Review for thriller

Comments which the thriller received:

"Whooa, okay, the way you filmed it could of been better cause the final product is distorted"

"Music builds up climax"

"Needed dialogue" 

"Plot is easy to understand"

"The music for it is really good, overall it's really good"

" Music sounds like nollywood, which is an African movie network"

"I liked the storyline, it kind of resembles Psycho in my opinion" 

"The scene in the alley way isn't edited properly I think" 

"The house scene is amazing, the cliff hanger on the stairs makes me want to see what's going to happen next"

"There wasn't any sound, there was only music, which I didn't really like" 

Thriller Mind Map

The mind map helped me to remember what our thriller was going to be about.

The idea of reality vs dreams would have the audience shocked when they realised that the scene in which the female victim is about to get caught was only but a dream. Personally I felt that this would make the audience want to see more if the thriller and not get bored.

To bring the reality vs dream to life, my group and I will be filming in a narrow alley way and due to our character being a young teenage character, I'm sure the thought if someone chasing her within a narrow alley way will certainly have an effect upon the audience.

I felt that if we kept the identity if the antagonist a secret then this would make a better storyline. Due to this only being the opening scene, it would be to early to give away certain details and the motive of the antagonist.

Introducing our Thriller: Stalker

Planning: Props

The Bracelet:

The bracelet plays a huge part within our thriller. The hold bracelet is worn by the antagonist throughout the alley way scene. 

As the antagonist is about to strangle the female victim, you see that he is wearing the gold bracelet. 

We needed to find a way to link the alley way scene and the house scene, so that the audience realised what is actually happening and seeing that the alley way scene was just a dream.

In the house scene as the female victim goes into her sitting room, she realises a gold bracelet which then reminds her of her dream, leading to her saying "This can't be real". This causes a dilemma which then leads the victim into disbelief, leaving yet again terrified and at the same time puzzled.

Mobile Phone:

During the beginning of the opening scene we decided to make our female character have a conversation to a friend on her phone. This was effective because this added to the stereotype of the female character being a normal teenage girl, who is distracted by modern technology. 

Research: Conventions of Characters

Thrillers normally represent a type of background when being filmed. When creating a thriller, distributions try to make the film as relatable as possible to normal everyday life, even if it's a futuristic film, the characters still face general problems.

Characters can be based upon:

Psychological Problems

Terrorism

Convicts

Spies

Normal Working Life

Sports

Drug Addition

Social Problems

Assassinations

Adventuerer 

All these things are thought about when a distribution is about to create a film. They use these to create characters and how the character is going to be represented.

Film Production

Within filming, there are three key processes when finalising a filming product.

These three processes are:

Pre-Production

Production

Post Production

Describing the three processes:

Pre-production

Pre-Production is the process in which the main script for the film is divided into frames within storyboards. After this is done, planning then has to be done; the filming location for the film will have to be found and safety checks will have to be carried out, ensuring that the location is safe to be film at, props will also need to be done, auditions will need to be carried out in order to find casting members and a director(s) will need to be found to direct the movie. This process is also where financial agreements will need to be set in order to find the filming project.

Production

This process is the time when the film is being created and captured.

This refers to the acting being film and editing certain scenes.

Post Production

This is the final process which will need to be done when creating a film. Post production is the task that must be executed after the shooting of the film ends. This refers to tasks such as editing footages and cutting scenes that aren't needed, inserting transitions, adding sound effects & music and adding subtitles (which will be needed for people who can't hear properly and need to read what the characters are saying).

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

Preliminary Task:

Our preliminary task was shot for 38 seconds. The key role of the short clip was to introduce us to the process of filming and editing. Another reasoning for doing the preliminary task was identify who would be best suited to be the camera person for our group, but even before, I had made up my mind that I would do the filming due to my experience with filming in the past. The preliminary was also used to manifest on and see what improvements would need to be done in terms of cinematography and our thriller.

Preliminary Task Video:

Areas in which I have improved upon:

Within filming, I am now able to film from different camera angles. I represented this parts if the thriller from different angles.

