Evaluation 6

What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here i have made a prezi to answer the evaluation question:

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Evaluation 5

How did you attract/address your audience

Throughout the production of our opening sequence, the group and I included many different techniques to physically engage the audience with our film. This includes the use of questionnaires and myself creating and audience feedback video; this to give us crucial information on what the audience did/did not like. In our actual opening sequence, we used non-diegetic and ambient music to create a dramatic atmosphere for the audience to connect to. Our uses of extreme close ups broke the fourth wall between Hannah and the audience by staring directly at them, making them feel a part of the film themselves and building a personal relationship (uses and gratifications) with the protagonist.

Hannah breaking the fourth wall

Questionnaire:

Following our dis-conclusion on what to name our opening sequence, the group and I gave the audience a briefing on what our opening sequence would be about, we displayed this through a powerpoint presentation in which we presented to the rest of our classmates and we asked them to fill our a questionnaire determining on what we called our film. I previously made a blog post on the questionnaire (see blog post Audience Interaction - Film Title Questionnaire). We gave a straightforward selection of film titles, those including: Songbird, Extortion, Silence, Silent, Mute followed by a choice of 'other'. Overall the predominant winner was 'Mute' and we decided to keep it as the title of our opening sequence.

Audience Feedback Video:

As a further addition to our research, we decided to include the audience in what their opinions were  about the first draft of our opening sequence - what they liked and dislikes - followed by what aspects they thought we needed to change.

From this video, we learned what mistakes we had made whilst producing the sequence; here are a list of some:

 "I think you need to make your story line a bit clearer"

Previously, the opening sequence had seemed unclear because we did not include any indication as to how Hannah turned from 'good' to 'bad'. Originally, we believed that this created a greater sense of enigma but it lead to the audience being too confused. To amend this, we added in a section in the middle of the sequence briefly showing Hannah being washed in a bath, surrounded by excessively clean doctors equipment leading the audience to understand that Hannah has been kidnapped with the intention of harm towards her.

Here are some of the images from the montage of short clips showing the changes we made to our opening sequence regarding the criticisms about the unclear storyline

"The subtitles are hard to read, so maybe you could change the font"

The subtitles were initially difficult to read because of our predominant white and blue colour scheme . We experimented with using darker fonts such as black and blue for our subtitles, however it did not look professional so we decided to keep the font as white.Moreover, we took this criticism into great consideration and we ended up adding a shadow to the back of our white font as this made it easier for the audience to read. So even over the white surface (below on Hannah's fingers) the audience was still able to read the subtitles.

Camera/Audio/Editing/Mise-En-Scene:

I have made direct connections between the audience and what is on the screen in order to attract and draw them in. As aforementioned, my use of close-ups allowed the audience to form a sense of belonging with Hannah as she breaks the fourth wall, this means Hannah is semi-interacting with the audience making them feel as if they are actually there. The extreme close up on 

 Hannah's eyes is a seriously intimidating shot as it looks directly to the audiences eyes which directly addresses them.

The slow motion used in specific shots builds up an intense atmosphere which grabs the audiences attention, this in conjunction with the non-diegetic slow to fast paced music inflicts horror on the audience.

The use of a fast paced montage engages the audience by the audience having to watch and keep up with the ever changing scene; the engima codes in which it brings makes the audience want to carry on watching.

Evaltuation 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS: 

Audience demographics are the natural features of a specific person this could be specified through: their age, gender, class and ethnicity. In the media, audiences are targeted through these separate demographics and I will talk about who my target audience for MUTE is.

AGE:

For the opening sequence to MUTE, our BBFC age rating is an 18 because of the mature themes throughout the rest of our film. However, even though it is rated an 18, the age group in which we would most associate and target audience as 15-24 years old as a 15 year old may be mature enough to watch the uncomfortable themes as it entirely depends on the person. Also, this age group would be the target audience as the characters within the film e.g. Hannah who is a teenage girl and is the main protagonist and victim. We stopped the target age group at age 24 as after this age someone may rather watch a more sophisticated drama than a horror/thriller.

