Evaluation: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

In the above video, i talk about the effectiveness of the combination of the three products; main film, film poster and the magazine review.

As well as including similar, shared conventions between the three tasks, we also included conventions from real products for each product to make them more effective individually as well as combined.

For example; in the film poster you can see we have used many conventions similar to that of the film 'Shawshank Redemption,' a film that features crime; like our film does too.

As you can see in the above image, the common conventions between this poster and our film are;
 - The tag line is at the top centre of the poster as this is a little insight into the film to intrigue the audience to make them want to go and watch the film. It is therefore in a colour that stands our against the background; as is ours.
 - The image used relates to the film well and so we chose to have one large image as our background as well which clearly related to our film plot.
 - Next in this poster you see the actors names, however, in our film we have chosen not to include these because our actors are not famous and so it seemed slightly irrelevant to include them there. Our actors names are included in the credits at the bottom though.
 - The title is below the actors and so shown to be of less importance in this poster but in our film poster the title is of main importance because the audience wouldn't relate to the actors and it would not draw them in.
 - All of the credits and company logos are then at the bottom of the poster in the typical, recognised poster font. This looks very professional to the audience and so they will have good expectations of the film.
 - The important information such as the release date is at the bottom in a different colour to stand out, like ours is too.

In the magazine review:
 - We chose to do a left-hand side page review out of a magazine; which in turn shaped where we would place elements of the review and also the borders had to show this by having the border not carry on and go up the right-hand side of the page as this is not shown on the left pages; as you can see below.

 - You can also see the lay out is in columns like we have used as this is a recognisable convention to magazine articles.

 - They both use the well known star rating which gives the reader the general idea for the verdict of the film at a glance.

 - Important information is separated using dark, thick bands; as on our review.

 - Some details are in different colours to make them highly visible; we have used red/brown fonts in our review to do this.

 - The image gives a reflection of the film, this review shows a romance; ours shows he is fed up. It also includes a small caption to give a more insightful view to the film.

In our film a few of the many conventions you will find similar to real media products are as follows:

 - Soundtrack effects; soft music to portray romance, harsh, dramatic music when the climax is and a circus type soundtrack at the start for a mysterious feel to the film.

 - Slow editing to portray romance.

 - Romantic location of the park, in the sun. Weather was a large factor of our film as it portrayed the right atmosphere and mood for each scene; as is used in quite a few films, even music videos; such as in JoJo 'Too Little Too Late' where the rain represents her emotions of being upset.

 - Purposely chosen girly clothing with pretty pinks for the innocent wife and black jumpers and suits for the evil, murderous husband.

Therefore you can see not only have we linked our products together effectively but we have also ensured they realte to other similar media products. 

Evaluation: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback proves very useful after making a film because your target audience will often notice small details which are actually mistakes and we can then act upon this and rectify the problem, possibly re-shooting in order to please the audience. Feedback will also give us an idea of whether our audience understand our film or if shots need to be added in to help with this.

Our actor playing the ploice detective coming out of the police station before the shot of him at the cemetary was an example of where we added a shot in to make it clearer to our audience who the character was and why he was there as this was something that had been pointed out to us.

We were also informed that the foley sounds in the office gave them the wrong impression about the husband as it sounded like he was in a busy office but you could only see him there and so it was suggested we turned them down and maybe raise them slightly when the door of the office opened; alluding to people being in other offices off the corridor.

Over this scene we had the directors names as well which we were advised against as they should be at the end and just the cast names at the start of the short. It was also commented on that the font was too small and thin and so we changed this for our final film. We had the crew members on rolling credits at the end as we found this was a popular convention for short films.

In the scene where David leaves his office it was noticed that there was a lot of shaky cam and so we also re-shot this scene to eliminate this and it provided a better and nearer location to film at. We were then able to try a lot more shots out with this scene and so it broke the scene up and didnt look as long and boring as the previous attempt at that scene.

In the rough cut we got a little carried away with foley sounds at the table scene where there is no actual visual movement of cutlery clanging but you could hear it and so we removed these and used the original sound recordings from the shoot.

In the original rough cut there is a crane shot included which we had to re-shoot the whole scene for as when we followed David back down to the ground it looks as if the camera jerks as if it hits the floor which was noticed in the feedback we had from our media peers.