A camera angle shot in which I used was a birds eye view shot. Using a birds eye view allowed the audience to see the characters from directly above, allowing the audience to see what is happening in the scene clearly. 

I am also now better at capturing film movement. A Follow shot was used from behind the female victim as she slowly moved down the stairs, suspecting someone was in her home. This shot allowed me to show the audience what the character was moving towards and allowed the audience to share the tension with the character because just like her the audience is unaware of what is waiting ahead. Although we used different angles within the preliminary, I was able to experiment with other angles during the filming of my groups thriller.

I am now better at editing scenes for a film. I am able to add special effects to scenes, for example changing the quality of the background by manipulating light. Learning how to edit also allow me to merge different clips to make it all look like an full scene, rather than showing separate clips.

After editing the thriller we realised there was a few scenes that we didn't need. This showed that we improved upon our knowledge of editing and edited scenes to make them better and got rid of unwanted scenes.

Evaluation 6) What have you learnt about techniques from the process ofconstructing this media product?

What I've learnt:

I have learnt a variety of skills through technologies from the process of constructing a media product.

Firstly, I learnt how to film a thriller, using different camera angles and edits. Using different cameras doesn't only show different angles; it allows you to see characters responses and facial expression, which allows the audience to interpret how a character is feeling.

Constructing a media product also allowed me to use Blogger. Using blogger allow me to expand upon my knowledge on how to conduct research, planning for my thriller and also how to publish plans and research in which I carried out.

I was also able to learn how to edit scenes for a film. I was able to add special effects to scenes, for example changing the quality of the background by manipulating light. Learning how to edit also allow me to merge different clips to make it all look like an full scene, rather than showing separate clips.

Without Sony Vegas I wouldn't have been able to carry out the edits. Through YouTube I learnt how to do most of the little tweaks in which I needed to know in order to edit scenes within the thriller.

Evaluation 5) How do you attract and address your target audience?

Secondary Research:

In order for me to attract and addressed my target audience, I'm going to use secondary research. Secondary research is simply research that is being carried out with existing research. 

The reasoning for using secondary data is because the research allowed me to identify the conventions that are being used in the thriller, in order for it to appeal to the target audience. For instance, I used secondary research to research colours that have specific meanings and the colour black represents darkness (evil), so I used this for the villain.

My research also made me find out that my target audience were people from the ages of 15 and older and that there was a division between male and female (unisex). 

The emotions in which the audience will be feeling towards the thriller will be a mixture. For the first scene the audience will feel fear because they are in fear of what is going to happen to the female victim. As the scene progresses the audience is to feel the tension, as the antagonist is about to catch victim, but as she walks up the audience is going to feel relieve to see that it was only a nightmare. The emotion of the audience is mostly going to occur doing the action scenes, e.g. when the victim is running away from the antagonist.

After I carried out my questionnaire, it showed that:

My target audience would be: 15 and over

Gender: Unisex

Attracting Audience:

To attract my audience I create a questionnaire that would first of all determine who my target audience was going to be, then I asked them the type of that they prefer, psychological, revenge, obsession and crime. For the results we show that psychological had quite a few votes, but obsession seemed to be high in numbers also. Our group then tried to come up with a story line that would fall into both of these categories and would attract the target audience. 

Four Main Questions That Were Asked Within My Questionnaire:

In order to find out how we were going to find out our target audience and make our thriller attract them, we had to create a questionnaire. 

Within our questionnaire we asked them 10 questions. Within those 10 questions, 4 of these questions stuck out to me which would allow us to find our target audience.
The first question I had to find out was 'What theme do you prefer within a thriller?'. Knowing this would allow me to figure out what type of thriller my group was going to produce.

Another key question in which I ask was 'What gender do you think best suits the role of the victim?' between a male or female.
The majority of the answers drew towards the female, because they felt that a female could seem more vulnerable than a male.

Team discussion:

For our group I took pictures if us discussing and editing our thriller. These discussions were needed and helpful because it allowed us to recap on our blogs and see what we all needed to do as a group to enable our thriller to attract our target audience.

