Evaluation : Question 7

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

After looking at my questionnaire results, especially question 6, I could now see exactly what my target audience expected to see in a crime drama, as well as stereotypical characters that they wanted to see. This meant that I could now piece the storyline together and plan specific characters on the results that I got, but also try to change them so that I deviated from the stereotypical conventions of a crime drama.

One way that my opening sequence challenged forms and conventions was through the theorist Claude-Levi Strauss by using binary opposition. With the story line of our opening sequence being domestic violence and crime drama, and from the results of my questionnaire, I could see that the two main characters involved would be a male and a female. Creating the binary opposition of gender. Another binary opposition that was created through my opening sequence was Good vs. Evil. Stereotypically in a film with domestic violence it is the male that usually targets the woman. I decided that I wanted to keep it this way as I didn't want to deviate too much from the character conventions of a crime drama, so instead balanced the crimes out, so instead of James committing the crime of domestic violence, making males look negatively represented, as previously done through media and the news in crimes such as the London Riots, I decided that I also wanted the character of Sarah to also commit a crime to balance both characters out, so the crimes are seen mutually and not one sided, as we as stereotypically females in crime dramas don't usually conform to committing such harsh crimes like knife crime.

Another theorist that challenged forms and conventions of a crime drama in my opening sequence was John Berger's, with the theory that men see women as objects and are inferior to them which is exactly what happens in our story line. Stereotypically young girls generally wear a lot of make-up and dress quite promiscuously in today's society, usually picking up male attention, but of the wrong kind, so instead I decided that I wanted the character of Sarah to wear minimal make-up and dress quite sensibly, having a more natural look, which also made her look rather innocent, but more sensible that stereotypical girls. But because Sarah was represented as more innocent, this made her more of a target toward the character James as he could see that she was quite timid and quite, she wouldn't run off and tell anybody about the things that he did. We break this theory by the end of my opening sequence as Sarah stands up for herself even though she does it in the wrong way, by killing James. By her doing this she's actually represented as this strong independent woman who in the end realises that she doesn't have to depend on James and that she's better off without him. Through the character Sarah starting off quite timid and shy, and then suddenly gains confidence by getting rid of James, this helped me to attract my audience as using Blumler and Katz theory I could now target young girls through personal identity more, aiming at young girls that do lack confidence especially in relationships, and if they were going through this situation confidence is what they need.

By doing research before creating my opening sequence I could see that other films had similar ideas to which I wanted to create, and convey to genre with, so I found films that used similar scenarios and characters as mine and compared them, and took inspiration from them as they conveyed stereotypically to a psychological crime drama.

At the beginning of my opening sequence Sarah is shown to be washing blood off of her hands through a montage of shots. One of the shots that I thought would be effective was by zooming in onto the plug hole, and watching the bloody water wash down, as following the synopsis of a BBFC rating of 12, I couldn't show the crime too graphically, so by showing minimal blood being washed away, I was still able to convey to a stereotypical crime drama but with an effective twist.

From my research I know that the film 'Psycho' by Alfred Hitchcock had also used an extreme close-up of a plug hole with water washing blood away in the famous shower scene. I knew that the film was famously known for the genre of Crime drama, and knew that it was represented well. This gave me a base to the crimes that I would have liked to have shown in my opening sequence, so by watching the shower scene I was able to get some good ideas about camera shots and angles, to use in the bathroom scene of my opening sequence.



For the bathroom montage I knew that I wanted a series of different shots to contrast the emotions that Sarah was feeling and showing, as well as the story line being unravelled, creating an enigma code of 'Why is she washing blood off of her hands ?'. To play on the psychological hybrid of the genre. I decided to contrast a few shots of Sarah looking into the mirror crying, and did this through an over the should shot, and a close-up shot, as this would show Sarah crying more visibly, and the audience could see her emotions more as she would be seen to be looking directly into the camera, creating eye contact with the viewer, as well as the viewer knowing something terrible had happened as her make-up would be shown running down her face.

