Evaluation 3-5

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
During my production I, have researched companies that have distributed my case studies, particularly focusing on the films that I feel our most similar to our main task and preliminary task. So I chose ‘The Birds’ and ‘The eye’. These films both feature the construction of a female protagonist who’s antagonist voyeuristic fuelled attack on them is reflected through technical aspects.
During my research, I have come to realise that distribution companies decide whether to distribute particular films, based on the genre and whether the representation links into how their company has made their name. For instance Warner Bros. have made their company so recognisable through representing commercial films. ‘The birds’ was distributed by Universal Studios, it is one of the six major American movie studios. Universal studios in the late 1950s- 60s (around the production of ‘The birds’) experienced the takeover of the Music Corporation of America the studio was upgraded and thus there was evidence of the link between prestigious directors/ producers such as Alfred Hitchcock and the service of distribution Universal Studios were providing. The historical development has seen the company develop from a horizontally integrated company, that had a low capacity in exhibition venues. The early days of the companies saw the targeting of audiences only to small American towns. And most importantly there was a focus on the distribution of Western genre films. However since the 1970s in Universal Studios there has been a recognition for the need to appeal to audiences needs. And thus high production values that are seen in Hitchcock movies are able to get the distribution facilities needed to reach success.
And so from this observation I have, seen the company has been able to fulfil the audiences needs from the films they choose to distribute. And so it was important to consider this when constructing both our preliminary and main task, so our productions could be successful. Although I researched into Lionsgate Entertainment, which is a more recently) established (1970 company holding many successes especially Hitchcock’s 1990 box office success American Psycho. It also distributed ‘The eye’ and when I researched on the official website I found the company to describe themselves as holding a prestigious and prolific library original and daring motion pictures. And you click on the link you will find the full description http://investors.lionsgate.com/
I find this appealing as it is modern company and thus I feel that it would be perfect to distribute our media text as the reason for their success has been because of the recognition of the need for modern representations. In the industry. Why I Think that our film would be good for the distribution company is that there is no historical value. For example in The Birds there is evidence of one preferred meaning. The ideology that is reflected is one of dominance in that context. I feel that Universal recognised that and that is what fuelled them to distribute. Because a distributer ask a messenger between the trust of the production team and the exhibition facilities. Universal trusted what The Birds was representing and so went on with the distribution, we want our film to have an evident representation so that we could choose which company to distribute our film. We feel like Lionsgate would be the best distribution for our film. Because for example in the narrative we have constructed a character who reflects a residual ideology.


How we have reflected this is through the code of dress of the protagonist character. We opted for green pyjamas instead of a residual ideology which would be pink. There was too reasons for this, one was that it would not represent our primary target audience, this is very important because if we were not able to do this then we would not be able to get a prestigious ‘daring’ company to entrust in our film to want to distribute it. The second reason why we did not use pink coloured clothes in the protagonist’s code of dress is because of the representation of our character in itself, whilst constructing our narrative we were bearing in mind that Lionsgate represents films of originality.
Our film would be a closed text if we used her code of dress to connote innocence and thus our film would only have encoded messages of denotative meaning. As opposed to it being a open text and allowing the audience to make different interpretations. I feel that in the sense our film would be beneficial for Lionsgate as it being more of an open text in the sense that the audience can interpret her mode of address as innocent, but this is juxtaposed with the use of the letter, that states ‘If you tell anyone I am going to kill you’ and so they can also decode that she is not as innocent as she seems and has done something (unknown) to the antagonist to provoke her demise. I think Lionsgate will be able to recognise the originality in the narrative structure, making our film successful and their company successful.
Another example of why I think Lionsgate would be a good company to distribute our film is the way we our able to attract our audience through camera angles, so in the last few scenes where the character is leaving her house to look for her missing dog, we use point of view through hand-held camera. The camera goes from her walking to the camera imaging her walking. Through shaky camera we are putting the audience through her despair and frantic feelings. This a methodology that reflects Hitchcock as Auteur.


And this a code that is rarely used in films trying to evoke such a feeling in the viewer.
Overall although we appreciate Hitchcock’s way, in which he tried to evoke fear in the audience, we have reflected that but made it more modern and thus a distribution company like Universal pictures would not be preferred because if it’s inability to move a away from commerce and residual ideologies. We feel that Lionsgate should distribute our film because of the daring and prestigious films they have been known for, we feel that this plus our technical aspects is what will make our film successful.


