Captive - AS Media Final Piece

Thriller Evaluation

Thriller Evaluation

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

The opening to a thriller is a vital part of a thriller film. They tend to show everyday life and some form of title sequence, this is usually bold and stands out or layed over the top of the video footage. We challenged the first convention by only showing a glimpse of everyday life before turning the characters life’s upside down. We stuck by the second convention by overlaying our titles over our video footage.

        Also in a thriller victims tend to be female and the villainous lead tends to be a male. We stuck by this convention; this can be seen in films such as 'Psycho' (Alfred Hitchcock) and 'Last House on The Left' (Wes Craven). Some films have challenged this and it worked, such as ‘The Orphan’ (Jaume Collet-Serra), but we decided sticking to this convention was the right thing to do for us. Another thing common in thrillers is the use of dull or bland colours, we stuck by this convention as well by avoiding using bold colours to create and eerie atmosphere, we used a couple of bold colours to make the main characters stand out, such as Daisy's purple cardigan and Rosie's black top, the two colours stand out from the background.

       We also challenge the boundaries of a thriller by having dialogue in the opening sequence as well as music and making our lighting bright instead of dim. We challenged the lighting because we wanted to show a different time of day to usually shown in thrillers.

How does your media project represent a certain social group?

Our media project represents the social group of teenage girls aged 16-19 well, as it shows the two girls walking together and shows the vulnerability the social group has. At an age where girls are given the freedom to go out into the world, dangers also face them. Our piece shows the vulnerability this social group gains with their freedom. Our other character isn’t seen enough for them to be classed as any kind of social group, but it could be argued that he represents males of the same age and how instead of vulnerability coming hand in hand with their independence, them being a danger to society does. This would imply that the girls represent society and the male a danger to it, following stereotypes in today’s media.

Who would be your audience for your media project?

The audience for a traditional thriller is people in their late teens to late twenties depending on the certificate. We are also aiming our project at this audience, because we feel like they are prime target. As you can see they aren’t the age group the go to the cinema the most, but this leaves the market for this audience wide open. We also feel like as we are a similar age to them we can relate to the need of this audience.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience by using two attractive girls as our stars and making them part of an age group that the audience are either in or have recently been in. The titles and colour create an eerie feel that we think will appeal to this audience. As we are using the same target age as the typical thriller target group, we studied films carefully to figure out how to attract an audience. We watched several film clips for inspiration and ideas, one that really appealed to us was the use of a female victim in ‘Psycho’ (Alfred Hitchcock).

Also we liked the use of the titles in the film ‘Se7en’ (Kyle Cooper). The titles were on top of the footage allowing the action to carry on in the background, using this idea we can show more of the storyline in our two minutes but still do the titles that are required. (See below for image of ‘Se7en’ titles)

Also we used a mixture of music at different speeds to show the different emotions through the project. We watched the trailer for ‘Last House on the Left’ (Wes Craven) to get this idea. Although it wasn’t part of the actual film the trailer has many different types of music that follow the emotions and pace of the film.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media project and why?

The kind of institution that would distribute my films could be EM Media or Pathe. Although EM Media aren’t a distribution company they do pick up films made in the East Midlands like this one and get them distributed. Also Pathe are a company well known for attaching themselves to British films and also horror or thriller films, such as this one.

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

When we did the preliminary task I didn’t fully understand the software we used and now I do. I think mine and my groups editing and planning skills have gotten better, it didn’t take us as long to make decisions and we spent a lot of time re-filming.

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

The cameras we used were Panasonic cameras and I was not familiar with this equipment. It took us a while to get used to the equipment but we had already used it in the preliminary task. The equipment quickly became easy to use.

          We also used 'Blogger' through-out the process to document our process. I had used this before  for personal use, but this was my first time using it formally. I had to adapt to using the layout more formally and spending longer on layout and adapting my language appropriately.

           The last piece of software we used was Adobe Premier Pro, we had also used this through-out the preliminary task, but not in as much detail as we did this time. We looked into slowing down and speeding up parts of the filming for effect. This took us a while to figure out how to do and perfect, but we quickly learnt how to do it and perfect doing it. 

Editing

Editing Day 1
Today we began to edit our footage, we started with the footage from the woods scenes as we knew all indoor scenes were going to be re-filmed. We uploaded our thriller to the computer and went trough each shot carefully deciding on speed of shot and what shots to use. We also had to give the piece an appropriate name. After this we started to cut the shots to get the parts we needed and make it look more professional. Further into the editing process we decided to add a cut reverse shot between a close up of the girls feet running and a long shot of the girls torsos running from behind. I think this is a good idea as it creates tension and adds atmosphere even before the sound is added.

Editing Day 2
On the second day of editing we put all our clips into "Adobe Premier Pro", this lesson we had to complete the editing and the title sequence. We had to fix minor changes, crop transitions and put music onto the video. After this the group continued to do credits.

