Thrilling music that I suggested using in our film

This song uses string instruments to build intensity as the song progresses until it finally reaches its climax. This is would be most likely used at the halfway through tour thriller all the way until the end of our film, to show how more intense the film is becoming and to thrill our audience by the end as our film will be left on a suspenseful cliff hanger.

My groups finalised Thriller Idea

Over the past few weeks that my group has be given for developing our films ideas, we had unfortunately found ourselves constantly re writing our film's story due to the fact that we had found that our ideas were either not thrilling enough, didn't have enough time to film , and they would have also been required to be shot in locations that were unavailable to us at the time of our filming.
We also found it quite difficult to pick of the sub genre that our film would belong to since many of our ideas had belonged to a variety of different sub genres including conspiracy thriller, supernatural thriller, crime thriller and horror thriller and we were relatively unsure as to which main theme we should use due to the requirements that each genre would involve us including in them. In addition we also had trouble with the script writing for each of our ideas but this was probably because of the fact that we had not done this before.
With all these facts in mind , we had ultimately decided to base our film off of our original idea that we had made when we first began pitching our plot ideas to each other , when the time for our project assignment first began.
Our original film idea belonged to the Spy thriller sub genre and began with a man in his house, sleeping in his bed room as another anonymous man dressed in all black is attempting to infiltrate the sleeping man's house. At night time the man in black sprints along the path of a long ally way , until he stops , to listen to information that he receiving from his hi tech spy sunglasses telling him to approach one of the houses on his left with a brick wall fence.
The man in black then sprints towards the brick wall and leaps over it , which lands him in the sleeping man's back garden. The screen then cuts to the sleeping man. Meanwhile , the man in black walks up to the houses back door and successfully picks its lock which allows him to enter the house.The screen then cuts back to the sleeping man although this time the camera has gotten in closer on his face.
Downstairs the man in black walks through the houses kitchen which then leads him to the house's living room. He then sees a laptop on a small desk  with a red chair next to it. The man in black sits down on the red chair and then pulls out a CD disk from his inner breast pocket which he then inserts into the laptop. The man then starts typing on the laptop and begins to download information  from the laptop onto the disk.
Once the downloading had completed the man in black then takes out the disk , but it drops from out of his hand and falls to the floor. The camera then cuts to the sleeping man upstairs as he hears the disk as it hits the ground and the camera is closed in on his eyes as they open widely. The screen then fades to black as the title: HARD COPY  is shown on screen.

The Thriller Genre

In order for a film to belong to the 'Thriller' film genre,the film would be required to  use a variety of specific  film Codes in order to create the gripping mood for a film as well as using the elements of intensity,mystery and suspense for the sole purpose of 'thrilling' the film's audience.

The thrilling codes that are commonly used in a Thriller film in order to increase the anxiety and anticipation of the film's audience are ,scenes of violences,sinister themes such as murder, horror elements,filming techniques such as sinister, ominous digetic sound, dimly lit lighting, fast paced scenes, P.O.V shots, slow panning camera movement etc.

These are important to be used during the making of the film as if  Thriller film did not use a fair amount of thrilling techniques , it's final product would come off as being boring and very subtle, therefore the film, would have failed as a Thriller.

The formula of a common Thriller would involve the film's protagonist being unwilling placed into the film's dilemma which that is very life threatening to the protagonist, a loved one of the protagonist or a large number of people. In this genre the most common dilemmas that a protagonist would need to overcome would most often be found in the sub genre 'Crime Thriller' in which  the protagonist would  be established as a normal working class person who would later be be inadvertently caught up in a type of crime or conspiracy caused by the films antagonist. Later on in the film the protagonist will then be set up against a series of thrilling,life threating and suspencefull predicaments devised by the antagonist because they have discovered something that could ruin the antagonist's plans which could possibly lead to the antagonist being incarcerated as the villains schemes are most likely to be illegal.

In the cases of a few spy thrillers  the protagonist's character is established as being an ordinary person to the audience, but as the film progresses it will be revealed to the audience that the Thriller's protagonist has had a previous relationship or affliction with the antagonist or their organization .The protagonist's previous connection to the film's villain  is often set up as being ambiguous to the protagonist(due to a kind of memory loss) and to the audience so that they can then eventually discover his or her previous past. This revalation will then cause  the antagonist to target the protagonist in particular because they know information that could potentially damage the antagonist or his plans .