I researched a few films that contrasted different effects in showing the mirror scene and chose paranormal activity, and Sweeney Todd. I chose Paranormal Activity as they had used a good over the shoulder shot into the mirror, showing the girls features clearly, in bathroom lighting. I contrasted this by looking at Sweeney Todd, with the close-up off Mrs.Lovett, as her make-up has shown to be running effectively down her face making her look as if she had been crying hysterically which I wanted to show when Sarah was seen crying.

To also show the crime of domestic violence quite sensitively to convey to the BBFC rating of 12, I decided that I would show the character of James as a dark shadowy figure. I did this so that he was given a lack of identity, as he is stereotyped differently to the public and to the character of Sarah as he acts in two different ways. The fact that he's shown as a dark character connotes that he's quite evil, conforming to the theory of binary opposites compared to Sarah, as well as mirroring the crime of domestic violence, as it is quite a dark, and misunderstood crime.

Another film that I researched was Insidious, as this was also a very dark thriller. The film uses a lot of shadow work on the characters, making them look like silhouettes, blocking out their identity’s to conform to the genre, which also worked well with my opening sequence and the genre as well, as I wanted to create quite a mysterious and dark effect to the characters to help create quite a tense atmosphere toward the audience. The shadows seen in Insidious have been created by lightening the background more, which I found was easier when editing as it created that silhouette effect easier, than darkening the clip or just the characters, It also helped to create an unearthly glow adding to the tense atmosphere and mysterious effect.

 

I also wanted to create a contrast between the characters as I didn't want to just represent James as the bad guy, stereotypically giving males a bad perception as shown throughout the media and the news today with crimes, so I thought it would be more effectively to show Sarah to commit a crime, and look just as angry too. As talked about above, following John Berger's theory of men seeing women as objects I wanted to deviate from that and create a specific moment in my opening sequence where Sarah actually stands up for herself, and the audience see her click, as she finally can't take James' abuse anymore. So during the middle of my opening sequence, just before the dark flashbacks happen, and just as the music changes, becoming more tense, a scene of James and Sarah arguing on the way home is shown, to which Sarah has enough and turns around to shout at James, being the real turning point in their relationship and in the story line, as well as being a main hook to grab the audience.

I knew that I wanted to create a good turning point in the middle of my opening sequence and wanted to do so effectively, and it was hard trying to research a film that had actually used the same storyline, of the girl in a relationship arguing back to her partner and then walking away, so I looked at the film Blue Valentine, a sort of rom-com film, which still conveyed to my opening sequences nicely as there are happy scenes shown of Sarah and James being all romantic and giggly in the cafe. Blue Valentine shows the argument slightly differently though, The male is shown to be in the females face, with blood eyes, from a mid/low angle shot, making him look more dominant, as if he has more power conveying to John Berge’s' theory, he is seen to be more powerful using the female as an object to look down upon, To which the female simply has enough and walks off, showing a real Turing point where the female had had enough, stood up for herself and simply walked off. This helped me to get a rough idea of what I wanted to show in my opening sequence as from looking at the scene in Blue Valentine I could see exactly how it attracted the audience, using Blumler and Katz theory, by targeting them personally, as it could help females watching my opening sequence, gain confidence, and make them feel like they can walk away from a powerful situation and not be dominated by men in a their matriarchal world.

I also needed some ideas of how to represent my characters in the opening sequence through the use of flashbacks. I decided that I would go into the flashbacks from Sarah looking into the mirror crying, followed by a transition that faded to black, which then went into the flashbacks. I knew that I had to create a contrast between the happy and dark flashbacks as well, and already knew that I wanted the dark flashbacks to be shown in black and white, to connote the darkness of the character James and the crime itself, but didn't know whether to add a sepia effect to the happy scenes, or leave them with natural lighting, so I looked at a scene from the Sopranos.

 From looking at this flashback I could see that the sepia effect worked really well, as it made the scene look brighter, adding to the happy, atmosphere created. I knew that the opening sequence would blend in too much if I left them in the normal colour that they would were filmed in, but would also look too dark if I placed them in black and white, which would also confuse the audience, so I settled on having the happy flashbacks in a Sepia effect.