All of these changes we made from our rough cut to the final film proved worthwhile as we ended up wiht a much more professional looking film and it was a lot more relatable to the target audience as we aske dthem and they now claimed they understood the parts which were slightly confusing beforehand. We also had comments back saying they could relate to the character, David, and felt like their own life wa pretty much like his with the monotonous job and home lifestyle, day in day out and could understand how he would be drove to this. Hearing this from our target audience after the changes made it seem successful and so we were all pleased wiht the final product at the end.

Evaluation: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Today, we have got the advantage of having new technologies to use to enable us to achieve the highest standard of products; whereas in the past it has been much harder for producers to create a film and if any mistakes were made at any point they wouldn't have the opportunity to 'undo' it for instance; which makes a dramatic difference at each stage.

Blogger: Is a new technology we have benefited from having the opportunity to use because it is a stylish presentation tool and easily accessible. Blogger is also easily editable; meaning any mistakes are not set in stone and you do not have to re-do all of your work. Having your work stored on blogger means it is not going to get lost or damaged like it may do if it was on lots of different paper files. In contrast to paper files, blogger allows multi-media options such as video clips which would be impossible to put onto paper. There are options on blogger to enable effective communication between groups and to 'share' which is helpful because you don't all have to get together in the group to discuss or share ideas for example.


Scribd: Using Scribd we were able to share our treatment on there so that the whole group could access it from anywhere and could then give feedback if we needed to. It is a very quick and easy way to share work and download it onto your own blog. 

DivShare: Allowed us to host our audio treatment and feedback on the site, again within minutes, and then download it onto our blogs in minutes with no hassle of any tapes which we would have to physically copy and keep safe years ago.

StoryBoard Quick: This was a fast and easy way for us to be able to gain an idea of how our film would flow and what shots may look like. Digitally it is easily changeable as well at any point throughout the process; unlike if we were to draw it all out on paper; which would also be highly time consuming.

Final Draft AV: This software, again, saved a lot of time and also has automatic format of fonts.

Sony HD cameras: These proved very useful on location as we were able to watch back the footage we had just filmed to check which shots needed re-shooting there and then. It also meant we could see the framing for the shot whilst filming. The HD gave the footage higher quality to make the films look as professional as possible. As well, by being able to put our footage straight onto the Apple Macs it meant we were able to cut bits up, change the orders, and re-do this as many times as we wanted fairly quickly, in comparison to how it used to be. Before this modern technology was available, footage would literally have been cut up and then if you did it in the wrong place or wanted to change it later on it would be impossible and this way parts of the film could easily get damaged or lost which is highly unlikely when doing it all digitally.

Final Cut: allows non-linear, non-destructive editing which supports not having to actually physically cut the actual tape up and so the editing is constantly changeable. This means you can be experimental with your work as many times as you like in order to get the best result. It also allows effects and transitions to be used to make the film flowing and not look choppy how they may have looked more in the past.  

 YouTube: Being able to upload feedback videos and our actual films to YouTube was very quick and easy to do, it is also good free exhibition. This means by putting our film on YouTube we will be able to get feedback from other people from all over the world as well which is very useful for a wider audience feedback in a very short period of time. To gain feedback from so many people from all different places in the world would have been impossible years ago or would have been very expensive and time consuming.

Alongside YouTube, we also used Facebook: We hosted our poster on FaceBook which again gave us the opportunity of collecting worldwide feedback, one comment made was from America for example. This also allowed good communication between the group without having to be with each other to see the product and give our opinion which made the process quicker and easier. 

Sountrack Pro: was useful for the editing stage of our film and we could pick out suitable music and sound effcts to match each clip whilst we could watch the film at the same time to match them properly. 

QuarkXPress: allowed us to create the magazine review to be of similar standard to similar professional products. 

PhotoShop: was hihgly useful when creating the poster, especially as one member of our group had a lot of experience of using it already. We took pictures of the actors individually and were able to PhotoShop these together to gain the finished product after a few adjustments which have been previously mentioned. PhotoShop is highly professional, quick and experimental again which are always good advantages.

FInal film Poster with second change

This poster has the same changes as the last one except the title writing has been kept fancy but without having the tail of the letters flick out. It is also bolder so that it is easier to read from afar and looks less like a signature. I like this poster because it gives both genres of our film without giving too much of the plot away. It shows this mix of genres through the tag-line being both romantic and thriller hints, the background pictures used are also quite a romantic setting but mysterious and thriller-like with their expressions. The title does this as well by the fancier writing being more romantic, however having the crow on it and the rest of the title in a harsher font it makes it romantic whilst putting the thriller thoughts predominantly in your mind.  

