Stephen, Nigel and Ben's Foundation Portfolio: Ben- Evaluation Question 5

People go with what is familiar and trending. For example, "Interstellar" is directed by Christopher Nolan, who has also directed the highly popular "Dark Knight Trilogy" and "Inception". A known figure, say, Chris Pratt, would bring people that are turned off at the idea of using over an hour watching something they might not enjoy. But Chris Pratt would convince them otherwise.
Chris Pratt on a student film would already make enough headlines that there would be no need to advertise for any audience. Everyone would watch the film just for Chris Pratt. But without that giant hunk of Star-lord/Jurassic Park sex appeal, we had to resort to local friends as the cast.

In Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

I answered my target audience would be Men and Women aged 16-30.

People want a certain reaction when going to movie, be it scared, entertained, romantic etc. With a Crime-Thriller, people would want to feel the Suspense, the Action, the Shock and the Purpose!
The Purpose comes Geoff's love for Susan. The force that pushes him to seek justice and maybe a little revenge. But first, this needs to be explained to the audience and Susan's grave is the perfect place to do it. Sadness on his face with doubly sad and retrospective music say right away in the first few shots that Todorov's Equilibrium has already broken. This would develop empathy for Geoff making him more than a bad actor.

Sadness becomes more apparent with dialogue
"I'm sorry"

Sadness escalates onto knees

Of course no point in showing someone sobbing at a graveyard when you can show the reason for their sadness with movie magic. The flashback sequences showing Susan keep cutting into the present, as if Geoff is remembering a bad memory. The camera has two small shots of feet running along the ground and blurred runner in medium shot can get the ball rolling on that something is wrong. Since that is all that is needed, these two scenes end 49 seconds in. Out of the 2 minutes 36 seconds, it's not much. This is because no one wants to be stuck in one place for too long. Take the monster fighting movie "Pacific Rim" as an example that had intermittent introduction voice over for the first 20 minutes. Keeping at the right pace without dragging on keeps the audience interested and not sunk at the back of their seats.
These two scenes end with the fight between Susan and the Assailant. The music changes from eerie X-Files like piano to a gradual build up into fast paced Drums party, for lack of a better word. The reason for change is because as the action increases, so does anticipation in the audience. The right soundtrack builds on this and the better the music, the worse the more ways the audiences is thinking of how it could go down. Keeping with the previous music would make contrapuntal and while this can help to unsettle the audience (Nursery rhymes in Horror movies), it is too early in the film to unsettle and scare away the audience. The build up, a breathing like sound that crescendos, eases the transition from X-Files into Drums party. Without it, it would come as a shock and most of the audience would be too busy finding their nerves to notice what is happening. What more, it just doesn't sound good. The Drums party also has a build down at its end. A sort of metal clang that slowly diminuendos. Where the build up eased the transition in, the build down eases the transition out. This makes another change in pace facilitated by the three seconds of only diegetic sounds. No soundtrack.
This scene acts as a sort of taster to the action that would be coming in the film. Also shows half of the primary dilemma, she has been kidnapped, but everyone thinks she's dead. The case would be closed without enough evidence to bring up any suspects and everyone would be none the wiser. Teeming with suspense.

Running feet introducing flashback

Everything necessary shown in 49 seconds

Cinema Sins agree: http://goo.gl/aGfXjp

Build up begins

Climax of the action, 'Drum Party' attacks

Build down begins

The next scene is the flashback in which we see Geoff find out about Susan and react as many would, discovering the sudden loss of a loved one. However, the audience already knows what happened (Unrestricted narration). Making them feel at least a fraction of what Geoff is feeling will make them connect and empathise with him, all together, build his character to someone they can care about. If they don't care about the protagonist the plot becomes a big jumble of uninteresting nothing. Extreme Close Up shots create unease and discomfort as that much detail on a specific area or body part is unnatural from our standard point of view. To further this discomfort, a continuous ringing noise is playing through this entire scene. This acts a bit like white noise, distracting the audience somewhat simulating someone trying to block a surfacing memory.

Extreme Close Ups are too much detail, too big

Fallen over in grief. High angle for weakness

The large lack of dialogue, I feel, makes the audience focus more the subjects so they can work out what is happening instead being told in several dialogue cliches that these two went to college together. They pay more attention to the character's facial and body expressions to see how they are feeling. Are they standing tall and confident or slouching and uninterested? Is there a big smile on their face or a solemn look of pure terror? The audience is not in the middle of the action to smell the fear on people. The next best thing is feeling, feeling yourself in the action. That lump in your throat as your favourite character holds their dead friend in his/her arms. Character development is important to involve the audience, and this holds true on any character. Whether it is what I call a narrator character, where the audience views the plot through his/her eyes e.g. John Watson in Sherlock. Or, what I call a hero/heroine character that goes through several challenges as the audiences watches from outside e.g. James T. Kirk in Star Trek: Into Darkness. From the intro, Absence is the latter of these two. The former (Narrator character) is enjoyable because both the audience and the character are on equal footing through Restricted Narration. As the character learns (or just as they're about to) the character learns. This is key to Crime-Thrillers as withholding information and upholding Enigma makes the audience want to figure out the crime themselves. A stimulating and thrilling puzzle which many in the target demographic enjoy completing. The Hero/Heroine character is observed by the audience and the two are not as interconnected. The character goes several ordeals and challenges dependant on the genre of the film. The separation of character and audience opens a wide door for Unrestricted Narration. This creates Suspense as the audience can see the Antagonist behind the corner, ready to attack the Protagonist, making the audience shout at screen "Don't do it! It shall be your last step!". Perhaps not so dramatised or with as much shouting but I think I got the point across.