Evaluation 4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

Film Age Classifications:
U - Suitable for all
PG - Parental guidance
12A - Suitable for 12 year olds and older, with the supervision of parents/guardian
16 - Suitable for 16 year olds and older
18 - Suitable for adults only
Rated R - Licensed adults

These classifications have to be brought into consideration when choosing a target audience.

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

Evaluation 2) How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Group?

How does your media product represent particular social? from DwayneGrossett

Evaluation 1) In what ways does your media product use, developorchallenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The Task:

The task was to create a thriller opening about three minutes long, which maintains conventions and expectations if the film's genre. This should be the result of the research and planning that we carried out before we started the filming and editing process. We also had to use all of the micro-elements within our thriller product and ensure that we were following the conventions.

Generic Conventions of a Thriller:

Within the aspects of cinematography, conventions should involve: film shots, angles and movement. A convention for a thriller within cinematography is the use of a low angle. Low angle shots are used to show the superiority of the antagonist and makes this character look more frightening/intimidating to the audience than the other characters. 

Another convention that is used is a high angle which shows the inferiority of a female protagonist.

A close up shot is also another convention because it is used to identify the details of Iconography and the character.

Fast paced editing is also a convention due to the speed building up suspense and tension within the audience, for example a fast paced edit during a fight within an action movie, this would raise the tension within the audience, due to everyone being at the edge of their seats trying to see what's happening. For the Mise en scene the conventions would be weapons, such as knives,guns, etc and representations of violence, so that would be like blood.

Generic Conventions Within my Thriller

Cinematography - A shot that we did within our thriller was a close up shot if our female victim. Doing this allowed the audience to see the expression which was an the actors face and body language, letting the audience know how she is feeling. We also used a close up shot again on our actresses face when she woke up, letting the audience know that she has just woken up from a shocking nightmare. 

Editing - Slow paced editing is used to build up tension among the audience. This happened when you saw the victim fall on the stairs and the stalkers legs appear by the stairs door.  

Fast paced editing is used with our thriller whilst the victim is being attacked in the corner with a close up at the end. This allows the film to speed up and the tension within the audience rises because they are eager to find out what is going to happen.

Sound - The non diegetic sounds which we create gave the audience the impression of a mysterious type of thriller, which in some cases is correct due to the stalkers identity, age, reasoning for doing what he is doing, etc is unknown.

Mise En Scene:

Costume: The main colours that were worn were black, which represented the thrillers characters as being vague and mysterious. Whilst the victim had on a black coat she had on blue and grey trainers, whilst the antagonist mostly had a black.

Iconography: The iconography that is used in the thriller fits the the expectation of the audience.

A phone is used in the first scene as victim is being followed by the stalker, due to the stalkers psychotic state of mind. The female victim starts to have a conversation on her mobile phone, which then diverts her attention away from the fact that someone is slowing approaching from behind. This shows the significance of the mobile phone.

This iconography is also used in the film 'Matrix', where Neo and the rest of his entourage have to use their phones in order to exit danger whilst they in their parallel world. Although the phone is being used differently here, it still shows the significance of the phone. 

Setting: The setting fits expectations  of the audience in the terms of convention. The second setting which is at the female victims' house, fits the expectation because she lives alone in the house, so in some sense she will be isolated. As it is revealed in the first scene, it was only a nightmare, so the main action begins to take place within the house. This develops the convention of the thriller genre.

Conventions of a Target Audience:

The target audience response would be anxious and a it scared, not only from the scenes but for the female victim.  In thrillers, the generic convention will be for the thriller to appeal for 15 year old and older. The reasoning for this is because anyone under the age of 15 wouldn't be to relate to the themes of the thriller and wouldn't be in the age range to watch this content. When creating the thriller, we had to take this into consideration, so we had to carry out a questionnaire, so we knew who our target audience were and create a thriller that their age range would be interested in.

Planning Mise En Scene

Miss En Scene: mise en scene is the setting, body language/facial expression, probs & lighting. 

Mise En Scene For Stalker:

Within my thriller the Mise en scene will be used crucially used in each scene and used to make conventional to my thriller. 