Film Poster after audience feedback

 In this poster we have made the alterations recommended by our audience feedback.

As you can see, the man is now wearing a suit; which has actually been 'Photoshopped' onto him as we were very happy with his stance and facial expression.

The title writing has been changed into the whole of it as the harsh bold writing, still on two levels though, and included a sinister crow to allude to the evil happenings.

The female character has also been made slightly more black and white to make this more obvious and effective.

Film Poster without rating included

After receiving some feedback on our poster the decision we made was to try taking the 5-star rating off because even though it may entice the audience, it was not seen as a film poster convention but was part of the conventions of a magazine review and so was irrelevant for on the poster.

We had feedback that the different colouration of the words 'love' and 'you' in the tag-line was very effective as it then said 'Love you' as well which is very relevant to the plot of the film.

There was a majority agreement that the man should be wearing a shirt like he is in the film so that it gives the right first impressions.

Finally, we were advised to change the font of the fancy writing part of the title as it may be hard to read from afar and may just be discarded by the potential audience and thought of as a signature for instance. It also gives the illusion that the 'Us Do Part' is of more importance, however this is not true to our film.

Film Poster

This was our first attempt at our film poster, produced using Photoshop' and it included the two main characters, dressed similar to how they would be in the film. We included a tag-line at the top to give a little teaser for the audience to make them want to watch the film. We included a 5-star review next to again interest the audience.The image we had for the background is the two main characters in the sunny park setting for the romantic element and the deathly stare of the male character supported by the mysterious two pictures of the female and one in black and white with slight bruising around her eye to create the psychological element. Our title also went with both genres because the fancy writing is fairly romantic and the bold, solid writing supports the thriller side because it is harsh and not forgiving. We decided to stick with the generic font for the usual credits to the actors and supporting companies because it is what is recognisable and associated with most film posters from carrying out the research into them. The release date was always noticed to be at the bottom of the posters and so this is where we decided ours would go and we also took the convention of having the date a different colour and so we had the year in red, which matches the thriller and romance conventions as well as our logo.

Film Poster Research

Below is a film poster for the psychological thriller 'Shutter Island.' This shows a layout of the film's tag line at the top of the poster which gives the audience a little hint into the film and draws them in to make them want to watch the film to find out more about it. The background is two pictures merged into each other; they are both dark images which gives the thriller film effect, especially with only half of the man's face being lit up by the flame; representative of the genre of the film.

The next main text we see is the main actor's name which is of importance as it is above the actual title of the film and is there to draw the audience in to watch it because they may like the actor and have seen previous films with them in. The title is then seen and is in blood red font which is made to look slightly 'blood-stained' around the bottom of text; to link the psychological thriller genre. The only other piece of information in red on this poster is the month it will be released and so both of these stand out. The actors and company names below the film title are in the generic film poster font. 

'Saw' is another psychological thriller and we can see that it is a much brighter poster which makes the harsh blood stained floor and arm stand out. It also emphasises the title of the film which is quite large and has strikes through it to hint to what the film may be like; harsh and cutting; not for the faint-hearted.It does not include a tag-line like the last film, this may intrigue the audience more or may put them off as every one's interpretation of a film is different and so they may want a hint before they decide to spend their money on it. However, it does include the generic writing of actors and production team and company logos at the bottom of the poster.

A slightly less thriller genre film and more of the romantic genre is the film 'Twilight.' Here you can see the tag-line towards the top of the poster again, giving the audience a little insight into the plot. The background image is of two of the main characters looking quite intimate together giving the feel of romance, however again it is mostly only half of their faces shown which can make it look mysterious. The title for this film is done in what could be considered a moonlight font showing the twinkles off it like you would see of stars at midnight and the 'g' is also swirly and so quite romantic. However, the idea of it being midnight and starry can also be scary as everything looks worse in the dark. This is supported by the picture being lighted by a bright, moon-light like lighting. The release date is the only other piece of information included on this poster and so is bold and important on here too. The actors names may not be included because they are already very famous and so it is not required or the actors may be the complete opposite and very unknown; both can have advantages such as it is nice to see fresh and up-coming actors but it is also nice to watch actors you have seen in films previously and enjoyed. 

