Jade Stevenson AS Media Coursework Blog

Evaluation

2009-05-10T12:05:00.035+01:00

Question 1 – In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our opening thriller sequence consists of many generic conventions of the thriller genre; our titles being one of them, as they are in white font over a black background, which is common to the thriller genre. This is common to thrillers as it engages the audience by grabbing their attention by using what is shown on screen. This technique is also seen in ‘The Village’ (M. Night. Shyamalan 2005) and is used once again to create interest and keep the audience engaged, grabbing their attention. This can also be seen in the flashback scenes, in which the female character is running away from the male stalker character in the woods. The location and setting in this scene, which is the woods, also is a common convention of the thriller genre. Similarly as the victim does by being the classic brown haired, pretty, young, passive female.

We developed theses common conventions further in the wood scenes by using them as flashbacks to tell the story and also used various other techniques such as darkening effects in order to darken the shots and also by using P.O.V and O.T.S shots. These P.O.V and O.T.S shots (see footage shots 5,9 and 10) are common to the thriller genre and we was inclined to put these in after watching the opening ‘The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez 1999). All of these techniques and effects were used with the intention of meeting and following the common conventions of a thriller film.

The thriller genre is commonly known to be slow and suspenseful and to build up tension, creating a creepy and strange feel. Our titles also do this by engaging the audience visually and then using our choice of sound which was the gradual increase of running water in order to grab the audience’s attention further and continue this eerie feeling, whilst building suspense and encapsulating engagement. Thus which is a common convention of the thriller genre (see footage from 0:00 to 0:31). However though, the music is quite ambiguous also, due to the fact is also similar to that of a horror sub-genre and psychological sub-genre.

In addition to this, our thriller opening contains no dialogue, similar to the psychological thriller ‘Donnie Darko’ (Richard Kelly 2001). The opening of this film uses little dialogue also with the intention of keeping the audience engaged and to introduce the setting. This was also done in order to make the audience concentrate on the main character and engage with the character through his feelings, facial expression and surroundings. We used this technique in our thriller opening in order to ensure that the audience stayed focused with the narrative and the protagonist.

The use of slow paced editing is another common convention seen in thriller films. The slow paced editing is used to start the film and is then increased at a gradual pace, which helps build-up tension and creates suspense. In addition to this we distributed longer screen time to our main actor, the male protagonist as he is most important and needs to be represented as dominant in the opening. The shots of the female are much shorter and there aren’t as many juxtaposing this. This was done in order to show that she was passive to him. (See footage shots 2, 4,5 and 7).

Question 2 – How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents particular social groups through, class, gender and age. In our opening we have a male and female as the main charecters and focus. In addition to this the age of the two characters plays an important role in our opening as they show the stereotypical characteristics and nature of the younger generation today as well as showing the films target audience. By the male protagonist being white it gives a stereotypical view of the classic ‘male stalker’ seen in most thriller films. The stalker is always male and white. Consequently, as a result of this our media product is showing representation of gender in a stereotypical character. As well as class, age, race and gender have been used in order to emphasize our characters with the purpose of keeping the verisimilitude high through this use of stereotypes and of use of stereotypical representation in order to also help the audience relate and engage to the characters.

Our thriller represents the white middle class male to be dominant and superior to women of the same class. We portrayed this by using typical stereotypical views by having a white male antagonist as the stalker/murderer and by having a young, white brunette woman as the innocent passive victim. With the male character playing the protagonist role is creates a stereotypical portrayal of the characters; the man plays the dominant, powerful and aggressive role, while the woman plays the passive victim who is confused and young and plays the weaker role. This means that our media product would most probably appeal to the middle class white male target audience and some female, as they would have alike ideologies and representations to ours.

The modern interior of the male charecters house, also shows his social status and class in modern society. It portrays how he is middle class dues to the modern home he possesses. This can be seen by the use of props and furniture and gadgets within the house etc. Nevertheless though the groups consideration of mise-en-scene could have been better by as group us thinking about it more as we seemed more to focus on the woods and costume of the male as opposed to the females clothing and the location for the makes house etc. if we were to do this again I think the group should have defiantly picked a better location for the male’s house.

Editing is another aspect that is used in order to represent the dominance of the male character above the female character. Longer takes, more shots and longer screen time of the male character draw attention to his dominance above the woman also contrasting the shorter takes, less shots and fewer screen time of the female show her weakness. The diegetic sound we used of the panting and screaming merged with the non-diegetic sound of a heartbeat also show how the female fears the white male stalker (See footage shots 5,6 and 9), once again backing up the stereotypical vies of the woman being inferior to the male.

Question 3 – What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that a major Hollywood studio could produce our media product. I think this because there are all ready similar existing products out there like ours such as ‘Friday 13^th’ (Marcus Nispel 2009) and ‘The House Of Wax’ (Jaume Collet-Serra 2005). An example of a Hollywood studio that could produce our media product is Universal Pictures, as they have also produced similar films to my groups and have been victorious in doing so. Accordingly they are now very experienced in making films of a similar style to mine and are also well known for producing films of an high quality of film. Therefore they would make a good choice of Hollywood studio.

My media product could be released and could be produce then circulated world wide, which then means that a large audience can consume it and as a result a high number of sales will be made resulting in maximum profit. After my film had been released at cinemas it could be released on DVD in order for the audience and consumers of the product to buy it. This is a typical move of other media products of similar style.

However there is a limit in franchising and merchandising of the product, which is due to the mise-en-scene of the product, because the style created in my product is dark, scary and sinister it makes the merchandising of the product difficult as it restricts which aspects of the product, can be merchandised, making this very difficult to do. In addition to this, specialised collectors merchandise of the product could be made available to the niche collectors market in order to make further profit. Despite the fact that there would be not much synergy connected with our media product of which would appeal to the mainstream of viewers.

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

From our research with the BBFC and then from watching our finished piece, our thriller is aimed at a 15+ audience, as this is the certificate rating it fits into.

The narrative of our thriller focuses upon teenage characters, both male and female around the age of 16/ 17 years old, therefore this film will appeal to people of the same age as that, predominantly male, however females may be interested in the film also. Furthermore, due to the fact that the protagonist is male and the victim is female, this may be another reason of why our product may be more appealing to the male audience. We also chose not to centre on lots of gore, swearing and explicitness in our thriller in order to keep it in the 15-certificate rating and instead, make it a psychological thriller and as a result my product would appeal the teenage male audience as well as adult audiences.

The Results from our audience research survey also show that our film appeals more to the teenage male audience rather than the teenage female audience, backing up what I previously stated. Films such as Friday 13^th’ (Marcus Nispel 2009), The House Of Wax’ (Jaume Collet-Serra 2005). and ‘I know What You Did Last Summer’ (Jim Gillespie 1997) are films that follow a similar genre and style to mine but in spite of this these films have more of a horror/ “teen-horror” style and genre, nevertheless though, the target audience is still the same.

Question 5 – How did you attract/address your audience?

Prior to making our thriller opening, it was fundamental that we addressed our target audience with the intention of establishing ways in which we, as the producer, could attract the target audience we wanted. We decided to do this by creating a questionnaire in order to find out exactly what the viewers wanted to see, not to see and how they like a thriller to look. This enabled us to acknowledge what the audience wanted to see and didn’t want to see in a thriller film, which helped us to accomplish the best, most effective thriller opening as possible. Additionally, when our final animatic was created it allowed us to see exactly what we did well, what we didn’t do well, what could be improved and whether we followed the target audience’s responses and ideas.

A strong and suspenseful opening is most effective when appealing to a male audience, in addition to this, as do the jumpy flashbacks. However even though these effects are just right for our target audience of 15+ and male, these jump cut flash backs would scare younger children due to the audience being put in the position of the character on screen its self and also because of the camera work (see footage shots 6, 9 and 10). In addition to this, because our opening uses teenage characters as the main focal point, the audience will be mainly teenagers also.

The female character, the victim, who is seen in the flashbacks would also make this media product appeal to a male audience, due to the fact that is it symbolises men as the more aggressive, powerful and controlling gender and portrays women to be more passive, weak and inferior. As well as this, the male character has more screen time than the female character, in order to get the audience to connect with the male character through his use of facial expressions and actions and through the camera tracking him in his environment, setting the scene and creating an atmosphere, hence mainly appealing to a male audience. The antagonist also has a variety of shots, such as mid shots, tilt shots and close ups in order to establish his character and connote his role as the dominant, aggressive male stalker. Whereas the female character on he other hand, has a small amount of time on screen in comparison as she has quick shots in order to indicate her fear and relate in with the narrative.

