Research

This part of the blog will show the process of research we took in order to create our production piece

As I am also working with Shannon Neal, we will equally split the work or work together on certain pieces. On our blogs, we will highlight who did the certain pieces of work or if we did them together, as in some cases we did different research in order to have a better developed understanding. However, the construction will all be created together.

After choosing to create a thriller genre for our film trailer we will adapt our research in order to successful create a film trailer with effective thriller conventions. So, we will evaluate the conventions in already existing thriller film trailers and their matching ancillary pieces. This is enable us to have a general idea of the conventions used in successful, stereotypical, mainstream, niche and less successful thrillers. As we chose to do a thriller, the target audience would typically be older due the age certificates. To make our piece more professional we will try to follow the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). So our narrative will have to be suitable for our target audience, around 15-18+

Below are examples of the genres we are interested in and may potentially include into our film trailer production.

Sub Genres:

. Action *

. Film-Noir

. Religious

.Crime *

. Psychological *

. Romance

. Disaster / Disease * 

. Sci-Fi

We focused this down into four groups that we were most interested into and gained some alredy exisiting examples of films that did well in the box office.

Mind Map created by katherine martin9800 with GoConqr

Thriller are evidently successful films, partly due to the history behind them or the amount of flexibility within the genre because of the large amount of sub-genres. Here is the box-office statement for 2014.

These films range in many different factors. For example, sub-genres, the target audience, the rating (R meaning under 17 must be with an adult) and the gross. This shows us that thrillers adapt to different things, making them more flexibility to your view and perception and thus, let you produce something different.

Some of the most famous/popular examples of thrillers consist of:
. James Bond films (1962-2016+)
. Batman (1966-2016+)
. Alfred Hitchcock films (1927-1976)
. Pulp Fiction (1994)
. Divergent Trilogy (2014-2016)
. The Hunger Games Trilogy (2012-2015)
. Silence of the Lambs  (1991)
. Shutter Island (2010)

We felt research was important in order to gain ideas and develop understanding into existing thrillers. In turn, allowing us to create more professional media pieces that would be excepted into the media. We decided to research into a few different thriller sub-genres as we have not yet chosen the narrative genre for our thriller.



We chose to research into the marketing of this film as it is a successful example of a psychological thriller and horror that many people can recognise. We also chose this film as on release, we remember the hype and excitement for the film from the people we suspect will be our target audience (teenagers/young adults)  From the information above, it is evident that the film was successful in the box office for the gross and period of time it spent there. It also stood out in the film industry for the awards won. We feel it did this as the conventions were original and the marketing was completed correctly in order to gain the amount of audience interest they did.

 The main things we took from this research were; . The notion of good vs evil and now this is represented within just a trailer
.  The representation of children and how they embody innocence yet how this can easily be flipped to evil
. The use of changing the production and distribution logos to fit the genre/film themes,
. The juxtaposition between high key and low lighting which supports the good vs evil effect,
.The prop of a phone and how this supports the role of communication,
. The strong effect of high and low angles to demonstrate the power of each character
. How soundtrack can give a total different portrayal than the moving image (in an effective way) to juxtapose.

Characters:

From the trailer, we know understand the relationship developed with the main characters is very effective. As the audience then develop feelings and use judgement to form ideas about that particular character. For example, the audience judge Esther from the Orphan as being innocent and sweet at the start, yet when she changes, the audiences perception is distorted and we want to find out why this change happened.

In Order shown in trailer

- Mother, Kath (Vera Farmiga)
- Nun, Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder)
- 'Orphan', Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman)
- Father, John (Peter Sarsgaard)
- Son, Daniel (Jimmy Bennett)
- Daugher, Max (Aryana Engineer)
- Classmates & Teacher

- Psychologist, Dr. Browning (Margo Martindale)
- 2nd Psychologist, Dr. Varava (Karel Roden)

Esther Coleman - 

"Esther (actual name - Leena Klammer) is a woman who could be defined as a violent and deluded psychopath. She is highly intelligent, highly manipulative, superficially charming when needed, and lacks remorse."

Facts:

In Propps character theory, Esther would be the Villain. 

"Tries to stop the protagonist from succeeding"

Which is Kate, the Adoptive Mother – from having a happy marriage, family and go back to the norm life from before, which will allow her to recover from her miscarriage

Kate Coleman: 

 


Ancillary Analysis:

 

The Cue Cards below show how, why and the effect of the chosen thriller/horror conventions in the 'Orphan' Poster.

