Completed Film Opening

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

The main genre of the film itself is the superhero genre, which was chosen because it was an appealing concept which suited what all of us in our group would be intrested in and would want to make, as well as the recent boost of the genre with popular films such as The Dark Knight, Watchmen, The Incredibles and Kickass. The Dark Knight in particular has received universal acclaim, proving the genre is a successful one which would appeal to all age groups and almost all tastes. However, for our film opening we wanted to avoid what people would normally expect and instead opt for something new.

These examples of films open with exciting scenes that cut straight into the action, although by contrast, The Incredibles creates a fairly calm setting before cutting into its opening chase a minute into the film, the idea being to establish its main characters. We wanted to take a fairly similar approach by establishing our main character in a friendly environment at home going through a daily morning routine, although this is carried out across the two minutes of our film opening as we wanted to show our main character could be anyone. This creates interest instantly and entices the audience differently to what had been done before.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The way the character's face is never shown throughout the entire sequence does not imply which ethnic group or background he belongs to, as we wanted to suggest as much as possible that our character could be anyone.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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Universal also has many opportunities for tie-in promotions which have had great success with its previous films, the best example being the Universal Studios theme park. Attractions have been created to tie in with popular films including Shrek, King Kong, The Simpsons and Harry Potter, whether they are monuments, characters or entire rides, and merchandising would also be made available in gift shops.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is the target age group where a division line could be seen between the younger and older generations, so by hitting a group of 16-25 year old males there is a balance of material in the film aimed at younger and older viewers, so it can in fact appeal to a wide variety of people. For the older generation, this film may also garner the interest of nostalgia fans. Superhero fans are also a popular subject in the media following the success of films such as The Dark Knight from which The Silhouette takes part inspiration, so this may also attract cinema-goers who want to find out more about the hype which has increased quite dramatically over the last few years.
The 16-25 year old age group is also a generation which is more likely to use the internet for information, which is a hugely powerful resource for press releases, news, trailers, posters and other publicity material, as well as finding out the theatrical or DVD release dates.

How did you attract/address your audience?

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We learned that music plays a vital role in setting the overall tone of the film, so we included two contrasting pieces from royalty free websites which reflected both the home life in the early part of the film, then the busy and bustling nightlife of New York City in the second half. It also sounds catchy enough that younger audiences will enjoy it, enabling merchandising opportunities such as a soundtrack release to CD or iTunes download.


We also conducted a survey online directed at the film's target audience, asking them what their favourite film/s of this genre were. This helped us to decide what our target audience wanted to see on screen:

 

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I have also shown the opening to friends and family who were all impressed, even though my family weren't in the target audience showing that, if the rest of the film had been made beyond the opening, there would be potential for a more universal appeal across a variety of audiences. The general feedback suggested the music and ideas conveyed were excellent although the dialogue could have been improved to sound more dramatic, so if we could have another opportunity at a project like this we would focus on this by scripting the project carefully.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation 6

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Evaluation on the technologies used in the making of our film opening.