NRS CLASSIFICATIONS (CLASS):

The social class of the target audience of the film MUTE would most likely be from grade E through to C2 as many of the audience would most likely be made up by students and working class young adults; the lower grades (E) would make up the majority of the target audience as the film may be more enticing an intriguing to a younger audience because of the relatable young character of Hannah.

GENDER:

In mute there is really no specification to gender as both male and female are part of my target audience. Women , being the primary audience, are represented through the use of the protagonist Hannah, the women watching may feel a deeper connection of empathy towards her character. Additionally, as Hannah is seen as an unconventional woman who is independent and doesn't rely on men, this may empower women so they may watch for those reasons.

On the other hand, men, being the secondary audience, may watch MUTE for their own satisfaction and possibly pleasure when watching the female character Hannah; we have used Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze throughout the opening sequence with the use of mise-en-scene through make up, costume and props, with scenes of Hannah sucking on a lollipop (with sexual connotations) additionally to being dressed in an outfit mirroring one of a school-girl also, when 'bad Hannah' is introduced, the use of bold red lipstick has sexual connotations.

ETHNICITY:

In MUTE, our representation of ethnicity is shown through the character of Hannah and through our anonymous Spanish speaking voice over. The Spanish voice over strengthens Alvrado's 4 key theory and enforces the fear that ethnic minorities have on to the predominantly Caucasian British audience as the antagonist in the film is of non-British decent. Hannah depicts to the audience that the white woman are seen as victims, which may want the audience to sympathise with her - therefore creating a Caucasian target audience. Therefore the ethnicity of the target audience would apply most to the Caucasian, British population.

AUDIENCE PSYCHOGRAPHICS 

The audience psychographics are what makes up the person; this can be identified through their interests, lifestyle and needs. 

As our opening sequence challenges some conventions of opening the target audience would be far from mainstream. Most likely the people who would have the most interest in MUTE would be individualists who are also seekers and adventurers as they want to discover something on screen which is a complete juxtaposition to real life. In MUTE a number of disastrous things happen to the character Hannah ultimately making her change her persona to the binary opposite from overjoyed to depressed - to a shadenfruede audience this would be ideal as they enjoy seeing others at misfortune as throughout the opening sequence her happiness and sanity deteriorate. Additionally, the audience for MUTE may be voyeuristic and enjoy to watch Hannah and not be seen themselves by the characters on screen; in our opening sequence there are several shots of Hannah unaware she is being filmed, one particular shot where she is laughing in slow motion and the ambient non-diegetic horror-esque music is introduced to emphasise this.

The type of people who I would associate the most to be the target audience would be a heterosexual couple in their early 20's who have an interest into horror films. They would be of the working class and would be fairly laid back and informal. However, the target audience may be fashionable with what they wear and with the latest trends as MUTE is a very up to date film in terms with costume, hair and makeup; so they could be associated with the occupation of retail assistants, stylists or hairdressers.

When looking into Blumer and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory through Hannah, it allows the audience to have a 'Personal Relationship' with her as the sympathy/empathy expressed towards her could allow the audience to not feel alone; even though the melancholy tone to the plot, MUTE may include escapers to the secondary audience as they could feel support from the character Hannah throughout. 

Evaluation 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 A film distributor is a company or individual that holds the responsibility for the marketing for a film. Therefore, it is the distributors role to advertise /market their media product, in this instance - the particular film. They may advertise the product through different techniques such as trailers, posters, billboards, etc. A film distributor may inform the audience to when the film release date is, either in the cinema or on DVD or Blu-ray. Distribution companies also have a dictation on what cinemas the films are screened in (e.g. Odeon, Vue, Empire Cinemas) and how long their film is aired on screen in the cinema for. It may be a participant in deciding whether the film is to be shown on film websites such as: Netflix, Amazon Prime and Lovefilm. It is very important to market your media product so the audience may become as broad as possible and that everyone included in the production, distribution and marketing of the film is able to achieve a decent profit. 