Overall I that from the results that I got on my questionnaire I could see exactly what I want to deviate from and convey to stereotypically in a crime drama. The research that I did helped a lot as I now had a range of ideas on how I wanted to plan my story line, i.e. what I wanted my flahsbacks to look like base on the ones shown in the sopranos as they were effective, Or how I showed Sarah in the bathroom scene through a montage as shown in pshcho, conveying well to my genre. It was also quite easy to deviate from my genre too which helped me to make my opening sequence more origional, and gripping toward an audience, especially by looking at certain theorists and how I could apply them as well, for example Including binary opposites through the characters to show a contrast between them, but also deviating from John Burges theory, making Sarah just as accountable for her crimes as much as James, and not stereotyping males in a negitive way like in the media today by putting a balence between both charaters.

Evaluation : Question 6

How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

Throughout creating my opening sequence I tried to think a lot about who I was actually targeting and whether they were part of social groups or certain types of individuals, also by researching what my target audience would actually look like. This was hard to define as many different types of people could relate to the story line of the opening sequence.

One of the types of social groups or individuals that could be represented in my opening sequence is young women. In today’s society girls from the youngest age of 12 are getting into relationships more so with males that are slightly older. In most cases these young girls do know who they are getting into a relationship with but with social networking sites and technology advancing it’s far easier for young girls to be targeted especially on the internet, by people they barely even know who make them feel like they’re wanted and in some cases these older males do harm the younger girl. In my opening sequence I tried to present the crime of domestic violence quite sensitively but by also showing quite forwardly that girls can become a victim quite easily. I did this by presenting the male character James as a dark shadowy figure, connoting that he has a lack of identity, that no one really knows who he is, not even his partner Sarah, which can relate to girls getting into relationships with older men that they haven’t met before, nobody really knows what they’re like and could change at any point. Alongside individuals the crime of domestic violence can target groups of young girls. If one girl is a victim of the crime, it won’t be long until friends start to realise whether that be by physical marks or changes mentally. In my opening sequence instead of showing what the character Sarah should have done to deal with the domestic violence I decided to represent what she shouldn’t have done, hopefully sending out a message to younger girls that are victims that more crime isn’t needed, that killing that person isn’t the rational thing to do and that actually telling somebody about the problem is more effective.

Another social group that can be personally represented throughout my opening sequence is males in general in friendship groups, gangs or individually. The crime of domestic violence is shown quite sensitively in my opening sequence, but the message is still clear toward men, that it is wrong to harm girls and men too. It portrays the question of ‘If you could see yourself committing domestic violence, would you still do it? ‘. Males can also be represented in the opening sequence through the use of knife crime. Even though I represented Sarah to be using a knife on James, and stereotypically it is men that do commit knife crime, that woman can too. Some men have been hurt by women whether that is in a relationship or on the street. There are girl gangs that do hang about on the streets and can use weapons just as effectively as male gangs. The opening sequence can also represent males that are in gangs, as sometimes they could be peer pressured to do things to look more popular than they actually are just to impress friends, whether they want to do it or, the opening sequence shows that males need to think about what they’re actually doing rather than just doing it.

Other than personally targeting specific types of males and females individually or as part of a group, I tried to target people generally through the type of genre that I chose and through following Blumler and Kats theory, that people will watch the opening sequence for particular needs, biological, psychological or social needs.. I chose to portray a hybrid genre of a psychological crime drama, and researched what sort of people would watch this sort of genre for a film, and mainly did this through a questionnaire as shown below. From the questionnaire that I created on servey monkey, I embedded them onto social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter so that a range of young teens and adults could answer. The majority of the people that answered were female, possibly because they wanted to see how the crime of domestic violence would be shown, or to relate to the character of Sarah as they could have been through the same circumstances as her, or even to be aware that a crime such as domestic violence does happen and that they need to take precautions to stop it from happening. In comparison to men taking the questionnaire, as they may feel like they don’t need to watch this sort of thing happening as they may never commit such a crime, or on the other hand have committed domestic violence and don’t wish to remember what they did, playing on the psychological side of the genre. The questionnaire helped a lot as I could see who to mainly aim my opening sequence too, and what sort of target audience I would be attracting for further research.