A very romantic film is 'Dear John' and as you can see straight away the couple are sat cuddled up together on a nice sunny beach area which brings the romance straight away. The actors names are at the top of the screen to show the importance and recognition and so may lure the audience in this way too. There is then a caption telling us it is from the author of the notebook and so if people have seen that film and enjoyed it that will encourage them to go and see this film too. The title is below this in a larger font and all of the writing is done in a white/yellow colour to resemble innocence of the young couple, happiness and romance. Directly below the title is the tag-line to again, intrigue the audience. Below this is the generic recognition of the film companies and actors and within this they have included the release date in a larger and white font at the bottom left.

In our film poster i think we would include a tag-line as it seems a common convention to use and may make our film a little more explained before the audience see the film. We will also keep the generics of the actors and companies associated with the film at the bottom and the title just above. The image for the background will give a hint of both the romantic genre and thriller because it could be sunny but a mysterious picture of the two main actors.

Merajio Review Final Edit

Magazine Review Edit 1

Merajio Review Edit 1

Feedback to the magazine review

Our peers looked at our magazine review and gave us the following feedback:
 - To change the blue font and bubble for a different colour such as similar to his tie to match the film more otherwise it looks as if it is a water-based film.
 - To align the text boxes and borders to make it look more professional.

Research for 'brand' identity.

In order to gain high audience recognition and publicity, it is important that films have elements of their brand which the audience can identify together and so distinguishes the brand in the consumer's mind. These elements could be aspects such as the colours used, the format/layout used, a logo used, a name or a symbol.
As you can see in the image below there is a predominant theme of black and red on a white background. This means that when people see a poster, for example, with the black and red theme and the style of writing the title is in; they will automatically associate it to Love Actually without even realising. As it is part of the romantic genre, it is also portraying the themes of love through the red and innocence and happiness via the white.  

A further example of the use of brand identity in films is Shrek:

Above, you can see the title 'Shrek' in fairly large, bright green writing which stands out very clearly. It also has the unique Shrek ears coming off the 'S' which is highly definable and memorable to an audience. The main colour themes we can see are green, with the happy blue sky background. In this image it includes pictures of the characters in the film to relate to as well.


However, as shown in the poster for Shrek 2, once the film is onto a sequel and it has created a brand identity for itself, the characters no longer need to be visible. This is most likely to happen when the film has previously been a big success and is highly recognised. They are able to use this design because purely from seeing the 'S' with the unique Shrek ears coming off it, against the blue sky background, the audience automatically link it to Shrek and the characters and so they are not needed on the poster and neither is the actual title of 'Shrek.'

This picture below is showing even with convergence opportunities that come from a successful film, the image of 'Shrek's' head and the unique ears are a lot larger and more dominant being in the centre of the packaging than the title 'Shrek' itself due to immediate association. 

An example of a psychological thriller film, Paranormal Activity, also displays these characteristics of brand identity. As shown below, the recognisable bright red title font is almost blood like with the glow through it. The space is also largely consumed with an image from the film which is in night-vision, which is a recurrent theme within the film itself.

Construction

Before the construction process it was important all of our group had a copy of the shooting schedule and script as well as our actors to ensure we all knew which parts we were filming and when. During the construction process we came across many problems with the weather such as it was too dull and too windy; resulting in shaky cam which we eventually were able to get rid of by re-shooting on a less windy day. 
We had to take the HD camera, tape, small tripod, large tripod (for only a few shots), the crane; which we had to use twice. 
In our group, we all took it in turns to film, direct, manage, set-up etc so that we could all give our opinion on a scene's set up for instance. I think we did achieve what we set out to each time of filming and i think the final shots we have captured are very successful for our film. The shots that needed re-filming were the ones where there was shaky cam and the jerk in the camera movement. We also added a shot of the police detective coming out of the police station to make the whole piece come together.
To edit our film we used Final Cut to edit the footage and Soundtrack Pro to add sounds to support our footage, and Live Type for the titles.
I was very pleased with the outcome of our film and was pleased that it turned out very much like our original plan in the treatment and animatic.

Edits added ; FINAL FILM

This is the final version of our film wiht the edits and improvements made.