When we finished our thriller opening we set out thinking of ideas to get feedback, as this we felt was both very important and essential, as it would allow us to establish how effective our finished piece was in attracting our target audience. Hence fourth we decided to make a Facebook group in order to address the audience as many of them would have a facebook account as it is of there age bracket, plus it is easily accessible.

Question 6 – What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

Before creating our thriller opening, we had to make an animatic using our storyboard and shotlist. After photographing our storyboard pictures, this task was carried out using Adobe Premier Pro to create the final animatic. We then added a variety of sound effects in order to create tension and suspense and give impact to the audience. These sound effects included the footsteps, the sound of running water and also non-diegetic background music to fit over the piece. However when it came to our final piece we decided to use more diegetic sound in order to improve the piece further and make the narrative clearer to the audience and in contrast a quieter background music was used as we felt the one we used was to loud, dramatic and in your face which draws the audience away from the narrative.

Moreover, the animatic could have been vastly improved, as we chose to draw the images and then photograph them rather than taking photographs of actual people and props as when the class and teacher watched it back they said that the narrative became confusing in the animatic. Our teacher then suggested using photographs could have helped the audience establish and understand what was going on in the frame and therefore would have understood the narrative better rather than not knowing what some shots were. What's more, using Adobe Premier Pro for the animatic was a good idea as this meant it allowed us to get to know the software better which would give us an advantage when filming our final piece.

We used a HD camera in order to film out 2 minute thriller opening. This was very good and effective and you didn’t need a long time to work out how to use the camera, as this was simple and easy. However, even though the camera was simple and easy to use, it did reduce the quality of our shots as the camera kept going in and out of focus which meant we lost the high definition quality we was hoping for. In addition to this, we found out that the camera we were using wasn’t very effective at capturing sound even though it gave a high picture quality. Even so we found a way to over come this problem and that was to use a separate sound recorder during filming and then drop the sound into place on top of the footage In the post production stage – editing. This was much better as the sound couldn’t be heard when using the camera and didn’t give the high quality results we were hoping for. As a consequence we only had a few trivial problems with the equipment.

The problems we faced and over came included; during the filming process we found that the tripod was extremely useful and effective in terms of holding a steady shot and level, but nevertheless we weren’t without any problems. We found that when using the tripod it would some times get stuck when tilting or panning resulting in jumpy, poor quality shot. Then, when filming our long shot and zoom shot of the door (see footage shot 1) we came across the problem that the camera would zoom to quickly. In order to overcome this problem we decided to use a different type of camera, which had a much slower zoom on it.

In addition to this for the duration of the evenings the sun would go down very quickly, changing the lighting in each shot we filmed so in order to prevail over this problem we decided to film during the middle of the day when the sun was brightest and then use Adobe After Effects with the intention of darkening the footage (see my blog post ‘Darkening Footage’,).

When we first started out my knowledge of editing and the Premier Pro software was none. However overtime this gradually built up and after using the software for previous tasks before I final piece such as our animatic and our continuity task etc I soon found that it wasn’t that hard to use and so my basic skills soon advanced.

When we set out making our animatic we, as a group all found it difficult at the start to use Premiere Pro effectively and efficiently as only one member of our group had any experience using it. Other than that it was all new to us. Conversely after getting used to the software I found it much easier to use ad began to learn to edit effectively with help from other group members.

When collecting sounds for our animatic we found it quite difficult as most of the sounds and background music we wanted to use were copyright; In spite of this after widespread research we eventually came across an excellent website with a large library of copyright free sound called ‘freeplaymusic’. By the time it came to doing our continuity task I felt much more comfortable and experienced using the software as I had had quite a lot of practise in using it and I now felt I could edit more effectively.

Delicate editing, fade transitions and darkening effects resulted in giving us a feel for the software and helping us get to know it and programs linked to it such as Adobe After Effects; this then led to a high quality finished product.

Question 7 – Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task I have learnt many things from the progression to the full product. This is mostly down to learning to plan effectively. Researching into the genre and creating an animatic also helped us as it meant we could see what we had done wrong, needed to change and could improve on our mistakes.

To begin with my group found it very difficult to come up with an initial idea for our project, nonetheless after some extensive research and watching some openings to existing thriller films we soon came up with some ideas after seeing what sort of thing we needed to include and what was out there all ready (see blog post ‘Initial ideas’). In addition to this, this research supplied us of what sort of narrative is expected, what the common codes and conventions are of a thriller film and also provided us with some ideas of the common shot choices used in thrillers for example O.T.S, C.U and P.O.V.

After much discussion and planning, as a group, we chose to base our thriller on the psychological sub-genre and so hence carried out extended research on the psychological sub-genre. This then enabled us to see the common codes and conventions of this genre, as well as helped us see what the narrative was like, what the audience expect to see and once again helped us establish the type of shots used, the mise-en-scene, e.g. props and costume, that we should use in our opening. Additionally, by creating our animatic it allowed us and to see how our opening would look based upon our initial ideas from the shotlist and storyboard and this then showed us what we did well and what we didn’t. One improvement we made was that we decided to hold our shots for longer to allow the audience to engage better.

On the whole I feel that my confidence with the using the edition software and programmes as well as my filming and editing equipment has grown from the start of the task.

Our media product is engaging, high quality, has a good narrative and meets the codes and conventions of a thriller film. Therefore I believe our media product is successful in fulfilling the task. In comparison to our practise filming task, continuity task and our animatic, it is clear that our edition and filming skills have significantly improved as this can be seen in our finished product (see blog post ‘reflections – final opening’).

In our finished product all of our shots were steady and by experimenting more with different shots such as tilts, P.O.V shots and O.T.S shots. In addition to this in general our editing has also improved significantly contributing to an excellent high quality, fine edited piece of media. Having an extended deadline meant that we had more time in order to spend editing our final product and getting it to the highest standard we could.

Peer assesment feedback for final thriller opening

2009-04-21T12:48:00.007+01:00

Feedback from the class:

Positives:
- Running water v.effective at the start
- Music builds up well, mystery and intriguing
- You can clearly see where title came from - reflections used
- Having no dialogue worked well with the psychological thriller
- Camera work is good and steady where required
- Music is good
- Good variety of shots/ music matches action well e.g. looking in mirror
- Ecellent titles. Effective without drawing focus away from narrative
- Jonny's costume, in particular wearing white at the end connotes purity/ innocence.
- Great camera angles
- Great juxtaposition of shots.

Negatives:
- Jonny's costume could connote his characters role more
- Confusing narrative - going to the fridge

Nominal grade offered by teacher at this stage: Grade A

Reflections - Final Opening

2009-04-09T14:32:00.001+01:00

Analysis of The Sixth Sense, The Village and Lady in the Water by M. Night. Shyamalan

2009-03-26T20:00:00.007Z

During a lesson at school, we analysed the opening of three thriller films by M. Night. Shyamalan as a class. We carried out this task in order to see what real thriller openings look like in comparison to the work we had produced. We also wanted to see what they all had in common and what the general codes and conventions were of these three openings to see if our thriller openings followed the same conventions. By doing this, we would get a general idea of what we needed to improve, change, include and not include in our thriller openings and also this would give us an idea of how professional our final thriller openings look in comparison. These included The Sixth Sense, The Village and Lady in the Water.

The Sixth Sense, The Village and Lady in the Water are all very different films in terms of narrative, however they are all very similar in the way in which they use the same conventions such as quiet music which builds up, includes a shot that is held for a long time at the beginning and slow paced titles all of which contribute to building up tension, creating suspense and as a result keeping the audience engaged and interested.

