The Witness was originally aimed at young men (age 16-25) who are fans of action/thriller genres such as Jack Smith and had a secondary audience of woman within the same age group.
Facebook page/audience profile of a TA member
We chose this audience as some of the film that inspired us such as ‘Taken’ were aimed for this target audience and seeing as 3 members of our group are in the primary TA we felt that we knew what this target audience would want and how to create that for them.
As well the young male audience our film would have several other, more broad audiences. The three audiences that I think would like our film the most are:
1.People who enjoy non high concept films
2.Students older than the age of 16
3.Fans of the thriller genre, as well as gritty British films. (Similar to Shank Mo Ali)
We feel that due to Britishness are film may struggle to appeal to the international audience, however, the action/thriller and storyline is probably substantial enough for us to have global success although the majority of this would come in the UK. Similar to 'The Boat Rocked' which although market globally, took most of its profits from its UK audience.
Although after seeing our audience feedback we have discovered that ‘The Witness’ appealed mostly to the teenage audience and young males we hope that we were delighted to see we also appealed women which was our original intention. This could be because we portray Jack as affectionate male and there is romanticism in the film as a whole, some what like Pirates of the Caribbean Dead man's chest (Verbinski 2006), which although is an entirely different genre, reflects the antihero in Captain Jack who at first seems arrogant but falls in love, like our protagonist.
The ways in which the film will allow the primary audience to identify includes clothing and the casual language used by the actors. We considered the theory of uses and gratifications when creating our sequence; in particular we focused on fear and pain.
Many of our core audience could emphasise with the protagonist Jack who feels lonely and neglected, as he is in the same group as them. However, in the film as a whole they would aspire to be like him, as his heroism shines through and he fights back against the baddies. The fast pace action that is offered in our chase sequence would thrill our target audience, gratifying their needs. Our film features Enigma codes, these keep the audience engaged as they asks questions such as 'Why does the boy look behind him, is he running away?' and 'Why is he going into the forest?'
The realism of our film could help the viewer suspend their disbelief and enter the world of the film with relative ease, especially since the film is set in a location which many members of our audience may be familiar with.
Our audience screening and questionnaires provided us with information about how our target audience were attracted to our film.
These questionnaires are just a sample of the the tens upon tens we received. After seeing our audience feedback we were glad to see that we successfully appealed to our original target audience of young men, although there were slight difference. For example we target 16 as the lower end of our target audience but responses showed that we appealed mainly to 14-18 yearolds. Groups within a one year 10 class were shown our film and ranked it as one of their 2 favorites, showing how we appealed to a younger than expected age group. When quized on why they liked it, they responded that 'It made them judge' using phrases such as 'That was sick'. This gave us the dilemma on whether to tone down the violence to gain a 12A rating, including our new audience or stick to our 15 rating (We stuck). We also noticed that some females had also enjoyed the film rating it with an average of 7/10 where as the males within the audience averaged it out at at 8.5/10.
The camera was light weight, portable simple but still very effective. We had our difficulties with our camera, for example, we accidently raised the white balance and shutter speeds without realising resulting in complete reshoots due to spoilt footage. However, eventually we pulled through and mastered the camera, taking advantage of its manual focus, a function I had never used to achieve a more unique and skilled look. Although this shot was not used due to continuity errors, if were I to do this project again I would definitely go to extra efforts to perfect this technique.
Sam reviews some footage and decides that we should move on to the next shot.
I had used the editing software Adobe before during a year 10 project and some other media activities, however, I was still no where near an expert and the practice gained from the preliminary was a welcomed refresh of the memory. I feel that I have gained a lot of confidence it my technical ability using the program, and my editing speed has greatly improved. As well as this I have learn new techniques and their desired effects, such as lowering brightness and contrast to create a dark and gritty feel.
A new technology I learnt to use was the Live titles program on the Mac.
At first, we did not find any of the Live titles on the Mac particularly good concluding that they did not add much to our sequence and were to ‘gimmicky’ for our dark and realistic sequence. Therefore, we decided to settle for the titles in Adbobe premier, using the ‘Belll gothic white 30 (STD) fault with no animation. After receiving some feedback from peers and teachers, we decided to revert back to Mac book and come up with some animated titles that enhanced our action/thriller genre rather than taking away from it.
The prelim purpose was to teach me the skill needed in order to create a continuity sequence. These rules of continuity are the essential basics of an opening sequence in order to ensure that it make sense. Our preliminary sequence was very educational as it almost mirrored the structure that we must follow for our actual production, although, the scale of the production was monumental compared to the prelim task. Obviously this was to be expected with the length being over 4 times as long, however, the multiple day long shoots; that despite being enjoyable, I would never have seen myself doing when I first took media at GCSE. I have learnt the importance of time management and scheduling to make time most efficient.
Pre Production
I have learnt that we must plan our shoot thoroughly, when filming our prelim we were inside so did not have to factor in weather conditions. Our main project was a different story, we wanted to film before school but due to winter daylight being sparse had to wake up at 5am to ensure that as soon as the sun rose and shooting was possible we were on hand to maximise the light. To ensure the location was suitable I went out on location shoot, taking pictures and then analysing them to see what could be filmed where and why it would work. This saved us time when it came to shooting as I knew where locations were and when to use them for each shot.
I also learnt the importance of a shot list, and referring to it on the shoot. This was especially important for our sequence, due to the number of shots we had, so as not to forget any important shots which was of course not a problem during the prelim as any forgotten shots could easily be filmed. GROUP 4 SHOT LIST
When it came to shooting we decided to shoot extra footage with multiple angles for each shot not only for variation but also as a safety net so that if we spotted errors we had insurance to back up our sequence. Shooting various master shots of Lewis smoking gave us options for the continuity sequence that could be cut to, to show continuity.
Come editing we grouped these shots into bins and then chose the best.
Editing
As well as this the editing process took weeks instead of days again highlighting how minor the prelim task was in comparison so from this. When capturing the shot log helped speed things up in the long term as we knew exactly what shots were wanted when putting the sequence together on tieme line and making it easy to re-order and decide whether re shoots were needed.
One of our shotlists
Evaluation
This was a key process as we still needed to work as team to get feedback. We test screened our film during free periods to see what the film looked like on screen and how good the sound was.
We also did a public screening during a lunchtime, which we organised using Facebook to raise the profile of the event. We produced a questionnaire ourselves, to get some feedback; receiving a mainly positive response. Furthermore, I linked the video from my social netoworking sites to broaden our feedback.
On facebook
Response on Twitter
Some of my friends shared their thoughts over Blackberry Messenger
