Thriller Evaluation - Olivia Farren

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

In our thriller opening, we used Todorov's theory of narrative (link to wiki or something) to create the narrative to our thriller story. Our thriller opening starts with an equilibrium; where everything seems completely fine; this is when the girl is walking the dog through the lanes and into the woods. This is a normal situation and therefore seems like nothing is going wrong, however, later on in the opening, the shocking event occurs. Although what is happening; the girl walking her dog; seems normal, the music soundtrack foreshadows the disruption of the equilibrium, as it doesn't include any crescendos but this non-diegetic sound comes across as creepy as it doesn't go with what the audience is seeing. Following Todorov's theory like this means that our thriller story fits the usual conventions of a thriller as everything looks normal, but then we find out it's clearly not.

Left: here is a point in our opening where there is an equilibrium. Right: this is an example of our thriller after the shocking event in its opening.

 - then from another, similar, thriller)

We also used restricted narration in our thriller opening so that the audience couldn't anticipate what would happen, and therefore they feel the tension rising as they don't know about all that's going on. We did this in our thriller by showing that the girl is clearly looking at something and then shocked and scared by what she sees, but we hid what the object is from the audience so they're left wondering.

The restricted narration technique that we used is very commonly used in thrillers as this creates an elements of enigma, which then engages the audience to want to keep watching so they can find out more.
(youtube link to example of this being used)

Example from 'Silence of the Lambs'

After experimenting with lighting, and also looking at what lighting affects are used in thrillers that we also wanted to create; we decided that we wanted the lighting in our thriller to be quite dark and eery:

The lighting in our thriller opening.

We then did this by desaturising the colour during post-production editing, so that although what was first happening was a normal situation, as well as the music, the lighting also foreshadowed that something was about to happen that compromises the normality of the situation and turn the story into something thrilling.

We thought that our characters costume and make up would be an important aspect of representing their age and their innocence, and so we decided to have the young girl wearing no make up and her blonde hair down, this is so that the audience can recognise her as being young, and a girl. This also follows the stereotype image of what little girls look like, which is also seen in the opening of The lovely Bones (link to blog post):


In our thriller opening of 'Rediscovered', we looked at what the conventions and codes of thrillers with similar affects that we wanted to create were, and tired to follow them so that this would appeal to our thriller audience,

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

In our thriller, we decided to focus on how the innocence that is portrayed of this young girl is challenged as she encounters something that launches her into a world of mysterious questions she wants answering.

Gender
Our character follows some stereotypical female features through her outfit choice of a jumper and leggings, and her long blonde hair, both of these parts of mise en scene are common characteristics of what girls look like, meaning that the audience can identify her as being female.

There is a stereotypical assumption that all females are 'vulnerable', which can come across as a negative thing. When the girl walks the dog through the lanes and into the woods on her own, this doesn't follow this assumption and challenges it as she is clearly capable of walking her dog on her own, however, our thriller opening does contrast this at the end when the girl is clearly vulnerable. This is shown through the composition of the shot of her on the floor as she is lower down than the audience, the fact that she is crying, and the close up shot of this, which portrays her vulnerability to the audience as they are close to her, as if entering her personal space as she is clearly upset. However, even though vulnerability can be seen as a negative stereotype of girls, I don't think our thriller opening represents this to be negative as the purpose of showing her crying isn't to portray this, but to shock the audience as much as she is shocked, to emphasis on the fact that something unexpected has occurred. This is shown through the editing we did on the diegetic sound of her crying, echoing it make to it noticeable and confusing.

Here, our character clearly doesn't look vulnerable as she is happily doing her own thing, this is contrasted to what the next two images portray.

Age
We wanted our character to come across as innocent, and how we did this represents her youth. The girls blonde hair and the fact we chose for her to wear no make up are aspects of mise en scene that we thought portrayed her age as being fairly young, about 11 years of age, as this shows she's care free to not want to be bothering abut make up, and again, the blonde hair is recognised as being quite 'angelic', which also shows that she is innocent, and therefore young. To build on the angelic look of her, we used LED lights during filming to create that slight 'halo' around her head as the light reflects of her blonde hair, this adds to the portrayal of her being innocent, and therefore her innocence shows that she is fairly young.

When looking at how age is represented in the opening of the lovely bones, the little girl also has blonde hair that had a light reflected and brightening her blonde hair, which also shows her young age through clear ignorance to anything negative as she, again, looks almost angelic.