Setting:

The setting will be within an alley way which is seemed to be hardly used and a house in which the main antagonist lives by herself. 

We choose these settings because it had an effect on the audience; due to the stalking starting in an alley way, this meant that this would most likely occur in normal day to day life. The house setting was chosen because it made the audience feel that the stalker had some sort of psychotic mind set and due to the girl living be herself, it made the audience fear for her.

Body Language/Facial Expression:

The facial expressions and body language of the female character will represent the way in which she will be feeling because she will be scared and agitated and making her in the process, vulnerable.

Location of Film:

Characters Representation

The character representation allows the audience to have a better insight to what the character is like. 

For the film to be conventional to it's chosen genre, the representation of the character has to meet the aspects if the genre and the expectations of the audience. 

Character ID

Characters Name: Tracy

Age: 16+

Gender: Female

Characters Representation: Victim

Costume 1st Scene: Black Coat, Blue Jeans & Black and Grey trainers

Costume 2nd Scene: Black jumper, White Top & Pink Trousers.

Hairstyle: Tied up in a bun

Role of Actor: To be followed and stalked by a mysterious man.

The audience will feel sorry and worried for this character as she is being followed in an alley way and getting tormented in her own home.

Character ID

Character Name: Unknown

Age: Unknown 

Gender: Male

Characters Representation: Stalker

Costume: Black Hat with the writing 'OVOXO', Black Sweater, Black Trousers, Gold Bracelet & Black shoes

Role of Actor: To follow the main character, stalked her & try to strangle her.

The audience will most likely not like this character because her is so isolated, he doesn't laugh or have a personality that stands out, but if the audience is looking for a physco then he'll most likely attract the attention of the audience.

As you are aware there are only two characters within the thriller. The analysis of the characters will allows the audience to have an idea in how the thriller is going to play out and understand what going on in each scene more.

As there are only two characters, the analysis allows us to focus on the characters more and see if we canmake improvements upon each character if needed. The analysis will also allow our group to know how we want each character to be represented.

Story Board

A storyboard is the graphical representation in which we want our thriller to look like, it is basically our thriller written on paper first, a plan.

A storyboard shows each movement that will be taking place within in a film production. 

Our storyboard helped us to have a visual aim letting us know what we intend for our thriller to look like and not create our thriller from memory, which could cause us to film incorrect scenes that aren't relevant to the thriller. 

This benefits our group because it allows us to know what to film and how to film each scene, without having to remember scenes from imagination or making it up as we go along, so in others words it makes us prepared.

The main features of a story board such include:

Camera Shots

Locations

Transitions

Lighting 

Costumes 

Probs

Narration 

Story board:

Production Roles

There are seven crucial production roles that are needed for the process of filming.

Firstly, there is the camera man/woman. The Camera man/women, sometimes there being more than one, is the person who films the scenes through the directors eye, meaning the director has to explain in full detail how the scene needs to be filmed and what needs to be done.The presents of the director is very important because the camera person will want to get the correct film shots,angles and movements.Some of the camera persons' roles involve creatively framing and capturing action as well as liaising with lighting staffs.

Director: Film directors are the people in charge of filming. A director has the authority to have the product being filmed, be established in their image. 

In order for a film to be successful, the director must have an creative mindset/vision.

Producer: A producer controls the budgeting and financing of a film by presenting the product to investors. Producers also supervise the making of a film.

Editor: An editor is responsible for cutting, inserting music with dialogue and creating the finishing touches to a film, for example, special effects.

Location Manager: The task of an location manager is to find locations for each scene and finding places that would best represent the scene and ensuring that the scenery is safe and that the filming crew have permission to film there if nessessary.

Actor/Actress: An actor/actress has to play the role that has been asigned to them by the director, who has chosen them because they can play that specific role. The collaboration between the actor/actress and the director is essential because the director can give the actor/actress instructions in what to do in front of the camera for a better end result. 

Lastly, there is the Sound Technician.

The sound technician is there to operate the technical equipment than enhances and reproduce (mimic) sounds. Each seen that has sound will be produced by the sound technician to effectively magnify the edits and scenes.