An example of this kind of Thriller story plot can be the 2011 conspiracy thriller 'Unknown', which stars Liam Neeson. In this film Neeson plays a working class american doctor called Martin Harris who had been caught in a car accident which had caused had him to become comatized in hospital  for four days with him suffering from memory loss as a result. Once he was discharged from the hospital he discovers that his wife claims that she does not know who he is and that she believes her husband is another man has been using his identity and also owns and ID card with Neeson character's personal information on it along with a family photo that includes the character of Harris' wife and the imposter. Throughout the course of this film Harris also encounters a group of deadly assassins that have been sent to kill him for an unknown reason. Near the climax of the film Harris then confronts the film's main antagonist who is the head of a secret organization of  assassins who was acting as a colleague of Neeson's character. The antagonist then reveals that the protagonist's alias 'Martin Harris' is a false name and that Neeson's character is in fact an assassin who is a member of the the antagonist's secret organization. It is also revealed that in the film's introduction the protagonist was attempting to carry out an assassination attempt , but could not because of the accident he had endured. It is at this point where the audience realises that the reason the protagonist cannot recall himself being a mercenary before is because of the head injury that he had sustained in the car accident that had caused him memory loss. In addition the protagonist also discovers that the characters of his wife and the imposter are also spy assassins that were his colleagues and that the reason the other man took the identity of  'Martin Harris' was so that he could carry out the protagonists failed mission in the his absence.

However the protagonist could also be established as a person who is a member of a type of law enforcement organization (such as a police officer who would be prepared to face these predicaments as they would see it as his or her duty to put an end to this problem) and would be faced with a predicament that is most often either a kidnapping, mystery or murder(or series of murders).
An example of this kind of thriller could be 1995 crime thriller film 'Se7en' which is directed by David Fincher and stars Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as two american homicide detectives that are out to catch a mystery killer who is responsible for a series of murders that all represent each of seven deadly sins (hence the film's name:Se7en).

Due to the constant re-writing  in story ideas and filiming scheduling conflicts that me and the rest of my group have been facing as we have had other commitments that we have had too, my group has unfortunatley been delayed in our filming schedule.
However since our filming deadline is approaching soon my group have all made commitment to begin filming on Friday the 22nd of March , with the following saturday and sunday beging our days for any back up or unfisished filming.
Although it is unfortunate that this filming dates our very close to our filming deadline, we feel that these filming dates should not hinder us greatly as our thriller takes place in just one setting, and that if we have everything we need on that day such as the available actors, props and good weather , we would be likely to complete filming in one day , if the filming schedule goes according to plan.

A list of thrillers that I have seen

• Disturbia
• Limitless
• Unknown
• Unstoppable
• Se7en
• The Matrix
• Inception
• Eagle Eye
• Law Abiding Citizen
• Enemy of the State
• Quantum of Solace
• The Bourne Identity
• The Bourne Ultimatum 
• Snakes on the plane
• Mission Impossible 4
• Hostage
• Die Hard 4
• Blood Diamond
• Mulholland drive
• Red Eye
• The Dark Knight
• I am Legand
• Safe House
• The Omen
• Terminator 
• Terminator Judgment day
• Wanted
• The Ring

                                                 Enemy of the State(political/spy thriller) trailer

                                                                   
                                           Se7en(psychological/horror/crime thriller) opening scene

Unknown(psychological/ conspiracy thriller) trailer

                                         

A way in which sound is used to convey suspense in The Dark Knight(action thriller)

                                          