Construction: Final Cut

In this final cut of our film, I showed a group of middle-aged relatives and friends as well as our peers to see what they all thought and it was recognised that they all got the general idea of our film and the two genres wihtin it. the sound has been altered to fit the last recommended changes. There were some of our peers who recognised the 'shaky cam' and the shot that jolted a little and so we wanted to put these right for the final film and so decided to re-shoot as it seemed worth it to get the best effects and atmosphere to the piece.

analysis 2

analysis 1

Construction: Rough Cut

shooting schedule

Shooting Schedule PDF

Animatic

Storyboard

The advantages of being able to use this storyboard quick software is that it is far easier to change if you make a mistake or want to alter the order for example. It is also quicker than drawing out each individual picture and gives a ncie follow on idea of how the film is planned to look.

Research into the use and presentation of film titles, including ideas for your own film.

The title of a film can say a lot about the film itself and often gives the audience a feel for the genre of the film and what it will be like. The colour of the title for example can say a lot and so can the font that is used.

In the example below, 'While You Were Sleeping' has been re-cut into a psychological thriller trailer and the titles at the end of this piece are plain and simple; white on a black background. Yet, these are very effective because they show eeriness and the font is almost type-writer like and gives the effect that it has just been stamped out on a type-writer as if writing an angry/threatening message to someone. The type-writer like writing shows it is not a romantic film because the edges of the text are harsh straight lines to support the psychological thriller genre.




Another version of titles often seen in psychological thrillers are similar to the ones shown in this trailer below. The black background with white writing is used again however looks completely different because the title writing has got the strong glow around it and slight reflection of the letters both upwards and downwards. As well as this, they have used an image of what appears to  be a blood spreading version of a heart which is disappearing from the bottom, reflecting the title of the film.
As i previously mentioned, the colours used for the titles have a big impact and so i decided to look into the symbolism of the main colours used in titles for this genre of film. The colours red and black also have the symbolism of danger. Using red can have great symbolism of lots of intense and passionate things; such as, love, desire, strength, aggression, power, war, blood, violence, danger, fire and heat.
The symbolism of white: shows purity, cleanliness, simplicity, peace, innocence, youth, good and can be seen as clinical.
The colour black has a strong contrasting symbolism to white: it scan signify; power, formality, sexuality, elegance, style, sophistication, wealth, evil, fear, mystery, depth, evil, sadness, remorse, anger, anonymity, unhappiness, mourning and death; in Western cultures.



Therefore, I believe that it is important to know what you want to portray your film as before you decide on the titles because the way the font they use and colour play a big par in reflecting the film and attracting an audience. It is also important to know who your audience will be and make the titles suitable to the film's genre and to the audience. For instance, it would be entirely unsuitable to make a film that was supposed to attract a male audience and to use pink and spirally 'girly' writing for the tiles with make up, etc in the background because this would appeal mostly to a female audience.

After researching these aspects about colour and font used for titles of films, i think for our film a fairly hard, similar to a type-writer type, black font would be best suited because our film matches the representations of the colour black and the font would show the harsh, stabbing ways of frustration for the man in our film. The romantic element could be the background for instance. 

Reseach and planning: Costume

Costume is very important in representing the character's in the film and gives the audience a feel for the type of character they will be.
The man in our film is called David Bird, he is a husband in a monotonous job, with a nagging wife who wants to make a family and so is preventing David from progressing in his job. She eventually drives him to the edge and he eventually killed her:
David will wear a black suit in our film to show the authoritative figure of an office man and the power he can have to 'deal' with his wife. The colour black is also a recognised reflection of death; as is shown at funerals with the black cars and black clothes worn. The colour of the suit also shows mourning, because after he kills his wife he has to live with the guilt and would grieve for her because he did love her even though she drove him to do what he did. Black is also associated with evil.
The white shirt that he will wear underneath the black suit will show his innocence beneath his crime; as he can be seen as a victim of his wife's nagging and being held back in his job.

In the picture above, you can see the villain of the film 'Psycho' is wearing a balck jumper; showing he is going to be an evil character.

Emma Bird, his wife, will wear casual, pretty, girly clothes which will portray her innocence as she is the victim of murder.

The girl above in this picture is from the film 'Psycho' and is also a victim and is wearing a frilly, girly dress similar to how the female in our film will dress; showing her innocence. 


