Target Audiences

Target Audiences

In order to get a rough idea as to who our target audiences are going to be, it's worth looking at similar film ideas from ours, and look to see what types of audiences are attracted to them.
There are a few films similar to our idea, and those are: 'We need to talk about Kevin', 'The United States of Leland' and 'Elephant'.

'Elephant' is a crime and dramatic thriller about 2 boys who commit violent acts in their school. The film is rated a 15, therefore it is similar to ours as the concept is very similar about school massacres. Also, our film will appeal to teenagers until people at around the ages of 35.













'We need to talk about Kevin' is also a 15 rated film of the dramatic thriller genre. It features a boy who has been acting strangely and ends up committing crimes at his school. This film is similar to ours as stated before, it features a crime in school.

'The United States of Leland' is another 15 rated crime and drama film. It is about a boy who acts very violently and has been in juvenile detention. Along with the reasons stated above, it relates to our film as we have a protagonist who commits dangerous acts.













The target audience for our film will be teenagers throughout to people in their mid 30s. This is because we believe that this age range will enjoy more watching our film, than people who are over 40 or under 12. From this we have learnt a number of things about our film. Firstly, the casting is vitally important, if we cannot get someone that suitable for the role then we will have to cast someone with a balaclava over their face. The second point that we learnt is that we have to get the right location. E.g we need to film in our school. Without this our film will not be effective. Thirdly, we need to have a reason for his actions, therefore we have decided to include the scene of the characters perspective of the killer, although we don't want the audience to sympathise with him we want to see his motivations.                                                    

How we used Non-Copyrighted Music

How we used Non-Copyrighted Music
Most audio of people speaking, such as videos on YouTube of blogs or commentaries are non-copyrighted. In order for a YouTube video to be copyrighted, YouTube scans the video once it is uploaded for specific waves of sounds that match certain music videos. If the video scans a match of a copyrighted audio or song, then it will be stated underneath the video description, as shown below, for the original song with the lyrics that we chose:

We decided to look for the instrumental version of this song, which luckily, was not copyrighted, as it did not have the music tag underneath the description. This is not the case for all instrumental videos of songs, as some of them do contain copyrighted material. Here is the video of the audio we chose to use for our thriller, which is the instrumental version of the song above. As you can see the picture below isn't copyrighted:

Initial idea of my thriller and feedback

Feedback for our Thriller 

• The feedback we got from our idea was very positive as our idea of a high school massacre will create the suspense and tension that a thriller should have. As well as this it will make it appeal to a wide audience as children from around the age of 15 and up can watch it. The main point of constructive criticism we got was that the person playing basketball in the gym is just unnecessary and pointless. 

Research into Props

Research Into Props for our Thriller - My group and I put a lot of thought into what props we should use to give the best effect in our thriller:

Scary Mask - Either Clown or Duck
Based on the idea of our thriller being a school massacre, we wanted the antagonist to help give the thriller a subtle horror idea to it. By using a scary mask this does that as it makes the main antagonist look more scary and frightening. As well as this, it helps to create a more of a cliff hanger as you want to find out who is under the mask which helps to create thrilling moments which is what we are aiming for as a whole.

    

Shotgun - The main antagonists weapon 

We chose a shotgun as the main antagonists weapon of choice for a number of reasons. Firstly, by using a gun it creates a more tense affect and creates a more massacre feel as the ant(antagonist) is going in without a silencer or pistol and shooting anyone who steps in his path. The explosive sound of a shotgun helps to portray this. The recklessness of the sound of a firing shotgun helps to emphasise the violence of the character rather than a little pistol.

 Gloves - The main antagonist wears leather gloves

The main antagonist wears leather gloves for two reasons. Firstly, he wears them to cover his identity, so you cannot see what colour skin he is or any other hand feature. Secondly, so that he doesn't get any DNA on anything he touches which makes a more exciting film as the police will find it harder to catch him as he leaves no evidence. This helps to create a more exciting thriller as you cannot see who the person is as they are wearing clothing on any part of their body to stay covered.