In the infamous 'Why so Serious' scene from The Dark Knight in which the film's antagonist: the Joker holds a gangster hostage by holding a knife to his face , with the intention of cutting him, a short silence is used in the film's soundtrack as the Joker's is dialouge explaining the orgins of his scars, as if the film wanted the audience to only focus on what the Joker is saying.
As soon as the Joker reaches the dark turning point in his dialouge the the soundtrack begings to pick up film and an ominous digetic soundtrack which involves a slow building orcastrated strings sound his heard in order to build suspense , as The Joker explains  how his abusive father had slit his mouth and the suspenceful music heard in the background is used to imply that the Joker plans to inflict the same pain on the gangster.
The sound of the slow building strings then  becomes louder and more fast paced as the Joker places his knife in the gangester's mouth, which represents the inpending doom that this character is in.
The sounds continues to become more loud and up building until the camera changes from the Joker holding the knife in the gangsters mouth to another man being held hostage as the Joker asks the other man 'Why so serious' then and a quick 'Slash'sound is heard which makes the other man wince in discomfort, which suggests he has just witnessed the Joker's hostage being very graphically and violently slashed in the mouth right before the hostage's lifeless body falls to the floor.

AS Media Thriller examples

The Halfway House

This video entitled 'The Halfway House' is an example of a two and a half minute opening to a Thriller film which was made by a group of AS Media studies students posted in the year 2008. The introduction begins showing a man with a bad limp on his left leg trudging towards a house. The camera then changes to the house's basement interior in which a girl is shown tied to a chair with her mouth gagged ,while another man whose face is unseen walks around her with a long bar of wood. The camera then cuts back to the limping man entering the house through the front door and then cuts back to the tied up woman as she is being beaten to death by the man with the wood block. The camera diverts back to the limping man looking around the house's interior and then begins to explore into the house's downstairs until he comes to the room where the girl was killed. The protagonist then sees the killer from a distance kneeling over the dead girl before the killer slowly turns his head to face the protagonist. The screen then turns to black for the title sequence.

The technique that I think this Thriller used really well

• Using suspenseful music to set the tone of the this thrilling moment as well as being used in order to establish this film as a Thriller.
• Having the killers lair being very dimly lit with lots of shadows to represent his sinister character.
• Not having the camera show the killer's face until the end of this opening, I think that this was very helpful to establishing the killers character as it shows him as being very mysterious , which would also make the film's audience curious to find out who he is later on in the film.
• Having a close up shot of the bar of wood which is being held by the killer as he circles the helpless girl tied to a chair. By showing this it gives the impression to the audience that he plans to hit her with it.
• As the killer is walking around his bounded victim, an low angle over the shoulder shot is used to make the camera  look down on the victim from the killers point of view. This is effective as it represents the killer as being in power at this moment as well as the girl being helpless.
• As the protagonist is inside the house the suspenseful diegetic music calms down and then builds up again as the protagonist begins to go downwards into the house which becomes to appear more sinister and dark as he gets further down and becomes closer towards the killer which shows that he is travelling towards danger.
• As the protagonist is walking down the stairs a wide angle shot from far behind him is used in order to represent him as being watched.
• Once again the suspenseful music builds up even more as the protagonist sees the killer kneeling over the girl's corspe, which shows that he is in danger, and the killers head then slowly turns to face the protagonist, right before the opening credits begin to roll . The effect of this is that it leaves this introduction on a suspenseful cliffhanger, which would make the film's audience very curious as to what is going to happen to these two characters as their fates have been left unknown at the end of  this opening , until they are revealed later on as the film progresses.

The Grade I would give this Introduction : B

My first Thriller Idea

This post is about the very first idea of how my Thriller's story would follow. It is only based on my own personal ideas ,as I had thought up this story before I was assigned to my media group and then with my group combined all of our ideas to create one final idea. My first Media idea had belonged to to the sub- genre psychological thriller , due to it containing suspense that would have been built up in my protagonist's mind as my antagonist would've played mind game on him in order to confuse and mentally break down the protagonist.

My idea's story began with the protagonist listening to the music on his radio in his bedroom ,alone in his home while it is night time outside. A knock is heard from outside the the house's front door and the protagonist turns off his radio and leaves his room and goes downstairs to the door. He then puts his eye up against the door's peep-hole and sees that there is nothing and no one on the other side of the door apart from a row of cars parked on his neighbourhood road and the night light bathing everything outside in dimly lit orange light.

Then, suddenly a dark and very unclear figure emerges from the other side of the door, which completely blocks the peep holes view and causes the protagonist to be startled and jumps in surprisement. The dark figure then quickly turns away from the door and then runs off into the street. The protagonist then immediately gets out his keys and unlocks the door because he is very curious as to who that person was, but by the time he gets the door wide open, there is no one in sight.