The detective/police officer will wear a long black coat to show the authority he has and power over the man and by being black in colour again it foreshadows it will be bad news he is about to receive. It is also showing the stereo-typical 'costume' of a police detective.

These two detectives are out of the film 'Righteous Kill' and show that they tend to wear just a long black coat/suit jacket and not the full works of a police officer.

These are all similar to our film and show the same representations which we are trying to portray.

Research and planning: Locations

Locations used in films say a lot about the mood and atmosphere of the piece and so it is important to get it right.
In our film, we need a location of a field, an office, a shower, dining table and bed in 'his' house, and a graveyard.
In picture number 1; the office, you can see it is a deliberately chosen cluttered office to reflect David's messed up mind. It has good lighting and space to film around as well.
Image number 2; this is the dining table in David's house and shows he is quite a wealthy, middle-upper class man. The lighting for this scene is good because we can adjust it to whether we want it brighter or darker and there is plenty of space.
3; is a picture of a police station we could use for an establishing shot to link the murder and jail together.
4; this is the shower which is particularly good for filming due to it being a walk in shower from both sides with no glass in the way which would cause reflections.
5; a part of the house which is good for space to film in, we would just have to be careful filming around the mirror.
6; This is a picture of the tree area of the field we will use and this would be good for the build up to the death because it is all enclosed with the trees and so would look like something bad could happen there. Enclosed wooded areas are also typical conventions of psychological thrillers.
7; The drive and outside of 'David's' house shows that it is a fairly big house and also shows his wealth.
8; This open part of the field is to portray the happy atmosphere in this scene and is a typical convention of thrillers to use open, sunny areas of parks and fields. It will also give nice natural lighting and a vast filming space which could allow for different shots such as a crane shot.
9; The graveyard is symbolic of mourning and death and the thriller side, graveyards are often featured in thriller films. To film here, I rang up a council number which was on a sign for the graveyard just outside the gates of it and I explained that we were filming for our educational A2 media project and asked for their permission to film on the graveyard and they were very complying and kindly allowed us to go ahead to film there.

 
Locations from some similar films of the same genre are shown below and these are purposely used, as in ours, to create these romantic/thriller effects;

In the image above, from 'The Omen,' you can see that the priest is standing in a graveyard at the point of which he gets stabbed; this is more dramatic but similar to our film in the way that something bad happens at graveyards, as they are full of death. Graveyards can also be seen as places for spirits and consciences and so David may not only be there to grieve but more because of his guilt. However, either way graveyards are recognised as very emotional, sad places and then he is arrested there which is sad for him as another part of his life, not only his wife but his freedom as well, has metaphorically died.

'Just Go With It' was a romantic comedy and this picture above showing the couple walking through a field with the bright sky in the background, is very similar to how we created the happy mood for our scene like this. We chose the idea of having the scene in a nice, sunny, grassy field because it is seen as romantic because couples go out on 'dates' for example through a park/field for a nice walk or picnic. 
Also, in this picture the man is wearing a white shirt, signifying the happiness and pureness , however with a hint of black around his neck. This is similar to our film because David wears a white shirt resembling the happiness but the black trousers could hint at the darker side of him. The girl is also shown to be wearing pretty, frilly, girly clothes like Emma will be in our film.

Script

RIP Script

changes made to our original treatment

Merajio Treatment, Final Revised Version

Question and Answers feedback

After knowing our film, we gained this peer feedback which we have some valid opinions from and this will prove useful for us to know whether or not we are aiming at the right audience and including the right aspects to portray our target genres for instance.

At 0:12; the opinion that our film will be for an older audience, possibly 30+year olds, is expressed and as we got through the group this is overall conclusion from them. Some of our peers informed us because it was a more slower paced film but a witty film it would suit an older audience who like to think about films more.

1.14; It was recognised that our film was a thriller and more of the sub-genre of a psychological thriller that the audience would have to think about.

1.32; Our peers saw the romantic elements in our film of the couple once being 'loved up.'

1.44; Our chosen genre was reached as it was said that it seemed to be a mix of the two genres of romance and thriller.

2.39; It is noticed that the man is the main character and the woman is the victim which is typical for psychological thrillers.

2.54; The convention of romantic films was said to be the weather showing it was a happier scene for instance.

3.16; Conventions of a psychological thriller being used are recognised by the man being the one in control and ending up as a murderer; whilst it keeps the audience guessing as to what has happened between the couple.