The Sixth Sense

Quite ambient sound
Slow paced editing
The quiet music builds up, gradually getting louder and faster
Background music – spooky, innocent, sinister, scary – creating suspence
Sound introduced before images – creates impact
Slow paced fading titles
Titles - white font against dark black background
Engaging music leads the sequence
Long held first shot – helps the audience to identify the main character and engage with them
Very few shots used – mostly titles – doesn’t give to much of the plot away
Titles – transitions- fade in and out

The Village

Creepy/high pitch music - goes into loud banging sounds
Suspenseful background music
Sound introduced before images – creates impact
Flashes of trees bleeding through background
Title - white font against dark background – appear through trees
Music gets louder/faster towards the middle of the opening (builds to a climax) – this slows down towards the end – more quite before film opening starts
Music pace quickens, titles shorter
Slow paced editing
Long held first shot – helps the audience to identify the main character and engage with them - low shot establishes character
P.O.V shot of man and coffin – zooming in and out
Very few shots used – mostly titles – doesn’t give to much of the plot away

Lady in the Water

Quite music – creates suspense
Titles - white titles over dark black background
Black and white animation - contrasting - similar to titles
Voice over – keeps the audience engaged/informed – tells story
Long held first shot – helps the audience to identify the main character and engage with them
Black background screen held – screaming introduced
Cuts to next scene – close up of man’s face introduced – camera is in cupboard
Mid shot shows family – introduces them as charecters
Very few shots used – mostly titles – doesn’t give to much of the plot away
Pace of music starts of slow - increases after the main title -therefore is very effective

From analysing these three thriller film openings, The Sixth Sense, The Village and Lady in the Water by M. Night. Shyamalan, I have learnt that they all include the following:

Quite music – creates suspense - gradually builds up in pace and volume - common to the thriller genre
Sound before action – creates suspense – builds impact
White titles over dark black background
Long held first shot – helps the audience to identify the main character and engage with them
Very few shots used – mostly titles – doesn’t give to much of the plot away
Pace of music starts of slow - increases after the main title - therefore is very effective
Main focus on one particular character in beginning of opening- this character has the longest amount screen time

In conclusion this activity has made our group reconsider some of our choices on sound and shots in our opening. As a group we believe that we can make some huge improvements to our work, e.g. by changing our background sound as it is too much and very in your face rather than following the common conventions of quiet ambience sound that gradually builds up. As well as this, also from analysing these three thriller openings it has become clear to the group that our opening is deficient in slow pace music in order to build up suspense, consists of to many shots, giving to much of the plot away and finally isn’t creating as an effective amount of suspense as it could do with a few changes.

Improvements Discussed By The Group

2009-03-26T19:07:00.002Z

Improvements we discussed as a group:
- Production Company with a very quiet sound of running water in the background
- Move titles to the beginning
- Remove music - maybe introduce it at the character
- Increase the length of the shot of the eye or move the shot
- Titles after Jonny washes his hands?
- Replace music with an ambiguous music
- Creshendo music at the end
- More focus on Jonny and his environment. More shots - less of Abbie.
- Music is overpowering - make it more subtle
- Slower zoom to the door
- Move the tilt of Jonny before he washes his hands
- Hold the shot of Jonny looking in the mirror (1-2 seconds longer)
- Running shots are ineffective - remove.
- Use different angle of shots for Jonny
- Jonny - show where he's going as he leaves the bathroom. Follow him into a room
- Include a mirror in the room - reflection of Abbie seen - links in with the title
- Shorter flash backs

Group Practical Feedback

2009-03-26T19:03:00.001Z

Here is a copy of the feedback our group received from our teacher regarding the first draft of our two minute film opening, Reflections.

Mark: 38
Level 3
Grade: C/D

Feedback:
- Camera work is controlled and steady throughout most of the extract
- Framing of shots is mostly well conceived with elements included / excluded as appropriate
- Shot distances are varied throughout the extract
- The material is appropriate to the task set, however it becomes quite repetitive. This results in the later half of the extract losing focus.
- Mise-en-scene has been clearly thought out with effective use of location choice, colour and lighting throughout the extract.
- Editing is competent - there is considerable scope for improvement here which will also improve pace and continuity. Particularly, in the development of the duel narrative.
- Shot transitions are effective but need to be better timed towards the later stages of the extract.
- Both diegetic and non-diegetic sound have been used effectively throughout the extract. However, as the editing falters towards the end of the extract, the match-on-action loses focus making the mood of the extract inconsistent.
- Titles are well made and feel appropriate to the genre, however they could be more evenly paced across the extract.

Targets for improvement:
- You need to include Production Company etc. at the beginning and hold a single frame of black for longer.
- I also recommend introducing the running water sound earlier and even more gradual - raising the volume very slowly - this will develop the mood of your opening more effectively.
- Later you have lost your way - some poor choices of shots have been included.
- Also, some shots need to be held for longer.
- Your titles need to be more evenly spread across the piece.
- Finally, you need to add more focus on to the antagonist as that is whom you are trying to establish.

Reflections - First Draft

2009-03-26T19:00:00.006Z

This is the first draft for our two-minute thriller opening, which we titled ‘Reflections.’ We had to change the name of our thriller from our original idea, which was ‘Portraits of Obsession.’ This was due to the fact we cut out the shots liking this title to the narrative of the film to the title. We originally had shots of our main male character looking at a wall of pictures of his target, the female character. We decided on the name Reflections which was suggested to us by another group member and agreed by our teacher which they linked to one of our new shots in which the main male character looks in the mirror seeing his reflection, thus prompting and reinforcing the name reflections, hence he was directly looking into the camera.

Darkening Footage

2009-03-17T19:24:00.011Z

For our final two minute thriller opening piece, we decided as a group to change certain shots by darkening using them Adobe After Effects as they were far to light and because the lighting wasn’t very good during filming. We did this by giving them a darker, red colour.

The group decided that this looked much better and improved our piece as we think the effect helps the footage meet the codes and conventions of a thriller genre. The red tint added to the footage symbolizes blood, which reinforces danger, which is common to thrillers. Consequently creating an impact on the audience and creating a tense setting. Overall it links very well with the setting and the narrative of our opening.

This darkening effect was used in our final opening and the colour for example it is used to make the outside woods scenes darker, to give the effect that the film is set a night.

Original Footage:

Darkened Using After Effects:

Continuity Task

2009-03-12T21:54:00.007Z

Due to the fact I was ill for this area of the coursework i was unable to partake in the filming with the. As a result it was unfair for me not to contribute to the task and expect to be allowed to use it in my coursework. However a classmate of mine, who also is a friend was absent on this day when the continuity task was carried out as well, so she was in a similar situation with her group. Therefore we decided to team up for this section of the coursework and film our own continuity task, as we didn’t want to lose marks on this section.

Initially we had to write up our shot list and our script, the shot list of which had to include a certain number of specific shots given to us by our teacher. After we had decided on our final shot list and script for our actors we had to draw up our story board so we could see what out final shots would look like and also see what camera angles/positioning, props and costume we wanted to use. Then we cast our actors. For this we chose two drama/media students form the year above, year 13 as. This benefited us in two ways as it meant that the acting would be professional, they would know how to take direction and their media knowledge would also be beneficial to us as they could give us tips or advice if needed.

Considering we had only used a camera for a filming task once before and considering we wasn’t very experienced in the practical side of the coursework i feel that our filming ran smoothly, which allowed us to produce an effective amount of successful shots. With an excellent level of communication between my classmate, our actors and myself this task was enjoyable and completed very well. This enabled us to work together as a group efficiently; hence we managed to produce a relatively good piece of footage as the group dynamic was excellent.

This good chemistry allowed us to film in a comfortable, self-motivated and relaxed environment and considering myself and my classmate didn’t know the actors we used, we all got on very well which made everyone feel confident and comfortable with each other, hence which made the group work together much better. This feeling was reflected then in our work thus ensuing in a final set of footage that we were all happy with.

After we had finished our filming we then had the task of editing and bearing in mind neither of us had used the editing software before we both picked it up very quickly and between us managed to complete some fairly effective editing. This process was good as we got to see our first bit of lengthy footage come together which allowed us to eliminate and bad, shaky unsuccessful shots and made sure we used the best footage to its full potential in order to produce the best possible continuity task.

Teacher evaluation

After we had finished our continuity task we gave it to our teacher to look at and evaluate in order to get back some feedback on our work so far and get a rough level at what our work produced is at.

Level: 2

Negative points:

Bad lighting
Poorly framed shots – need to be wider angles
Shot to is to short in terms of length
‘Hand tapping’ shot doesn’t capture some reactions a CU was needed
Wider variety of shots could have been used
Ending lacks quality
Doesn’t finish
Editing is a bit choppy
Diegetic sound is lost at one point
CU of phone is very badly framed (sideways on)

Positive points:

Good camera work
Good use of reaction and shots haven’t broken the 180 degree rule
Effective close up
Balance of sound is both clear and effective
Juxtaposition is good
Easy to follow narrative
Mise en scene

Evaluation Notes

2009-03-12T21:52:00.003Z

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

- Title, character, date

- Refer to animatic

- Codes and conventions

- The female character being portrayed as the weaker sex and the victim – common in thrillers.

