Target Audience

Target Audience Research:

The genre of our film is mainly thriller, with elements of crime and action.

Here are some statisticts about the audience profile for thriller films:

Gender profile for people who like thriller films

Age profile for people who like thriller films

From our research we have come up with the following target audience:

Priamary target audience - 15 - 25 year olds, predominantly male. The main character in our film is a 17 year old male who we hope our audience can relate to.  The elements of action in our film should aslo be appealing to that market.

Secondary audience - 25 - 50 year olds who are fans of thrillers. There is a still a signifficant percentage of people who like thrillers that are over 25, (44%) and they are therefore our secondary audience.

Brainstorming

We decided to expand on our thriller genre idea, with an aim to establish a title, possible location and actors as well as building a story line.

The brainstorm

1. Is it practical?
     - Yes as we are shooting in a location that is a 2 minute walk from Sams house which we can use as a base. We are also using actors/actresses from within the group as it is alot more convinient as we know that we will be comitted to shooting when we want to. Only one of the roles requires some skill in acting, and this role is played by Lewi who does drama AS.

2. Is it an idea that works to the strengths of the group?
     - Yes, we have all had experience in shooting and editting before. Some of us have also had acting experience.

3. Will it show off the skills you have learnt so far on the course?
     - Yes, we will be using what we have learnt about shooting, editting and continuity from our prelim task. We will also be appllying the Todorov's theory of equillibrium, where the equillibrium is disrupted by the two men carrying the dead body.

4. Is it something you can reasonably shoot and edit in the time available?
     - Yes, it isn't a very complicated plot and dosent require any extensive editting.

5. Can you get access/ permission to shoot in the chosen location at the chosen times?
     - Yes, we are shooting in a public park open for anyone.

6. Can you organise lighting to use in that location?
     - This is our biggest problem as it will be dark when we shoot, we will have to have lots of different lights sources, or shoot when it's slightly lgihter.

7. Have you included dialogue? If so, will it work to shoot conversation in that location?
     - The only dialogue will be added in after we shoot, so you won't actually see anyone talking.

8. Do you have guaranteed high quality reliable actors to play the characters?
     - Yes, Lewi has agreed to act for us which is uselful because he does drama A-level.

Our Institution

We are 'Bite The Bullet Productions', and we specialise in  action/thriller films targeting national and international audiences (anyone who is a fan of the genre). We also have a backlog of relatively low budget and gritty/unusual films that have become big successes.

Our Final Proposal

treatment

Music research

We think, as our film would be set in East London, a way to instantly portray this would be through the music.

The music, for the chase scene especially would add to the atmosphere of the moment as this music does for this clip:


A song we like is Water Torture by Cee Why, it is from the Kidulthood soundtrack (also portraying the same part of London). We like this as it has a eery squeak to it that shows bad is going on (with the disposing of the dead body). It also has a quieter beginning which could contrast the shots of our innocent victim and then the shots of our antagonists. However, this music is not very tense for the moment when our victim is hiding, and just builds on the adrenaline for when our victim is running.




We also feel that this music would work well, as it has a gan gstyle feel to it and could also work well with a running sequence.


So, for the beginning of our sequence we think it should be very quiet with only diegetic sounds of the forest and our main character moving, and for the dialogue of our antagonists. However when the characters start running i think the music above or something similar would fit in nicely, as the bass and beat seem to represent the adrenaline heartbeat of the protagonist.

BLK FEEDBACK TO MEETING

3 Main Issues Our Meeting Raised Were:
- Was it realistic to do a night shoot? A lot of equipment needed etc.
- Should the main character be a bit more of a victim ?
- Would a woodland tracking shot in the dark be too optimistic? Maybe a different kind of shot or change the plot?

Resolutions
-Shoot not a night, but early morning, so the shots were dusky and not completely black
- Make the main character a drug user with a harsh background in comparison to a drug dealer
- We have decided to keep the tracking shot, but make it rough and handheld with a lot of CU's of body parts rather than a straight MS

Research - Chasing Sequences

Casino Royale opening:

The sequence involves lots of wide and long shots to establish the environment that they are in. There are also lots of tracking and panning shots which give a feel of movement and chaos. Editing between shots is predominantly done by cuts as this keeps up the pace of the sequence.

We plan on using some of these techniques in our opening sequence to mimic the feel of a chase.

Actor Ideas

We intend to use actors from our group instead of people who are not taking media AS as we believe it will be easier and safer to use people we know, trust and have experience in how things work at a shoot etc. 

As well as this we intend our shoot to be at night/early morning. This means it will be difficult to convince actors to turn up on time or even turn up at all. As two members of our group, Lewis and Sam, are taking Drama AS it just makes sense to utilise them and keep things simple.

Our main character, Jack, is a seventeen year old boy who comes from a rough, working class background. As we ourselves are approaching 17 this again is a perfect reason to use people within our group as actors.

Jack stumbles across two men dragging a corpse through the forest, these characters will be played again by members of our group, as it will be dark and we plan to use large coats and cover the mens' faces it will be impossible to tell that they arn't fully grown men. A bonus to this is that there is little dialogue within our opening sequence meaning that we wont hear them speak, this further supports our casting options.

Initial Research

Influences:

The Bourne series:

The idea behind Bourne, is that the main character is an anti-hero on the run, but has nobody to turn to. We want to use this idea in our film. Our main character (Jack) has witnessed a crime but can't tell anyone because he is also a criminal. He therefore has to try and find out who the people chasing him are, and put an end to their criminal business before they kill him.

Taken:

Taken is about a group of people that abduct girls on holiday, and force them into the sex trafficking business. We were thinking of using a similar back story for the main villains in our film. Jack would have to stop them before they claim their next victim, which in turn could spark up a love interest between Jack and the girl.

Kidulthood:

Our film could potentially be set in East London, and gangs, drugs and street violence would play a significant role. Kidulthood shows gang culture and the problems faced by youth in London. We could use some of their ideas in our film.

First responses to the brief

On Thursday January 20th, our group first discussed our thoughts on the brief during our lesson. We were all excited about the task and couldn't wait to get started.
To begin with we decided to choose what genre we were interested in, after a few suggestions including comedy and drama we narrowed it down to the genres of: Dark Comedy and Thriller
At the end of this meeting we decided the best thing to do was to go home and think up an initial idea (film sequence) for the next day. When planning we were advised to refer to a list of 8 questions which told us if our ideas were too complicated.
Friday 21st

We met again during a lesson and presented each other our ideas.

James - Dark Comedy. James - Dark Comedy. A boy who has phsycological issues,becomes fixated on a girl. After months of stalking one day after school he follows her and kidnapps her believing she will marry him. The film gains it comedic elements from an awkward stand off between the two in his parents garage.

Phillipa - Thriller. A male teacher at an all girls school is in fact a paedophile and obsessed with one of his students. The opening sequence featured him going home and revealing a wall full of pictures of the innocent girl.

Lewis - Dark Comedy. A young male walks down a country lane, with his voice narrating his thought process. He is obsessed with what people think about him, and in comedic fashion ends up with two people in the boot of his car. This would be the same comedic style as Sean Of The Dead.

Sam -  Thriller. A teenage boy is wondering in a forest when he overhears the conversation of two males in a hut in the forest discussing how to bury a body. They notice him eavesdropping and he runs for his life, they person him intent on keeping their crimes a secret.

After reviewing the practicalities and potential of our ideas we settled on Sam's thriller idea. We arranged to meet our teachers at lunch and present our idea for the sequence later that day during lunch, prior to this we held another group meeting on Friday lunch where we built an initial story line.