3.46; A convention we are challenging was said to be that the man looks like the victim at the start of the film and it is normally the woman who is purposely shown to be a victim, however ours was not. 

Audio treatment

This treatment includes a class discussion about possible problems they could see as well as things they liked. This was a valuable source of feedback so that we could make relevant changes and therefore making improvements to suit our audience better and avoid potential problems which weren't needed.
The main potential problems I can gather that our peers saw in our film were the use of quite a few different locations and time settings and so we would have to be careful not to make it too confusing for the audience if there was a lot of flitting between these. The other main problem they recognised was how dependent our film was on the weather, and that it had almost become a character of our film. This is because if the weather wasn't right for each scene then the film would not make sense as the mood being put across would be completely irrelevant to the scene. 

Film treatment

Requiescat in Pace Treatment

Target audience research & declaration (with explanation).

Due to have taking the decision of our film being both from the romantic genre and the pyschological thriller, i have chosen to research both types and their audiences to get a feel for what our film sould and will attract and how we can do this. I have chosen to use YouTube to gain research into this because it allows users to look deeper into who is viewing the videos, for example; it provides age statistics of the viewers.

The short film below is of the romantic genre and includes many conventions which will be used in our film. For example, it features a middle-aged man who appears bored in his job and then has 'fantasies' about spending time with a girl he takes a fancy to. It also has soft romantic music which changes to the mood of the scenes; slow and sad portraying his misery. There is also a scene with a similar location to what we will have; a grassy field in the sun wiht some trees surrounding.
The most popular audience viewings for this film are;

Gender	Age
Female	13-17
Male	25-34
Female	45-54

A further example of a romantic short is Post-It Love:



The views for this are;

Gender	Age
Female	13-17
Female	18-24
Male	25-34

An example of a psychological thriller:
This film also has similar aspects to ours because it is about a man losing his mental state within his office job. The tense music and changes to faster edits help portray this throughout the film.



The most popular audience viewings for the above short is as follows;

Gender	Age
Male	25-34
Male	45-54
Female	13-17

From the above examples and after looking at a few other shorts on YouTube of these two genres, as well, I found that the general pattern was young adult-maturer adult males and younger-adult females. The females were often younger than the majority of males shown to be viewing these shorts. I have also found that by asking some teachers and family members aged between 25-35; that the males generally prefer films with mainly action/psychological content and the females preferred the romantic type of film. However, I found that it was only the minority who actually watch any shorts on YouTube and these were predominantly males. 
Despite facing the issue that our audience are not the main cosumers of YouTube we decided it was suitable for us to aim our film at a target audience of 20-30year old males and females. However the actual audience may range from males and females aged 16-late 50's.

How we plan to challenge a convention in our film

We are challenging the typical romantic genre convention of having a happy ending in our film because at the end it doesn't all work out happily ever after for him even though he has been shown throughout the film to be the one to feel sorry for and has lived a dismal lifestyle which, as the audience, you take pity on. Therefore our ending is fairly unexpected in my opinion and contrasts with what you would normally expect to happen.

Our chosen genre and its conventions

Our film is going to be a mix of two genres; romance and psychological thriller. This is because we will have the relationship shown between the husband and wife but then the twist will be the tragedy that he murders her.



Psychological thrillers, i have found, usually feature middle-aged characters despite the fact that the audience they attract are normally the younger generation, such as 15-24year olds; which is why they are normally rated either as a 15 or 18, depending on the level of content. I think the younger audience would be attracted to this genre of film because they often contain a lot of violence for example and people like to see exaggerated versions in films because it seems more exciting than real life. However the reason for aiming it at a younger audience may be for different reasons such as; they are the largest age group viewers, they use the internet a lot and so would access information about the films very quickly and easily and so bring the most money in and also possibly due to the inexperience youth have meaning it can show them the consequences of certain actions on people's lives.



The genre psychological thriller is a sub-genre of the general thriller genre, however what makes it slightly different is that it incorporates elements from other genres too such as mystery and drama. The psychological elements are related to the mind; which could be a character's conflict of thoughts within their own mind for instance; it is often an attempt to understand an event which has occurred in their life, which is partly like ours because he was so frustrated with his wife but now has the guilt of his crime to live with instead. The thriller part of this genre usually focus's on plot to create intense scenes with physical action rather than looking into the characters mind processes. However, even though psychological thrillers are a form of a thriller, they tend to go the opposite way and focus largely on the characters, not the plot. Therefore this means the characters are mainly reliant on their mental state to overcome and obstacles they face; whether these be physical or in their own mind as previously mentioned. The characters minds are often affected by each other, with one possibly trying to destroy the other's mental state.