Class and Ethnicity
The ethnicity of our character is a White-British female; this is due to the circumstances of finding an actress who could work with us when we needed, however, our thriller doesn't focus on the representation of ethnicity and so we feel this isn't important as we feel we haven't portrayed this as being a positive or negative factor.
The class of our character is shown through the setting, an aspect of mise en scene; the normal looking family home represents the fact that our character belongs to a similar class to our target audience, social groups B to D, which is mostly middle and working class, and as the characters class is similar to that of our target audience, this means that they can elate to her as she's in a class they can identify with.

Power
The power our character has, dramatically changes during our thriller opening, and therefore we had to show this change clearly to our audience.
At the start, when the girl is walking the dog, it's clear she has power as she is leading the dog, and when he jumps into the river, she calls his name with clear authority, however the second time she calls the dog back it's clear something has happened that compromises the power she has. When she calls 'Dylan' the second time, her voice is trembling and the audience can understand that she is now scared, after discovering something under the bridge, along with this, the contrast of her power at the beginning then again to the end of the opening is also shown through the fact that she is then crying on the floor. The power is gone and this is visible to the audience as she is on the floor and the camera is at a high angle, looking down at her, clearly this shows that she no longer has power.

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

Obviously after creating our thriller film opening, we needed to look at how this would then be distributed to be viewed.
As we created our media product independently, we'd have low funds and therefore distribution and advertising can't be anywhere near the scale of that of Hollywood movies.
When looking into a distribution company suitable for our thriller film, we decided that a company who has already distributed many films of the same genre and target audience, therefore an indie distributor would be best suited to distribute our film.




We looked into a few companies, such as Artificial Eye who are part of Curzon World which is a group of film entertainment companies that also include video on demand services and a horror film distributor, they also specialise in art house films for cinema and films, which would be good for us as our media product is an independent film. Along with looking at Artifiicial Eye as a potential distributor, we also looked at Momentum Pictures, who is one of the leading independent motion picture distributor in the UK and Ireland.

However, we decided that BBC Films would be best suited to distribute out thriller film. This is because it's a well-know British company that releases independent and smaller films, like ours. It has also distributed many other thrillers, therefore they are aware of the type of audience to target. They also already have an audience from their BBC Three channel that is aimed at our target audience; young adults over the age of 15, so they would know what audience to target as well as our thriller film being
broadcasted on that channel after it's release in cinemas, this would mean it would hit our target audience straight away and therefore could potentially cause them to go and buy their own copy of our film.

We'd show our film, 'Rediscovered', in Art House Cinemas, such as the Duke of Yorks Picture House Cinema in Brighton, this is because they are smaller and ticket prices are cheaper than that of the big cinema companies, therefore ticket would be more affordable so our film would be easier to see by our target audience who are young adults and so they may not be earning excessable amounts of money. As well as the fact that showing our film in an art house cinema means that it would be easier for our target audience to spend their leisure pound on seeing our film, it would also be cheaper for us to release our film in smaller, art house cinemas due to limited funding.
Our film would be screened in cinemas through digital copies of the film. This is down to many factors, but

Film reels like these are now outdated.

mainly it would be more cost affective then renting the film to cinemas in print form as it that could cost up £2000 per film print that is rented to cinemas, which would cost twice as much if the film is subtitled, and each film is 5-6 reels weighing about 25Kg each, this is clearly not cost effective. Digital copies are cheaper. But also, nearly all film distribution is digital now, as there are new methods of film production, it means there are also new methods of film distribution. This is also because more and more indie films are being made independently as the equipment in this day in age is very easily accessible and easy to use, along with it being easier to distribute films, for example, our smartphones can do all of this.
Films can now also be distributed digitally to the home and portable devices, there are many companies which people can download films from including Netflix, Lovefilm, Virgin, Sky, iTunes, YouTube and games consoles. An example of how much the film distribution has changed from heavy reels of film, is the film Pulp, a film released in 2013 that was the first film to only be distributed on a console, it was available to Xbox 360 Live customer at first and is about a comic book reader, therefore it targeted the typical audience of console users; 14+ males. Although it's not hugely successful, it is a great example of how technology is affecting the film industry, and therefore we should take this example as a good reason to also distribute online.

Here's the 'Pulp' move trailer:

As well as that films are now targeting online audiences with the above example, in our group we also considered the recent TV habits of viewers to help us make a decision whether to distribute online aswell:

• 27% of smartphone owners watch live TV on it.
• 5million Apple TV boxes were sold in 2012.
• 63% of tablet owners use it to watch live TV.
• In 1950 350,000 homes had a TV
• Then in 2003 there were 2.03 TVs per household
• Now, in 2012 there were 1.83 TV sets per house - however, there are now many other devices to watch TV on; smartphones, tablets, computers, games consoles.

