Viney Kumar AS Level Media, Evaluation

1. WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR
MEDIA PRODUCT? Q4
This thriller opening reveals a high standards of suspense in my opinion and holds
key enigma codes which enables the audience to stay for more. This product could
easily be established in the psychological thriller sub-genre which may interest many
and I believe it holds a huge sample of target audience. In my opinion, the target
audience for the product can be aimed at the age range between 14 to 28. However I
feel that the product would succeed best to engage with teenagers. Though many
other factors would affect this prediction such as gender for example, men and
women usually have different views and do contradict.

2. TARGET AUDIENCE MOOD BOARD AND INDIVIDUAL
PROFILES OF YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
 As you can see on my mood board and individual profiles, both are on teenagers. A
typical taste of a teenager who’s interested in sports, social networking, movies and
girls. And on the moodboard we see typical teenage activities, boys playing on a
games console and girls walking from school with folders. On profile we are presented
a male teenager who like watching movies but in the horror genre. He’s more likely to
shop in places like JD or Top man as he’s interested in sportswear and socialising.
Favourite TV programme would be something like Eastenders.

3. There isn’t much I could criticize
on, therefore very well done. I do think the
background music played a good part in the
opening to create that extra bit of suspense.
Wow! Kept me
guessing all along!
Typical thriller.
There is suspense
there however the
story is difficult to
grasp and understand.
Loads of shots were used
which shows that the
group tried to experiment
a lot, which is a positive.
Hmm.. Not bad but I would
prefer a bit more
romance, however this was
done really well by the
group.
I do media myself, and by
watching this, It definitely
suits its target audience. I’m
a teenager and it kept me
hooked on.
The opening is
actually really
good! Music was
creepy.
Feedback From
Others (Target
Audience)

4. TO DISCUSS ISSUES RAISED AND TARGET
AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
Earlier, before producing the thriller opening, one of our major concerns were to find a
location. At that point we had decided our storyline and shot list but we were still unsure of
where to shoot. However at a later stage we found a solution to this problem, and
eventually shot our thriller opening.
Target Audience Feedback
Some of our peers gave us some good feedback after watching our thriller opening and
this was very useful because this tells us whether we met our aims to meet the likes and
dislikes of our target audience. The majority gave positive feedback and found it very
suspenseful which was good to know. However some did comment on the technical sides
of things, talking about camerawork and sound, and they were positives given from our
peers and it’s great to know that our hard work on these key functions were clearly seen by
the audience. We used a variety of camerashots and deliberately using the one non-
diegetic sound to create tension till the very end. Many of our peers also liked our storyline
and the way it was presented.
On the other hand there were some criticisms from audience’s, as some preferred a more
romantic theme to the opening though we had covered this criteria for our target
audience’s to a certain extent. And to avoid going off track and adding more romance
themes we must stick to the thriller genre more powerfully. Some found it difficult to
understand the opening, this is simply because the full story hasn’t been given yet, as it’s
an opening of a movie. Thereby the suspense is created for a reason and should remain
as key enigma codes.

5. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR
AUDIENCE? Q5
In my opinion, thriller genre is more liked amongst teenagers because it has the
thrill and young aged audiences are fond of this. Therefore our aim was to
direct this thriller opening at our target audience affectively by ticking four
main criteria’s of a teenagers choice. The four sections to consider were:
 Genre conventions.
 Media language.
 Music.
 Similarities with other films.
After planning all these, it was just about producing the opening and seeing
whether it would live up to the standards of our target audiences. Though we
didn’t have an action packed, full of explosions type of thriller opening, our
aim was to include all teenage types for our thriller opening, as girls tend to
like a romantic theme therefore this opening would be suitable to our target
audience affectively as it’s made for all teenagers, not just a sample of
teenagers. Therefore this opening has it all for both boys and girls to keep
them watching more and to meet their standards.

6. GENRE CONVENTIONS
Genre conventions consists of four sub sections which are: characters, iconography,
narrative and themes. Firstly, I will be discussing the character traits in this thriller
opening and how they appeal to our target audience. For the characters to appeal
to the audience, iconography was highly important in this case.
The characters are first viewed as picture in photo
frame of a couple, who both study together. Here
we are presenting both characters to have a very
“geeky” look, as the female character wearing
glasses and the male character is in a shirt and tie.
This picture symbolises the love between the
characters. This type of representation is more
appealing to the female teenage target audience
as it has a romantic theme to it.
Then we move onto the bathroom scene
where the female character is changing
identities. She gradually changes from a
“nerdy” character into a “rebellious” type
character. This is the more thriller side to
the opening, where the audience ask
themselves, “Why is she changing her
identity?”

7. GENRE CONVENTIONS
The iconography has been the key to represent characters, however what was very
unusual for the target audience to see was a male character who was given a
more vulnerable role instead of he “macho” heroic role. On the other hand, the
female character was given a femme fatal role which is very rare to see and adds
the additional thrill as it questions the audience's minds very affectively.
And last but not least we see the male character
all vulnerable and dead after he’s been
murdered by his own girlfriend. He is presented
in a shirt and tie like he was in the picture earlier
on, this shows that he hasn’t changed and is
normal however his girlfriend has changed and
has dual personalities. For the target audience,
this is an enigma code as we see him dead and
how his girlfriend treats him.

