Media Thriller Evaluation

Media Thriller Evaluation

When looking at Thriller openings we usually see establishing shots of locations e.g. a house or a hotel. In my Thriller, we started it off with an establishing shot of the character house and this is commonly used in openings of Thrillers. The audience are normally left asking questions or wondering what is going to happen next and this is a good way to start. In my Thriller the audience never see the perpetrator and in Thrillers the perpetrator is hardly ever seen straight away. To build up suspense within our Thriller we used sounds that came in one after another and gradually increased in volume e.g. the heart beat increased in volume when the stalker was watching the girl.

After the radio announcement we start hearing a continuous sound. This makes the audience suspect that something is going to happen. The audience then start to feel comfortable because the sound continues for a long time and nothing happens. The audience are then again alerted when the sound of strings comes in and the suspense is then built up until we see the flash of the girl.

The flash we used of the little girl was heavily influenced by the scene in “The Shinning” of the two little girls flashing up when the little goes to the door. 

When we watched this, the sound played a massive part in the shock of it. The fact that we saw an ordinary little boy riding a tricycle made us feel at ease and was completely unaware that any such thing could occur. This is very similar to what we did as it was an ordinary day in the city.

In my Thriller we used a typical teenage black girl. The fact that this girl is teenager already determines the age group that my Thriller appeals to. Although the main character is a female the Thriller still appeals to both genders of the teenage group. Females are usually the main victims in Thriller films where they are assaulted or kidnapped and this is what happens

 in our Thriller. This also shows that women are vulnerable. The costume that the girl is wearing is typical of a working class girl. She is wearing dark colour jeans, a black jacket, plimsolls and a black and white woolly hat. The audience can easily relate and step into the shoes of this character as it is what they see or even wear on a daily basis. The little girl that we see in the Thriller is wearing a blue coat and a colourful scarf like a typical little girl. 

This shows the innocence and realism of the girl. This is also done in the shinning where the girls have their hair down and wearing blue dresses with bows on them. The innocent look is also created with the ‘innocent’ smile.

Shooting the Thriller in the day time was much easier and allowed us more filming time that we definitely needed. Although we shot it in the day time, using final cut pro we were able to make it black and white that gave it a better feel.

We developed our understanding on how to shoot footage, and how we had to film one piece of action several times in different angles in order to get very effective match cuts. We realised that charging the camera was important as there was many times where the battery died out.

We explored different camera angles and camera techniques; however the majority were normal straight ones. We had the problem of breaking the 180 degrees rule and due to that had to film several times again. We used low angle shots of the girl closing the door and the pan to the radio and also close ups like when we were focusing on the keys.

Using final cut pro I was also able to blend in the sound track and have everything flow properly and smoothly.

The editing process became easier as I became more used to the program. Logging and capturing was easy and I particularly enjoyed doing Match cuts. As I became more familiar with the program editing became quicker. The only difficult thing we found with Final cut Pro was making our Thriller shorter as we had exceeded the 2 minutes by like 1 minute. Cutting out some footage was the hardest part.

Although Filming and editing was important we also had to record everything that we had done throughout the process and we did this on Blogger. At the end of every lesson or sometimes every week I would blog what ever I had done in the lesson. This was a good way of keep a track of whatever I had done within that week of lesson.

I think that my Thriller will be distributed as a small independent UK release. I don’t thin that it would be a big Hollywood blockbuster because of where it is set. It will not relate to people unless they live around this area. It will be distributed around a small number of UK ‘arthouse’ cinemas and will only mainly get watched by working class people roughly aged from 15-24.

Films like ‘The Shinning” I think would be enjoyed mainly by people aged fifth teen upwards and so that’s the target for my Thriller. “The Shinning” was mostly enjoyed by males than females and so that’s what my Thriller is aiming at. I however think that females would enjoy it as well as they would be able to relate to it as it is a typical girl that is the main character and that is getting kidnapped. The audience that my Thriller would appeal are niche, those within the east end of London. I would expect that sort of audience as they can easily relate the film. Kate is a 19 year old female who works in a call centre in East London. She loves going out with her friends on the weekends and is a big fan of the cinema. She loves to shop in West End.

