Evaluation

I will state the exact brief of the thriller production given which my group and I were aiming to accomplish below:
‘Film: The opening sequence of a new thriller, including titles, aimed at 15 or 18 certificate audience (approximately two minutes in duration).’ This essentially means that we were aiming to film two minutes of a beginning section in a new thriller using our knowledge and creativity. This included using preparation, editing and camera skills.
I was chosen by my media studies teacher to study with Frances Coyne, Tom Newton, and Josh Gemmell.
Before we started discussing our ideas we agreed that our target audience should be aimed at both males and females aged 15 and over.


From our previous study we had numerous group discussions with our class to highlight all of the thriller theories and sub-genres (see reference to ‘Section 1: The Thriller Genre’). I have also researched into examples of media products by watching opening scenes of different thriller films and annotating them, so that I am familiar with thriller theories and sub-genres. This enabled my ability to compare the researched products with eachother and to assist my group with ideas for development in our thriller film (see reference to ‘Section 2: Research Into Examples of Comparable Media Products’). It not only helped in this way as it made me understand that to create an authentic thriller film it is important to use the conventions that are commonly associated with the thriller genre, and that it can be an advantage to include thriller theories depending on the target audience.
Our product had similar traits in comparison to distributed films such as our variable use of codes, conventions, graphics and sound which created a thrilling illusion for the audience.


Firstly, in our media class we decided to develop a brainstorm with basic ideas for our thriller film. This was an advantageous task for our group as each person was able to state their own ideas and it aided us with a stimulus for our sequence (see reference to ‘Section 3: Brainstorm of content and classification of film’). We then created a questionnaire containing 20 opened and closed questions, and each person in our group handed out 10 questionnaires. After we collected them in we tallied up the results and wrote a conclusion for each of the answers. This was done to aid us with ideas on producing our thriller film (see reference to ‘Section 4: Audience Research’). After much thought, we decided to focus on producing a film that was based on a middle-aged man who is seeking for a murderous revenge on a young girl. We examined the results from our questionnaires and agreed to use a clear, non-linear narrative, with very little dialogue. We also wanted to include the theories partial vision by showing only certain objects, such as continuously filming the villain from behind and hiding most objects using close ups which made the audience feel uneasy and question. We used the transformed city by setting our thriller in a modern house because we believed that it would create a realistic and therefore thrilling atmosphere for the audience and make them feel that the circumstances in our thriller could possibly even happen to them. We used concealment and protraction by using very little dialogue so that the audience are unaware of what is going to happen, and this is where the question and answer module comes in to our thriller also. We thought that it would be effective if we used different camera angles such as close ups so that the audience can see the character’s reactions, mid-shots so that the audience is able to understand where the character is and what they are doing, and over-the-shoulder-shots to conceal things, with panning and zoom features.


We started to work as a group on our synopsis and treatment, character outlines and script, location sheets, and our storyboard to organise ourselves and obtain more ideas and opinions (see reference to ‘Sections 5, 6, 7 and 8). We did this as a whole group and individually as we each chose a task to complete for homework and eventually started to shoot our sequence.


I believe that our thriller production was an enjoyable one, as we obtained good feedback, researched helpful media products and creatively used the techniques required to thrill an audience. It might have been more exceptional if we used more graphical effects to create more tension for the audience in the sequence because we only used thee different effects which were ‘ghosting,’ ‘fade to white,’ and ‘colour correction’ however the results from our questionnaires stated that more people wanted us to use a range of graphics. We traditionally used a male killer in our film and a protagonist female victim because we thought it would be more believable to the audience and the characters are represented by their clothes and hair. The man is represented and stereotyped as different and mysterious because he has blonde hair, which is an uncommon hair colour for males, and the girl is stereotyped as a normal, pretty teenager because she has her hair beautifully styled and she is wearing plain clothes. The man is taller than the woman so that it signifies his power over the small teenage girl. At the start of the beginning sequence the girl is washing dishes and is in the house alone – this suggests to the audience that she idolises her father and looks after the house for him. It could also suggest that she does not have a mother figure, so is taking on the responsibilities one. There are only two characters in our thriller as we thought that it would create more tension by having an almost desolate house being intruded by a stranger.