      

Flash Card Deck created by katherine martin9800 with GoConqr

The main highlights from this poster research:

. Having one colour to deviate the selected with colour palette to stand out against the rest and exaggerate the connotations,
. The effectiveness behind a main dominating image yet be ambiguous in meaning,
. The use of the branding image still being displayed, with the title typography being the same font and colour.

Similar ideas can be seen in the posters below, showing these are often used conventions within a thriller: 

These Thriller films have a similar look and reason for used conventions than the 'Orphan' poster. For example, the face/s are in a centred medium close up, the use of dark and white colour to contrast, dark backgrounds, titles standing out - specifically with the use of red colouring, tag lines, mise-en-scene with hidden meaning. Although there still are differences, which is expected due to the different sub-genres, themes and narrative within the films.



Ancillary Analysis 2:

Orphan website - Analysis from katherinemedia

The main highlighted conventions to us: 
. The effect on the audience (gaining interest) by placing the other promotion methods on there - such as the trailer being played straight the way and the photos from the poster to support the branding image
. Supporting the branding image by keeping all the conventions seen in the poster, such as the title, tagline and colouring
. Being placed on a company website, to support both the company and the film within convergence

.

Below is what we learnt were effective in the trailer, poster and website we analysed.

We will use these learnt things and incorporation them into our production.

We chose this film as the second thriller example because the film is new and very original for this era. We ourselves were the target audience for this film, which allowed us to be exposed to the amount of interest obtained by the film and understand the conventions that were targeted towards us. Due to this film involving social media, which isn't often done with the platforms they used (as many use just Email and texting) we wanted to gain an idea of how the marketing and conventions were developed for this film.

Main Things We Learn from the Trailer:. Montages are effective, especially within a trailer to establish the message within a short time,
. Visual edited effects (such as making the screen looking like it's lagging) can add to the narrative and the tension in the trailer
. A lot of elements go into building the pace, the diegetic and non diegetic sounds together
. Titles are more effective when the match the themes of the film
. By having the cast diverse within psycho-graphics, more narratives are given and people may feel more represented (although the film could be more supported within demographics such as age and race)
. Theories, such as enigma are effective when included into the trailer because tension is built




Original Poster (with the original name) :

Ancillary Analysis:

        Flash Card Deck created by katherine martin9800 with GoConqr

Main things we learnt from this:
. The main image doesn't have to be a main image within the trailer or whole film, yet by portraying this in the ancillary pieces, the connotations of these are supported in the conventions.
. Again, the colour of red is very effective to establish a main message
. Especially as the film was intended to be lower-budget, the poster is effective at gaining audience through placing links to the website and social media so they can find out more information about the film (which is also useful as the poster doesn't give a lot of information away)

These posters all have similar conventions to the 'Unfriended' poster, in order to show ideology within a social media/technology theme. The first poster, titled "Untraceable"is the poster I feel has the most similarity to 'Unfriended' even though it uses the girls face instead of text. The cursor indicates a communication between the girl and the social media world - bringing both together to show the role of the internet in this thriller narrative. This poster also uses the role of a red tagline above another text to connote danger and a typical black background to show the typical conventions. The second poster, 'When a Stranger Calls', also has evident conventions that are seen in the Unfriended. Again, the main image, which dominates most of the poster, shows the same convention. For example, in this poster the phone itself shows one message, but the image on the phone gives more away - which the google suggested searches do on Unfriended. Like the 'Untraceable' poster, 

Unfriended website from katherinemedia

The main things we learnt from this:
. This website, like Orphan, also allow the trailer to be played and the other conventions are shown - thus, gaining more interest through branding to how people like to gain information
. This website expresses the use of social media more - as maybe the target audience is intended to be lower than Orphan, who are more exposed to social media
. Company information should be included, especially for more niche films

The above work, the 'Orphan' and 'Unfriended' trailer & ancillary pieces are done by me and the two research tasks for 'The Perfect Guy' and 'Shutter Island' were done by Shannon.

We chose to research into this film as it breaks a lot of stereotypes within the genre of thriller/horror. Such as the main character being a woman - we is easily perceived in the marketing and the attractive male is the antagonist.  Yet also because the narrative matches the films we already researched, but is so different. We wanted to find how one idea can stem into many different ones.