The protagonist then hears music being unexpectedly activated and playing from his bedroom upstairs. Fearing that there may be someone in his room because he clearly remembers turning off his radio, the protagonist then hurriedly departs from his front door without closing it leaving the entrance wide open then proceeds to race up the stairs into his bedroom.

Once he was in the room, he searched the whole interior but found that he was the only person in there . He then takes a deep breath and  tries to calm himself down as he turns off his radio. However the expression on the protagonist's face subsequently turns to shock as he realises that he had left the front door wide open before he ran upstairs.

Afterwards this realisation the protagonist then hastily rushes downstairs to shut the doors, but once he arrives in the hallway, he finds that the front door has already been closed and  locked with the keys hanging from the keyhole.

The next shot shows a mid shot of the protagonist with his jaw dropped and his face visibly in the state of horror. The dark figure then abruptly bursts out from the living room door which is very close to the part of the hallway , where the protagonist is standing and subsequently attacks the protagonist . The screen then fades to black before the audience can get a good look of the dark figure and the screen then begins to show the opening credits .

Disturbia , A thriller that I have watched

preliminary task video

Fourth thriller idea decision

As of recently, me and my thriller project group had decided to re-write the story of our Thriller, as we felt our film would not be able to use the Thriller conventions to their full potential, which would reflect very badly in our grades.
The reason we had come to this decision, was because we had found the story and the direction of our previous idea to be far too subtle and relaxed as we focused mainly on establishing the story and not enough on creating the tension of the film. As a result of this , subtle tone , our thriller would not create enough thrills for our audience and because we would only be marked on how well we get our audience invested into the film by thrilling them during the introduction, we would not be able to gain high marks.
We first became aware of this very low level of thrills, after we had re-read the story of our thriller a number of times and began to find it as coming off as quite boring and its suspense being very limited.
Since my group know that if our thriller did not use many thriller convetions and did not produce thrills as a final product, our grades would be badly hindered. Therefore it would only make sense to create another film idea, as it would be very beneficial for my group to write another film idea, which would be more intense and suspencefull.

Preliminary task(Story boards)

Storyboards

1. Establishing shot of the school's west wing.
2. Long shot of the school's west wing door.
3. Mid shot of a man opening and coming through the door.
4. Mid shot of the man walking towards a table in the west wings outside yard.
5. Long shot of the man as he reaches the table with another man sitting at the opposite end of the table.
6. A mid shot which pans downwards shot of the man sitting down.
7. A close up of both mens hands as they shake hands.
8. A long shot of the two men at the table as the second man greets him.
9. Then an over the shoulder shot is shown from behind the man that has just sat down , with the camera facing the man that was already sat down as the first man replies to what the second man had said to him.
10. The camera then turns to an opposite over the shoulder shot from behind the man that was already sat down facing the man that had just walked in , a the camera then shows the two men continuing with their conversation.
11. A Mid shot of the first man is then shown which has him asking the second man 'did you bring it?'
12. A close up is then shown of the second mans face as he looks down.
13. The next camera shot is a panning close up of the second man bringing a bag up from under the table.
14. The next shot is a close up of the first man with an anticipating look on his face as he watches the bag .
15. The shot that comes after that is a panning mid shot of the second man sliding the bag from across the table in the first man's direction .
16. The next shot is a long shot showing both men as the first man picks up the bag.
17. The shot after that is a mid shot of the first man holding the bag up close to his face to get a better look at it and he then turns his attention back at the second man and he then says 'nice doing business with you' very subtly.
18. The next shot is an over the shoulder shot from behind the second man as he watches the first man get up and leave the table.
19. The final shot is a mid shot which shows the second man by himself still sitting at the table as he watches the first man walk away with the bag.

