MY TARGET AUDIENCE FOR AS PRODUCTION: "LIGHTS OUT"

My AS production "Lights Out!" is a Thriller/Horror film. The thesis of the story is set in mid 1960's and involves a common British detective who is forced to seek the disappearance of a victim by his wife, due to his disappearance and his involvement with abnormal activity of chemical warfare and experimenting on humans behind closed doors. The Protagonist of the film, Clyde Bogart,  is forced to sink into the depths of the eerie experimental government facility. To seek the truth about the victim's whereabouts. As a result, the detective is met by his demise and the riddle lingers on. HERE is a link to the movie.

FACEBOOK and TWITTER  were vital tools for engaging with our audience, primarily because our film is targeted towards people aged between 16-45 years. It also relates to age with the actors in our film, as of March 31st 2015, there are 1.44 billion monthly active Facebook users and from this knowledge, we immediately implemented Facebook as a vital tool for our film distribution. Moreover, we used the " two step flow theory", in other words, word of mouth. This is very effective as people who take an interest in our product will likely pass on the information to their friends and encourage them to look at the film. Much like "Skyfall", in terms of promoting their product, they used a 360 degree angle campaign, we also did this our film so that the film doesn't leave anybody's sight.

For us to connect with the audience and promote our film, my group suggested that we needed to use the Internet and social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter so that the audience are able to gain access to our film project in the comfort of their homes. During the process of making the film, we had fabricated our knowledge as to why social media networks and the internet is so important in engaging the audience in movie products. For instance, In my AS course, I studied the distribution of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 1, who focused their sights on a international audience, as opposed to the film What We Did On Our Holiday starring David Tennant and Billy Connolly. This film was a smaller distribution for a national audience and The Hunger Games is a Hollywood blockbuster, and we needed to consider the differences in how we approach promoting our film. We decided that our film would be leaning towards a national audience, so we decided to learn about "Vertigo" films.

Like The Hunger Games and What We Did On Our Holiday, we used new technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and our own website to help market our product.

I am also asked to consider the Theoretical Framework and this means that the audience doesn't just accept the story without having life experiences or moments which correlate to the film and channels a relationship between the audience and the movie. In our film, "lights out!", there was a narrative at the beginning of the film which enlightens the audience with a first person perspective of the main protagonist of the film. This is made to make the audience slightly perplexed because when we see the detective leaning back on his chair and slouching, the audience intends to have the immediate assumption that he has a lack of professionalism and seemingly does not care about his job or the well-being of others. However, the narrative flips people's perceptions because the narrative has positivism in it.

Another prime example of the Theoretical Framework included in our film is in the tunnel scene, where the detective enter's the bowel's of the factory. This emphasises on the concept that there is evil lurking afoot and we can relate to this because there are endless sums of young victims who are attractive and vulnerable and here, evokes sympathy with the detective because his actions will meerly haze his demise. This connotes to the audience an initial and logical reaction to a predicament like this as people have had a resounding experience and this also helps bridge understanding and experience with the audience and the detective.

RESEARCH: SHORT FILM: HIGH MAINTENANCE

ANALYSIS: HIGH MAINTENANCE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYhGO8WHqz0

I watched a short film called "high maintenance". Philip Van is the director and Simon Biggs is the writer. In the space of nine minutes, there was so much interest and a lot of narrative.  The main thesis of the story is a woman who is dissatisfied by her robotic husband and therefore is returned and upgraded to a better version from the 100 series. however, the tides turn when the woman does not meet the right standards with the man and the woman is turned off. This is intriguing for me because when we see the woman turn off the male robot, I had the immediate assumption that all the men were robots and that women were in charge. We are later met with a plot twist when the new husband turns the female robot off. For me, this plot twist is used to not avert the audiences from losing interest.

There was some Digetic sound at the beginning. The director intentionally amplified the munching sound, which emphasises the awkwardness of the whole situation.

The short film "High Maintenance" is a winner of the Sundance Film Festival.  Van said that he wanted to make a short film about the future but he also wanted it to be emblematic of our current era.

RESEARCH: SHORT FILM: NEXT DOOR

ANALYSIS: NEXT DOOR

The short film Next Door is a post apocalyptic science-fiction genre which is filled with impressive, low budget effects which is present in the film. Drew Mylrea, who is the director of the film, in the space of 12 minutes, has been able to built chaotic martial law scenarios which is full of thrills and humour with seriousness implemented in as well. 

Next Door is a very smart, sophisticated science fiction comedy and it is about a government collapsing on itself. It contains totalitarian police officer regimes which are very abnormal. Terrorism cookbooks and tchotchke entrepreneurship in the form of mugs.  It is very engrossing and is a fresh addition to the story. The feeling I got when watching this short film was I was unnerved and was disturbed, but I felt it was also mischievous. Mylrea sent an e-mail and he said that 'I wanted to make a somewhat ridiculous, exciting SciFi piece that had a element of whimsy.. to take the audience on a familiar journey and then take the expectation so that journey and turn it on it's head. Our hero Nevin, falls in love, and because of that, goes out of his comfort zone. 

I was very impressed with the ending of this film because It was very original. The protagonist, Nevin, might be portrayed as a hero to the audience, but we also are forced to question his morals and motivation, as he goes out of his comfort zone for his love and opts out for comfort over risk. 

There was also special effects in the film as we have a DIY feel to the film. Drew bought scale military models, weathered them, and who them against green. Mylrea also put some blue screen stage and dragged the actors on the floor and gave a analogue approach.

HERE  is a link to the short film.