SCRIPT
I am going to look back over my finished product and evaluate specific areas that I believe attract and address my target audience, focusing on the pleasures that they can take from it.
When establishing those pleasures, I will be using the “Uses and Gratifications Theory” [Bulmer and Katz, 1974]. This model suggests that a media product has to fulfil a specific pleasure for an audience when they choose a form of media to interact with.
Genre
My film opening is a Thriller, with influences from Horror and Psychological. Thrillers like these entertain the audience in a way that builds them up to an intense climax of shock multiple times throughout the film. Certain people (our target audience) enjoy this type of journey, along with having to think, as an audience, and solve the mystery themselves. Our thriller causes the audience to ask a huge number of questions within just two minutes, while also building the tension and their heart rate up to the climax of revealing the dead body in the bed. There are other products similar to this that have already achieved great success. For example, TV programmes, such as Dexter, Murder She Wrote, and the Agatha Christie’s series’, begin by displaying the body within the murder scene during or after the event, and then the detective is introduced to the case and solves the mystery with a few plot twists on the way.
When a product like our thriller forces the audience to ask so many questions, the discussion or debate for the answers to these are inevitably going to be passed around the viewers. This makes for a product that spreads around the public faster which helps for marketing purposes.
Setting
The setting of a standard country home, helmed by a teenage boy, is not a particularly pleasant one. However, the idea of being in his position (i.e. having the house all to himself) is one that we know is very popular, thanks to our target audience research, within the youthful community. This position is also one that viewers can relate to which gives them an attraction to the film on a personal level.
This setting educates the unknowing audience on how most male youths would live there life, if they could have it their way forever.
There are various inserts of irony, during our opening sequence, when looking at the set. For example the student had been rolling cigarettes with tobacco using a family photo as a table. There is also enjoyment in the mystery that is gradually unravelling in front of your eyes. As it’s the very first scene, no one has any information on what is going on. Therefore, every member of the audience is in a unique position of total confusion, but as we travel through more and more of the house, we are able to piece together the puzzle. Once the dead body is revealed, the audience can then be satisfied by what they noticed during the run up to the reveal, while still having loads of unanswered question on why the person is dead etc.
Narrative
The story is very blurred as not much is revealed, even after one sees the dead body. This leaves the audience asking questions, which is what thriller-fanatics love.
There is only one single present character in the sequence, and unfortunately, he is dead. This cuts off a certain strength in connection between the audience and the character, despite a huge amount of empathy heading his way. However, this empathy is also sub-consciously being sent to all the family and friends that have been linked to the victim through the photos dotted around the house.
Representation
In general, I believe our sequence is most appealing to young men, preferably students, with a loving family and a happy home, who may have been caught up in some trouble along the way. The youth and his family represent a working-middle class family with close relationships and an importance of morality (which may have actually gone a bit astray with the teenager)
Music
Our soundtrack utilises the combination of the build up of tension in classical music and the answer messages. I doubt our target audience would really enjoy recreationally listening to the actual music on repeat. However, it does add a very powerful eeriness and scare to the sequence, which is due to the well-suited and perfectly timed execution of it. As well as this, there is a lot of variation in the musical part of our soundtrack which keeps the audience’s ears interested while their eyes are fed large amounts of info.
Titles
We featured all of our names presented with our main role in the production of this sequence. This included director, editor, composer and costume etc. We made sure to place each title in a section (time and area of screen) where there was little going on in order to not distract the audience.
Editing / Film Style
We used a simple yet effective long, single, journey-like shot that was used to showcase the set with all its thought provoking items. The final shot was a birds-eye-view zoom out of the dead body on the bed. As cameraman, I did the best job I could do on keeping the camera as steady as possible throughout the shots despite having to use a handheld rig. As the video editing did not play a huge part in our production process, any pace variation etc. that we wanted to include had to be added as part of the shot and it was my job to include enough variation in pace, framing and complexity to keep the audience entertained, but being careful to not over-do it. Any effects we wanted were only added to the audio (message recordings) as we kept the video simple as we wanted the POV look to it, which is an appealing view for an audience to experience.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe as a group we have successfully made an appealing thriller opening sequence to all, but especially to our target audience. We have all learnt a lot over this production process and I hope you can all learn something from this, and enjoy our thriller as much as possible.
Thank you very much for listening and I hope you have enjoyed this episode of Jonty's Audience Radio! See you next time!
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