After these statistics, we decided it would be best to also distribute the film on an online platform, as for example, there are nearly 30 million Netflix subscribers, and having our film on this site would mean it is available to even more people. And so distributing to LoveFilm means that our film could be seen more than if it just went from cinema to DVD, even though LoveFilm doesn't have as many subscribers as Netflix, Lovefilm is being renamed Amazon Prime Instant Video, and therefore the fact that Amazon is globally a well-known company this will still be popular, possibly even more now.

We can't forget advertising our thriller film. As advertising is key. And so we would target our target audience by advertsising on social media sites, such as Facebook, with the column at the side of ads, as well as advertise on social media, we will create scoial media pages for our film on Twitter and Facebook, the most used social sites in the world, and promote our film by getting recognisition through social media, this could then cause word of mouth to spread, and our film being wanted to be seen more and more people.

Along with social media, we will use adverts. TV adverts and posters are common forms of advertising. We could play the trailer of our film in ad breaks on channels such as Channel 4, but we could also play our thriller film trailer on YouTube ads before viewers the video they have selected, and on ad breaks on online catch up services on Channel 4oD and ITV player. As tablets, laptops and smartphones are being used more and more, and the number of TV sets in a household is decreasing due to this, ignoring online advertising oppurtunites would seem stupid as it could help increase sales of our thriller film.




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

We decided on our target audience, as a group, because we started storyboarding and filming our own thriller.
Our target audience consists of social classes B, C1, C2 and D, this is due to the fact they'd have disposable income, even if only a little, but enough to spend their leisure pound on the cinema, and therefore we decided as they would be the typical classes going to the cinema, we'd target and try to appeal to them in our film. As well as these social classes, we decided to aim to appeal to the audience of an age between 15 and 24, as we thought that this was the age group most interested in the thriller film genre, and therefore, the audience who would be more interested in our film. After deciding on the age group of our target audience, we decided our thriller would have a 15 rating, after we also looked at the British Board of Film Classification's website.
Obviously, we wanted to appeal to our target audience, and suit them with our thriller film, and so we always considered them when designing our story board, because we wanted them to be able to relate to the character as being similar to them. I believe we did this through our characters costume, as it was very plain but nothing expensive or designer as leggings and a jumper is something everyone owns and so they could recognise the character as being similar to them in class, as well as the costume, the setting also reflects the similarities between our audience and our character, as this family home looks very typical to that of a working or middle class family home, and therefore the audience can see that our character isn't any different to them, hopefully this then appeals to the target audience as they see something unexpected happen to someone just like them.













As a group, we then looked on the Pearl & Dean website to find any other movies that were similar to ours that our target audience might also enjoy. We looked at a film called 'Magic Magic' and felt this was the best comparison to our own film. As well as it also being a thriller, the storyline follows a similar line to ours, as in 'Magic Magic' the characters mental well being is changing and in our thriller, the characters mentality is put on strain, therefore I believe that both films follow the typical conventions of a thriller as something dramatic happens to a normal person who the audience can relate to.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

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

I answered this question by creating a Prezi presentation. To view that, just click the link below the image:

 

http://prezi.com/wxu5g9bns75e/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy 

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

Before the preliminary task, I had very little knowledge of filming to create a film, and even less knowledge of  editing, therefore, the preliminary task meant that I was able to learn new skills and develop my knowledge on filming and editing before I created my thriller film opening.

In the preliminary task, we had to present our ability to use continuity rules when filming so that our film would be successful and as professional as possible, in doing this I learnt continuity techniques used in filming that I didn't know before:

• match on action
• shot/reverse shot
• 180 degree rule

After learning what these techniques invloved, I felt confident that I knew how to use them all correctly in my own filming. 

In the preliminary task, my group decided to use the scenario of a police interview, and during the filming of this, we used all continuity techniques that we learnt in this short clip.

To show we that we learnt how to use match on action effectively, in the preliminary task we filmed her opening the door from a long shot, then cut to a close up of her doing the same action. I think we successfully showed this technique in the preliminary task, and therefore we decided we would film the same action as match on action in our final thriller opening product. To do this, we filmed the long shot of our character opening the door then the close up of her opening the door, and in editing we cut them together where the door was in the same position in the last shot so the action matches. i think in both tasks it looks very professionally done and we made sure we were as precises as possible. The result of this technique is effortless to watch and it's easy to see the close up shot is continuing from the long shot. Although we filmed both shots for this, we wouldn't have been able to create this match on action without knowing how to cut in Final Cut Pro, we learnt how to do this in the preliminary task by just making ourselves familiar with software, when it cam to making the thriller opening, we knew how to do this and we were able to cut shots quicker and better, therefore I feel I learnt the software well thanks to doing the preliminary task.