The main audience that I targeted through my opening sequence was teenagers and young adults, through the representation of the characters Sarah and James. In today's society teenagers and young adults are usually represented unfairly, especially through being broadcasted on TV. For example, the 2012 London riots. Many teenagers and young adults were harassed and treated unfairly on the streets simply because of the clothes they were wearing or the friends that they were hanging about with. As well as the footage being shown on the TV was predominantly of teenagers and young adults, rioting, not showing what older adults did, or the reasons for doing them, putting a bad perception and a negative stereotype on young people from the rest of society. From looking at examples in the news and seeing how teenagers and young adults/ people in general were being presented negatively, I tried to present the characters of Sarah and James fairly, along with the crimes that they were committing. I did this by using Claude Levi-strausse theory of binary opposites, by showing Sarah to be committing knife crime. By doing this, I take the stereotype away from men being the predominant gender committing crimes, and showing that actually woman do commit crimes along side men, sometimes even more, giving men a more positive perception even though men are still shown to be the more dominant gender to commit crimes on television and in newspapers. 

Below I have created a wordle to show all the words that can interpret particular social groups, or individuals dealing with domestic violence or knife crime, along with the crime of domestic violence and things that could possibly be linked with it.

Overall I think that my media product represents social groups in many different way, whether that be targeted at different genders i.e. male or female, individuals by using Blumler and Kats theory and targeting them personally or psychologically linking with the hybrid of the genre (Psychological crime drama) or targeting gangs of people, and making certain stereotypes look better, or even representing them fairly throughout my media product compared to other media products such as the news that represent and stereotype these certain types of people negatively.

Evaluation : Question 5

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why ?

In my opinion I think that a more independent film company would produce my opening sequence/film. Independent companies, mainly have a lower scale budget, but stick to it well, creating effective films that are more precise. This is exactly what my opening sequence would need if it was published into a film, as it generally doesn't need many special effects, and wouldn't need high budget or well-known actors either. An independent film company would be more likely to produce my opening sequence into a film rather than a major company due to the crime that I have represented.

Domestic violence is quite a sensitive topic to talk about, with the chance that it could affect many people. If an independent company produced it, it would be able to target that niche audience of people that are into crime dramas, but have also been affected by this sort of crime. If a major company was to produce such a high class film from my opening sequence, more than likely would it get bad reviews, because as a wide audience people wouldn't really want to see a film about domestic violence in the cinema as it would be too sensitive?

Major film companies usually team up with other companies to help produce merchandise such as toys and film posters etc. to help them gain money, as they would have spent a big budget on the film. For my opening sequence, merchandise couldn't really be produced due to the crime it's self being very sensitive, and it may be seen as rather demeaning to put merchandise about domestic violence in shops. With the rating for my film also being a 12, it wouldn't be effective if 12+ year olds bought merchandise about that topic, it would probably cause a lot of harm.

Looking at some independent film companies, I decided to choose two that could possibly produce my opening sequence, one of which was Film4. From looking at the Film4 website I could see that they distributed their films in many ways, for example, some would go straight to DVD or Blue ray in the shops to be bought, targeting their specific audience directly, as only they would buy it directly, Or through putting it onto the television, on the Film4 or sometimes Channel4 channels, This would mean that the film would be regulated, to be shown at specific times i.e. after the watershed, as well as the channels showing the independent films, they could target their audience at home, so they could see the film without paying for it.

Both of these would be effective ways to show my opening sequence to my target audience, as possibly young girls may have protective parents who check what they watch, so by having the DVD they can watch it in their own free time, or even round a friend’s house, especially if it was for a personal identity reason, possibly they would want to watch it by themselves to think through things or through a personal relationships reason, possibly wanting to watch it because a friend does, or to support a friend through a tough time. This is an effective way, but some 12+ year olds may not have enough money to buy the DVD, so buy showing it on Film4 or Channel4 the target audience can watch it for free again in their own time, and with technology advancement today, they could record it and watch it at a later date. Watershed times wouldn't really matter. It would be reasonable to show my opening sequence/film after 9 o'clock because of the crimes involved but following the BBFC rating of 12, it doesn't show graphic scenes of violence, they're only hinted and used in context, so the viewer would have to think more about what's being shown rather than seeing the crimes graphically, so my product could be shown before 9 o'clock. These ways of distributing would also be effective toward a male audience as well, possibly for personal identity or surveillance reason. A male may not want to be seen watching a film about domestic violence in front of his friends or partner, but may still want to watch it possibly if he's committed such a crime, or is just interested in the topic, He would also be able to buy the DVD and watch it at his own accord or if he's at home watching TV possibly record it and watch it at a later date, or watch it on his own.