For my Film to be successful and that I would get a good audience, I would have to look for the best way to advertise my Thriller. Knowing that my audience are young and both male and female, advertising my Thriller would be good on social networking sites like Facebook. As my Thriller is for working class people aged 15-24 having the film advertised on billboards would be a good idea. There will be no famous actors in my film so that won’t help to attract the audience. The mise-en-scene is urban, as it is set in city streets, it has an urban setting and the people may live near a place like this and so will find it is easy to relate to such things. The storyline is also very real and happens on a daily basis and so people will understand and feel for the character even more, this will also help to attract the audience. When making our Thriller we wanted the audience to be hooked and be very interested in what will happen next and hopefully we did this very successfully.

My group learnt a lot when doing this Thriller. There were many major set backs but we were able to finish it successfully. Our idea was changed mid way in making the Thriller which was a set back. We had to change the time of our Thriller. When we first filmed our Thriller we had trouble using the lightening kit as our Thriller was in the night. The footage came out very dark, so we had to change it to day time. We also faced the problem with the fact that when we first filmed the floor was icy from snow and on other days the floor was dry.

When I look back at the preliminary match cut task that I did. I have realised how important it is to plan and story board the ideas that you have for your Thriller before we go and film it. For the actual Thriller we decided to film many different angles of the same piece of action and this was something that we didn’t do in the preliminary task. The match cut task really helped me when I came to do my actual Thriller as it allowed me to have knowledge of how to do really good match cuts.

When it came to editing the Thriller it made it slightly easier as we had practiced on the preliminary but there were still things that need to be learnt.

Having done the preliminary task, it allowed us to also get to gripes with our organisation and also sharing out the task. We knew that it wouldn’t be easy to do anything without the whole group pulling their weight. As the process continued I found myself being more confident in using the software’s like Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro and Live Type.

We had very positive audience feedback which made me proud of my work. We were told that the black and white effect was effective and the use of sound effects worked. I was really pleased that people enjoyed watching the Thriller and that they were supportive of the work. If I had to do this again I would plan more in depth and know exactly what I was going to go and film before I started as this wasted a lot of time.

Massie Road from 283goswell on Vimeo.

Thriller Evalution

 

In order for my group and I to produce a thriller opening which was successful and professional looking, we started by researching and comparing existing thriller openings. Doing this helped us to verify the conventions that thriller openings must contain. The use of mise-en-scene in thrillers in order to create suspense is approached in various ways. For instance; location in a thriller opening can stand as a very important narrative clue. In The Shinning, (a thriller that greatly influence my work) for example the location of the Overlook Hotel where it’s presence alone is slightly alarming, is used to reflect the protagonist's contrasting civilised behavior with his later malicious and psychotic possessed personality. This is demonstrated by presenting the character within the surrounding of a ‘normal’ environment, with his wife and child. I challenged the forms of conventions by using the idea of taking a normal setting and placing a character out of the ordinary in it. I used a busy city location to reel my audience into thinking everything was ok. I then used an isolated suburban setting to progress with a growing sense of threat or danger and the excitement of pursuit, an example of this can be found in the scene where the main character spots the disturbing figure with her house keys. I believe the use of these conventions indicate the sub-genre my thriller may come under.

In my product we used a teenage African female as the main ‘innocent’ character. The costume used for the main character was that of a normal teen from a working class background; dark coloured jeans, plim soles, a dark jacket and a black woolly hat. 