I would like to see our film possibly distributed on a film-makers website such as the high-populated and free of charge ‘YouTube’, which allows anyone to upload a variety of categorised videos (www.YouTube.com), or the ‘Flick Rocket’ website which is completely focused on distributing films and encourages others to buy them (www.FlickRocket.com). I would advertise to cause an escalation of the audience popularity. The reason for this choice is because I believe that for our first professional production our thriller was successful, however I think that it was not as up to standards in comparison to well-budgeted and professional distributed films such as ‘Hannibal Rising’. I believe that distributing ours on a website could be achieved because our production was logically pieced together, our audience feedback was positive, and we are more experienced with the camera functions and editing software which would enable us to create bigger and better productions.


Our target audience was originally for 15-year-olds as we did not use enough dialogue for there to be vulgar language, we did not include abuse or weaponry objects, and we also did not want to alarm a younger audience. I believe that after watching the entire beginning section, our target audience could be classed as a 12A, as strong language, racism, nudity, sexual content, violence, horror and drugs were not included. It would also appeal to a younger audience as the girl in our film appears youthful, thus making the audience worry that they are young and could possibly become in the same situation.


Throughout the planning of our production we created daily blogs on the website www.blogger.com, containing class dairies, notes and our official plans for the film in order for us to remain organised. We used Canon XM2 cameras which had understandable features because a tutorial was displayed to us highlighting the instructions to set the camera up and how to use its features. We managed to have a slight problem with the tape because someone in our group accidentally rewound it and filmed over a few shots, but fortunately we re-taped the shots and the damage was repaired. We also had problems with time because people in our group, the characters and the owners of the household which we filmed in had organised to be somewhere else, so we had to move at a fast pace. If we had more time we could have improved the shots and took more backup shots just incase, as we did have a problem with one of the shots on the sequence, where the character jumped from one position to another in the same shot. We used the ‘fade to white’ effect hide this problem, which basically fades the shot out in white to the next shot. We were unable to use a shot that we had planned to use in our storyboard because the reflection of the camera was visible in the lounge window, which created some problems so we had to change the position of the camera to hide this. This was important because if the audience could see the camera and operator it would be unprofessional, ruin the illusion of being a thriller and would appear to be unrealistic. I believe that the non-diegetic music we chose for the sequence worked well because it created an eerie effect to the piece, but it was difficult to film the diegetic music because we had to time the phone ringing perfectly and record numerous takes of it. We did not have any problems with costumes, as we asked the characters if they could wear the same outfits and hairstyles as they did on the first shoot so that it would not look like the characters were randomly changing clothes.


We edited our production on a program called ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’; with this we were able to include the titles displaying the title of the film, the cast, director, editor, camera operator and light and sound manager. We used bold, white text as we obtained high results for this on the questionnaire results. We also added special effects to make it eye-catching and entertaining such as ‘ghosting’ which makes the shot distorted, ‘fade to white’ which forces a flash onto the shot, and ‘colour correction’ which enables you to change the colour of the shot based on ‘RGB’. We added non-diegetic sound from a royalty-free website to the piece which worked well as it suited the action taking place, and we included the diegetic music whilst filming to save time. This was logical because it was difficult to obtain royalty-free music without charge from the internet. A few of us in the group found the editing program ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ confusing at first, however we became more experienced with it as we progressed.


I feel that during the preliminary task when we had to become groups of four, film someone walking through the door and having conversation with another person, my knowledge of basic media skills had escalated. This is because I had experience with the camera using a range of shots with a variety of camera angles and techniques, and I became very familiar with the editing software ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ as it shown me how to use different effects and how to edit filmed pieces properly. The entire process of the preliminary task had excited me for the upcoming full product. In the preliminary task we decided that we should set the scene in a DVD rental shop, and base it on a sales assistant and a customer debating over an unreturned DVD.


I believe that our thriller had good standards because of the aid from our preliminary task. It made us all prepared for filming and editing confidently, and made the majority of us become more comfortable working with others and being organised. Our regular use of shots used in the first task escalated into using a wider variety of them in our opening sequence. We have successfully achieved the terms of the brief as a group because we have filmed a two minute opening sequence of a thriller aimed at a fifteen or eighteen certificate audience, added titles and graphics. The majority of things worked well in our production, however I believe that our production fell short because we could have used more graphics and one of the shots had a jump cut which I was disappointed with. If we could improve on our production I would like to change some of the shots because I believe it would have been effective if we used a range of them.