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

My thriller opening is very exciting and is full of suspense which will attract a large audience. In particular, the mise en scene is very interesting and unusual. At the very beginning of my thriller opening we see a young girl asleep in a bath; straight away this would make people interested in the film as they will be wondering why she is in a bath and what the story is about. Later on in my film opening we see the same girl which was in the bath wondering the paths of the woods. Once again, the intersting mise en scene would attract the audience and keep them intersted.

For my thriller opening, as a group we decided to use small independant distribution and production companies - Dogwoof & Coffee Films. Do. We decided on this as we believe it makes our film seem individual and unique therefore it would appeal to a young audience as today's society is leaning away from mainstream media.

The title of my film is 'Parallel'. I beleive this title attracts my audience very well as it makes you wonder what the story is going to be. This questioning is becoming more typical of youth culture today. This is very similar to my point I made about the distribution and production company I used.

Qeustion 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The sub genre to my final media product is a pyschological thriller. I believe the audience specific to my final media product is young adults (16-25). This is because the shock aspect of a pychological thriller excites the young adults who want to have a way to escape reality and their mundane life. Film gives them the opportunity to live vicariously through the protagonist in a controlled and safe manner.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forns abd conventions of real media products?

In the film industry there is a set traditional way in which the convetions of film openings should be. In my final media product myself and my group decided to stick to the traditional ways in which the convetions of films opening are.

The traditional convetions of title sequences are as follows:

1. Production icon
2. Distribution icon
3. Distribution title
4. Porduction title
5. Actor 1
6. Actor 2
7. Film title
8. Actor 3
9. Actor 4
10. Actor 5
11. Casting
12. Costume
13. Music supervisor
14. Music by
15. Edited by
16. Production designer
17. Director of photography
18. Executive producers
19. Written by
20. Directed by

My final media product followed the traditional convetions of title sequences, I feel this shows my mature understanding for convetions of title sequences. I believe the reason we decided not to challenge the convetions of a film opening is to show our true understanding of the convetions and to show a proffesional style to our film.

Evaluation - Question 7

Looking back at our preliminary task, we have learnt several things in the progression from the full product.

Pre-production

For our pre-production, we had to plan the prelim before we started any practical work. In order to plan out our prelim, we created a storyboard.

We feel that this storyboard compared to our thriller storyboard, is much more detailed. If we were to improve one thing about our thriller project, we would have definitely improved our storyboard as storyboards are what defines a film.

Production

Our camera skills during the production of our prelim were not to our best standards. We realised this after looking back at the prelim. This mistake made us realise as a group that we had to definitely improve our camera skills for our thriller.

For example, in the end shot of our prelim, we positioned the camera incorrectly which resulted into a wonky shot.
Also, our prelim was not supposed to show that it was filmed in the classroom, as it was a jail scene. This made us realise that we did not capture the correct mise en scene.












However, realising in our prelim we did not film the shot properly, we made sure that in our thriller, we captured a straight shot.
The mise en scene of our thriller was set in the woods and we succeeded in showing that.

Lighting

The lighting in some parts of our prelim was too dark, making it difficult to see what was happening.

Compared to our prelim, the lighting in our thriller was up to good standards. We filmed in the woods, where the weather was mildly sunny, which benefitted us.

Editing

Compared to our prelim, the titles used in our thriller were much better. They were positioned in different corners of the screen rather than the middle. This allowed us to see the footage better.

This is one of the titles in our thriller. Compared to the titles in our prelim, (the image below), it is presented more formally.

180 degree rule

 In terms of the 180 degree rule, we believe we have followed that rule in both of our footages.

Sound
For our prelim, the only sound that was used was the dialogue. However, the dialogue could not be heard properly. In comparison to this, in our final film we avoided dialogue and we used backing track made on Soundtrack Pro. This helped reinforce the genre of our film.

Overall

 Throughout the process of filming both films, as a group we have learnt how to progress in the world of film. Our use of the camera has heavily improved as we captured perfect shots in our thriller. In terms of editing, we have learnt a lot as our thriller was heavily edited compared to our prelim. Overall we definitely believe our professionalism in film has improved significantly.