8. ICONOGRAPHY
Iconography is basically what we see visually on our screens when we're watching the
movies, and these hold many elements such as:
props, costume, buildings, cars, mise en scene, etc. In my opinion this was done
very affectively as the location was correct and in the living room, there was mess
everywhere which represents what a mess the female character is and how the
couple’s relationship is now a mess due to his murder. Iconography was also well
used as props of the female character as we see by the make up she was using to
change into a “rebellious” role and the glasses for that “geeky” role. The colour of
the car the character drives in was “white” which symbolises purity however this is
ironic as the female character isn’t pure after her boyfriends murder, and all these
representations give away messages of uncertainty through-out the opening to the
audience. And therefore, this is suitable thriller opening for our target audience, as
they look for uncertainty to create enigma codes.

9. NARRATIVE
The definition of Narrative can simply be described as a series of events that take
place over time and then later on they're then linked by the cause and effect that
then takes place. As this is just an opening it wouldn’t have as many causes and
affects however, as an opening it already has one cause and affect. This the
murder of the male character which would then be linked to another cause and
affect over time. As the murder has already took place and many questions arise
on the female protagonist, this just increases many enigma codes, and therefore
the whole movie’s narrative begins from the opening which is shown here. This
narrative has murder and mystery which increases enigma codes for our target
audience.

10. THEMES
This thriller opening is heading towards to become a psychological thriller therefore
we see these indications by the early mystery created by playing a dubious female
protagonist and the murder. However, in the opening I do think we have more than
one theme to it as there’s a feel of romance earlier on when we see a romantic
couple’s picture in a frame however it’s then dominated by psychological thriller
affects of how this female character has dual personalities and followed by an
unaware death of the male character. Therefore the theme slightly changes in the
opening as we see further on. And that’s why I think this thriller opening suits both
male/female target audience because has the feel for both, and therefore it may
attract them more than just having a one sided liked theme.
First picture shows a romantic
theme to the movie, and then
this leads to the murder of an
innocent boyfriend which is a
totally different theme to
romance, is mystery and
thriller.

11. MEDIA LANGUAGE
To define media language, I would basically say that all the things that makes this
opening take place via using media effects. And therefore this can be done in two
main ways which make this thriller opening be as smooth as it runs and more
interesting. The two techniques that are used to show media language are:
 Types of shots
 Special Effects (Editing)
These technical areas do not determine storylines, etc. However these techniques
emphasise on the genre conventions made in the opening therefore are very
handy and also enable the scenes to run smooth without any unwanted cuts.

12. TYPES OF SHOTS
In this thriller opening, if you see very clearly, we’ve used a variety of shots in differing
scenes. Many times the camera also pans forward to create suspense. For
example, in our opening, the camera pan forward towards the picture in the frame
of the couple- this symbolises that there’s danger moving towards this couple, and
is emphasised by the panning forward of the camera. There were also some useful
high angle and low angle shots used to emphasise power of the female lead
protagonist and also many extreme close ups were used in the bathroom scene
where the character was putting all the make up on, etc. Showing a variety of shots
gives a better view for the audience to watch scenes because it creates more
suspense on this occasion.
The first shot then pans forward into this to show more detail
on the picture of both characters.
Some key extreme close ups used to
emphasise on the detail of what the character is
doing.

13. SPECIAL EFFECTS (EDITING)
In our thriller opening we have used some very skilful editing techniques such as
fading and fading out which easily enables us to move to scenes more fluently.
Also some very fluent match on actions have been used in the opening, for
example when the female character enters the messy living room. These help
emphasise on what the character is doing in the scene and enable move scene to
scene. A fading in and out technique was used when the female character leaves
her house and we see the living room, which later fades onto the next scene where
she is walking towards her car. These editing techniques makes scenes look more
fluent then just cut on each camera shot. This enhances the understanding of the
audience of this thriller opening more efficiently.
A match on action is used when the character walks into the
living room, which works fluently via editing.
The first in the living room was then to move
onto the next scene by using fade in and
out, this is also an editing technique.

14. MUSIC
In this opening thriller there were no dialogues used however there was a non-
diegetic soundtrack that played through-out the entire opening until the main
lead puts her radio on in the car. The non-diegetic soundtrack we had
selected was perfect because it completely matched the theme of our
opening thriller as it had that suspenseful beat and innocent sound to it at the
right moments and scenes. The soundtrack was used from the beginning and
until when the female protagonist switches the radio on, and the radio was
playing rap music on (diegetic music). This soundtrack certainly does appeal
to our target audience as it indicates both fields of this opening, the romantic
and suspenseful therefore it matches our opening and it would also suit our
target audience. The soundtrack also starts of slow and is slow till the end
however at times it picks up pace and changes rhythm.

15. SIMILARITIES WITH OTHER FILMS
Our initial idea for this storyline came from the movie called “step father” therefore it
can relate to this movie in some aspects. However we did make changes so that
it’s original enough to be ours. Some of the changes we made were: Having a
female protagonist instead of a male, The entire bathroom scene would be
different, our shot list differed from “step father,” etc. Though the idea was much
similar of how there is a dead body in the house and the main lead has dual
personalities is very calm about the murder committed and carries on with their
daily routine.
Both of these shots are very similar
however performed differently. In my
opinion this opening attracts the
audience because the opening has
many enigma codes which would
interest the audience. Therefore this
idea seemed very creative and
interesting to do.

16. UNIQUE SELLING POINT
A female protagonist playing a role as a femme fatal is very rare to see in thriller
movies because people tend to label it to be more of a “boyish” genre where all the
murdering and killing happens which attracts more male target audience’s. This is
also very affective because of the irony of women presented as a dangerous
character, therefore it is well appreciated by male and female target audience’s.
This is a psychological thriller therefore it welcomes all target audiences as it’s main
aim is to keep the audience guessing whereas a typical action thriller would just
acquire of mainly male audiences.