- The Stereotypical representation of men and women

- How the use of sound, lighting and props/costume/location etc have been used to create suspense and tension

- The narrative is very similar to most thrillers with the subgenre of physiological/horror

- The way in which men are portrayed and represented in our film as the more dominate, strong and aggressive sex – portrayed in a negative way through killing people.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

- Men dominant – female passive

- The classic ‘white male stalker/killer’

- Classic ‘brown haired pretty female’

- Female youth represents being young and stupid, fear and confusion

- Male youth represents obsession, jealousy and protectiveness over women

- Highlights the actions and emotions of young people

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

- TV Movie

- Holds a good level of narrative and is of a high enough quality to go into the cinema – many films with similar narrative have made it to the cinema – Friday 13^th, House of wax.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

- Audience research – BBFC

- Film competitors

- What other films are similar to yours, who do they relate to?

- Both male and female audience

- 15+ audience as this is who we aimed our thriller at, hence the content level. Also they would understand the storyline and could relate to the actions, possibly the experience and emotions involved.

- People who are the same ages as the characters in our thriller

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

- Researched the themes linked to our chosen genre - psychological thriller

- Created and carried out a questionnaire - asked our target audience what they would like to see etc

- Watched and analysed other professional openings of the same genre. E.g. Those by M Night Shyamalan.

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

- The software used Premier Pro and Adobe After Effects used was very useful and effective for editing and adding extra effects to our film opening

- The differences in quality of cameras - high definition cameras compared to normal

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

- Using different shot angles and shot types

- Getting rid of shots that aren’t necessary

- Adjusting or changing shots can be extremely effective and can look so much better

- Using the woods as location can be very repetitive if not filmed correctly and can be very over used.

Progress

2009-03-08T17:46:00.001Z

At the beginning our As media course when our coursework task was first explained to the class by our teacher, i was very excited and enthusiastic about the task and I thought it would be fun compared to our usual based essay coursework assignments. I also felt quite confident at the beginning and believe I could perform will in this task as i had taken media studies at GCSE Level and got a B in my results and so I felt I had significant knowledge about the theoretical side of media. I thought that with my knowledge already i had an upper hand in the coursework and felt that I would be able to contribute well to the group especially as two of my group members hadn't taken Media at a GCSE level. From my previous knowledge, I felt that I understood the codes and conventions of films well and knew the effective ways in which to engage the audience and ways in which to build up tension and suspense as I have studied this at GSCE Level. Therefore this would be a huge help within this task. However when we was put into our groups I immediately changed my mind about this and felt unconfident as it seemed that there were certain group members who over shadowed others and liked to have things there way, as well as try to take over the workload. Also as I didn’t know anyone within the group I was very quiet at first. This quickly made me become unenthusiastic about the task.

On the other hand in spite of this previous knowledge i felt I had incompetent knowledge and skill in the practical side, which made me worry and become nervous and feel rather unconfident as I had never filmed anything before or used an editing programme, so had no experience of what to do whatsoever. Nevertheless after using the editing program and camera equipment for our first intro camera task, the continuity task and with some help and advice from Andy I progressed quite a lot from being nervous to a bit more confident. And I now know I can help out a lot more with the practical side of things. As well as this after a few weeks of working together as a group I began to find it easier to get involved more, contribute and communicate with my group, as I felt more confident working with the people. I started feeling more positive about my ideas and working well within the group and as we worked on our animatic and so as a result felt much more enthusiastic about the work.

As a result of this, I now enjoy working with my group and helping out with the practical side of things, as well as with the written side of the task. I am still not as confident as other members of the group or as confident as I’d like to be with the software, but in spite of this I do feel I can help out effectively with it.

Alternatively, I do feel that there are certain individuals within the group who choose to take too much responsibility and do not like to share the practical side of the work load either because they feel as they have the best sufficient knowledge in the group they and so want to and enjoy doing it or because they feel others do not have a good enough ability to do so. For example, I would like to be involved and given more opportunity in the practical side of the task a all though a have done some I would like to do a little more and believe I could progress my practical skills further with a little help and more opportunity to do so.

Lastly I also struggled greatly with keeping the written side of my coursework, which is my blog, up to date at first as I felt the workload was huge and so as a result I soon became behind. I am much stronger on the written side of things and failed to see at first why I wasn’t performing to my best ability. I soon stopped updating it regularly after a while and tried to avoid doing so as I became confused with what to do and what to write about as well as trying to keep up to date with other coursework I really began to struggle. I found it hard to manage my time effectively to begin with and began to prioritise my work so therefore I neglected my blog. However after my teacher putting it into perspective for me and saying how we only have a week left I started to realise this was an important part of my coursework and not doing it and leaving it till last minute was both stupid and not an option. So as a result of this I started working hard in the week or so I had left in order to finish my blog to the best possible standard I could and dedicated a lot of my spare time and effort into doing so as I wanted to get the best marks as possible on this work. I can now honestly say I am extremely pleased with every aspect of my written coursework so far and that every blog entry I have made is to my best ability. I may have left it late to do some of the work but however this did not lead me to rush what I did neither did it mean I didn’t produce the work to the best of my ability as I genuinely worked hard to complete my blog and get it up to date. I am really proud of this progress and feel that my writing skills have improved further and am pleased that my time management skills have also now improved as a result. I am now very happy with my blogged work and am doing well in keeping it up to date regularly.

In conclusion I feel my theoretical knowledge has improved further and practical knowledge has progressed steadily through practical experience with help from the tasks set, teachers comments and advice as well as members of my group. My confidence has progressed since the beginning of the coursework and i feel I have eventually developed the effective skills needed to carry out a practical task. I have gone from being very unconfident with myself to working well now as both an individual and in a group and am more confident with working on the editing software. To me this is significant progress and I am pleased with the way in which I have progressed so far.

Conclusion of the thriller films analysed

2009-03-08T17:40:00.000Z

From my research of looking at and analysing five openings of different thriller films it has become apparent that there are many common codes and conventions that the majority of thriller openings follow. For example in all of the films analysed, the titles are similar; they are all white font and centred over a clip or black background in order not to distract the audience from what is going on in the film and also for simplicity and ease to read. Also one character is always established first in the opening, which suggests they are the main character, in addition to this there is also very little dialogue used. I found that in most thriller films very little dialogue is used and often the character is established and introduced to the audience through the use of camera shots and emotions, which are recognized through facial expressions, along with the non-diegetic background music that enhances the tension.

Non-diegetic sound is another common convention used in thriller films. It is used very effectively to create suspense and build up tension, either fast past or slow paced. In addition to this suspense is also created through successful editing. Suspense is efficiently created through short takes with longer pauses when a title appears. This immediately tells the audience what the genre of the film is within the first few minutes and what conventions to expect.

Furthermore, the pace of editing differs in various films. Some thriller films have slow pace editing while others have fast pace both of which either juxtaposes the scene or links in with the scene. Slower pace editing creates an eerie, strange and almost supernatural atmosphere.

The camera plays a very important role in thriller films as straight cuts and jump cuts are commonly used a lot through out the film in order to create suspense and tension and also to juxtapose the surroundings. Moreover in some thriller openings there where a variety of camera angles and distances used however they mainly related to the sub genre of thriller.

Conversely mise-en-scene is used to introduce and add to the character, mainly through the use of facial expressions, emotion and props, which is reinforced through the variety of mid-shots and close-ups of the character. The mise-en-scene in a thriller also depends on the sub genre of the text. However the colour of text in thrillers chosen is often white or red, as both are conventionally associated to Thrillers. This is due to the typical connotations and meanings connected to them. For example red has connotations of blood, danger and love all of which are associated with Thrillers. Then white has connotations of innocence and purity, which often symbolizes the ‘good guys’ of the woman who is also good in a thriller film.

Finally from my research i have also found that each sub genre of thriller has a specific and definite style all following common codes and conventions of the hybrid in the opening sequences of the film. E.g. Western thrillers often have the titles superimposed on to the image, which is now a common association with Western thrillers.

Therefore in conclusion, from the five thriller openings that i analysed, I can undoubtedly see that the codes and conventions of a thriller are used in order to create suspense and tension and to introduce the narrative of the film, as well as to engage the audience subconsciously and instantly. Furthermore, the very little narrative and dialogue shown is used with the intention of introducing the establishment of the surroundings, the character and their emotion, which allows the audience to get an insight into the tone, genre, narrative and the character themselves.

Shoot 3

2009-03-06T13:20:00.007Z

Our next filming shoot was on Thursday 5th. Today’s filming wasn't as successful as I had hoped, as all though we was very organized in booking out equipment and all though our first shots were ok, due to the timing our later shots soon began to get very dark and couldn't be used. On the other hand we did manage to find a better new location as suggesting in my shoot 2 analysis.