Q1

Evaluation - Question 6

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

Q6

Evaluation - Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Seeing as our thriller film was psychological and our target audience were teenagers, we decided to make the protagonist and antagonist also teenagers. Our film was set on a location in North London, which was local and our story line suited with our subgenre; the protagonist could not differentiate between her dreams and reality.

Our films were released in an independent theatre which allowed everyone to watch everyone else's film. This gave us an opportunity to get feedback from a member of our target audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQjEIt3Yp6s

Evaluation - Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Seeing as the characters in our thriller film were teenagers, we have chosen our target audience to be young adults, varying from the age range of 16-20 years old.

The target audience should have various things:

• to be fond of psychological thrillers
• Enjoy plots which leave them hanging off their seat

Q5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Many aspects of our opening appeal to the target audience in a number of ways. For example:

The production Company: The production company, Coffee Films, is a British Independent film company. Therefore, this will attract a wider British audience.

Location: The film is set in North London. This makes the film seem a lot closer to home for many British young adults. Therefore, feeling like they are able to relate to the movie a lot more.

Actors: The main actors in the film are female. Therefore, this will not only attract female viewers in terms of being able to relate to the characters. But will also attract a wide male audience too.

Interviews on the Thriller:

The first video presents an Interview with someone of the target audience, giving their overall view on the film itself.

The second video presents an interview with Aylin Kazan who plays the role of Claire Johnson in the Thriller, Parallel. 

We have reached our target audience in a number of ways:

• Cinema Screenings
• Official Facebook Page
• Official Twitter Page
• Official Poster
• Official Youtube Account
• Official Website
• Dvd Release
• Interviews 

These all played major roles when promoting our Thriller.

Q4

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

The target audience for most psychological Thrillers are usually people who are 18+. This is because they include a lot of violence and psychological issues that may be too disturbing or confusing for a younger audience. This may be clearly shown on the back of DVD covers or Film posters stating the age rating and why, e.g. : 'Contains extreme violence' or 'scenes of a sexual nature'.

The audience that we aim to attract with our Thriller, Parallel, is young male/female adults ranging from ages 15 to 25. Our film will have the rating of 15+ because it contains aspects of violence, death and sensitive psychological issues. We thought that having the rating of 18+ would be too high, as it doesn't include over explicit content. 

Films with a similar target audience include:

'Donnie Darko'

'The woman in black'

'Vacancy'

'Fatal attraction'

Due to our film being a Psychological Thriller, we did some research on the audience that were more specific to this sub genre. 

In a psychological Thriller, the suspect does not use physical strength but psychology to get their victim. This challenges the mental state of those in the film, but also the audiences' too. The audience is required to do more intellectual thinking and although we found out that the majority of those who were expected to watch psychological Thrillers were aged 25+, we chose to challenge this target audience with our film.

An example of a psychological Thriller is:

Our Target audience: 

This is an example Facebook page of someone who we'd expect to go and view our Thriller. A young adult/student, aged 15+ would be most suited because:

• The characters in our Thriller are also young adults, therefore, this makes the audience relate to the characters and story line more.
• Due to the main character being a female, It was only expected that the movie would be better suited for a female viewer. However, our Thriller could also be enjoyed by male viewers too.
• Due to our film being an Independent British film, we thought that because it was a lot closer to home, creating a fan base amongst younger viewers would be more beneficial in terms of cinema screenings and ratings - Helping us promote the movie a lot better/faster because young adults are more likely to use social networking sites

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


There are several examples of conventions of film openings. One example is to set the location. The locations are usually set by panning the camera in the area where the characters are introduced. A prime example of this is Donnie Darko.

Q3

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute our media product and why?


We chose to use smaller Independent film companies such as 'Coffee Films' and 'Dogwoof' to distribute our Thriller due to our film being of a low budget. We thought that these were more suitable as apposed to major companies such as 'Dreamworks entertainment', which is suitable for films of a high budget, they are able to promote their media products in a number of ways. Whereas our Independent companies will use the internet to promote our Thriller, this will be done through: Youtube, Social Networks, our own website and a cinematic release.

