question 7

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

Looking back at our preliminary task I thing we have learnt and progressed a lot in the way we filmed and edited our footage. When we made our prelim we were practicing using shot types, angles and editing in sound and transitions. We managed to effectively use the 180⁰ rule throughout our prelim. This was important practice as it would be an easy mistake to make in our thriller opening. we used many techniques we had practice in our preliminary tasks. 

we especially used continuity because without it our thriller video wouldn't have flowed as well as it did. it would also have been harder to show certain action such as opening doors and getting into the car, if we had not taken the continuity into account.

We took into account the 180⁰ although the majority of our footage was of one person. we still made sure that the direction the victim was walking in matched in each shot and that the audience knew which side of the car the victim was sitting in.

http://prezi.com/2tiyrpdvbo6_/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

question 6

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

After filming our media video we have learnt a great deal from using the equipment and experimenting its full potential to editing our footage together effectively. We also learnt a lot form filming our preliminary task, we were able to spend a few lessons learning and exploring the equipment and its limits, we also explored different shot types and angles, carefully taking into consideration the framing and composition.

During filming our thriller we used many different camera angles, we were lucky enough to use our own camera which produced very high quality footage for us to work with. This allowed our opening to be very detailed. The positioning of our camera had to clearly show the audience that the one visible

character was vulnerable or being intimidated. We achieved this by using long shots to introduce the victim this helped to create a sense that the victim was being followed or watched. We also used intimidating high angled shots looking down on the victim to make him appear smaller and weak. When we came to edit together our film we used quite quick changes between shots to emphasise the speed of the attack and “death”. We chose not to include the killers face in the shots to create a sense of mystery.

When we came to edit our footage together we played around with a few different sequences. We didn’t want to display the footage as we had filmed it so we shuffled the original footage around combining the running and the car scenes. By the time we had reshot our thriller we decided that we only wanted to include the car scene so we mixed the titles in with the footage of the car scene and the strangulation.

To edit our film we used software called iMovie. This software is specially designed for editing films. We used it to put together all the footage and music we had collected and sourced. To create our ident we overlapped a visual of our production name in a space themed background with the sound of a canned drink being opened. We made the ident in iMove as well as iMovie was the main editing software for our feature.  We used the image of space to illustrate that we want our productions to be original, “out of this world”, we also used the non-diegetic sound for a similar reason. The sound is of a drinks can being opened, this emphasises our new ideas being opened in our films. The name of our production team has been inspired by our comical use of a banana instead of a gun in our preliminary task.

question 4

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

We have made our thriller to appeal to a target audience of people between the ages of 16 and 23. We wanted to target people studying Media or film or for people with a passion for older films and thrillers. This is because media students can appreciate the techniques used in the film for their own entertainment and the storyline that we have is a fairly complex one and needs people with a fairly high level of attention and education to understand our chosen themes as we have used quite adult topics such as espionage and murder. The film is aimed to appeal more to males as well; this is because of the violence in the film. Espionage films we have studied such as James Bond and the Bourne trilogy are more targeted at a male audience than a female one because of the level of violence and action.

 

 

Demographic	Answer
Gender	Male
Age	17-20
General Interests	Media, film, editing, music
Media Usage	social networking sites and Video cameras, video gaming
TV interests	Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Sherlock,
Films interests	The Machinist, The Bourne Trilogy, James Bond, Tarantino films
Music Preferences	An open opinion music, mainly rock and indie
Multi-Media Use	Social networking. Web-surfing Editing software Netflix/Lovefilm Television
Other Film Genres	Action, Comedy, Horror, thriller
Sub-Genre of Thrillers	Psychological Thriller, Horror, Thriller, Action Thriller

 

question 3

Question 3 what kind of institution might distribute your media project and why?

Our production name is “Yellow Gun Productions” this name was inspired by our preliminary task in which we used a banana as a gun, for comic effect. As we worked in the same group of people for our prelim and our thriller production we wanted to link the projects. Our Ident has been inspired by our preliminary video and the ident used by Universal, because the universal ident is also set in space this shows that their films are worldwide which we also aim for, worldwide acknowledgement.  As well as our production team name we inserted a non-diegetic sound of a drinks can being opened. This sound is to symbolise our team opening with new ideas.

We have looked at various film distributors and we decided as a group that universal suited as the most appropriate distributor for our genre of film to be associated with. Other distributors such as Disney didn’t quite fit for our thriller as Disney mainly makes films aimed at a younger audience whereas our film would be aimed at people above the age of 15.

 

 

We also found inspiration for our ident in the TriStar ident, TriStar also use a bright light to reveal their logo at the end of their ident. This is an effect we have also used to reveal our production team name. Although we were inspired by what larger companies have created as idents we had to adapt our inspiration to fit the scale and budget of our thriller. Where some companies film then manipulate their footage to create their ident we made ours completely using computer editing.

 

What a production company does; 

The production company assists in the making of a film. The company will be in control of such roles as; budgeting, casting, scripting, scheduling and much more. The production company are also responsible however for anything going wrong, for example an actor being injured or someone’s property being damaged.

