self evaluation

Audience Feedback

The majority of the comments were very positive, our main flaw was our credits. The credits appear to have not fit with the style of the rest of the film but the rest of the comments were very positive. These 5 examples of feedback are generally what all of the sheets said.
It seems that the audience did get confused at times but that could be seen as a hook, as the film progressed obviously the confusion would be cleared up. The audience appear to have appreciated the style and the imaginative shots that me and my partner used.

Influences

The idea has been influenced by other films.
The main concept is quite similar to the film Brick. A teenage based thriller with alot of references to drugs, sex and murders.
This film has been very successful and this could reflect on how popular our project could be.
There are also similarities as there is a very limited role for an adult caste. In Brick there is only one adult characters who does not even help move the storyline along. And in our film there is no adult characters or actors.



This is a trailers for the film Brick, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt Emilie de Ravin and Nora Zehetner.

The opening sequence has been massively influenced by Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet. The implied storyline is perfect for a thriller film. It creates a brilliant hook to gain the audiences attention immediately. This is because it shows them just enough to catch their interest.
The quick cuts and interesting images will pull our audience into the film and actively engage them as they will be looking for the clips they have seen.

The opening of Romeo and Juliet is widely renowned as a highly successful opening which reflects the prologue. This is the same technique which we are planning on using.

Final idea

The questionnaire was aimed at teenagers, who seem very interested in the thriller genre. It is only logical that this audience is targeted for a thriller film. This is a tactic taken on by many film makers and many thrillers have been made specifically for this large target audience.

The main concept of a thriller film is the hook, and in this film there will b an instant hook to grab the watchers attention.
There will b a voice-over, this will b over the top of serveral inserts from the middle of the film. These will introduce characters briefly and get the watchers to gain an emotional link with the character who is doin the voice-over. There will be quiet music that slowly gets faster and louder as the inserts also speed up.
This will gain the audiences attention as the will want to make sense of the clips they have seen and they will long to learn more about the faces they have briefly seen.

Mixed in that will b the credits and will end with teh title. Then it will go into the film, starting with a girl leaving for a party, walking down the road. As she walks she redoes her make-up, she reveals a lower cut top and she rolls up her skirt. This will reach out to most teenagers and it shows how teenagers see each other differently than to how their parents or guardians.
The camera watches her walk down to the party and goes past her into the party, leaving her outside.
The party is very active and firstly there is a small group that all go in different directions, this represents a split that would hapen later in the film, and one stumbles towards a door. Then the camera go round in the point of view of the stumbling drunk, it will be edited to speed up but slow down everytime the drunk goes nere an event of some sorts. The camera slows down as a girl downs a pint, as some gay couples kiss, as some people outside smoke ect.
Then the camera stops on a convosation between a small group and one is homophobic and racist, this introduces the first possible murderer.
The hatered from the homophobic, racist will automaically make the audience dislike the character.

Pitches

1) Combining Genres

After analysing the data from our questionnaire it is clear that the thriller and the musical genres are both very popular for different reasons. Females seem more attracted to the musical films and males to the thriller films. Now to make sure we gain a larger target audience it seems that these two genres are destined to merge.

Simple plotline with a twist would accommodate this new subgenre of musical thriller. Simpley, boy meets girl who already has a boyfriend, boy goes to kill boyfriend and ends up loosing the girl in teh first place. This would change the boys outlook on life and then start killing to climb the career ladder.
The logical thing would be to link it to some sorce of music, for instant the murderer would be part of a musical play or a singer of some description.

The opening would need to suggest the protagonist has sinister and evil characteristics, and will do anything to succeed.

This although in theory seems logical i doubt that the mixing of such different genres would be practical. But it did seem to work for sweaney todd. Also there is another practical issue that I would not be able to find enough decent singer for filming.

2) Spoof of a classic

There are many spoofs out but a spoof of the origonal vampire film Nosferatu could be inventive and extremely amusing. Simpley making fun of the origonal and how muchmore tame it seems today in our world of violence. With spoofs the films are allowed to manipulate the rules and conventions of the genres.

It would be filmed in black and white obviously trying to capture the classical feel. With very simple music playing in the background. Everyone dressed in extreme period costumes and as it was a silent film there would be speach captions.

Now there are two flaws to this idea. Firstly it wouldnt b practical with the priod costumes. Secondarily the films Nosferatu is not as common knowledge and it is possible that people wouldnt get the reference.

This information was obtained from the statistics yearbooks found on the film councils website. It shows an indication on how thrillers have done in the box office, showing their popularity and profit. There is two consecutive years of statistical info to compare and see how, if at all, the popularity of the genre has changed.

2005

• Thrillers made £32.1 million in gross box office profits over 2411 different box office sites. This makes an average of £13,312 per box office site.
• Thrillers only made up 2.2% of overall releases, with their 2 main titles collecting £6.1 million alone. The top title was The Constant Gardener.
• Certificate wize:12A - 9th overall with The Interpreter
  
• 15 - 9th overall with The Constant Gardener
  
• 18 - 3rd overall wih A History Of Violence

2006

• Thrillers made £65.5 million in gross box office profits over 4372 different box office sites. This makes an average of £14,992 per box office site.
• Thrillers made up 2.5% of overall releases, with their 10 main titles collecting £39.4 million. The top title was The Da Vinci Code.
• Certificate wize:12A - 3rd overall with The Da Vinci Code
  
• 15 - 8th overall with Munich
  
• - 9th over all with Children of Men
  
• 18 - 3rd overall with Lucky Number Sleven

Statistic have shown that thrillers has become increasingly more popular, just over a one year period. This supports the questionnaire we created previously except it gives a wider subject area.

Questionnaire

25 people asked

1) Male - 14
Female - 11

2) How old are you?
10-13 - 3
14-17 - 9
18-21 - 6
21 + - 8

3) Rate out of 10
Thriller - 8
Rom Com - 3
Horror - 3
Comedy - 2
Musical - 6
SciFi - 1
Other - 2

4) What do you like most about your preference?
Tension - 8
Gore - 2
Entertaining - 3
Funny - 2
Cheerful - 0
Dark - 2
Realistic - 7
Surreal - 0
Other - 1

5) How often do you go to the cinema a month?
0 - 2
1 - 8
2 - 3
3 - 6
4 - 4
5 + - 2

These results make it clear that amongst the age boundaries of 14-17 the most popular genre is Thriller. This mixed with the preferred tension and realism also helps indicate the type of films that are in demand at the moment.
There seems to be demands for other genres as well this could mean that combining some of these genres would b successful.