Thriller First Draft

Conventions Of A Thriller

The Thriller genre normally would include the following conventions  

• A crime at the core of the narrative often murder, but not necessarily.
• A complex narrative structure, with false paths, clues and resolutions.
• A narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved.
• A protagonist who is systematically dis-empowered and drawn into a complex web of intrigue by the antagonist.
• Extraordinary events happening in ordinary situations.
• Themes of identity, of mirroring and voyeurism.
• Protagonist with a ‘flaw’ which is exploited by the antagonist.
• Titles often reflect an aspect of the pro/antagonist’s psychological state.
• There is often a scene near the end of the film in which the protagonist is in peril.
• Mise en scene which echoes/ mirrors the protagonist’s.
• Quick pace with camera movements and sound.
• Dark and dull lighting to create suspense and to give a sinister effect

Filming Schedule

Filming Schedule

Date: 4th March 2011

Location: Bramcote

Props needed String, Tape, 3 Chairs.

Actors needed: Myself, Rosie, Daisy.

Order of shots: We are going to film all of the outside shots first in an order which is easiest for us. We will then do the inside shots also in an order best suited to us.

Date: 14th March 2011

Location: Rosie's Garage

Props needed String, Tape, Chair.

Actors needed: Myself, Rosie, Daisy.

Order of shots: We are re-filming indoor scenes in a different environment as I first environment didn't look right.

Risk Assesment

Risk	To what/ who	Risk level and how to prevent the risk
Weather risks to camera-	The camera equipment	Medium risk We cannot prevent the weather however we will take precautions to protect the equipment such as umbrella’s and a protective casing for the camera.
Damaging the camera and tripod-	The camera equipment	Medium risk As we’re shooting within the woods Damaging the camera and tripod comes at a medium risk due to the fact it may fall over, having unstable surroundings. Ways to prevent this would be to make sure the camera is securely placed and screwed onto the tripod.
Losing equipment-	All equipment	Low risk Losing the equipment would be of low risk as it will stay in contact with one of use throughout the filming process.
Falling over during the running scene in the woods-	Cast and crew	Medium risk This is of medium risk as the woods have unstable grounds and surroundings, during the running scenes this may become a risk for either me or daisy. To prevent this we should walk through the area we are going to be shooting in and take away any hazards.

Thriller Further Planning and storyboarding

We have planned our piece further and made the storyboard. First we decided to brainstorm more ideas so that we can see what we would like to do with our piece, so that we may progress further.

 After this we discussed location even though our audience seemed to want a abandoned building predominantly, we decided for our idea using a woodland area, the second most popular choice, would be better for our idea. This allows us to create a more public eerie atmosphere. The fact that anyone could be in this public place gives us a reason for all characters to be there, and also as we are setting it at night it makes it more relatable to an audience, nobody lives in an abandoned house but most people have a woodland area somewhere in their town.

We have discussed actors/actresses and decided that the two damsels in distress should be female, this is to keep the the stereotypes of a typical thriller. We also decided to fit typical themes of a thriller we should use a male stalker, or villain. So we decided Daisy and Rosie should be the victims and I should be the villain.

Thriller Questionnaire Results

For research for the thriller we have done a questionnaire to find out what our target audience would be and what they would want from a thriller. The results are as follows:

1.Male or female?
Male- 6
Female- 4

2.How old are you?
10-20- 6
21-30- 3
31-40- 1

3.Do you enjoy watching thriller films?
Yes- 4
Sometimes- 4
No- 2

4.What is your favourite sub-genre?
Action thriller- 3
Mystery thriller- 3
Psychological thriller- 1
Crime thriller- 2
Medical thriller- 0
Sci fi thriller- 1

5.Where do you like opening scenes to be shot?
Woods- 3
Abandoned buildings- 4
Streets- 1
Rivers/lakes- 0
Unrecognisable places- 2

6.What should an opening scene consist of?
Crime- 1
Murder- 3
Mystery- 2
Abduction- 3
Other- 1

7.What type of shots do you like to see?
Short and fast paced shots- 4
Long and slow paced shots- 2
Action filled beginning- 1
Calm beginning- 0
Combination- 2
Other- 1

From our questionnaires we can see that our target audience is Men aged 10-20, only 2 of the people didn't enjoy. Our audiences favorite sub-genre appears to be Action Thriller or Mystery Thriller, based in abandoned buildings or woddland areas. Our audience also would like abduction or murder in a thriller. We also researched about the camera shots, more about pace but our audience want something face paces and shocking.

Thriller Planning and Storyboarding

Monday 7th 2011

Today we decided our groups for the thriller task, as Rosie, Daisy and Myself worked well together, we have decided to work together again. We started doing minor research into thrillers, looking for codes and conventions within the genre. We started to map out ideas and storyboard. We had decided on our final idea by the end of this lesson and also talked about locations for filming.