We needed to find a more wooded area that had many more trees and woodland, so instead of shooting out footage in the small wooded area near Georgia's house we decided to relocate and film in Black Park instead. Before we started filming we also took photos of this new location to add to our blogs. We started shooting at a slightly earlier time for this shoot and started filming at 5 just as it was getting dark in order to get better lighting conditions in our film.

However it took us quite a while to film these shots and as a group we changed our mind about some shots so re-did these also as well as adding new shots and before we new it, it started getting dark making the lighting conditions very bad which means that some of theses shots are being rescheduled to be redone. Even though we worked well as a team and discussed these new ideas well which was very good, consequently this also had a down side as it slowed us down and delayed time a lot. From this experience we have definitely learnt that timing is vital when filming.

In order to sort this problem with the lighting, will have decided to re-schedule a shoot during the middle of the day when there is constant light and use Adobe After Effects to make the footage darker.

Overall even though one group member could not attend this shooting session, i still feel that the rest of the group members worked very well as a team and communicated well especially when it came to making decisions and changing shot ideas.

Final Animatic

2009-03-05T20:31:00.001Z

Audience Research - Thriller Questionnaire

2009-03-05T20:08:00.004Z

1. What age category do you fit into?

16-18 19-24 25-30 10-35 36-40 41- 45 46+

2. Are you male or female? _______________________________

3.What thriller sub genres do you prefer? (Please circle as many as apply)

Action
Romantic
Crime
Drama
Medial
Physiological
Supernatural
Political
Techno
Spy
Other

4. What do you look for in terms of story with a thriller? – E.g. Twists,

5. What type colours do you expect to see? (Please circle as many as apply)

Red
Black
Green
White
Grey
Yellow
Blue
Purple
Brown
Pink

6. How much gore do you expect to see in a thriller?

7. Do you like to do some of the thinking during the film? (Figuring out bits of the story etc) Or even after?

YES / NO

8. Do you like a cliffhanger even if there isn’t a 2nd film? (Please tick one)

YES / NO

9. What do you like about the thriller genre? (Please circle as many as apply)

Confusion
Suspense
Hero vs. Villain
Twist
Cliff Hangers
Mystery
Danger

10. How do you think a good thriller should open? (Please tick one)

Death Chase Everyday Life Flashback Other

11. Which of the following thriller films have you seen?

Psycho
Seven
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
Jaws
Grand Prix
Seconds
Hostage
Signs
Walk on the wild side

12. What is your favourite thriller film? _______________________________

This is our questionnaire. We chose these questions based on the information we wished to receive from our target audience. Firstly we used the questionnaire to establish who are target audience was and then decided to make a film classed as a 15 certificate. We also used this questionnaire to see which sub genres of are most popular and which conventions of Thriller they most prefer to see as well as what plot twist and story lines people like to see in a thriller film. We will put this research into graphs in order to see what the most popular answers were and what our audience want to see. From this information we can evaluate our ideas and make improvements to our film ideas based on our research.

Thriller Opening 5 -Signs - M. Night Shyamalan, 2002 (Sci-Fi Thriller)

2009-03-05T15:24:00.000Z

Camera
There is very little camera movement in this opening sequence. The angle of the camera being straight and centralised in the middle, focusing on the characters names. Slow zooming out through he window away from the view of the garden jumps straight to a picture of a family, could it suggest they live there or used to live there. This sets the narrative. Male character is introduced in centre of the screen as he wakes up. This suggests he is the lead role in the film as he stays centralised. He walks around the house the camera follows him. This sets the scene and creates an atmosphere. Camera movement and pace speed up towards the end as the man is running around looking for someone. The camera is tracking and panning to keep the audience feel involved in what is going on and to show the audience what the man sees and what he is doing. Overall the camera movement is very slow.

Editing
Speed becomes faster in the way in which the titles come up faster, the speed of music also increases, style of the titles and music is the same, however the music is different at the start and at the end. The pace of editing is slow. Mostly straight cuts are used. As the speed of the music increases it increases the tension caused for the audience, similarly as the pace of titles becomes faster the music seems to become faster making it even more intense. Music ranges from fast to slow, indicating something might happen and that it is something out of the blue and shocking. It alerts the audience making them aware and keeping them engaged. The speed of the background music at the start of the opening is completely different from the end. This could be to signify the start and the end of the opening titles leading onto the introduction of the actual film.

Sound
The non-diegetic background music is continuous throughout and is ranging with different tempos of music throughout. It starts of quiet and eventually gets louder In order to build up suspense and create tension. This relates to the theme of thriller very well as this is a commonly used technique of thrillers. We can immediately identify that the film is a thriller due to this music as it is conventional of a thriller to have this spooky sounding fast pace music. The sound in this opening fits in really well, and links to the theme of the film. It clearly introduces the narrative and suggests to the audience that this film is going to be an action based mystery thriller hence the fast pace chasing music which when it gets quieter suggests mystery. E.g. a chase scene and the loud up-tempo music suggest the person is running and getting chased and the low tempo quieter pace music suggest that the character could be hiding.

Mise-en-scene
A continuous blue colour is used throughout the titles, giving us a calm and relaxed sort of tone to the opening. But also a mysterious sort of tone as the spotlight is blurry suggesting it is hiding something. No props or costumes used in the opening. The lighting and colour of the opening stay the same throughout.

Special Effects
No special effects are used in the opening except the spotlight effect.

Titles
Blue background being a spotlight fading in and out, with black font over lapping the blue spotlight. The titles fad in and out also in a dark blue font which connotes mystery. This makes the titles stand out to the audience and make it very clear to read. Doesn’t really link to the film, as the colours are not very significant to the sci-fi genre or to thrillers. However you could relate the colour blue to a blue light of police car sirens or to water.

Thriller Opening 4 - Flightplan- Robert Schwentke 2005 (Action/mystery Thriller)

2009-03-05T14:46:00.002Z

Camera
The long shot establishes that she is alone at the train station and the close ups enable a full view of her facial expressions in order to show the audience how she is feeling. The long shot at the beginning not only shows that she is alone, but her character isn’t introduced emotionally straight away, which leaves a surprise for the audience when she is seen. This builds up suspence.
Mid shot of moving train. Long shot of the back of a character sitting down, in front of a stationary train. Camera zooms into character- but her face not yet seen. Camera switches quickly from behind to in front. Camera then zooms into her face- portraying her fear.

Long shot of the room is seen and a coffin is centred with the main character in front. Mid shot of character walking out. Low angle of a man- camera moves up. Shot reverse shot of the man and woman. Long shot of the couple at the train station- the same train station she was seen sitting alone at. Long shot as they enter the train. The long shot of the coffin leaves the audience speculating who is in there. The shot reverse shot highlights both characters expressions and juxtaposes her expression before hand. The long shot of the moving train again contrasts the speed. The shots used all draw attention to the loneliness and seclusion of the characters and the fear of the woman. Long shot of character walking towards the coffin, close up of water dripping off her umbrella, low angle of character looking at the coffin and then the camera pans and zooms in slightly.

The panning and zooming out from the train goes into a long shot of the couple walking up the stairs. The long shot of the couple outside shows that they are still alone and are possibly being watched. The camera goes round to see the character in the coffin, which adds to the shock and anxiety of the audience and as it is the same man seen at the train station, it builds up the narrative.

At the end of the opening, the long shot shows the couple outside and then birds fly up and into a black screen, which causes shock to the audience when the next shot arrives. After the black screen, a long shot of outside appears but this time she is alone and only one pair of footsteps can be seen, which leaves the audience doubting whether the man was really there. This creates suspense and builds up tension.

Editing
A mixture of slow and fast pace editing is used throughout the opening title sequence of this film, along with straight cuts. The fast straight cuts and pace contrast the shots, which connect with the character and the pase of the character. Similarly the moving train compared with the pace of character juxtapose one another.

The opening sequence has fast paced editing; shot of something unknown- possibly a train, then straight into titles. Continuous straight cuts are used from train to titles. Pace slows down. Slow editing contrasts to the music. Straight cut into character entering a room, two other characters are also present. Train moves and the camera watches as it moves off. Another straight cut into character slowly walking towards the coffin. Straight cut back to the moving train. Fading out from w the couple were walking on the street portrays the atmosphere changing. A straight cut from inside to outside, straight cut back to the room with the coffin.