The techniques used in a thriller I have seen

Disturbia's thriller techniques

• Dark lighting
• Quick unsteadily panning, shows an eye match of the protagonist wearing binoculars and then a shot of the binoculars findings.
• After an excitment or apparant killing is being viewed in a house from a long distance via binoculars, the murder culprit then suddenly appears in the camera shot and glares back at the protagonist through the window, which suggests that he knew the protagonist was watching him . This also helps to provoke the audience's suspician that he is a killer.
• Quick cuts and and the shakey cam technique is used for the intense and violent action scenes which helps create excitment.
• Zooming in of the conversation being held in a house from a distance
• Up building non-digetic soundtrack, which builds excitement and suspense, as the protagonists are trapped and waiting for the antagonist to attack.
• Shaky camera angles being used during an action sequence which adds a realistic sense of the characters quick movement and the excitement haappening.
• The camera also pans as the characters walk, to represent their movement and make it appear more realistic.
• A character hurridly and panickingly runs inside a house with no way out, this represents that he is trapped.
• The home of the antagonist is very dimly lit , with a sinster non-digetic soundtrack playing in the background.These codes  of the characters home represent his character as being very mysterious and sinster.
• The weather becomes very dark and thunderous as the protagonist discovers a corspe in the antagonist's home which proves that the protagonist's previous assumptions that the antagonist is a killer were correct.
• While a corspe is being revealed to the protagonist, a non-digetic slow, up building soundtrack is being heard and the paste of the soundtrack becomes very quick and then stops until the antagonist reveals his violent personality to the protagonists mother and the audience as he attacks her , confirming that he is indeed a killer.
• An up tempo and quick soundtrack is played over a violent action sequence aswell as a combination of quick shots and shaky camera angles.
• There is a close up of a knife being held by the antagonist , during a conversation between him and the protagonist as the protagonist is binded and helpless.This close up implies that the antagonist is going to kill the protagonist or someone else with that knife.
• As the two protagonists are trapped inside a room , with the antagonist outside the camera zooms in on there faces , to show their fear and eagerness as to what is going to happen.These shots also help to build suspense for the audience.
• A baseball bat suddenly appears breaking through a door just inches away from one of the characters heads along with a load sudden digetic 'crash', which gives the audience a better understanding of the character's fear and surprise.This is used to create a jump scare.
• A  upward panning shot shot is shown of the protagonist arming himself with hedge cutters along with an angry expression on his face. This shows that he is he is bravely in power as he is now armed with a weapon against the antagonist.
• The camera zooms in and pans on to the protagonist seaching in the antagonists home from a side angle. This creates suspense and also creates the feeling that he is being watched by someone.
• As the protagonist discovers a rotting corpse in the antagonists home a sudden frighting non digetic soundtrack is heard which represents the antagonists shock from after seeing the corspe.
• The antagonists lair reflects his character, it is dark,sinster and filled with corpses implying that he has murdered many people in the past.
• After the antagonist kills a police officer a high angle shot of the killer is then shown which represents him being in power and also represents the dead officers point of view as he is lying on the floor.
• The are close ups of both the antagonist and protagonist's faces as the antagonist attempts to deliever a killing blow to the protagonist . This helps to show the intensity of this moment.
• The antagonist drops his knife as he is wounded which represents being weakened as he loses his power and defence.
• After a violent action sequence between the protagonist and antagonist , in which the protagonist kills the antogonist, a high angle shot of the protagonist is then shown which represents him as being victorious.

Narrative theory

A Nartative theory is essetially the formula for how a story would progress, consisting of a begining, a dilemma occuring that would cause disturbance or disruption in the storys setting or a problem that the protagonist would need to face and then a conclusion which resolves the dilema in the end.

The Franco Bulgarian philospher and phyciatrist Tzvetan Tordrov had once studied story naratives and had used is findings to produce a formula, that represents the order for how the story would follow.

This theory would begin in a social setting, in which there is a sense of peace and order present at the time along with a firm sense of social order.This state of peace is called Equilibrium which means a situation in which any of the opposing sides in the story's setting are balanced.

The story of this Narrative then progresses into the middle of the story , to which the Equilibrum has become disrupted by a dilemma, such as a conflict or the arrival of the story's antagonist and the sinister actions by the antagonist. As this is the complete opposite of  Equilibrum this is called Disequilibrium.

The effects of whatever the dilemma is , or what the antagonist has caused to happen would the lead to the introduction of the story's protagonist. This person would then set out to intervene in the in the story's dilemma and put an end to it . The protagonist would then succeed to provail in his mission and over come the antagonist and any other oppposing forces that he would have to face. The  story is then restored to its orginal peacefull and balanced state in the form of 'New Equilibrum'.

