Evaluation: how did you attract / adress your audience? question 5

Our potential audience, being art (film, photography) students and fans of noir thrillers will engage with the aspects of our opening which mirror key conventions of noir thrillers. For example, our consistent use of black and white footage, combined with the use of shadows and our attempt at starring a femme fatale in the opening. The audience will indentify the use of cobbled streets, these strongly links to thrillers such as The Third Man, shot in post war Vienna, and heavily based around cobbled streets which turn into labyrinths for the characters. 

The down-to-earth practical costume of Sophie will lead to the audience of that age group engaging closely with her as a character, as we have purposefully used this costume to connect with the audience as they have things in common, for example, the way they both dress. After this connection is made, the audience will become more engaged with the opening, in turn getting the potential enjoyment out of it.  

The long shots of characters walking across the cobbled streets mirror that of those in the third man, if members of the audience have previously seen this film and recognised the connection between the two, it will become easier for them to engage in the opening as they have now identified the genre and what we were trying to achieve.

 The tracking long tracking shots used are a tribute to Taraninto's Thriller 'Jackie Brown', keeping the camera on the characters faces when introducing them to the audience. If this is seen by the audience, they will feel flattered, and feel as if they are a minority of people who recognise intertextual references. 

Another intertextual reference is that of our antagonist’s name, In 'Cold Case' he is named 'Henry Lime’; clearly we took inspiration from The Third Man, where the main antagonist is named 'Harry Lime'. If members of the audience have previously seen The Third Man, they will engage with the thriller as they have realised the connection between the two.

Furthermore, after this connection has been made they will begin to notice the more subtle similarities, and conventions of a noir thriller. For example, our consistent use of shadows, and the casting of an old fashioned femme fetale (Eve Walcott). 

Narrative structure:

 Our narrative structure was heavily based on flashbacks to tell the story. We differed between coloured and black and white shots when showing the flashbacks in comparison to 'real time'. The use of flashbacks, to the olden day crime, helped unfold the events of the opening in a more unique way, as well as making them interesting, which would attract the audience, and make them more engaged with the opening of our noir thriller. 

We also used flash forwards, in the first 30 seconds of my opening, I used two flash forwards. One consisting of our main character Sophie Banks running down into a claustrophobic space near a river (dead end), another of her vigorously shaking bars to a gate which is trapping her in. the claustrophobic space connotes a convention of a thriller, as many use enclosed spaces, by using these I am giving off a sense of entrapment and tension to the audience, after these fast cuts to events which have not yet happened, the audience will feel more engaged. Wanting to know why, and how these events are going to happen, and who is responsible for them.

  In terms of editing, I used the correct effects and transitions where I thought they would have the best effect on the audience. For example, when attempting to show the similarities between Eve and Sophie, I merged the two tracking shots of each character together, so the first was slowly followed by the second. With this in the opening, it appears clear to the audience that we are attempting to show them the resemblance between the two characters. My use of fade to black, and at times white, gave off a sense of continuity, as the cuts were not jumpy and unclear.

Each scene had either a transition or a slow moving fade to black, I was attempting to create a unique understanding style to my thriller, with fade to black/white edited in, and I believe I achieved this.

 Generic thriller conventions 

As far as generic thriller conventions go, I think the audience would be expecting claustrophobic spaces (the bride gets trapped in a coffin and she has to fight her way out in Tarantino's Kill Bill), derelict buildings, (Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Majority of film was shot in an empty warehouse) enigmatic vehicles (Trunk where Beaumont shoots Livingstone in the parking lot in Tarantino's Jackie Brown OR Jason’s van in Terry Winsor's Essex Boys), Dark Cobbled Streets (specific to noir thrillers, For example, The Third Man, shot in post war Vienna). 

The audience may relate with some of the conventions we tried to use in our opening, such as the tracking shots of our characters on the cobbled streets. This clearly shows the genre of the opening, as the scenery mirrors that of generic noir thrillers. They may also relate to the claustrophobic space of Sophie being trapped in a corner near the river, she is being slowly enclosed in the corner by our two antagonists (one from modern day the other from 1950's).

 I think the fact our thriller is heavily based around 2 main female characters is unexpected to the audience, most thrillers are based on men, and large groups of them (Godfather, Reservoir Dogs, Donnie Brasco, The Third man). The fact the male character is actually the minority here, makes a difference to the style of our thriller. For a change, our opening is focused on our femme fetals instead of the violent male characters. I believe this is challenging generic conventions of thrillers, but works well.

Cliff-hanger

 the cliff-hanger in cold case consists of Sophie's paranoia taking over, she begins to lose control of what is reality and what is her imagination playing tricks on her due to lack of sleep as she has involved herself so much in this cold case. It ends with her running down into an enclosed space near a river, being entrapped by a metal gate on one side, and on the other the male antagonist. There are two killers, one being in black and white, which is the original killer from the original case; this is her imagination playing tricks on her. The original killer is not killing her; it is the copy cat killer who is dressed in a hoodie, which is the reality. It ends with Sophie dropping the necklace, has she been killed?  If so, who by? What happens next? These are the questions we hoped the audience will be asking themselves as they view our opening. 

The use of the copy cat killer added mystery and confusion to the end of the opening, as this killer is not used earlier on in the opening. He is seen as an enigmatic character, hopefully this will make the audience want to view the rest of the film, to find out exactly what happened to Sophie, and why? Was it her fate? Or her paranoia? Did these events really take place?