Sound
Diegetic sound of the train, no music. Non diegetic music appears- quiet and tense- as the camera zooms in. The non diegetic music is tense and juxtaposes the pace of editing. A lot of diegetic sound is used in this scene, such as, the character breathing and dialogue. Dialogue appears in a non-English language and she replies in English. The tone the females voice also represents grief and fear. These emphasise this character’s unknown fear and pain helps the audience to connect emotionally. It leaves the audience guessing to why she is behaving in this way. A man’s voice appears. Diegetic sound of the water dripping emphasises the silence within the room. Nonetheless, quiet non diegetic music is used, which builds up tension and atmosphere. The effect of the tranquillity within the opening sequence helps to connect the character with the audience, it enables the audience to establish the emotions and feel for the narrative. Increased in sound volume creates tension and suspense and reinforces the change of shot. Dialogue- mans’ name introduced as David. Diegetic sound of birds, female character is startled.

Mise-en-scene
The lighting is bright inside from the electric lighting but when outside it is much darker. This creates the atmosphere and ands to causing tension. Furthermore, throughout the sequence the train juxtaposes the character. This train plays a significant role as it is the only thing that moves fast within the opening. When the camera shows the characters face, tears can be seen in her eye, which establishes the emotion of the character but leaves the audience distance and wondering what has happened. Taken as a whole, the facial expressions are fairly sinister and dark and show a lot of feeling.

Character hasn’t moved. When the characters face is shown, she seems very scared and deep in thought, with tears in her eyes. Other characters in the room change their expression quickly and break away. Facial expression alters as she sees the man- happiness, relief and surprise/shock- highlighted through her breathing. She quickly opens the door and her expression changes- she appears surprised at seeing somebody but then upset at what the character asked. Slight aggravation is shown. The dark clothing contrasts to brightly coloured yellow train.

Special Effects
No significant special effects are used.
Shadows of planes are seen over the snow- shot fades out.

Titles
Simple, white font over black.
The titles are used in this way so they are not a distraction to the audience and so they are easy to read.

Film Certificates

2009-03-05T11:07:00.007Z

According to the BBFC:
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ - British Board Of Film Classification

Certificate 15

Theme
A 15 certificate rated film always has a theme, but must be suitable to the audience. Hence fourth no theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate to 15 year olds.

Language
Language is also infrequent, with a few references to strong language, and the strongest language is only justified if it is in context. Continued aggressive use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity
Nudity is allowed in sexual context, but no strong detail is shown. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context in a 15-certificate film.

Sex
Linking with nudity, sexual content is also shown and is allowed to be portrayed, but with no strong detail. However there may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour.

Violence
Violence can be strong but with no focus or dwell on the infliction of pain or injury that has been caused. Scenes of sexual violence must be discreet and brief.

Imitable techniques
Dangerous techniques e.g. combat, hanging, suicide, weapons that are easily accessible and self-harming should not be focused on to much in imitable detail. Easily accessible weapons should also not be glamorized or portrayed as ‘cool’ in order to not influence the audience.

Horror
Very little gore is shown within horror, but strong threat and menace are permitted. The strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable.

Drugs
Drugs and drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse in anyway and once again much no glamorize this or portray it in a way that looks acceptable in order not to influence the audience.

Certificate 18

BBFC findings show that at the age of 18 a person should be entitled to see whatever they wish as they are an adult. However exceptions include the promotion of dangerous acts (both to the individual and society). certificate 18s also cannot risk harm to individuals or to society, or involve sexual violence that could support sexual assault. Explicit sexual content is only shown if the context can justify it.

The difference between a certificate 15 and certificate 18 film.
The main contrasts between an 18 certificate film and a 15 certificate is the detail and the explicitness of the context. In a an 18, sexual content is much more explicit and violence is in much more detail. Strong gore and violence is more obvious, in a lot more detail and more extreme in an 18, along with the use of very strong language. Even so, in both a 15 and 18 the content must be justified by the context.

Our work will be targeted at the classification of a 15 certificate. This is because those producing it are of similar age but slightly older at 16 and 17 years old. This means that we will know what the age range expect from a Thriller film, what to include and also will have the knowledge to know what is acceptable to be shown in the film and what isn’t acceptable. Additionally the classification will not be lower than a 15 certificate due to the fact we plan to include some suspense and violence scenes and a use of a weapon, a knife, which fall into the classification of 15. Moreover we do not plan to include any scenes of a sexual nature or any nudity or drugs in our opening. Nether do we have any scenes of bad language. Likewise the use of violence and sex etc. must be justified in the context of the piece. This means we will not include scenes of a violent nature for no reason; it will be in context with the piece.

Rough Cut Analysis and Improvements

2009-03-05T10:33:00.001Z

The feedback and opinions that we got back from our teacher on our rough cut were not what we expected. Out teacher said that our footage was good and had some effective shots but however some were not quite right.

We arranged the titles in out footage at both the beginning and at the end of our footage, which we at the time thought looked good. In spite of this our teachers comment on this was that it made our footage look unorganised, unprofessional and muddled and so he commented on how this should be changed and where we could place the titles in order to make it look much better.

We took our teachers opinions and suggestion into account and decided that he was right. So as a group we decided to change the titles and design. Our new idea was to introduce the titles over footage instead, in places where the audience won’t really need to focus on as we thought this would be much more effective and successful because if we position the titles where the main eye catching footage is this will reduce the suspense and tension that we are trying to create and also will distract the audience from watching the footage as they could be focusing on the titles. Consequently our final footage would not be considered an effective piece.

Further more here are a list of improvements, which we think should be made to our rough cut after our meeting with the teacher in order to produce an effective ad successful piece:

1. Include titles over footage - allows more footage
2. Editing needs to be adjusted on shoot number 2
3. Change shot of female to over shoulder shot
4. Include more footage of Male character?
5. Classic shot of female character falling over
6. Male Character could clear up after himself
7. Last 3 titles over black

Shoot 2

2009-03-05T10:31:00.001Z

Our next shoot was on Saturday 24th; Filming went well. All shots that we decided were requiring to be redone where completed and in addition shots outside where completed also. Our teamwork worked well again with successful directing from Georgia, but however the extremely poor lighting conditions made these shots unusable. As a result group needs to rethink the location chosen and the timing of the shoot. Perhaps an earlier shooting time would work better when it was lighter. We have decided to relocate due to limited woods at the original chosen location. Next filming date is 1st February.

Shoot 1

2009-03-05T10:30:00.000Z

On Wednesday 21st we managed to shoot all planed shots. Filming went quite well as we managed to get a variety of shoots and most shots where steady. Our group had good communication skills and worked efficiently together which meant that we were able to establish what we needed to change, what worked well and what needed to be improved. However there are still some improvements that could be made.

These improvements included the following:

We decided that our inside shots of the corridor leading up to the door should be re-done, as they were done in too dark conditions and we feel it would be more effective if the shots were completed with brighter lighting conditions. Linking to this, we also thought that the positioning of camera during close up of hands wasn’t quite right and should be shot from the opposite side to what we did it on. The groups directing of the actor wasn't effective at all. Better acting is required when subject was washing hands and more direction needs to be given. E.g. needs to scrub hands harder when trying to get the blood off his hands.

Our slow zoom at the beginning of our piece needed much improvement in terms of speed and smoothness. In order to achieve this we plan to use a different camera with an easier zooming control. Finally we would like to improve the tilt. We plan to redo this and hold it for longer at the top to make it more effective.

In addition to this, we had also originally chosen James Hall and Georgia Bowers as our actor and actress in our film. However, neither was available for when we needed to film, consequently we had to change last minute and use Jonny Furze and Abbie Jones, instead.

However so far we are up to date, we have completed most of the outside shots and have re-done our inside shots.

Cancelled Shooting

2009-03-03T21:41:00.003Z

We planned out first shoot on 17th January but however was cancelled due to the fact a group member couldn't attend the filming session and so the location wasn't available to us. This has put us behind on shooting. However to compensate we have rescheduled two shoots on Weds 20th and Thurs 21st after school.

Shot List

2009-03-03T21:20:00.010Z

This is our finished shot list. We will storyboard it and then create an animatic.

Initial Ideas

2009-03-03T21:11:00.002Z

Here is a brainstorm of our initial ideas. My group decided to go with the crime drama idea as we liked this idea best and we had the most interest in it. We will develop this idea further to produce a shot list and animatic to see what our idea will look like.

Practice Filming 1

2009-03-03T21:02:00.001Z

On Thursday 23rd October 2008 we did our practice filming but because of technical difficulties it is not possible to upload a copy of our first practice filming. This is due to a fault with the camera. Never the less we managed to learn a lot from out first practice filming

I think that our first practice filming went quite well we didn't we didn't brake the 180 degree rule. I feel that we worked well as a group with organizing and communicating whilst doing our practice filming. This will be very useful to us when we come to do the real thing, as it is important that we communicate, be organized and work effectively as a team as this way we will get the best possible outcome. Our camera control and our use of the camera as a whole were very well done and hence effective because of this. Never the less a couple of the panning shots could of been smoother as they were quite shaky and a bit to fast. The shot in which we had to see the person walking through the door however became a bit tricky and we had to re-do this a couple of times as we could not get it quite right.

