Target Audience and Genre Conventions

Audience

What audience are you targeting your thriller for? Age? Gender? Occupation? Interests?

- I am targeting my audience at 16-25 year olds, both male and female. Although I have found that most thrillers are aimed at young adult males, trying to target my thriller at both males and females gives it a wider audience and does not alienate others into thinking the film is aimed at only one group of people. I chose to aim my thriller at 16-25 year olds because I feel this age group is more likely to go to the cinema to watch a thriller. Also, the majority of 16-25 year olds are students, who may be more inclined to watch a thriller as it is intellectually stimulating and not the kind of film you can just sit back and relax to. However, I do realise that a vast majority of teenagers/young adults will not be interested in a thriller film for this very fact.

My target audience will most likely be interested in films where there is something to figure out and not everything is as it seems, such as a thriller, drama or a horror film. The audience will be into mysteries with a twist, they will like to try and work things out for themselves but sometimes never quite get there. Possibly a person who never gives up trying and will always give it a shot on working out what is happening, and loves the element of surprise.

What certificate will you give your film? Why?

- I have given my film a 15 certificate. I chose this because 15's have proven to be the highest grossing films at the box office. It also allows my film to include some strong language, scenes of a sexual nature and strong violence, possibly making it also appealing to an audience older than my target audience. I decided this would be a good certificate over all as it is just below the age of my target audience, making it easily accessible to them.

How have you planned to meet the expectations and interests of your audience?

- I have planned to meet the expectations and interests of my audience by casting young (16-18 year old) actors as the two main girls. This makes the girls more relatable to the audience, making them seem more real and people will find themselves identifying themselves with them. I have also made my first 2 minutes and my film plot full of hints and twists, appealing to my audience as they would be interested in mysteries and puzzle solving.

Why would this particular audience be encouraged to watch your thriller?

- This particular audience would be encouraged to watch my thriller as I have tried to create a great deal of mystery and suspense in the first 2 minutes, which would entice them and make them want to watch more. I have also used young actors and a realistic setting that the audience can identify with, making the film more believable and adding to the eeriness and suspense.

Genre Conventions

What makes your thriller stand out as unique or original?

- I think my thriller is original as the first 2 minutes that I will be filming is not a typical thriller title sequence. I have chosen a realistic home location, most thrillers I have seen have at first been set outdoors (Face Off) or in a bigger location such as a plane (Flightplan).
I also have a story going in my title sequence, in some I have seen there have just been random images (Seven) or a scene of digitally created images (Hostage).

Also, in my title sequence I will be using more than the usual amount of dialogue that is usually found in title sequences as I want to be able to get into the story straight away instead of just confusing the audience and making them wonder what that had to do with the film. Although confusing the audience is a convention of the thriller genre, I really wanted to focus more on the suspense and mystery aspect of the genre, making my audience want to know what will happen next and why certain things happened like "Why did the intruder drop the picture?" or "Why was he even there in the first place? What is the significance of the two girls?" making them eager to find out more.

I feel my thriller is also more of a psychological thriller rather than just a contemporary thriller, as there are many different layers to the plot and it has elements of horror to it, for example I chose to set my thriller around a murderer whereas in some thrillers I have seen there have been more kidnappings, bank robberies, hostage-taking, etc.

How does your thriller meet the conventions of the thriller genre?

- In my title sequence I use many conventions of the thriller genre. I have used a build up to the action, as it starts of with just a girl (Rachel) sitting in her house on her own reading a magazine, and then her friend comes over to hang out. A series of shots flicking back and forth between the intruder and the girls builds up the the action to where eventually the intruder is then standing in the dining room with a knife.

Fear is created in my thriller by using unsettling, eerie music. This makes the audience immediately think something bad is going to happen and builds the suspense.
I have used a dark shadowy atmosphere in the outside shots and the first living room shot, this will add to the creation of fear and in most thrillers they will try and use natural lighting and then subtley introduce colours such as red, black and white. I will be doing this by having all of my characters dressed in some form of red, black and white, foreshadowing the events that are to come.

I have also used the convention of murder encourraging a suspecting audience but letting the audience know early on that the intruder is there, even when the girls in the film do not. This lets the audience know something bad is going to happen even if they are not sure what.
A realistic setting was chosen as it will make the audience feel uneasy because it shows something unusual happening in a normal every day place. This makes the audience feel uneasy as it makes them feel like this could happen to them.

I have used twists and turns, such as in the beginning we think the girls are just home on their own and then you see the shot of the intruder walking round the side of the house. There is also the shot later on where the girls see the intruder has escaped through the study window, they then turn to go back into the dining room to call the police and he's standing there with a knife. Using twists and turns like this keeps the audience on the edge of their seat, making them never know what will happen next.


How does the planning of your thriller idea match the thriller openings you have watched and analysed?