As we were limited with the amount of people in our group we shared each role. This helped our group because we all took responsibility for the whole film.

Credits; list of jobs that would be shown in the credits in order as follows:

·         Director

·         Screenwriter

·         Producer

·         Executive Producer

·         Director of Photography

·         Film Editor

·         Composer

·         Costume Designer

·         Visual Effects Supervisor

·         Casting Director

·         Cast

 

question 2

Question 2. How does your media product present particular social groups?

The two main characters we included in or media production were; the victim and the killer we portrayed these social groups through the use of costume and lighting and camera angles.  We were inspired greatly by characters in films such as Drive and the liability. We didn’t want to give away too much about the characters in the opening in order to keep the suspense and mystery running through our thriller.

To emphasise the role of the victim we used mainly high angle shots to make him look intimidated and smaller and a few long shots which also made him look small as well as emphasising that he was alone. Although we wanted to show that the victim was innocent we also wanted to create a look that he victim was also a spy, we achieved this by taking inspiration from similar films such as James Bond, where the “spy” character wears smart casual suits in typically dark colours. To represent the role of the killer we wanted the identity to remain a mystery so we used shadowing, dark clothing and accessories to hide their face. To control the shadowed lighting we positioned the car in a semi lit car park, we also then put a filter over the footage as a part of the editing process, over all this helped to add more shadow over the “killer”.

question 5

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

After carrying out questionnaires around our media classes we were able to find out the sorts of people who would be interested in watching our thriller. Following our questionnaire research we targeted the compatible people who returned our questionnaires, this allowed us to get a response from people who enjoy and understand our chosen genre and theme.

Ways of attracting an audience;

·         Posters

·         Advertising eg; bill boards, newspapers, leaflets/ flyers

·         Talking between social groups- word of mouth

·         Questionnaires

·         Sharing trailers of the film

·         Social networking- posted on YouTube/ Facebook sent to friends

We fulfilled our audience’s expectations by sticking to their preferred genre. After studying the questionnaires we found most people would enjoy a thriller with suspense, mystery and action. We tried to combine these elements into the opening to really capture our audience’s attention. Our audience responded to our opening positively although many people suggested the acting could have been a little better! We also received comments about making the music more like a heartbeat linking with the image of suspense for the victim. One person suggested that once the victim had been killed a non-diegetic sound could be inserted of a deafened tone implying that the victim had died and was unable to hear. Along with a hear beat slowing to a stop the use of these sounds could have been quite effective.

To attract an even wider audience we sent links to our thriller opening, video, to friends and family. I then asked for their feedback. By each of the members in our group sending the link around more people watched it and passed it on, this helped our media video gain in views and popularity. We were then also able to have wider range of feedback. I sent the link to some of my school friends and my family (who live abroad) so that I could have a broad range of feedback. I think this was an effective way of attracting and addressing an audience  because I started by showing people I know and it was then passed onto many other people I don’t, this allowed our feedback to also be un-bias because our audience didn’t feel obliged to only be positive in case of jeopardising a friendship/ or relationship.

question 1

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

Similar genres/ sub-genres; Espionnage, crime.  

Audience’s expectations;

·         minor key music, death, old era

·         Conventions; low angled shots, minor key music, time relevant mise-en-scene i.e.; cars, clothing etc.

Inspired and influenced by: double indemnity ( character roles/themes/era), tinker tailor solder spy ( costume/themes/characters) The liability ( car scene)  Quentin Tarantino (music/editing)

 

We were set the task of creating the opening to a thriller, with a sub-genre of our choice. We tried to create a dystopian view of the Second World War. We gave the audience the point of view from both the victim and the killer. The thriller conventions that we used were not stereotypical conventions of an average thriller. We tried to break these conventions in order to surprise our audience even more and to have a new take on the genre, our opening has been quite heavily influenced my films directed by Quentin Tarantino, such as pulp fiction and Kill Bill.

We developed from the modern music mixed with violence we heard in Quentin Tarantinos films and used a similar idea and style in our media film. Our thriller opening is  inspired by the music choices in these films because although they didn’t fit in with the music people would expect to hear, in the genre of thriller or crime, the music still emphasised the mood and the themes in the film. The music we used in our thriller helped to build and emphasise the mood by the main chorus overlapping with the action, of the victim being strangled.

 

Thrillers can be defined as being a realistic film or play usually based around crime; typically thrillers involve a death of a character, death could then lead into a subgenre of a mystery, forensic or crime thriller. Most thrillers are set in big cities or well-known places people could relate to. Other subgenres of thrillers are:

  Our thriller is based on the sub-genre of espionage and crime; we were also hoping to create a post-modern genre similar to the films created by Quentin Tarantino. By using music that would not usually be associated with the thriller genre we have tried to re-create a similar theme as we have seen in many of Tarantinos’ films.  Although the music we used, Non Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf, did not fit in with the stereotypical music used or expected to be heard in a thriller we still made the strong beat and French lyrics fit, I think the timing of when we started the music. We synced the music with the visual action of harry starting the car, the radio tunes in as the car starts, the music also begins when the main action in the opening happens. We  The main reason the music worked was because it is so powerful, it also fit the theme of our thriller being set in France as the whole song is sung in French.