Here is the match on action we did in the preliminary task (above)

 And here is the match on action we used in our thriller opening (above)

In the preliminary task, we were taught that we should film a 'sandwich' (rolling, speed, action), before the shot, however, I think we didn't do this effectively in our preliminary task as after cutting shots, our footage came up too short in length because we didn't create enough of a sandwich in the shots. However, we did learn from this, and so when filming our final product we made sure we always made a sandwich before hand and cut after a few seconds of the action finishing, as well as filming extra shots that we hadn't out in our animatic, so that when it came to editing the film, it wouldn't be too short like in the preliminary task, and it worked. We had more than enough footage for our final thriller opening and we didn't need to use the extra shots we took. Although our shots, when edited, came to the length on two minutes, we hadn't considered that adding titles would add more time and we had to to cut a few bits off of shots so that the clip now wouldn't be too long. I think this happened because we didn't include titles in our preliminary task so we didn't think about the added time it would be until we edited all the shots, but we came across this and our final product was the right length pf time, with all shots and all titles.

Although we learnt that composition of the shot in mise en scene was important to the the finished product and in our preliminary task we took all the posters down from walls, we did, however, leave our post it notes on the desk when we first filmed, they were in the frame and unfortunately we only noticed when we came to editing. And so we went back and filmed that shot again, with the post it notes not the desk, and we took the bad shot out and replaced it with the new one. after this happened, we were very when filming our final product  to be aware of what it is the shot, and this mistake didn't happen again.

Here is the mistake shot.

And here is the correct shot we re-filmed.

 

 

 

 

 

 I think the most important knowledge I learnt from doing the preliminary task was how to use the software. Knowing this meant that we were successfully able to edit all shots very well, including desaturising colour, as well as editing the sound so it all flowed. Without knowing this the editing of our final product would have taken alot longer and possibly woulnd't have beeen so good as we wouldn't have been able to practise in the first place. 

Overall, the preliminary task was very helpful in teaching us all we needed to know to edit and create our successful thriller opening, I'm also glad that we made mistakes before making our final product so we learnt from this and knew what to do when it came to making our film opening.

Thriller Evaluation - Natalie Sergeant

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

In the thriller opening we wanted to stick with conventional methods that are used in traditional thriller movies of today. With research into other thrillers (as seen in this post) we where able to learn and develop forms that are used with real media products. We decided to use Todorov's theory of narrative and in the opening researched used a equilibrium such as Silent of the Lambs with a woods.

         

          

When looking at both our thriller and Silent Of the Lambs we wanted to have a environment that would be used often in their daily lives, Clarice having a job and our protagonist walking the dog. With the scene of a wood it gives the audience a uneasy feeling as woods are often connected to bad events occurring, even though we know with Todorov's theory in the introduction we are only introduced to the problem in the first step.

The forest implies more tension with the fog adding to the atmosphere making it harder to see and connects to the audiences confusion. We wanted to create a similar effect but knew it would be impossible to create a foggy atmosphere so we wanted to recreate the lighting used (as seen in this post). With the lighting and the setting we are using conventional thriller techniques in our own product.

To help achieve our final lighting effect to be more similar and have the atmosphere we deiced to add some post-production editing.

                               

The post-production editing we used was desturated color a similar effect has been used in Sin City. Though in Sin City this has been to esentuate the comic book style it also give a bleached out world with less colors, it makes the piece more serious.
                                       

                    

Another similarity between Sin City and our thriller is the use of restricted narration, that is a frequently used to create enigma to engage audiences within the thriller industry. Sin City used restricted narration as we don't know fully the relationship of the two characters giving hints but never the full story. This interests the audience to know what will happen next and always asking questions due to the characters kissing on moment and then the male shooting the woman next.

                                

We used this technique in our thriller as we never reveal to the audience what it is that the girl has found under the bridge and distraught her so much so creating enigma and forcing the audience to carry on watching to reveal the full story.In our thriller we wanted for our main character to be of a young age to hold the image of innocent. We felt that ever day clothing would be suitable for our actor that would be sensible for the setting they where being placed in. We looked into colors representation and see that white is more signified innocence so deiced that this would be a subtle color, such as Sin City with a red dress to show temptation.