 

 

 Not only is our choice of distribution companies suitable for our film financially, but it also helps us to promote our film to a certain audience due to most of the promoting being online.This audience would preferably be young adults from 18-25 years.

Evaluation - question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Representation is a likeliness to something or someone in a particular way or of something being of a certain nature. It involves a specific point of view. Different representations will have different messages and values, depending on the point of view of the person who makes the representation.

The plot to our thriller involves three teenage girls. The protagonist of the film is looking at the dead body of another teenage girl, this situation is then watched by another teenage girl. Through three females being involved in the plot, this begins to establish the social representations of gender.

The dead body, played by Aylin, is stereotyped as the girly teenager, who is vulnerable and she is shown to be from the upper class as she is wearing a classy dress compared to Robin, who is dressed in casual clothes. Aylin is shown to be innocent which will gain sympathy from the audience.

  Through different shot types, the micro element of the camera within media allows the representation of gender and class to be reviewed.

Evaluation - Question 1

For our coursework, we have had to blog our research for Thriller openings. We had to post every detail of our process in making our own thriller opening along with analysing different conventions.

Here is one screen shot of one part of our blog:

Question 1 -

Conventions of film openings:

The main part of a film is the opening. The opening gives the audience a hint of what the film is about. Some examples of conventions of film openings is that they set the location. Usually, film openings either pan the location or area where the climax of the film will take place. 

One example of an opening setting a location is Donnie Darko:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnivC-0g1uI

Another example of a film opening is introducing the characters. The first person introduced in the opening of The Taking of Pelham 123 is the protagonist; played by Denzel Washington.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8TtjRlX_3E

There are three types of ways which an opening can be edited. One way is stylised editing. Stylised editing is when the opening of a film is 'amazingly' edited. They are openings which stand out because the editing is so sophisticated. An example of a stylised opening is the opening of Mesrine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ychi2zIYvGg

Another type is discreet opening. Discrete openings is when a discrete hint is given at different aspects of the film. This sets the atmosphere of the film but it does not make it clear what the film is about. Jump cuts are used to create a feel of the film but it does not let out what the film is really trying to show. One example where this is used is in Arlington Road.

The final type is the traditional, narrative opening. This is where the opening of a film does not over use edits by using normal cuts and shots.


Conventions of thriller genre films:

In a thriller film, the things we expect to see are:

-Things that relate to the sub-genre. For example, if the film is a gory-thriller, blood and other gory things will be expected to show.This is shown in the film Se7en.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k2gsEI34CE

-A protagonist; mainly portrayed as an everyday, 'real' person. This happens in most thrillers, here is an example from the film Collateral.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPbG9uU7BiI

-Builds tension

-A lot of use of jump cuts which create suspension.

-Over the shoulder shots, point of view shots, high and low angles.

For our own thriller opening, our sub-genre was psychological thriller. Conventions of a psychological thriller opening is mysterious events, tense situations which grab the audience's attention. One film which inspired us to do a psychological thriller was Black Swan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEKRU_3Uaog

Conventions of title sequences

What we expect to see in a title sequence is of course, the titles or the opening credits. Here is the order in which the titles come in:

Usually, the titles on the screen are shown for at least three seconds.

We expect to see the main title of the film as the seventh title to appear on the screen.

In our own thriller opening, the titles faded out to introduce the next title. The use of the fades suited to the sound we used, which was a quiet, slow type of music. It also matched our shots as our shots were simple jump cuts of different types of scenery.

There are different types of fonts which can be used depending on the genre. For example, in our opening we used the font Central Gothic, which was really simple. This suited with our genre, which was psychological thriller as psychological thrillers are quite simple with hidden messages, allowing the audience to decide for themselves what reality is.

How does our media compare to real media?

Our thriller opening uses the traditional way to open a film. 