Headphones 

Whilst on his massacre, the ant will be wearing old walkman headphones. This will create a small comical effect and is very contrasting. This will be comical as the ant will be listening to classical music as this helps to keep him concentrated as if he doesn't to the music, he goes out of control rather than staying relaxed walking round a school shooting people. This is very contrasting as the calm peaceful classical music is nothing like the loud gunshots and cries of people dying beyond the sound of the headphones.

Research into costumes

Research into costumes
In our thriller we will have a few costumes. This will include, a black suit, a duck mask, a basketball kit and a school uniform.

This is similar to the duck mask we will use in the thriller. We are making the killer wear a duck mask to hide his identity and to hide any emotion he may show when killing people without the mask. My wearing a duck mask he is made to look more 'freaky' and 'mysterious'. A duck mask has a similar reaction as a clown mask does in that many people get scared.

This is a similar suit to the one the killer will use in the thriller. We want the killer to wear something smart which will contrast with the harsh reality of him killing the students. The killer won't be rushing around the school on the massacre, he will be walking which shows him trying to remain smart.

The basketball player will wear a kit similar to this to add to the reality of the storyline. Also it makes him look more professional, rather than just being in normal clothes.

Research into location

Research into location

Since my group and I already go to one of the largest high school's in Europe, our filming location was very easily decided. As our school is so big, we were able to make full use of the spacious corridors and rooms to create all the effects we wanted to. 

This is an image similar to the sports hall we used to film in. As you can see there is very good lighting which allowed the shots to be filmed clearly and for us to white balance easily. You can also see its very spacious so we were able to film experiment with some more difficult, action shots.

News articles for Thriller ideas.

Poppy seller burned in aerosol attack in Manchester

A 15-year-old Army cadet who was selling poppies for Remembrance Day suffered burns to his face in an attack with a lit aerosol can.

The boy, who was wearing his uniform, was at a bus stop near Manchester Art Gallery at 18:00 GMT on Saturday when he was attacked.

Police said a man lifted an aerosol can and a lighter and sprayed him with lit fumes.

The cadet suffered burns to his face and singed hairs, officers confirmed.

Greater Manchester Police said the offender, described as black or Asian, 5ft 8in tall and wearing a dark hooded top, then walked off without saying a word.

• Taking inspiration from this news article I have an idea to create a thriller in which a religious extremist believes the people who do a lot for those who aren't as fortunate deserve to go to heaven earlier as heaven is meant to be paradise. He goes round stalking them and murders them at the best given opportunity. The rest of the public see this differently.
• The antagonist will believe he is doing the people a favour by killing them and sending them to heaven.
• This could create an interesting opening sequence as it could introduce the man and show like a news programme saying ' Another charity worker killed' . Cuts to man and goes to dungeon to kill next victim.

Former Severn Vale teacher John Fleck jailed for obsession with disciplinarian and sadistic child pornography

A 53-year-old secondary school teacher and scout master obsessed with sadistic child pornography featuring boys being spanked and caned was jailed for 10 months today.

Many of the thousands of illegal images and videos in bachelor John Fleck's possession were of children receiving corporal punishment, Gloucester crown court was told.

The material, collected over a 16 year period, was not only on Fleck's two computers but also on a collection of so-called 'naturist' DVDs - one of which, called 'A Century of Discipline', was a compilation of eight hours of child punishment scenes, the prosecution said.

The court heard Fleck had worked as a teacher and served as a scoutmaster for the last 28 years but there was no suggestion he had ever abused any of the children in his care in any way.

• Man teaches at a secondary school. His daughter died at 16 years old.
• First day of the year, girl in his new class looks very similar to her.
• He starts to develop feelings for this girl.
• He stalks her and follows
• She doesn't know who the person is and gets very scared and becomes timid and anxious.

New Mobile Phone software

• New mobile phone from company no one has ever heard of.
• It is very well marketed and has all these new features that teenagers ream of having on a phone.
• The phone during the first phone call each make releases a gel into the persons ear and turns them into zombie like students and totally chnages them into the opposite of their usual personality.