Another independent film company that I decided to look at was Lions gate. LionsGate follows the same sort of distribution methods as Film4, but also have the option to watch the full film on the website. This is effective as if my target audience weren't able to buy the DVD they would be able to see the film online, and with technology advancing most young females from 12+ do have the internet at home, so could watch the film on their own if nobody was at home as well as because it's online, my target audience would be able to watch my product through their android or IPhone, either through YouTube, on the LionsGate website, or if they downloaded the film or app. If Lions gate were to produce my product, I would be able to target my audience through technology more, which would mean I would target them personally as in today's society most people are technologically advanced.

 

Overall I think that an Independent film company such as Film4 or LionsGate, would be more suited to produce my product than a major company such as Universal or Warner Brothers as it would be suited more to a niche audience, for people who specifically like crime dramas or psychological crime dramas, rather than being shown as a box office film, targeting anyone, especially with the crime in my product being predominantly domestic violence, some people may see this as too sensitive to show publicly, as well as if a major film company was to produce my product to box office level, they wouldn't gain as much money back as merchandise wouldn't be produced again because my product would be too sensitive. If an independent company was to produce my film, I could target my audience more specifically, either through a certain channel on TV like Film4 or Channel4, or if it was put online through LionsGate, with today's society being very technologically based my audience would be able to view it on their phones, computers or tablets etc. being more accessible.

Evaluation : Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product ?


For this evaluation question I decided to make a prezzi presentation to describe, and go through step by step the type of audience that my media product would engage, along with research that I did to come up with the appropriate age and rating for my opening sequence.

Evaluation: Question 3

How did you attract/ address your audience ?

One way that I attracted and addressed my target audience was by doing research and creating a questionnaire on Survey Monkey. Our production group chose to do a questionnaire as we thought this would be the most effective way to get results appropriate to our target audience, with answers that could help improve our research and the level of professionalism of our opening sequence. Firstly we had to decide on what questions to ask, which had to be worded effectively so that we didn't get yes or no answers, and that the answers that were given were detailed to actually help us analyse our opening sequence. In total we asked 6 questions, some simple for example 'what is your age group?' to some that required more detail such as 'Do you prefer to see the crime happen or piece it together yourself?’ Each questions result helped toward being analytical toward our opening sequence, as well as helping to find our target audience, and be able to address them.

For our questionnaire to firstly find our target audience, before addressing them, we had to ask the viewer what gender they were, male or female, and the results showed that predominantly females were interested in the genre. This was very helpful as now we could represent the crime of domestic violence in a sensitive but forward way, using Blumler and Kats theory to target them in a personal way, or for females to see how this crime actually happens if they haven't been victim.

Now that we knew that mainly females would watch our opening sequence, finding out their age was appropriate to narrow down what rating our film would be when looking at the BBFC guidelines. The majority of the viewers that answered were between 16 and 20. This meant that now the character for our opening sequence was appropriate, and that a young teenage girl would be effective to show as she could relate to specific audience members.

The third question that we asked was 'How often do you watch Crime Dramas?' This question helped us to understand how often the viewer would watch a film with a genre of crime drama/ psychological crime drama. The answer that was most frequently given was 'I watch them sometimes' This meant that as a group we needed to find out ways to make the opening sequence more appealing and interesting to hook the audience member and not bore them, especially with the genre being a psychological crime drama, targeting quite a niche audience that would expect specific conventions of this genre.