Final thoughts

Final Thoughts

Overall, as a group we feel that we have accomplished our thriller opening successfully. Throughout the whole process of making this thriller opening, we have learnt new things in the world of filming and have also improved on the things we already knew how to do. For example, we discovered the use of a fig rig which enabled us to capture shots and angles which we first did not know how to do. Even though we have filmed for a project before, we feel that this certain project was much harder to complete as we needed to focus on several pieces of the shots. Also, the editing process of this thriller opening was much more complicated as we had to take care of every, specific detail whilst trying to make sense of the whole plot. We also had to input our own soundtrack and Foley sounds; something which we have not done before. This journey has let us enter the much more creative world of filming and has helped us improve our professionalism. 

Rough cut feedback

Rough Cut video

editing - final stages

Final stages of editing

In our opening we filmed two different scenes. Some shots were quite shaky so we decided to not include them into our opening. We could not really reach a final decision on which shots to use so we experimented with different shots on Final Cut Pro.

We noticed that several shots did not suit with the continuity of our opening so we decided not to use those clips in our final opening.

The final shots that we did end up using were appropriate for our scene and it integrated with the whole ambience of the thriller.

target audience

Target audience

As our opening is a psychological thriller, we had to vary between different age groups of target audiences.

First of all we decided that our thriller is not suitable for children. Our age range is for 15 year olds to mid 20's, as our thriller contains a young cast which will appeal to younger people.

prelim evaluation 5

What we would change of our prelim is probably to focus more on the mise en scene and apply emphasis on the sound as sound is vital for our thriller project.

Overall, as a group, we believe that the making of this prelim has helped us better our knowledge and skills in filming. It has also let us discover more ways in which shots can be used and the effects the shots give. This will help us improve our professionalism, in terms of the mise en scene and camera shots and also, our personal input to the footage.

prelim evaluation 4

We edited the film on Final Cut Pro. In order to meet our aims, we had to cut the shots using the 'in and out' process. This enabled us to fit the bits of footage together to make out that the actual scene has taken place. Beforehand we were taught the conventional order of a film title; this let us know which credit comes first in the opening. With this, we applied texts onto the footage. Usually a film opening would have a soundtrack, however, our prelim did not. This is mainly due to the fact that we did not have enough time. This error will help us reflect for the future and manage our time properly.

prelim evaluation 3

Some of our strengths were that we fully succeeded in our over the shoulder shots. The accuracy of focusing on the main part of the shot fully fitted with the shot needed for the over shoulder shot. Also, assigning each member to a various role, for example, one person was behind the camera whilst the others were in the shots, benefitted quite a lot as each member took part in the making, whether they was on camera or not. Our camera shots were to a good standard, this may be because we revised the uses of our several shots before planning our prelim. 

prelim evaluation 2

There were several difficulties we faced whilst fiming. For example, we shot the scene in a small area so it was quite difficult to move our camera around the place in order to get the whole shot on the camera. Also, whilst panning the camera, it was quite complicated to fit the whole picture whilst the camera was moving. Minor mistakes like looking into the camera directly made the original feel of the scene quite unprofessional and the dialogue used was not loud enough so the camera did not pick up the sound, which effected the footage. However, whilst editing our prelim, we did make sure to cut out the shots where the mistakes were clearly visible which left us with a finished result.

Edit - sounds

Foley sounds

As we filmed on different locations, there were several foley sounds needed to make the footage seem realistic.

As we filmed a scene in a bath, the sounds of the water splashing and the deep breath intake had to be captured to make for it to fit into the shot. 

Also, we filmed several shots in a park so the sounds of footsteps and leaves rustling were recorded.

These sounds were then applied to our footage whilst editing on Final Cut Pro and they overlapped our soundtrack.

Editing - title orders

Titles

We have chosen to use the conventional titles order which we have learnt in class.

1. Distributed by -

2. Produced by -
3. Actor 1
4. Actor 2
5. Paralell - title
6. Actor 3
8. Casting by Joe Smith
9. Costume by Sara Collins
10. Music supervisor - Matthew Grey
11. Music - Timothy Saunders
12. Edited by
13. Production designer - Jack Waison
14. Director of photography
15. Executive producers
16. Written by
17. Directed by

Editing

Editing

To edit our thriller opening, we used Final Cut Pro. This programme enabled us to use several match cuts to fit all of our shots together, and allowed us to let continuity run throughout the opening.