- I feel like my thriller idea doesn't completely match any other thriller opening I have seen, however I have sampled different aspects of these thrillers that I decided I would like to use in my own. My thriller is similar to that of The Sixth Sense as it set in a house and there is already a build up to the action with some back story of the characters/events leading up to the present day.

However it is also like Seven as I plan to break up the shots of what is going on in the house with black title scenes with white font moving across the screen. I feel like this will make the audience feel uneasy, along with the eerie music (eerie music was also used to create a sense of fear in the title sequence of Seven). I will also use another one of this films features as my thriller opening may come across as having horror aspects to it, which I noticed in Seven too.

I decided against using any digitally made shots like in Hostage as I have no experience in creating digital images and believe it would take a very long time to make. I also did not use any flashbacks like in the opening of Face Off as I didn't feel it was beneficial to the plot just yet and although I originally liked the idea and would have liked to use it, I thought by adding a flashback it would make my thriller opening too long.

Shooting Schedule

Making a shooting schedule will help me organise my time and determine what shots to do and when. I realise that seeing as it is winter there will be a limited amount of time to do my exterior shots because of the lack of light, therefore I will be filming my exterior shots first. Also, when planning what days I will be shooting on I have encountered a few problems. As the weeks we have to film on are the 2 weeks year 11, 12 and 13 have exams it is proving difficult to find days 2 of my actors can film on as they are both still in school. I have overcome this by eventually finding 2 days they can both film on, however my shots wont be filmed in the same sequence as they will be shown in the film. I do not think this will be too much of a problem though as I can cut them all together in the editing stage. Only giving myself 2 days to film most of my interior shots (as the 2 main actors are the ones that are finding it hard to find time to shoot) will be a challenge, but if there are problems in filming and we do not film everything we need to I have set aside an extra day for emergency filming.

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Wednesday 20th January:

I had planned to start filming on Tuesday 19th January, only filming exterior shots of the house and the scene where the intruder walks up to the garage. I completed this successfully but found that these scenes may need to be refilmed at a later date as I had left some things in shot that were not originally meant to be there. I also originally planned on filming on Wednesday 20th January and possibly Friday 22nd January if we hadn't got everything filmed on the Wednesday/need to refilm anything, using all of my actors. However, this did not happen because one of my female actors became ill in the morning before shooting and was unable to film. Seeing as the scenes I wanted to shoot all involved both of my female actors, I had to cancel the day of filming. I then wrote up my shooting schedule and was told that both of my actors would be able to film on Friday 22nd January and possibly Sunday 24th January if needed.

My Shooting Schedule - (Click to enlarge)

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Friday 22nd January:

Two of my actors let me down the day before filming, leaving me with no one else available to film at such short notice. This led to me having to arrange new actors and reschedule my filming days with a very short amount of time left to film. Eventually, after a lot of searching I found two new actors who were available to film at such short notice, Saman Aftab and Jo Edmonds. We have now rescheduled and plan to film on Sunday 24th January. If all goes according to plan I should hopefully be able to film everything on Sunday, perhaps with only a few short scenes that I can do on Monday night.


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Wednesday 27th January:


On Sunday morning one of my actors let me down again, making me unable to film for a 3rd time. I had to get another actor at the very last minute to film on Monday evening. I managed to get all of my filming done, however as my actors were only able to come at the last minute they had no time to prepare or learn their lines. I gave them a copy of the script, told them the plot and showed them the storyboard when they got back to the house but had to film almost immediately because we needed to use the natural light. Filming over all was successful but I did encounter a few problems.



Problems I encountered and overcame whilst filming:

Lighting - In the scenes in the study I'd planned on using natural light, however as we filmed the scene quite late it was already dark outside so to overcome this I had to use a lamp that can not be seen in the background as a light source. I also encountered a lighting problem with the scenes in the dining room where we see the intruder at the patio door and when we see the intruder walk up to the patio door in the garden. Again, it was dark outside and as the intruder is dressed in black it is difficult to see him. However, I found that this made the scene look more mysterious and subtle instead of it being obvious that you can see the intruder. I tried using the light above the patio door to add more light but then it looked really obvious that the intruder was there and the girls would have seen him if the light was on, therefore I believe this set back actually made the scene more successful than I had originally planned.

Shots/Angles - When I planned and drew my storyboard I drew some of my shots as long shots. Unfortunately, through lack of space I decided these shots would be better off as medium/medium long shots when actually filming. This was successful as we are able to see more of the actors’ reactions and as the shot is closer up we are able to hear the actors' dialogue more clearly. Also, the shot where we see the intruder outside the patio door was compromised further as the room is not as wide as I thought it was so I had to film that scene on the stairs and changed the shot from a long shot to a high angle shot. I think this is better because the high angle shot shows the vulnerability of the girls and I think this is a more inventive shot than just using a standard long shot and gives my film more shot variety.