The idea of doing this practice filming task was to introduce us to using a camera and to show us how it works. I feel that we did manage to learn a lot form this task and that it will be beneficial to us when we do our real filming. From this practice we learnt that using ourselves as actors wasn't a very good idea as we weren’t very good actors and more prominently when it comes to filming the real thing we will need all of us to work together as a close team in order to make our final piece realistic and successful. So we decided that the best idea would be to find drama students to take on the role of our actors so that it s easier for us to work together.

Finally, I think that there are also some other improvements that could be made in our practice filming. To begin with our editing was not to the highest of standards as we made some of the clips too long. It could have been a lot smoother and more effective. What did not help with our editing was that the editing software was very new to most of us and so therefore we didn’t no how to use it very efficiently or effectively and so we worked at a slower pace. However we soon started to learn how to use it and began to work quicker. Introducing us to this editing software was also a good idea to include in the practice filming task as we have not used it before and so getting some practice will ensure that when we come to producing our final piece we will be more experienced and know what we are doing.

Intro Camera Task – Shot list

2009-03-03T21:00:00.000Z

1. Person A walks up to a door (LS – possible tracking shot)
2. CU of hand pulling handle
3. Shot of person A walking through door (LS)
4. Shot of person B sat down
5. Shot of person A sitting down next to them
6. CU of person A asking person B if they are ok?
7. Reverse shot (CU) of person B replying?
8. Two shot of person A and B – person B asks person A a question
9. CU of person A’s reaction and answer
10. CU of person B’s response.

Prop List

2009-01-15T13:43:00.003Z

Shooting schedule

2009-01-08T15:31:00.001Z

Thriller Opening 3 -Hostage - Florent Siri, 2005 (Crime Thriller)

2008-12-03T12:54:00.003Z

Camera
The opening title sequence of Hostage includes Long Shots of the titles and an establishing shot of a city. These Long Shots of the beginning of the sequence titles are used so that the audience can see the titles clearly. The establish shot of the city is used to help to set the scene and the location for the film. It helps the audience to establish the setting and helps them engage with what is going on. This is also done to validate the location of which the movie will be set in.  The camera pans and tilts around the city at various angles of buildings using still shots, tilting down at Mid Shots of buildings. This reinforces the location of where the film is set and continues to set the scene.  As the main title appears on screen the camera is at a Birds Eye View shot of the city, it then moves onto a Low Angle of the city, consequently giving it a sense of power and dominance. Finally the camera zooms in and out of the city guiding the audience around it. The camera tilts, pans and zooms out of still frame shots. This allows the audience to engage with what is going on in the frame.

Editing
Fades, wipes and cuts are used in the editing of this title sequence. The sequence mostly uses cuts which help create continuity. Wipes are sometimes used in this sequence in order to juxtapose scenes and the fades in the editing are used to open the sequence and introduce the audience to the setting, location and atmosphere of the movie.

Sound
The non-diegetic sound used is eerie, spooky and dramatic this is done to create a suspicious atmosphere and builds up tension throughout the audience. It starts off quite slow and steady at the beginning before gradually getting faster and louder before what sounds like symbols are used to make a clashing sound. After that it continues for a bit before it comes to a halt and dialogue of a man shouting starts with just a continuous high pitch sound playing throughout and the end progresses. This creates tension and appears to make the title sequence more dramatic and manic. The title sequence is heavily dependant on the background music to help create tension and a certain atmosphere for the film. There are some ambient sounds used through out the title sequence such as; guns clicking, a helicopter flying and dialogue of a man shouting.

Mise-en-scene (props, costume, setting, lighting, colour)
Red, white and black are the predominant colours used in this title sequence. The red connotes danger blood and impulse. The white signifies innocence and purity, which is opposed by the red and the black connotes evil, death mystery and fear. These are similar colours used to Sin City. The black in the title sequence creates a low lighting hence imposing the idea of mystery. Props such as guns, police and people with guns etc are used to reinforce that the thriller is a crime thriller. The main focus on the mise-en-scene is guns; this highlights the themes of death and danger.

Special Effects
CGI animations of the city have been used during this title sequence. The cityscape has been created via CGI in order to give the film a more graphical and game like appearance. Also there is a montage used, which appears to be of still images.

Titles
Titles have been superimposed upon the buildings within the city and on various other objects. The reason behind the idea of having the superimposed titles placed on buildings etc could be to show the characters professions and to establish where they are located in the city, showing how each of them links in some way.

Thriller Opening 2 - Sin City- Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez 2005 (Romantic Thriller)

2008-11-30T14:16:00.002Z

Camera
The director uses mainly mid-shots and close ups in the opening of Sin City in order to help the audience relate to the characters. The camera zooms in on characters faces when they are talking to each other also, showing that they are becoming closer. A typical convention of a romantic thriller, is having a relationship that is confusing and complex and having one of the people within the relationship being murdered. The close-up camera shots helped to show this by making it clear that there is a connection between the male and female character in this title sequence. The director also made it imperceptible that he was going to kill her, as he used a close up of the two of them smiling at each other to portray that they have a good relationship and are happy with each other and then all the audience hears is a gunshot which completely contradicts what has just been shown. This keeps the audience engaged and gripped as they want to find out more about what is going to happen.

Editing
The speed of editing is slow in the opening sequence, which creates a relaxed atmosphere and represents a sensual atmosphere between the man and woman, it shows that they are linked in some way and are having a relationship as their movements appear calm and leisurely. This is a juxtaposition to the incident that later takes place in the scene -where the woman is shot by her supposed lover. This effect is used in order to build up tension and create suspense to keep the audience engaged and interested by keeping them unsuspecting and in the dark about what is about to happen in the upcoming scene. By having a relaxed and calm atmosphere it makes the audience unsuspecting and unaware that anything bad is about to take place. This creates more of a sudden shock when the man shoots the woman, adding mystery to this thriller. The slow pace editing helps with the typical romantic thriller as it builds tension between the two characters and the atmosphere around them. They are in a tranquil, silent and secluded area, which looks onto a view of the city. This makes the opening more mysterious and unsuspicious.

Also in the editing the director cleverly uses a combination of colour such as; red, white and black throughout the opening extract. The setting is mainly in monotones, such black and white, with a hint of grey, therefore allowing the red to be used in order to show importance. Another example of using colour to highlight and signify importance is when the woman’s eyes light up in green when the man is talking about them and looking into them. The red is symbolic of passion and love, whereas the green is symbolic of envy and evil.

During the opening scenes black and white images of people have been used to help the audience closely identify who the main characters are and the reaction of the two characters and how the narrative will develop throughout the film. A bright light is used behind the two main characters as the man walks into the scene to talk to the woman, the director has used this to emphasize where the action is taking place and to light up the scene to show contrasts between the dark surrounds and the two people. This could represent that when they are together they “light each other up.” It has also been used to set the scene and allow the audience to identify the setting and connect to the lights that are around the location, which are the building and the city.

Sound
The only music used in the opening of Sin City is a diegetic sound of a saxophone in the background which we could say could have been used for a variety of different reasons. Firstly because it creates a calm, slow and romantic sort of atmosphere through the use of the jazz tones that is reinforced by the two people coming together; we could say that it is used to set the scene and emphasize the sensual atmosphere between the man and woman. We could also assume that it is coming from a party as both the man and woman are dressed very formal and posh so we could assume that they have just walked away from a party out onto a balcony. The sound is also used to establish the location, which is America. This is reinforced by the spoken dialogue of the American accents that both characters have. As the sound of the background music slowly fades it mirrors the narrative of what the man is feeling. When the music is loud it shows how he is close to her and as it fades away it shows the audience how he is letting go of her slowly and is pulling himself away from her and the feelings he has from her.

Non-digetic sound is also used in the form of spoken dialogue by the male protagonist. The director has used this in order to set the scene, create a certain atmosphere and so that we see the narrative from his perspective. It shows that he is in control and it is him who is telling the story. The non-diegetic sound of the male characters thoughts instantly captures the audience’s attention and helps them to relate to his character.

Diegetic sound is also used for thunder and rain which is a typical convention in thrillers to create tension and build mystery by setting the scene. Similarly diegetic sound of his footsteps is used to make it seem like he is creeping up on her. The diegetic sound of the lighter being lit and the small tick sound it makes adds the setting of the scene and reinforces the idea that they are in a peaceful and quiet place. The sounds of the thunder and rain appear before he is to shoot the women could suggest that the director is trying to show that something bad is about to happen. This creates suspense and mystery.