Sound

 Sound

In order to find suitable sound to fit our film opening, we went on the website, 'creative commons'. Here we found a number of good tracks that we thought would go well with our film opening. We picked music that would avoid any copyright issues. After doing this we dowloaded 5 possible soundtracks for our film, we came together as a group and watched the opening with each track and discussed which one would be the most suitable, we came to the decision that Veloma by Fabrizio Paterlini was best suited to our storyline.

The reason why we picked this track was because:

• It helps create a dream-like atmosphere to our opening, which is what we hoped to achieve
• It helps to build tension and confuse the audience because it isn't clear whether the storyline is a possitive or negative one
• Its suits the tempo of our filming

 

Tahsin's role

Evaluation of Tahsin's role

Outline of my role: I played the role of the 'masked stranger' who is watching Robin in the woods. I also took still shots of the making of the scenes.

Strengths: I could take pictures of the shots being filmed from different angles without the flash of the camera getting in the way.

Weaknesses: For the shot of me watching Robin, I had to enter a crowded grassy area. This was difficult as there were big branches and stones everywhere. However, we got the shots needed in the end.

Aylin's role

Evaluation of Aylin's role

Outline of my role: I played the role of the supposedly 'dead' body which the man character is known to have killed. I also helped Eloise in using the fig rig whilst filming the bath scene and filmed several shots of Robin outside.

Strengths: It was easy for me to film shots without the use of a tripod and I avoided getting shaky shots.

Weaknesses: As we filmed outside, the weather was quite misty and the floor was damp. I found it quite uncomfortable to lay on the wet floor for a certain amount of time but in the end, we got the complete footage needed.

Robin's role

Evaluation of Robin's role

Outline of my role: I play the main character in the thriller. I play the role of a girl who does not know the difference between her dreams and reality. It is then left for the audience to decide if my character did really commit a murder or it was just a dream. I also filmed several shots of the outside scene.

Strengths: I was able to create an appropriate mise en scene and I was quite successful in using the pull focus device on the camera.

Weaknesses: As I had to do the bath scene, it was quite difficult to stay under water for a certain amount of time. However, we did succeed in filming this scene as we went over the risk assessment.

Eloise's role

Evaluation of Eloise's role

Outline of my role:  I filmed the bath scene and also directed it. For this scene, I had to be extra cautious as there was water near the equipment. Filming this scene allowed me to understand the different angles used to get the whole shot into the frame. I had to be positioned in various places to be able to capture several shots. Also, for this scene a fig rig was used; filming this scene has taught me new things which abled me to be somewhat a professional cameraman.

Strengths: I was able to sit in different positions to capture different shots.

Weaknesses: As the bath was connected to a wall, it was difficult to avoid other objects being in the frame.

research

Research

As our genre is a psychological thriller there were several trailers which inspired us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNpDG4WR_74 - Stoker Trailer. This trailer is similar to our opening as it has several shots of the woods, just like our opening. 

Another inspiration was the film Brick. A trailer of the film is not available on Youtube however, we borrowed the DVD from the college library and watched it in our own time. The close ups used in the opening was our main inspiration which was then inputted into our opening.

Risk assessment

Risk Assessment

There were several risks we needed to go over before we started filming. One of the many risks was members of the group not turning up for filming. We made sure someone reliable was chosen to play the main role.

Not reaching the location on time was also another risk we went over. This could affect filming as one member may have a certain piece of equipment but has not turned up with it which could delay filming.

As our first scene was the bath scene, there were quite a few risks which needed attention. The bath scene included Robin going into a bath full of water. For this, we needed to make sure that none of the equipment made contact with the water. To avoid any contact with water, we placed the camera onto a fig rig. This helped us to film Robin from a high angle as the fig rig enabled us to move the camera any way we wanted without it slipping from our hands.

For our second bit of footage, we needed to film outside in Gillespie Park. The weather could have been problem so we first of all, checked the weather forecast before starting any filming. Fortunately, the weather was appropriate for us to film.

These risks were what we were mainly cautious of when filming our thriller opening.