It could be said that smaller, more unsuccessful films benefit more from their distributors, this is because through the companies they are able to gain maximum profit and customers. Some successful examples of distribution/production companies are: Blumhouse Productions and Bounty Films. Smaller production/distribution companies may also benefit from film festival events such as 'London Film Festival' and 'Sundance Film Festival' as they allow all members of the film industry to become more nationally identified. Smaller film companies rely on the distribution methods as they may not have the finances to hire large, well known actors/actress' to star in their films, which would naturally attract and target the audience.

Blumhouse Productions is an American based horror specialised production company; by this I mean, the production company specialises in the horror genre by producing, distributing and marketing horror films. Blumhouse Productions was foundered and is run by Jason Blum. Additionally, Blumhouse Productions is one of the most recognised horror production companies, distributing the likes of Insidious, The Conjuring, Sinister and the Paranormal Activity franchise - all extremely successful and globally known horror films. The films in which Blumhouse produces are all low budget films, this means that the company 

Blumhouse Productions logo

can gain maximum profit from the film afterwards. For example, the first Paranormal Activity was made on the low budget of $15,000 and it managed to gross and eventually make $193 million worldwide. This would be a good production/distribution company to use for our opening sequence MUTE as it would be an under-budgeted film and would need to make as much profit as possible, as students we would not be able to fund very much; our opening sequence cost us only about £10 on props all together so mathematically if MUTE was to gross and make the same rate of money as Paranormal Activity did, it could earn us up to £12,876. We additionally took some inspiration from Bumhouse's Sinister and its Lawnmower scene - as we liked the use of 'home movies', this could allow our media product to be represented by Blumhouse Productions as our distributor, marketer and producer. Also, as our opening sequence is of the Horror/Thriller genre it fits into the specifications for Blumhouse Productions distribution company - therefore, there would be a possibility that Blumhouse could distribute our media product. 

20th Century Fox's logo

Another Production Company which would be appropriate to distribute our film MUTE would be 20th Century Fox. 20th Century Fox are an extremely successful conglomerate film and television production company; it has  distributed the likes of American Horror Story, The Simpsons, Star Wars trilogy and many more diverse films and television series. 20th Century Fox was foundered by Joseph M. Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck on the 31st of May 1935 and is also an American based company. As the company contains more then one genre of media, it could be said that it can broaden their audience as the target audience would be generally more diverse than a one genre based company; this would possibly increase their income and popularity; resulting in more jobs, larger profit and larger awareness of the company. 20th Century Fox's marketing methods may vary from: in cinema trailers, television trailers, previews, red carpet events (as their actors/actresses are more likely to be larger celebrities).


I have used 20th Century Fox as an example of a distribution company as some of our inspiration for our opening sequence MUTE has stemmed from 'American Horror Story' and its uses of fast paced montages and is from the horror genre also. The opening sequence to the first three seasons is of a similar unconventional style to MUTE as it contains various glitches and disturbing ambient/non-diegetic music. Although American Horror Story is a television series there are many similarities between it and MUTE. If 20th Century Fox were to distribute our opening sequence in a film I feel as if it would be very successful due to MUTE's unconventional interdependent features. Our use of a hybrid genre of Horror/Thriller wouldn't necessarily be important to 20th Century Fox because it is a multi-genre company and has products of many diverse genres. However, because of American Horror Story's success in the media industry leads us to believe that, because MUTE is similar in style, it would be made very profitable and internationally known film.

Here are the opening credits to American Horror Story:

Glitch Studios, named after the special editing techniques in its products, is the production company in which our group was able to form for our film opening sequence; as it is an independent company its methods of distribution and marketing would differ from that of 20th Century Fox or Blumhouse Productions. The use of social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube may play a crucial role of targeting the audience nationally on a low or no budget. It could still get recognition but not as much as the other conglomerates.