 

Conventions:

·         Duel Narrative

·         Flashbacks

·         Fade To Black

·         Quick change between shots

·         Cut away shots to details i.e.; weapons, victims

·         Extreme close ups

·         Long shots

·         Shadowed framing

·         Music in a minor key

·         Pulsing music eg; heartbeat, sudden build up

·         Male killers

·         High angled shots=weak

·         Low angled shots =intimidating

 

How we broke conventions

·         Lyrical music

·         Female killer

·         Open framing

·         No duel narrative

 

How we used the conventions

·         Use of cut away shots to details; gun; keys

·         Intimidating angles

 

 

Most thrillers follow certain conventions to help create an effective opening. Over all these conventions help to highlight the details in the film the viewer may find thrilling.  In our thriller opening we chose to use most conventions typically seen in thrillers for example we used high angled shots when the focus was on the victim. We also used cut away shots to show extra details such as the gun of the victim implying that he had a reason to protect himself. We also emphasized on the shadowing and the use of black coloured clothing on the victims killer, we did this to create almost a doppelgänger effect by clearly showing a difference in lighting between the characters to emphasize their characteristics.

We broke the conventions of a stereotypical thriller firstly we used non-minor key music. Instead we used lyrical music with a strong beat, we chose to use Non Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf because the song sounds very powerful and it is also all sung in French which helped to set the scene of our thriller as we hoped to set it in post war France. The second move we made to go against the typical conventions of a thriller was to use a female as the victim’s killer. Most thrillers use men as they can be seen as being more powerful or intimidating we chose to use a female as it would then imply that she has the strength or skills of a man, this would then make her a lot more intimidating.

 

How other thrillers inspired our work;

James bond films; spy, killer, mystery, style, visual appearance, good guy vs bad guy

The liability; strangle scene, woman killer/ seeking revenge, opening scenes

 

 

Drive; mysterious main character, murder, car based scenes

 

 

Kill bill; editing, music, director’s inspiration, character roles- female killer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our thriller opening video

Our Thriller opening video

 Le Monde

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGBET72dTJ0

 

This is our 2 minute thriller opening called "Le Monde", meaning "the world" implying that as a film our thrillers storyline would be based on a large scale. Inspired by films directed by Quentin Tarantino, as well as similar thrillers such as: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the Bond films and Drive.

Shoot day details

Details of how the first shoot went

 

On the first day of the shoot we were lucky enough to have clear weather to suit what we had planned and hoped to achieve for our production. We initially encountered problems with cars parked in the area where we had wished to shoot. Luckily we had also planned to shoot in an alternative location near by as we were aware our first choice may have been busy at that time of day.

 

The very first location we visited was a long farm track between two fields. We chose this track because the land either side is flat also the path is very long, together this made the location perfect for our running scene as we could easily film long pan shots and hopefully be able to create a silhouetted effect as well. unfortunately when we arrived we noticed some tractors, parked half way up the path, we were still able to use the path, as all of the vehicles were stationary an we were using a public foot path, but we had to be very careful with the framing of each shot.

 

 

Our next locations were in Stamford. We chose to use certain streets in Stamford as Stamford is an old historic town and the streets we used visually fitted the1940's theme we were hoping to set. We had to be careful of what we included in the framing of each shot to avoid any people or out of era vehicles and objects. we used three locations in Stamford; one leading from a field to the town streets, a back road leading around a corner and finally a street alongside the church. we found the street alongside the church the hardest to film at because as we had arrived and set up all of children from the local school were walking by to move to their  next lessons! we took this time as an opportunity to look through the footage we had collected and to see if we needed to add anything extra. after about 15 minutes we were able to continue filming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reasoning behind our Thriller Idea

The Reasoning behind our Thriller Idea

 

Our thriller idea is designed to surprise the audience with the death of the “main” character; it gives the film an opportunity to continue on the death of the protagonist. Our opening has been quite heavily influenced by similar films directed by Quentin Tarantino. This is shown through the ironic change in mood from the use of a major tension building music to the minor music creating a pulse to the film. The major music we will be using for the film was also inspired by Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which works with our ambitions to create a film set in France 1956. To create the thriller opening we now have we collaborated ideas from a range of films and different directors. We have used inspiration from films such as; The liability, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and form a few of the Bond films. Overall we adapted our inspired ideas to fit the sale and budget of our 2 minute thriller opening.

 

Storyboard feedback

Storyboard feedback

The storyboard is well thought out and the main idea is good but some more detail on the types of transitions from each shot/title editing process. 

- Will Beavis

Good, the shadows add to the feeling 

- D Hoyles

The drawings were very good, some more detail between each drawing/scene would have made it easier to understand what would be happening.

- Sarah Rudd

I thought the story board was very clear and well thought out. more information could be added about editing, transitions etc... could possibly add written information. but overall really good and easy to follow.

- Bronwyn Willcock