4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our primary target audience for our media product would be the C1 Lower middle class. Our secondary audience would be the C2 skilled working class of the social grade classification scale. I felt this would be appropriate as the mise en scene is particularly reflective of a young teenage middle class girl’s privileged lifestyle. We emphasised this representation through the bright light which reflected the daytime. What we also showed was the responsibility she had that most teens her age would have. We felt that the alley way where the protagonist is killed is reflective of a rough and uneasy life that is a stereotypical representation of the working class. I feel that our product would suite a working class teenage audience because we have constructed a balance between the working class and middle class representations so that both audiences would engage in the narrative.
As opposed to a sci-fi genre with more unrealistic characters, I think that within British culture especially middle class teen audiences are less likely to engage with unrealistic representations and that as part of the uses and gratification theory (Katz 1959) audiences have an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own beliefs and feelings. The protagonist character allows the audience to establish personal relationships with her character. For example they feel confused and upset when she cannot find her dog, and through the use of a close-up the relationship between the character and audience is strengthened.




We thus concluded that our film should be a certificate 15, and so I researched the BBFC- The British Board of Film Classification The classifications below are appropriate to the themes we reflected which enabled us to see the depth of issues we portray and why they cannot be suitable for any person under the age of 15 years old.
Horror
Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic
or sexualised.
Violence
Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and
self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be
copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable.
Theme
No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is
appropriate for 15 year olds.

5) How would you attract/address your audience?
During the planning of both our main task, I have kept in mind in doing things in such away that keeps the audience engaged. We used the characters to affect the, along with the narrative that makes them want to know more. For example the protagonist is female and thus resemble teenage girls, this alone is putting the female audience (which is our primary audience) into the mindset of the character, building up tension within the viewer. On the other hand, the male section of our audience can identify with the antagonist, in the sense that the camera is reflecting the innocence of the character, engaging the male viewer, this is because our film is quite conventional in the sense that a young attractive girl is being kidnapped and so the male viewer may be interested in watching this demise.
The audience were also able to engage with the narrative through props, we made the prop attractive based on the age range that is 17. We used a letter that is being delivered that states ‘If you tell anyone I will kill you’, the audience are attracted to this because of what the letter contains. We thought this through and decided to cut out letters from a newspaper and stick them on paper to spell out the message, this would engage the audience because they are wondering whether she is being stalked, or whether she is about to be attacked as soon as she closes the door. And so they are engaged because of the different interpretations that can be made, as the audience can also decode that the protagonist must have provoked the sender of the message so much so that they had to get the message across in such a extreme and powerful way.
The second way we addressed the audience is through the use of the costume that was worn by the mysterious character stroking the protagonists dog. The character is wearing a black glove, and so the audience are left wondering whether the dog is going to be harmed. How the audience are enticed here is through the dog, which is white and small, with white holding the connotations of innocence, the viewer are being positioned to feel worried and frightened for what is going to happen to the dog. However when the protagonist awakens, she goes outside to look for him, her tone of voice here engages the audience as it one of confidence and assurance. The audience are positioned to think that the character is sure that she will find him and lead the viewer to further decode that the dog has gone missing before.
We also attracted the audience through a point of view shot, with the camera technique of panning. The viewer is a bit startled by this, but with the confident tone of voice still constructed in their mind, they are to confident that the dog will be found. This was used, also to create juxtaposition in the viewers mind as although they are confident that the dog will be found, the dirty, dark mise en scene hold connotations of a imminent disequilibrium in the narrative. And so through this their confidence is diminished, and so the viewer through this juxtaposition feels fear because we used point of view to make the viewer feel as though they are the characters and are experiencing this sordid mise en scene.
Whilst editing, I decided to reduce the speed of the clip and this in effective distorts the non-diegetic sound that I imported onto my production. I feel that this was effect in two ways in attracting and addressing our audience. One was that it reflected surrealism, in the sense that even when the character is disorientated from a bad dream one would not usually expect to hear distorted music. And the audience becomes reengaged from the last shot, in that they are left not knowing which direction the narrative is going.

The second way, was that at the end I slowed the speed of the clip and are also reversed the direction in which the soundtrack played, and so the audience our addressed in an unconventional way, because most mystery/thriller genres use conventional heavy brass and chimes that can be seen in Hitchcock’s 1958 vertigo soundtrack. However in our film there is evidence of a distorted mix of high and low pitch piano, leaving the viewer thinking what happened. What was ‘the secret’. Also the soundtrack isn’t given too much air time as the focus is the audience feeling confused.

In the last scenes, we used information to allow the tension to build at it’s highest within the viewer. The viewer knows that there is an emerging antagonist, that the other character is unaware of, and so what I did was cut and pasted the sound from the previous clip of the character calling for the dog onto this clip. So the viewer are being reminded of that, whilst we are showing them the back of the antagonist, they are able to see the knife and thus are worried as they can’t get the message to the character that the are going to get hurt. We made the audience feel so much fear through allowing them to build a relationship with the character up until this point when the feeling peaks.