Thriller Research

 Seven

The opening sequence for 'Seven' (Kyle Cooper) has an eerie feel to it from the start. The music starts off soft and seems to build up as the sequence continues. The music is a series of electronic or machine-like sounds that makes the audience feel uneasy. The constant beat in the background gives the whole thing a clockwork feel as though the piece of cinema is going somewhere and is going to climax. About 58 seconds in the machine-like sounds are lost and sounds resembling wind are used, when this is done the same drum beat is still kept in the background. At 1:10 this drum beat fades further into the background as the music comes in harder and has more of a rock style to it over the top. This gives the audience a feeling of fear, as they feel they feel they are being attacked.

The images and titles in this scene also portray the eerie feel that the music does. The images flash between books, disfigured body parts and a man playing with machinery. This explains the music from before. Over this we have distorted text for the titles, as though someone has scribbled them on. Later we see a pen hovering over a book and certain words being crossed out, this is an unusual thing to do, and by doing something out of the ordinary an audience would feel out of their comfort zone.

Orphan

The music for the start of the 'Orphan'(Jaume Collet-Serra) starts off hard hitting and eerie. The music does not build, but rather keeps the audience at a constant state of worry. The change in the music is with the changing title, as titles change the transition matches with a noise. An almost flickering sound to go with a flickering transition pairs the two and takes the audience away from the normality of the child's drawings they see. Over the 'normal' children's pictures we see flicker things that are not seen as normal, such as the people are suddenly on fire, or are being stabbed with scissors. This makes the audience feel uneasy. Later we see a house full of people, that suddenly with the flickering sound is up in flames with the people dead. I think this opening shows a thriller perfectly, because it takes the normality of a child's drawings and turns them into something sick and twisted.

Preliminary Editing

Editing Lesson 1 

In this lesson we started to upload our film and edit it. Our first problem was that yet again one of our members was missing so we had to figure out who would do what with editing again, this was time consuming. We had decided to split it evenly and take it in turns to play around with transitions, titles and positioning.  After we had figured out who was doing what, we had lost our tape containing all our footage, so we spent part of the lesson finding this. Luckily we found the tape, but it was very time consuming.

After finding the tape we started to edit, this didn't take very long as we had decided as a group what we were going to do already.We had sorted out our transitions and cutting of clips in this lesson and only had titles and credits left to finish.

Editing Lesson 2

In this lesson we were yet again missing one member of our group as they have been failing to turn up for most of the preliminary task. Luckily we had nearly finished the editing. Between the 3 of us we played around with the different kind of titles and credits and how to use them. We also made slight changes to the footage such as, cutting parts and changing transitions.

In this lesson we didn't have a lot left to do, so we spent the majority of the lesson making changes and perfecting the preliminary task. This is our finished piece.

Preliminary Task Filming

Filming



Today we filmed our preliminary task. We had all four members of our group in today and we started filming, because one of our members was missing last lesson we first had to get the up to speed with what we were doing, this was a problem as it took time away from the filming process. Then we had to go and find our cast as this was overlooked in the planning process, another problem as it took more time away from the filming process. After we had our cast and had got everyone up to speed, we had to get the camera and go filming.

When we were filming we figured out certain things we had put in our story board wouldn't work so we had to change this quickly, this was a problem as we then had to discuss how to change it, without changing the storyline.

Preliminary Task Storyboarding & Scripting

Storyboarding & Scripting



In this lesson we started to storyboard in our groups, and because there was 4 of us and we only needed one storyboard we found ourselves disagreeing and some of us didn't have anything to do. Due to this we decided to create a script also. This allowed 1 person to work on a different task happening at that moment, although to do the script you had to be able to see the storyboard, this was another problem we had. Also one of our group members didn't turn up to this lesson, so we struggled to get everything done. The three of us that were there worked well and got everything done. We sorted out our storyboard out, each of us had great ideas such as, to do a romcom instead of just romance, to show a more comedic side, to make the main male a heroic figure trying to help the female and what should be said in the dialogue. We worked well together after this lesson I think that 4 in a group is too many people to work with.

Preliminary Task Planning

Planning

In the first lesson today we were given our groups and start to plan and mind map ideas. The first thing we had to decide was who we went with and how many people would be in my group. I chose to work with two people I have never worked with before in media and one other, as I felt that 4 was a good group size and the two I have previously worked with I worked well with. In my group of Ellie, Daisy, Rosie and myself. We have already decided on the genre of romance, after a long discussion. We played around with other ideas and one person didn't want to do this genre, which was a problem we came across, but we decided to go with a majority vote. We have done this because we feel that we will be able to represent it well. At this point I feel we have all contributed equal amounts and as we have been brainstorming all lesson, we have all contributed equally. In this lesson we have also gone over how to use the cameras and what we should be doing in the preliminary task.