From previous research done I knew that some crime dramas unravel the plot quite quickly, with the characters solving the crime, and some drag out the plot so that it unravels slowly, which means that the audience could piece it together themselves. This meant that our opening sequence could unravel slowly, or show the crime straight away, which lead to our fourth question of 'Do you prefer to see the crime happen or piece it together yourself?' To which the majority of the viewers answered that they would like to piece it together themselves as the plot unravels as it would keep them hooked longer, making them want to watch more. This meant that we could create a lot of enigma codes within our opening sequence to keep the audience hooked and not bore them, relating to question three, as now we would be able to make the opening sequence more interesting, making the viewer want to watch psychological crime dramas more.

Now to keep the audience hooked, we had to find out what the audience liked about crime dramas, to see how we could make the opening sequence interesting and possibly deviate from the normal stereotype to create something different and more engaging, so our fitth question was 'What appeals to you about crime dramas?'. To which the most common answers were that "they're engaging" , "They offer diverse issues" and "twists". These answers now gave us a few things to include in our opening sequence, and made us realise that it needed to have an engaging crime and story line, and have a deviating plot line.

To deviate from the normal stereotypes of a psychological crime drama we firstly needed to know what sort of stereotypes the viewer liked to see, and expected to see in a film of this genre, so for question 6 we asked, 'What stereotypes do you expect to see in a crime drama?', to which we got a varied amount of answers to suit different crimes, such as "murders", "psychopaths" and "male detectives with a female sidekick". As a group we knew that we wanted to portray the crimes hands on through a character rather than through a detective scenario, And could see that the crime of murder was quite popular, to which we followed in our opening sequence, as the character of Sarah ends up killing her partner James, but as a more psychopathic character, conveying to the hybrid genre of a psychological crime drama.

Overall by creating a questionnaire it helped a lot to actually pin point a specific audience. By having this specific audience it meant that we could now adapt and represent our opening sequence in a different, engaging way.

From having questionnaire results, as a group we could now sit and plan how we would deviate from the normal stereotypes of a psychological crime drama, and firstly did this by looking at the characters. We knew that the crimes that we wanted to represent were predominantly domestic violence, with the use of knife crime, as knife crime was quite common crime to be shown, but with a twist as it would be linked with domestic violence, and from research done, domestic violence wasn't particularly a crime frequently shown, which meant that we had a crime that we could represent with our own interpretations, but keeping the violence subtle, as it had to fit in with the BBFC rating of 12.

Looking at questions 1 and 6 of our questionnaire, we could see that mainly females would be watching our opening sequence, so a conveying to the normal stereotypes of domestic violence, a young girl would be the victim. We deviated this by having a young black female instead of a female of white ethnicity, which was stereotypically shown. This also meant that we could now target a slightly wider audience of young black females that represent all women, instead of just having a white female with a predominant audience of that race. Question 6 in the questionnaire also suggested the roles of a male detective and a female sidekick. As a group we liked this idea, but conveyed it toward the more hands on characters and had a male and a female shown. The character of James being the more dominant one in the relationship, conveying to a typical matriarchal society role, until the end when Sarah stands up for herself, juxtaposing the role, making the relationship fit into a more patriarchal society showing the female to be the more dominant one in the relationship after all.

I think the content of sexual abuse in our opening sequence was also influenced from our questionnaire results. We couldn't show the crime of domestic violence very forwardly and openly, it had to be masked, or have subtle references according to the BBFC rating of 12 that we applied. I think by taking in feedback it helped us to represent the character of James more fairly, as in media today for example the coverage of the London riots, particularly males were targeted and stereotyped and as an opening sequence we didn't want to target males in that sort of way, so balanced it out by the character of Sarah also committing a crime, as females do commit just as much crime as men, but aren't shown as frequently on the news and in the media as men, so by showing the character if James as a shadowy figure we were able to represent both genders in the situation fairly.

Another way that we attracted/addressed our audience through the questionnaires was by the use of enigma codes. The questionnaires helped us to create a list of enigma that we wanted to include in our opening sequence to keep the audience members hooked, and want to watch the rest of the film instead of getting bored. A lot of the enigma codes convey more so toward the psychological side of the hybrid genre, some of them are...

- Why is she covered in blood?

- Has she killed somebody? If so who?