Sound is a huge part in this title sequence as it is used to establish that this film is a romantic thriller. It uses narration to help the audience to connect to the male character, symbolizing that he is most important.

Mise-en-scene
The women character is wearing a bright red dress and red lipstick, whilst the rest of the scene is set in black and white. The red connotes meanings of danger, love, passion and blood, which is symbolic towards the end of the extract. The fact that it is set in black and white could suggest that it is a memory, By the woman’s dress and lips being red it could represent she is the mans lover, but then later on when she is shot it could represent blood. Signifiers of her death include her shivering at the beginning of the extract to show she is weak and venerable and her black make up on her nails and eyes. Both the characters in the scene are wearing very formal, posh and sophisticated clothes which could suggest that they have come form a part or dinner etc and it seems that they are the only people that are moving in the scene and the surroundings. Therefore the director has used this to focus the attention of the scene rather than the location/setting of the film, which soon becomes clear by the uses of the characters American accents and also becomes comprehensible towards the end when a long shot when panning and tracking camera shots are used to establish the setting and location.

Special Effects
CGI and animation is used throughout the opening extract with the intention of building tension and also to develop the narrative of the story. The director has used this to freeze certain images to help the audience to connect with them.

Titles
No text appears in this opening title sequence, instead the narrative of the story starts straight away in the form of the male character expressing his thoughts and feelings to verify the type of film it is and immediately attracts the audience into relating to the characters.
By having the film start with a memory and getting straight to the narrative it immediately engages the audience as they know they have to watch it in order to understand and relate to the rest of the upcoming film. By characters all ready being introduced and a murder taking place this immediately creating confusion and suspense, this builds the narrative. This is a cleaver idea as most films start with the production teams names and the company that has produced it etc coming in and out of the opening scene, whereas this director has got straight to the story instead which straight away introduces the story and creates the suspense and mystery.

Thriller Opening 1 -Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock, 1960 (Horror Thriller)

2008-11-27T18:28:00.002Z

Camera
Throughout the opening credits there is not much movement of the camera, mainly Long Shots are used and the camera appears to stay in one place. Similarly the camera angle does not change also. This allows the audience to clearly see all the titles. The credits are presented to the audience straight in front of them. Additionally the titles are centralized in each shot. The director could have chosen to do this in order to add emphasis to the titles by focusing them in the centre and to draw the audience’s attention to them. The meaning that can be interpreted from the extract links to the animation and graphics.

Editing
The editing is at a slow speed at the start and gradually increases throughout. The title sequence includes mostly short takes with straight cuts, but wipes are also used. The speed of editing matches the non-diegetic sound; as the music’s pitch the speed of the editing increases with it. The use of the non-diegtic sound mixed with the pace of editing effectively creates suspense and tension. This is a common convention know to be linked with Thrillers as from this the audience are able to establish the genre of the media text. This means that they will have defined their certain ideas about what to expect from a film from the thriller genre. Accordingly the director has immediately influenced the audience’s ideas and expectations from the text.

Sound
The sound is predominantly high pitched throughout the title sequence and there is no diegetic sound present at all. The non-diegetic music used is high-pitched string instruments, mostly violins that help to establish the setting, worrying atmosphere and the time period from which the thriller is from, as it is common of older thrillers to have instrumental music as non-diegetic sound. The string instruments in the title sequence help to create a dramatic, apprehensive mood, consequently causing anticipation and tension for the audience. In conclusion the he sound successfully creates suspense and again links back to editing to create pace.

Mise-en-scene (props, costume, setting, lighting, colour)
The colours used are mainly black white and grey, which could relate back to the time period in which the film was made. The white could be a connotation of purity and the black could represent darkness. The title sequence consists of straight black and grey lines appearing on the screen from the right going across to the left with white titles. The links interlink smoothly however the titles themselves do not align with the actual lines.

Special Effects
The special effects included in this title sequence are the grey and black animated lines and the animated titles that move in and out of the lines in order to help create confusion and ambiguity. The director uses symbolic images in order to create mystery and keep the text slightly ambiguous so that the audience can interpret meanings of it themselves which helps to keep the engaged with the text, rather than use iconic images which would suggest what the text is about and give more detail about the film. The director wants to keep the audience thinking for themselves.

Titles
The colours chosen for the titles is white titles on black background and the text is in an informal font. The positioning of them appears to be centralized in the all of the shots, this is done in order to show their importance. However the text is sometimes not slanted and not straight and comes into shot from all angles. The colour white has connotations of purity and innocence and the colour black of evil, darkness and bad things. The text of the title “Psycho” in the opening title sequence is distorted and misshaped. The movement of the text and skewed placement has been done to reinforce confusion.

What is a Thriller?

2008-11-24T18:48:00.000Z

Genre is a form of categorization in which media texts fall into. These are decided by the common conventions and narrative in which a certain type of text entails. We can use the idea of genre to gain information on the typical codes and conventions of a Thriller. This genre is incredibly large and due to this has a large number of sub genres, and so thrillers often overlap with pieces of work produced in other genres; mysteries, for example, are often thrillers. As a result of this it is rare to find a text singularly categorized as just a Thriller. This is often because of disagreements over the classification as a genre.

Thrillers often fit into one or more categories of genre. These are often know as sub-genres or hybrids - there are suspense-thrillers, action- or adventure- thrillers, sci-fi and supernatural thrillers (such as Alien (1979)), crime-caper thrillers (such as The French Connection (1971)), western-thrillers (such as High Noon (1952)), film-noir thrillers (such as Double Indemnity (1944)), even romantic comedy-thrillers (such as Safety Last (1923)). One long-established thriller genre is the spy thriller, featuring an often heroic and dashing spy who must confront whichever enemy happens to be popular at the moment.

A Thriller is a type of film known to endorse intense excitement and suspense. It has a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation and uncertainty. The anxiety and the idea of the unknown create a nerve-wracking tension throughout the film. Conventions of a thriller genre include the: narrative, characters, locations, use of technical codes and semiotics. The main convention and aim across all types of thriller is to give the audience ‘thrills’ and excitement. The director does this by creating suspense and tension to increase adrenaline levels and hence as a result the audience is left cliff-hanging, ‘on the edge of their seats’ leaving them wanting more and to continue watching.

If the genre is to be defined strictly, a genuine thriller is a film that pursues a single-minded goal - to provide thrills. Thrillers typically involve sudden plot twists that create suspense and tension and keep the audience cliff-hanging at the 'edge of their seats' as the plot builds towards a climax by keeping people unsure about what is going to happen. The tension usually arises when the main character(s) is positioned in a dangerous situation or an escape from something threatening.

Life itself is threatened in some thriller films, usually because the protagonist is unsuspecting or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation. Plots of thrillers often involve characters which are in conflict with each other, and the menace “villain / bad person ”is often dark, mysterious and shadowy and is often not seen until the climax.

Practice Animatic

2008-11-23T12:06:00.009Z

On Thursday 23rd October we did our practice animatic. I think that overall this exercise went fairly well.

The things that worked well in out practice animatic were firstly the planning and the storyboarding as i think we worked well as a group to produce this. I also think that the diegetic sound fitted in very well with the all of the images on the screen and were typical sounds used for the thriller genre, therefore reinforcing it. The pace of editing went very well and worked well with the sound and images in the shot because the editing was quite fast paced and mirrored what was happening on the screen, for that reason it once again reinforced the genre. In addition the way in which we recreated the camera in order to add a more realistic effect worked very well and looked very real and believable also, particularly in the panning shots.

However our animatic was not perfect and in order to improve our animatic we could do the following things; firstly we could improve our quality of images as they were not drawn to a very high standard and therefore some became quite unclear in meaning. To improve them we could draw neater and in more detail. In addition to this we could research key storyboard techniques and notations such as directional arrows so that it is easier and clearer for the audience to understand what is going on in the shot. As well as this we could also improve the quality of photographing the images a bit more because they were very blurry, slightly off colour and overall to a fairly low quality. To improve this we could have used a scanner to scan the pictures onto the laptop instead of using a digital camera to photograph them, as this will make our pictures much clearer. By doing this it will also make it much easier to crop the photos to size and will remove any writing and notes around the frame.

To improve our animatic even further we could have included some parallel non-diegetic sound, also known as background music as this would have added to the suspense and tension in order to engage and involve the audience. Non-diegetic sound is a common convention of the thriller genre and so thus tied in perfectly with both the genre and the editing.