the sheet)