Narative formula : Equilibrium leads to Disequilibrium which then eventually leads to New Equilibrum.

A russian structuralist called Vladamir Propp had reasearched a number of fairy tale stories and had produced a listed of character types and events that are associated with them, based on what he had learnt from he's studies(much like Tordrov). He then called these factors that he had identified 'functions'.

The main factors and character types that fairy stories consists of are:

• The hero(protagonist)
• The villian (antagonist)
• The doner (offers gift with magical properties)
• The helper (sides hero)
• The princess (hero's award)

Tzvetan Tordrov

• Tzvetan Tordrov was a philosopher from Bulgaria who had theoriszed the Narrative story method of Stories are that is based on the changing states of Equillibrum. This method would involve of a story which begins in state of Equillibrum thst means this setting in which this story is taking place would be a society that is currently in a calm and peacefull state where the opposing forces are even.
• This Equillibrum would then be disrupted by the film's dilemma in which the story will be faced with a certain predicament that affects either the story's characters or the story's setting in some way that could potentially be life threatening to them.
• The state of when a story is faced with a dilemma is called a Disequllibrum.
• This predicament would then cause the story to introduce the protagonist of the film, who would be set with the task of solvig the story's dilemma in any way they can and therefore putting an end to the story's Disequllibrum.
• Most often in stories or films the protagonist would be forced to set on a task to put an end to the story's Disequllibrum because they are unwilling and the task could be extremely risky, however there are a few situations when the protagonist would accept their task freely as they would see it as their duty.
• The protagonist would then eventually overcome all of their obstacles by then conclusion of the story and then restore the films peaceful and calm state therefore creating New Equllibrum.
  
  
  

• Vladamir Propp
• 
  
• Vladimir Propp was a soviet russian scholar and film critic.He had studied the various folk tale stories to find out all of their structure similarities in order to see whether they had all followed a specific Narrative pattern.
• As a result of his findings, Propp had concluded that each folk tale that he had studied followed 31 narrative functions and resolved around a group of eight different kinds of characters:
• The Hero-the Protagonist of the story.The person of whom's prespective shown is shown in the story and who sets out on a quest to thwart the Villian's schemes. 
• The Villian-The person who opposes the stories Protagonist.
• The Dispatcher- The person who sends the hero on his or her task.
• The Helper- The person who helps the hero in his task.
• The Doner - The person who provides the hero with a magical object or the person that trains the hero for their mission.
• The princess- The hero's love interest that the hero cannot marry throughout the story (which is often because she is being imprisoned by the Villain). At then end of the story when the hero defeats the Villain the hero is now able to marry the princess as his reward.
• The Princess' father- This person can also be seen as the dispatcher as their have been numerous occasions in which the father of the princess sends the hero to retrieve his daughter safely. By the end he often rewards the hero by giving him and his daughter his blessings to elope.
• The False hero-The person who attempts to take credit from the protagonist's heroic actions or the person who pretends to be the protagonist so that he or she can benefit from the hero's rewards.

Cluade Levi-Strauss

Cluade Levi-Strauss was a french ethnologist and anthropologist.
He had researched the different narrative structures by identifying the binary oppositions that are presented within a story.The Binary oppositions in a story are essentially a group of one or more individuals that are conflicting against each other because they have contrasting aims and beliefs. This causes them to fight for their separate causes which therefore  makes them see each other as enemies.

The most common example of this is the forces of Good verses the forces of Evil. This conflict is very common in stories and various types of other media because these two forces are very identifiable as being enemies seeing as though they are polar opposites of each other.This means that these separate groups would believe and want different things for themselves as well as the well beings of their societies, whether they'd want to keep the peace in it or damage it.

One of my groups early thriller ideas

Brief summary for introduction of film

Our film begins with a casually dressed man, wearing a suit on the top of a building roof in Edmonton green. The man then walks steadily towards the ledge of the building, as he is walking the names of our (the filmmakers) credentials appear in the shot.

