Evaluation

Evaluation for media
Before we created our thriller, we had to do some background research on what actually makes a thriller movie. During this time, I learned that a thriller is actually a type of genre that has a suspenseful and climaxing. It effects the physically and emotionally but heart race and shock. We analysed films such as “Arlington Road”, this was a very interesting film about a man who goes through a series of unfortunate events and had a great twist at the end that was very useful and we decided to use the same conventions for our thriller. We also learnt from watching films like that how we could make our film affective to attract a certain audience.

Because of our previous practice, films that we made that help us a lot with creating the final. However, we did come across a few problems in these previous films. One of the main problems that we had was the time we had offered to complete the practices films, this made us quite rushed an therefore effected the quality of some of our shots. For example, there could be problems with the positioning of the camera; also, because we felt rushed we were not able to look over some of the shots we made. Therefore, we would shoot a screen then when we watched the clip back; the camera would be tilted slightly. To fix this we would just get a second opinion when positioning the tripod make sure that it was at the correct angle and that the legs of the tripod were all level. Other problems we came across in the final were with the lighting, for example our group filmed on two different occasions and each time the lighting was different this caused problems from when we wanted to use bits from each but found that it didn’t look professional enough.

My target audience is clearly for people who are interested in thriller, but I think my film will be able to identify the target audience. I think the age range will be 15+ simply because of the thrill the film has to offer may not be appropriate for younger children could resolve in nightmares etc. The gender of my film is aimed more towards women however; men may still enjoy the film but will have to get into it. I am planning to go mainstream with this product but still have a main niche market, because the product is aiming to seek thrill seekers as well as pleasing the average viewer. People who watch my film have to also expect aspects of a horror film and enjoy the feeling of an adrenalin rush.

The main marketing strategies we will use to advertise our film are trailers, TV, billboard, internet camping, or advertise posters in shop windows putting ads in places we are sure our specific audience would go. These will be very useful to get our film out there and in the public eye. There is also a famous actor Will Smith; this will attract many fans because he is well known so the audience may automatically think it has to be a good film. We will also encourage him to go on shows and advertise the movie buy talking about it in a positive way, this will attract other audience. In addition, to really get our film out there we will make the cover of our film appear in free newspapers like “The Metro” also on billboards. We could also advertise it but making it into wallpaper and asking some famous singers to advertise it as there background on their My Space page etc. We can also advertise the trailers on the internet maybe get a spot on the T.V in the adverts of another thriller movie. This will help because if the person is enjoying the film then they will be intrigued.


My product may represent women who live alone, and may show that they are vulnerable while alone. The film therefore may appeal more to women, and the thrill to be more effective. For example if a couple or a group of girls was watching this film the story line would be more effective wearas if a group of grown men decided to watch it they would enjoy the film but wouldn’t experience the thrill to the fullest extent. They are not religious, and are seemed to be independent live alone. There is no racial aspect that needs to be covered; it is more about the lifestyle the people live, working class average women who just happen to come across a series of unfortunate events.

I am going to use “Liongate Entertainment” to produce my film I think that this will be a good choice as they are well known in the film industry and I am satisfied with there level of production. I will also use fox film company ltd to help with the distribution of my film. The film would be a Holly Wood blockbuster, the financial backing I would have to use would be a bug budget. The budget would be around 20 million. This would be very useful because I am going to need to use computers, renting out sets, props, pay actors etc. I am also going to be looking to release the film later in the year as this may increase the chances of maybe picking up an award e.g. Oscar, reasons for this is because I think the film has got an original story line and because its got some well known actors it could be a hit. I would tend to drift towards big companies like “Sony pictures entertainment” to distribute my film reasons for this is because they have distributed a lot of popular thrillers for example Arlington road, and are very popular as a company and have got there foot in the door to get “Shadows” really out there.

I think that I learned a lot from using final cut pro, I now feel confident assisting with the production with a film. I also found it a lot more challenging then I expected and have leant a lot. The filming side was very intrusting and exciting, and it was great to see the systematic improvements from the filming to editing on final cut pro. Before filming, I never knew how to handle a camera or how much work goes into the production, filming and directing of a film. Also in the practice films we didn’t use a lot of effects so in our final film we was determined to add extra effects and sound, this help and was very effective as shown in the final outcome. Before we made our film, we were shown that we were not able to use copyright music, knowing this we created our own theme tune and got great feedback. The internet has also been very useful for me to blog through the steps I took in order to complete the film. The internet has also been useful for the release of my movie on Vimeo, from this can people also progress to release on other broadcasting sites like YouTube, this will also widened my potential audience and therefore increase the views and increase publicity of the film.

I think I have been successful in the making of my thriller film, however if I had more time I think I could have made improvements. For example, I would have spent more time on the lighting and increasing the suspense of the film. The storyboard use in the making of the film was very useful and gave a positive guideline on what our aims were for each shot. However, we did not always stick to this as our ideas improved as we went along. I was pleased with the feedback we received about our film the main issues that was brought up was the timing of the class cup dropping of the floor to the sound that we edited, also people commented on the heartbeats and creaky floorboards and said that it was very effective and created tension. In addition, we were shown that we established the location well at the beginning. As Individual shots go, the one we received the most positive feedback from was the one in the fridge, and a good use of P.O.V. However, that we would have also made changes if we had more time to some negative feedback. There was feedback about the slow pace of the film and therefore lacked suspense, here we would have speeded up the tracking and maybe increased the merges.

Ashton Sheppard Y56819