- What's happened for her to be crying hysterically?

- What happened in the relationship for him to want to hurt her?

- Why did she want to be in a relationship with a man 7 years older than her?

- Why aren't her parents involved in her life?

- What does she do with the body that she's killed?

- Why does she feel killing him is the only way out of the situation?

- Why does her partner actually use domestic violence upon her?

- What does the boyfriend look like? / Why can't we see what he looks like?

From looking at our final opening sequence, some enigma codes are shown quite overtly such as "Has she killed somebody? If so who?" and "Why is she covered in blood?” Both of these enigma codes were shown right at the beginning of the opening sequence through the montage of shots where Sarah is shown to have dripped blood into a bathroom, and is washing it off of her hands, In a series of close-ups and extreme close-ups, along with showing her crying into the mirror, showing a more subtle enigma code of "What's happened for her to be crying hysterically?" Other enigma codes aren't shown at all such as "Why aren't her parents involved in her life?" as the viewer is mainly thinking about the character Sarah throughout the opening sequence, these enigma codes could possibly asked later on in the film.

By having the questionnaire results and being able to create enigma codes to keep the audience hooked, we could now attract and address the audience by applying certain theorists to our opening sequence. One theory that our opening sequence has followed is John Bergers. His theory was that men see women as objects and are inferior to them, which is exactly what happens in our story line, the young girl portrays herself as quite flirty, heavily makes herself up to try and get her boyfriend to like her even more, when he sees her as this weak object and results to beating her. He knows that she won't run away or tell anybody, because she knows he'll just beat her more, and that this is what she wanted in the first place, for him to acknowledge her. We break this theory in the end by the young girl standing up for herself even if she does it in the wrong way, by killing him. By her doing this she's actually also portrayed as this strong independent woman who in the end realises she doesn't have to depend on this man, that she's better off without him.

Another theory that we follow is Claude Levi-Strauss', He came up with the theory of binary opposition, which again is exactly what our story follows, the sense of good and evil. The girl acts all good an innocent at first when she's with her boyfriend, she's happy and will put up with whatever to be with him, until she turns into this slightly evil psychopathic character by standing up for herself and killing him. The boyfriend is also seen as this evil character as he takes advantage of the girl because he knows he can get away with it, until he dies because of it. We also deviated from the normal stereotype of a white female, and used a young black female instead.

Some may argue and say that we also follow Aristotle's theory as well, he had the idea that every story has a beginning, middle, and end, which is sort of what happens in our story. The beginning is where the couple are all happy; he acts happy towards her so that she learns to trust him, thinking that nothing could go wrong. Then the middle happens, where actually things do go wrong, he starts abusing her, hitting her e.c.t keeping her enclosed in this tiny room/ apartment so she can't escape and tell anybody. And the end where she gets fed up, and everything's built up inside of her that she lashes out and kills him as her only form of escape, even though it's not the end to the whole story, the whole situation comes to a proper ending.

I was also able to attract and address my target audience through the use of Blumler and Katz theory. This meant that my audience could view my opening sequence for 4 different reasons, one being for Surveillance. This meant that they would be watching my opening sequence to find out information possibly about domestic violence or knife crime, and how they're portrayed in a psychological crime drama, or to find out information about specific types of people, i.e. males or females that commit crimes and why they do it. The second reason would be for personal identity. A viewer may want to watch my opening sequence to relate to it personally, possibly if they're going through a situation similar, i.e. if a girl if currently a victim of domestic abuse, or has committed knife crime or if a male is currently targeting a girl using domestic abuse, or if both wish to see how it can actually effect a person, possibly if parents are worried about their child in a similar situation. My opening sequence can also relate to the viewer through personal relationships. They could want to watch the film to feel a part of a social group, whether they feel left out or if their friends were going to see the film too. As well as maybe being in a relationship or have had a previous relationship that had a similar situation.

Evaluation: Question 2

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ?

To talk about what technologies I had used, I briefly explained through a Prezzi presentation



To talk about the technologies that I used more, I created a video on IMovie, talking through step everything that I had used to create my opening sequence, along with the advantages and disadvantages of them.