The perfect pr 2 from shanneal

Theses film posters are similar to the 'Perfect Guy' as Everest and Identity include three main people on the front , including the main character either centre framed or highlighted in front f the other characters. The Roommate is similar to this as the main title is in a red bold font and like the work 'Perfect' , the word 'Roommate' is highlighted in bold. It is also similar as it has a female leading character centre framed in the poster. Everest is also similar in the way the information on the film is below written in a small white font, keeping the attraction on the picture. Both Roommate and Identity have the actor/actresses names in white font either above or below the image of the main characters   

                          
                                                 The perfect pr 2 from shanneal

                

                                
                                                             Shutter 2010 from shanneal

Theses film posters are similar to Shutter Island as they all include a image below of the place where the film is set - indicating to the audience the setting of the film. These all fit into the thriller genre as they all mainly use dark/dull colours which is a typical convention. Another similarity is that they also include images of people's faces shown in a dark lighting or only showing half adding a sense of mystery to the film once again fitting the genre.Black Rock is similar to Shutter Island by the way its positioned and the style of it.The bright red is shown in both titles allowing the title to stand out from the background , also fitting in with the thriller conventions as it normally associated with blood , anger and danger.

Mind Map created by shan_neal with GoConqr 

             

Shutter island from shanneal

We each did different version of the student work analysis below

           
Mind Map created by kit-kat-98 with GoConqr

How the analysis of student work influences us:

By looking at student work we are able to see the sort of productions that we would be able to complete within the same time frame, no budget, equipment & resources. We chose this particular students work because it is similar to what we aim to create.

The Trailer:
. The highlighted to us the importance and effectiveness of having conventions that complement and mirror the target audience. Of which they completed this through the use of the characters demographics and psychographics. As when watching the trailer,we felt more involved and were able to understand the chosen conventions such as the setting at school and the actions the character performed.
. Were also developed our understand of how effective the sound can be, even with the resources we would be able to obtain.

. We recognised from the trailer that it became more of a short film rather than a trailer, so we need to focus on how we can be sure to use trailer conventions. Such as titles and intra-titles to break up the narrative.

The Poster:
. We found from research that a more common convention in the past few years is to develop minimal graphics in a poster to draw in attention of audience. That we also feel these students completed very feel and effectively.  As even more so for a thriller, it gives away clues and hints as if giving an eerie tone like the rest of the film.

. The use of having a well established typography that stands out is important and was effective in the students work, in that we learnt it doesn't have to be in a particular position yet use colouring and san-serif font to stand out

. Clear editing can distract the audiences eye if not completed correctly and is more of a typical horror convention.

The Magazine:
(We are not developing a magazine, yet we were still able to obtain ideas from this)
. Having a well-known source within the target audience can increase the attraction. For example, they used Empire magazine which is very popular. This allowed us to understand we could have our production trailer featured on a respected companies website- such as Empire.
. The selected language can be very effective if chosen correctly for the target audience
. It works better if the colour palette matches the poster and the trailer, which theirs did not so the colour red seem obscure.

We worked together on this work, but then presented it differently.

                 

We did this work individually

        

Cohesive Marketing from katherinemedia

We conducted different research into this area

              

We worked together on this and presented it differently to match our blogs.

           

We both created these emails together

After research into existing films, we thought it would be effective to contact a lower budget film director and producing team within the genre of thriller. We had to highlight our aims and why we were contacting them.  Although it is not certain they will reply, these are still the questions that would influence our production if answered.  We found a film called 'Brotherhood' a crime thriller produced and directed by Will Canon and produced by a number of people. Information for this film can be seen below. 

We conducted research into the type of audiences that would be likely to watch and enjoy the portrayed conventions within our thriller. From now on, we will incorporate our planning into our findings.

We worked together on this piece of work

             

Before creating the survey seen below, we sent our questionnaire out to people within our target audience and asked them to find anything wrong with our questions. For example, we changed one question because you couldn't select one that one answer and we changed a few questions because the answers were too obvious and we therefore didn't feel we were obtaining relevant information 

Create your own user feedback survey



                    

We both planned, filmed and edited this together. 

             

We chose to ask the focus groups questions about this films because it fits in with our genre, sub-genre, audience reflection and could be based on real events. 

Trailer:



Poster:





Website:

Below is the final research into certain areas we needed for our production. We each created different versions of this. 

               

We felt this was important to do in order to transfer over to planning, as finalising all our ideas together allows us to have a set ideas for our planning stage. 

Again, this work was completed separately although  similar.