This is our one page pitch, one of our group member's wasn't here for the filming (Connor), and so we had to do it without him. Enjoy :)

IMDb A Soul's Redemption

IMBD Page for a Soul's Redemption

Audiences

Risk assessment

excuse my handwriting, but we finally completed the risk assessment, from what we've thought of from the environment we're filming in, there are not many risks, however, we also thought of the equipment which we didn't mention in the risk assessment, but due to the slippery surface on the ground, we may have to be careful where we place the tripods to reduce the chances of any camera equipment being broken.

uses and gratification

According to Bulmer who was writing about media in 1950 5 years after the second world war, During which he concluded that most propaganda protests where through media such a newspapers, poster art, radio and films, which attempted to persuade mass audiences to follow their polices, Bulmer concluded that media must have seemed like a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands as it was capable of persuading millions to follow evil men, showing how powerful media can actually be to an audience.

The uses and gratification theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication. The theory places more focus on the consumer, or audience, instead of the actual message itself by asking ‘what people do with media’ rather than ‘what media does to people’ (Katz, 1959). It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also holds that audience are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs.

It is suggested that the uses and gratifications theory has to fulfil one of the following when we choose a form of media:

• Identify- being able to recognise the product of a person in front of you, role models that reflect similar values to yours, aspiration to be someone else.
• Educate- being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.
• Entertain- what you are consuming should give you enjoyment and also some form of ‘escapism’ enabling us to forget our worries temporarily
• Social interaction- the ability for media products to produce a topic of conversation between other people, spark debates.

 

This could relate to our thriller due to the fact people use thrillers and horrors to put others in that position and make them think it is them in that situation, I think this is a good use due to the fact that we aim to make the audience feel involved and part of the thriller rather than them just watching it and not identifying with it, we aim for the audience to be entertained, be educated and identify with our thriller.  

Helping to understand the criteria

So on Friday we had a lesson on evaluating other thriller openings, I thought overall this was a useful lesson due to the fact that it gave us an idea as to what was required for the grade we aim to achieve and gave us more of an understanding on the criteria given. I felt that the A grade video was very successful as it had lots of focus pulls making it more mysterious and the camera skills being more experienced, this clip also contained material which was appropriate for the target audience and task as it created a lot of tension giving an idea that its a thriller, I felt that this clip had a lot of control on the setting and what was in the frame as everything looked planned, and nothing out of place not breaking the mise-en-scene they aimed for, it was clear they wanted to create a more rural idea to the clip in which was met.  I also really liked the use of the voice over as it gave an edge to the video and broke up any awkwardness that the audience may have experienced if there was other sounds or dialogue, as it was on a beach, the noise of the waves may have made it difficult to understand what was said from the microphone of the camera picking up background noises so the use of a voice over went well with the setting.

I felt that one of the clips we were shown which was a C grade did meet the requirements as it used sound with images and editing appropriately and that they used appropriate titles, However, I think that it didn’t meet the task set, as it was meant to be a horror, it didn’t create any tension, it seemed more like a comedy, I think that if they filmed at night time and made the dialogue more clearer by having voice over’s instead of using the microphone on the camera due to the fact that there was a lot of background i.e. wind and cars, then maybe it would’ve cause more tension making it less funny for the audience as that wasn’t the aim of the clip.

Practice shots

Elsie and Bertie decided to do a few practice
shots for ideas and inspiration of what we could
do for our final opening thriller film.