As this is happening, a voiceover of the man is heard which explains his back story, such as how he’s feeling, what has led him to feel he has to do this (a tragedy occurring to him or a loved one prior to this).

Then as the dialogue continues, we then have an establishing shot of London (possibly from central London).

Then the shot goes back to this man getting ready (for his job or any other occupation).

The next shot shows more of his background, such as him looking at a picture of himself with his girlfriend on his phone and himself looking happy.

This sequence is constantly cutting back to him walking to the ledge after each flashback is shown. A radio can also be heard in the background.

My personal idea of how this sequence can end

The man reaches the ledge and as he does, he completes his voice over, with a concluding resolution that gives an audience a hint as to why he’s doing this. The next shot shows a close up of his leg as he puts it over the ledge and the screen then fades to black with the title: Hardcopy, appearing in the title.

Audience theory

The Mass Market

Media institutions and producers like to see their audiences as belonging to different groups, which each appeal to dissimilar tastes. This is shown to be very beneficial to media product advertisers as it provides them with a way of targeting sections of consumers.

Over time, media producers and business had come to the conclusion that all potential consumers of their media texts, belong to segregated groups of diverse audiences which all respond to different products. The most common ways of identifying these audiences are by their age, gender, race and their locations.

The classification of a person’s class is often identified by the type of profession that person is occupied with and by how well the person’s job pays. For instance someone who is a doctor, would be considered to be a part of an upper class audience since, this profession is seen as being ‘Top management’ which is a job that produces high wages and is exceptionally professional.

Income Bracket/ status classification

A: Upper middle class- Top management, professional jobs such as bankers, lawyers, doctors etc

B: Middle class - Middle management, teachers, many creative jobs i.e. graphic designers

C1: Lower middle class- Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc

C2: Skilled working class- Skilled workers, tradespersons (white collar)

D: Working class- Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar)

E: People at lowest level of income- people who have little to no professional occupations such as unemployed people, students, pensioners and casual workers.

Young and Rubicam’s four consumers

`Another way of classifying different audiences was later developed by an advertising agency known as ‘Young and Rebicam’. These audiences were also defined by thee different classes they belong too but were also defined by the different products that each audience would most likely appeal too.

This classification consisted of four main categories such as:

• Mainstreamers -Which are people that make up 40% of the population, and like security, and are also belonging to a group.
• Aspirers-People who aspire for high prominence and esteem from their peers.
• Succeeders- People who already own status and control.
• Reformers – People who aim to identify themselves by what they want and what they aim to achieve through their self-esteem and self fulfilment.

LifeMatrix

The LifeMatrix tool is another method of classifying different audiences that is based on the audience’s different values, attitudes and beliefs. This audience classification consists of ten different audiences:

·         Tribe wired- These are digital, free- spirited, creative young people that are single.

·         Fun/Atics- This  category refers to an audience consisting of young people who are very aspirational in what they aim to do and achieve in their future lives, who are also very thrill seeking energetic, toung people.

·         Dynamic Duos- Hard- driving, high involvement couples.

·         Priority Parents- Family based entertainment, activities, media strongly dominate.

·         Home Soldiers-Home-centric, family-oriented, and materially ambitious.

·         Renaissance Women- Active, caring, affluent, influential mums.

·         Struggling Singles- High aspirations, low economic status.

·         Settled elders- People who belong to a senior and elderly age group and have more sedentary lifestyles.

·         Free Birds- Vital, active, altruistic seniors.

Codes and Conventions

Codes- These are systems of signs that create meaning .They can be divided into two categories: technical and symbolic.

Technical codes- The camera work such as the different camera angles.
Symbolic codes- Representations. These are used to showwhat is beneath the surface of what we see, for instance a characters actions show us how the character is feeling.

Conventions- These are the generally accepted ways of  doing something.

Codes and conventions are used together in any study of any genre. It is simply not enough to discuss a code (whether technical or symbolic), without saying how it is conventually used in a genre.

The genre of a film is identified by its codes and conventions and these musr be present in order to make the film truely belong to its genre, such as a thriller film would need elements of thrills,surprise, suspense etc in order for it to be identified as a thriller. While it is important for the film to have these elements it should also involve some aspect of innovation, subversion and/ or inflection(otherwise it becomes just a feature film).