Psychological thrillers have come about in various different media forms over the years, but there is still a general pattern to be seen within the narratives. For example some themes to be seen are;



 - Reality; Working out what is true and not true within the narrative and being able to relate to situations.
 - The mind; is often where the narrative conflict occurs as characters battle with themselves to reach a new equilibrium.
 - A purpose; the character's can often need to discover who they are and what role they should be taking in their life.
 - Gender; males are usually the murderers and females the victims. 
 - Death; characters usually face experiences of death in their lives, whether it be due to their actions or not.
 - Colour significance; the clothes or location characters are put in often symbolise part of their life such as white has the connotation of pure/innocence/victim. Even the weather for instance; a bright sunny day signifies happiness in a scene.



In our film we have got a lot of these conventions as well:
 - We have cast the man, husband, as the murderer and the female, wife, as the victim. The men are also typically dominant and controlling in this type of film.
 - Having the weather changing with the mood of the scenes; ensuring the viewer gains the total atmosphere of the film.
 - We have got the twist in the plot of death because the man murders his wife and hen has to live with the guilt an the consequences of jail.
 - The character's purpose of the dominant male character in our film was that he wanted to move on to a better job but his wife was always holding him back and nagging at him and he wanted to be a successful business man without the ties of being committed to a family and so he ha to find himself by taking control of his  life and dramatically getting rid of his wife. 
 - The battle of conflict within his mind is therefore whether he should just be dominated and surrender to his wife's wishes or get his life back. After this conflict he then has another conflict about whether he should have killed her or not because he has to live with his actions.
 - I think we have got two types of reality within our film because the situation of being trapped in a marriage and work are very easy to relate to and also the point of being able to realise what is real and what is not in the plot when the husband is imagining his nagging wife again, but she is dead.



Examples of psychological thrillers are;
 - Lovesick Blues (2006) Short, directed by Alexander Cicak. This incorporates the themes of love and death and fatal consequences of mix ups between love and rage. 
 - Another film which incorporates love into the thriller is the one shown below:
Alfred Hitchcock is famous for his work on psychological thrillers often known as 'The Master of Suspense.' We can find examples of this in this film through the changes in music when he is having the thoughts of killing her, making the female the victim, and the softness and little camera movement when the romantic scenes are happening.














Another Alfred Hitchcock video shown above, Strangers on a Train, also has the suspenseful music, faster and slower editing for the different atmospheres and portrayal of romance and thriller and the female as a victim with death being a central theme.  

Due to the fact that our film incorporates the romantic genre as well, i decided to look into some of the conventions for this genre as well. I found that :
 - They are usually based around a couple who fall in love but there is something or someone preventing them to live the 'happy ever after' life.
 - It will take place often around a house/work place and feature somewhere thought to be quite romantic; a park or beach for instance.
 - To portray the mood of happiness bright lighting is used and scenes in the sunshine.
 - Change in lighting; darker scenes, when they come to face the problem that is trying to separate them.  
 - Birds can often be heard in the background along with soft, romantic, happy music.
 - Slow editing for romantic scenes, close ups are often used to show deep expression from he characters.
 - The female will often be made out to be the victim if there is a break up and will be wearing bright, feminine clothes, look pretty.
 - They are majorly centred on the love story, or affairs of the heart. These centre on the emotional, passionate and romantic involvement of the main characters. We follow the journey that their love takes them through, keeping the love story as the main plot focus.

Some examples i have found which show these conventions are;



In the trailer for 'Forrest Gump' above you can see that during the romantic scenes there is soft, romantic music playing, and the locations used for the romantic scenes take place in the sunset with the two 'love-birds' sitting on the tree. Another is where they are walking through a nice grassy park; these are tyical to the romantic genre.

Below is the trailer for the romantic film 'Ghost' by Jerry Zucker and straight away when the trailer begins you know that it is a romance because of the slow edits and fades and the slow, close, intimate movements between the characters, accompanied by romantic music.