            


             

 From the thriller opening we could see the representation of innocents by the thriller to be surrounded in bright colors of pink and white and having her hair down when compared to her mum with it up. We then experimented with different clothing and hair (as seen here).

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our main character that we selected for our thriller is a 11 year old girl that resides in the south of England in residential area. Her character is to represent innocents of that age as the color of her clothing, being white but also her body language and the use of high angle shots show a representation of young female characters being weak in thrillers. This innocents is used often to attract the sympathies of the audience but also to cause connection due to being of similar age. We researched into the representation of young females in thriller movies by looking at Lovely Bones and saw connections from our own thriller within it (as seen here).

Gender

Our character fits the stereotypical vales of femininity within thriller and seen in general values. This can be from her representation of vulnerability, such as at the end of our open we see the character crying, this is classed as a more emotional state as it is seen that men don't cry and is seen in a negative way but with women it is just assumed because of femininity.

In the beginning we decided to have these strong femininity values for our characters not just to represent the experience that the character has gone through or as they are seen a common characteristics make it easier for all audience to identify with the character due to assumptions but to the tackle these values later in the thriller. Due to seeing our character in such a weak and negative way in the begging it allows to combat these values later on within the thriller.

Age

Not only does our character being a girl help represent her as innocents but also age. We original planed to use an older actor but felt that this made it harder for the audience to feel sympathy and what to become protective. Also didn't want to young of a character so that the audience would be unable to relate to in some way.

Class and Ethnicity

A main factor of what class and ethnicity was due to the actor, we needed someone who could work well with in our own scheduled. With ethnicity a majority of people within the UK are of white British ethnicity so this might allow a better connection to the audience but over all the ethnicity was not a huge factor as any other ethnicity could of been used and not had a effect of the thrillers over story line.

This is the same as for class, our character is from a middle class homing as can be seen from the setting shoots and her clothing. Middle class is also the target audience that we are aiming our thriller at so by having a middle class character could make her more relatable and more sympathetic than other classes such as upper class.

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

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We decided on our target audience for out thriller to be in social classes B, C1, C2 and D. This range of groups is to attract more people to use their pleasure pond as cinemas is not too expensive. This chose is also because of the actor being within these class causing a relation between both.

Our targeted age group is from 14 to 24, as not only will be appealing due to the actor being of similar age but also because this age group is more interested in going to movies and has more free time to enjoy pleasure/social activities. Due to the age that we have decided the thriller will be a 15.

We will have a 50/50 split on targeting at male and female viewers, this is as traditionally thrillers are seen to be viewed more by male viewers, we notice from our research of Magic Magic that by having a young female protagonist is attracts more of a female audience (as seen here). 

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

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


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

I felt that from the preliminary task we learnt a lot about not only filming but also being prepared more for filming. With the preliminary task we learnt to maintain continuity by using the 180 degree rule, shot revers shot and match on action.

I think that a technique that has strongly influenced us is the match on action that we learnt while doing the preliminary task. We shot a scene where it goes the the characters hand when opening the door. We then decided to recreate this same scene in our thriller. By trying this out first in out preliminary task we where able to understand how to keep that continuity by filming more of the scene that you are expected to use. Also not only concentrating on match on action from a viewing point but also sound, with the use of sound-bridges we where able to do another scene where jeweler is place on the table and the sound carried of through the clip.

Due to doing experimenting with these techniques in our preliminary task we where able to preform the with ease in our thriller opening from being able to practice it before doing it properly and finding the best method in creating the scene we wanted.

A faulty that we made when we where filming our preliminary task was to leave objects in the frame, these objects were our story board notes what we had left on the table and where only in one shot so it lost continuity. When editing we noticed this mistake so deiced to re-film the piece (as seen here).  By re-filming we had some difficulty in making the scene almost identical to keep continuity. I made sure not to make this mistake again in our thriller as we would have difficulty re-filming shots due to time. So by making this mistake in our preliminary exercise it made us more careful in making sure that unneeded objects where out of the frame.

Another mistake that we made with our preliminary task is that due editing changes to keep continuity our footage didn't reach the needed time of 1 minute as being only 33 seconds (as seen here). From this mistake we deiced that when doing our story board we will make sure that we go over the 2 minute time limit as some of the shoots may be shorter than we think. Also on filming to create more extra footage just in case it was need to make the whole 2 minutes that was needed.

Another skill that I have learned from the preliminary task is in using editing software of Final Cut Pro, as I had no experience in it before hand. By doing the preliminary it aloud for me to make mistakes and learn how to use and experiment with the software without to much worry such as being to cut shoots to also learning how to export the video onto the blog.