The role of a technician is vital for production and post-production because the are many activities in which a sound technician are featured in.

 

Research Cinematography

What is Cinematography?                

Cinematography is the art of motion picture photography. It is the technique of movie photography, which includes both the development and shooting of  a film.
Cinematography sees the way a camera shot is going to be framed,how the camera angle is going to be taken and the movement of the camera itself. Cinematography gives the characters different representations in order for the reaction of the audience to differ from each character.

Camera Angle:

There are different types of different camera angles and each one has a different effect.
High angle shots can make a scene more dramatic by simply just looking down at the object and can have an effect on class and status, for example, if the camera is showing someone standing over someone, it will show that the person below is lower than the higher person in class & status.
Low angle shots are efficient because it can used to symbolise the superiority of a character.

Camera Shot:

There are different types of camera shots, such as: a mid shot, a close up, an establishing shot, point of view shot, etc.

Firstly, there is a close up shot. A close up shot is when the camera is tightly framed to capture an object, mainly a characters face. Doing this will allow the audience to have a sense of how the character is feeling, due to his/her's facial expression.
An establishing shot shows the overview of a object, city (the scene), which shows the location and the settings. This is normally used an the introduction in order for the audience know what the scenery is.
A mid shot shows some part of the subject in more detail while giving an impression of the who subject.
And lastly, an point of view shot is basically showing the situation from the characters point of view, which allows the audience to see exactly what the character is seeing.

Camera Movements:

Camera movement plays a big part in the making of film or video. It plays a key part in directing the audience's attention because the camera moves with the object or the character with the frame. There are different definitions of camera movements and they are defined by the camera movement.
Pan movement: is when the camera moves horizontally, left and right.
Dolly movement: the camera is escalated on a a cart which then travels along tracks for a very smooth movement.
Zoom Movement: the camera doesn't move, but a change in the lens focal length makes it look like the camera is moving in closer.

Planning Preliminary Task

Purpose: The purpose of the preliminary task is for my group to introduced the aspects of filming, in terms do cinematography and editing.

Scenario: The scenario in which we created is two students having a conversation about football and what they think about current players, such as Frank Lampard. 

Roles For The Preliminary Task:  My task for the preliminary task, was for me to film (be the camera man). I had to use different camera angles for each scene. This means that I am most likely to take on the role of the camera man for my groups filming. Blaise and Darrell (a pupil in my media class) will have the roles of acting out the scenario for the preliminary task. Although Blaise is going to be the actor for the preliminary, he will be the 'Location Manager' and Divinia will be doing the music and directing.   

Difficulties: The difficulties for our preliminary task was that we only had a day to film it, due to us being behind task due to our broken camera and having to re-film everything.

Benefits: The preliminary task has been beneficial because it gave us knowledge in how to use cinematography and everyone in the group got more knowledge in their assigned area which they had to do and gain experience.

Research: Questionnaire

Questionnaire:

For my primary research I decided to come up with a suitable questionnaire that will be useful to create data. This will be used in order for me to identified my target audience. A questionnaire will need to be carried out in order for me to know what the audience is interested in and what I'll need to have in my video; and I asked 20 people to do the question.

I intend for this questionnaire to be aimed at 15 years and older because that age range is the age in which you're allowed to start watching thrillers within cinemas.

1) What is gender your?
Male
Female

2) What is your age range?
7-10
11-16
17-24
25+

3) What theme do you prefer within a thriller?
Revenge
Psychotic
Obsession
Crime

4) What is your favorite Sub Genre?

Crime

Political

Erotic

If other state:

5) What gender do you think best suits the role of the victim?

Male
Female

6) What type of things do you like to see in your thrillers?

Weapons

Supernatural Power

UFO Type Of Weapon

Physical Fighting

7) What sort of editing do you prefer?

Fast Paced

Slow Paced

8) What setting do you prefer within a thriller?

Abandoned Building

Public Area

Spooky House

Forest

9) What type of Thrillers do you prefer?

Modern

Classical

10) What gender do you feel plays a better victim?

Male

Female