NME TARGET AUDIENCE PROFILE

Today we make an audience profile for our thriller films. We model this on professional practice, the way that NME creates an infographic of their target audience Look at what IPC advertising created for NME HERE.

• What films and TV programmes are your target audience watching now?
• What platforms do they watch programmes on?
• What social groups do they relate to?
• What issues might they be interested in?

RESEARCH / PLANNING: ENIGMA, SUSPENSE & JEOPARDY

(Use this as a model for your post)
I have identified certain shot types, camera movements, visual and sound codes that I find inspiring. In the caption to each shot I explain why I have drawn attention to it.

From Inspector Montalbano: A wide, high angle shot that functions as an establishing shot conveys the location, crime and personnel quickly to the audience.

From Lewis: A high angle shot positions two detectives moving rapidly through a crime scene and talking rapidly on the phone. The audience can share their haste and sense of urgency; the mise-en-scene of the grand surroundings is established effortlessly.

Smoke moves across the screen during the title sequence of Silent Witness, creating mystery and secrecy by half obscuring the letters. The graphics suggest what might be seen through a microscope slide, in keeping with the forensics of crime detection.

RESEARCH: SCOOPIT!

(Use this as a model for your post)
Here is my ScoopIt! where I am collecting the crime drama that I plan to investigate. ScoopIt! is an online curating tool that collates my research (like a magazine) as well as offering useful interactive features (offering suggestions that I might like to 'scoop'.) Sign up HERE. 

An example of a ScoopIt! on TV crime drama HERE

Class: My example is thriller codes and conventions: yours be film & TV crime

RESEARCH: GENRE CONVENTIONS

(This post models for you what we started in today's lesson and what you need to develop for prep. It will help Georgina and Andrew who area absent today. You will make 2 posts: this one which develops into a ScoopIt! and a second which shows screen grabs of effective work that you find inspirational.)

In order to research genre conventions for the type of film opening that I am planning, I looked at clips from similar productions. I identified visual and sound codes that I would like to use myself.

Group 1
Last lesson, I planned the outline treatment for a crime drama involving a realistic British scenario with a young college student who works part-time on the fish counter of a high street supermarket and who witnesses a stabbing as he leaves work.

I need to familiarize myself with the crime genre as I do not watch much of it; my first port of call was the internet to see what other people watched, as boxed sets are very popular. I found that this is a huge genre ranging from genteel investigators like Poirot and Miss Marple to hard-hitting productions like The Wire and Taggart.

Boxed sets of crime drama reveal the wide range of crime drama

Now, I list some of the productions of British, European and American film and TV crime drama that I intend to investigate. I will create a ScoopIt! page to collate my research.

Sherlock
Inspector Morse BBC

Lewis BBC (sequel)
Endeavour BBC (prequel)
Jonathan Creek
Murder She Wrote
Inspector Poirot
Waking The Dead
The Midsomer Murders
Inspector Montalbano
Young Montalbano (prequel)
Zen BBC
The Inspector Linley Mysteries
Taggart
Wallender
Silent Witness 
Trial and Retribution 

Group 2
Last lesson, I planned the outline treatment for a psychological drama involving a young woman who becomes mentally unstable when she discovers that she cannot have children. The drama unfolds as she becomes obsessively devoted to dolls that resemble babies.

I need to familiarize myself with the psychological genre as I do not watch much of it; my first port of call was the internet to see what other people watched, as boxed sets are very popular. I found that this is a huge genre ranging from ... productions like

PLANNING: HOW TO WRITE A TREATMENT

A treatment is a description in clear English in the present tense setting out what your product / film / video has in it, starting at the beginning in the case of a video which has a linear narrative.

Look at http://www.georgeking-assoc.com/education/vid101c_summer07/how-to-treatment.html

Other sites include  http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Script-Treatment
and http://www.lightsfilmschool.com/articles/treatments/

Here is a sample treatment: 

TV DRAMA

This week we become creative by planning a new television drama series. For your Foundation Production, comedy such as this is one option, so we practise developing ideas and playing them out.

INTERNS exploring stereotypes in film & TV drama (think of Fresh Meat, The Devil Wears Prada, Legally Blonde)

Amber: Caitlin Moran, blunt, down to earth, not easily impressed

Georgina: hypochondriac, health freak, germophobe, obsesses

Sacha: air head

Connie: bossy, assertive

Bryn: sports jock

Andrew: posh

Elliot: wannabe model

Scenario

1.        Interview old person in care home

2.        Survey consumer behaviour in supermarket

3.        Restaurant critic

4.        Meetings with senior staff member

5.        Panic phone call home to mum /dad

6.        Interview local police about local crime

RESEARCH: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TITLE DESIGN

• Explain that you watched this three times 
• title design has changed over time and new technologies such as CGI have had their impact
• good title design entails a link between the graphics and the film genre
• you studied the different types of approach: some used CGI, some live action, some a mix
• you pick (say) 5 or 6 of your favourite from this screening, decode the iconography and say what you yourself might like to use from this model / inspiration
• screenshots!
• use bullet points: keep text crisp and concise

For example:  

Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii, 1995)

• The title sequence to Ghost in the Shell belongs to the 'inner workings' genre
• Its style is a mix of animation and other editing techniques
• It includes hi-tech CGI with computer graphics that mimic computer code
• It features Japanese manga / anime and naked torsos
• The sound track is Kenji Kawai’s intimidating, minimalist score. 
• It follows the construction of a cyborg from the inside out
• First the robot’s inner-core is assembled, then the imagery becomes softer and warmer colors as the cyborg takes on a more human form, soon emerging from the mechanical womb as a young woman.
• I find this compelling as it creates a cyborg in front of the viewer and signals the genre very clearly
• One of our students has used the computer code imagery and if I were doing a crime or spy film I would seek to convey a high-tech world by incorporating computer graphics.