Having been influenced by movies such as the ring, and the shinning, we thought the thrill would be more effective if we used a ‘typical’ young dark haired, Eire looking, Caucasian female as the mysterious threatening figure. The costume used for her was that of a little girl; blue jacket, plain jeans, boots and colourful scarf this helps enforce the realism and innocence of a little girl. This links to our target audience of viewers aged 15+ because the conventions used in our thriller are similar to those you would find in Hollywood thrillers. We used common traits that connote danger in films such as; gradual tension building music. (Insert audio clip) Also the location used and mentioned is a well known area so youths can feel they are more a part of it and can possibly relate. In thrillers females are usually put in the frame as the victims, as they are seen as naive and vulnerable, and men the bold heroes who come to solve the mystery and restore peace and order to the civilians. We challenge genre by placing a female in the lead role.

I believe if taken on by a great director and given a reasonable budget, my film has the potential to be produced as a big Hollywood studio, as our ideas are quite similar to existing products, for e.g. The Bone Collector 

but having said that, realistically I feel that my movie is more likely to be a small independent UK release having media institutes such as small art houses distributing my film. It holds no big universally known actors therefore it is not likely to drawn in a massive audience. The m

ise-en-scene used visually, although a well known area, may only appeal to those who live in the east end or north area. What encouraged us to use these  areas were films such as bullet boy and kid/adulthood. Both films use similar well known locations as a way to get the audience more involved and 

attentive.

As I previously mentioned, my target audience is people aged 15 plus. We closely focused on the target audience we were aiming our film towards. We chose a wide target audience of both males and females ranging from ages 15-30. People from this age group are more likely to visit the cinema and watch particularly a thriller film. Jade, 18, works in fashion retail and enjoys watching thrilling movies with friends, shops on the high street, lives in a suburban area, is from a working class background; this is typical person who would fit into my target audience. Aimed at those primarily from a working class background, it is not single gender specific. Our narrative was aimed to allow our target audience to be able to relate. A modern young black teenage girl with dreams and aspiration just like any normal teen, on her way to a social gathering and gets abducted and is missing for a long while. From our previous study of the thriller genre we were aware that to create an effective opening which creates suspense in narrative, there must be unanswered questions which will compel the viewer to anticipate action with a resolution. For our opening sequence we wanted to create a narrative structure that would encourage the viewer to continue watching the rest of the film and that would leave areas in which the film could develop.

I tried to keep my audience at the edge of their seats and interested, I knew this would be hard as teenagers are easily distracted and tend to have short attention spans. To keep the audience interested and alert, we added the flash of the mystery girl and the alarming music which we were sure would make viewers jump this shot was influenced by a similar shot from 'The Shinning' (insert clip). We used a point of view shot here and medium close up. T he audience is asked to put themselves into the position of the main character and are being allowed to witness the event from her eyes and possibly feel the confusion she is feeling. This shot has a great impact on the audience as they then feel that they are a part of the movie and can feel the suspense rising. To market my film I would have a well known, attractive, preferably young female actor e.g. Megan Good

 play the role of the main character. This would attract the female viewers as they will envy her and may look up to her as a role model, and it will attract the males as they would find watching beautiful women on screen very interesting. I would advertise my film on the internet as it is a global network and through franchises such as Mc Donald’s which will bring in viewers of my target audience as fast food is consumed mostly by the working class.

Throughout the duration of this thriller my group and I learnt a substantial amount of things. Despite the fact that we faced many set backs we were still able to complete our media product before the deadline. Mid way into filming our thriller we were forced to make a tough decision. We originally set out to film at night time but due to bad lighting it was recommended that we set it during the daytime. During playback we realised that the footage we filmed came out too dark.  Filming during the day proved easier and we weren’t waiting around for the sun to go down. We learnt that in order to include successful match cuts, the same action needed to be shot from different angles, being careful not to break the 180 degree rule. We explored different camera shots; extreme long shots to show the physical context of action and landscape, long shots, medium shots, and close ups to focus on one character and their facial expression which are 

very important. We used low angle shots of the main girl shutting the house door and a pan from the door to the radio. This was used to bring variety to our shot and to bring something to the common shots we had previously used. We used a close up to focus on the keys which were significant as they were a narrative clue .We also used camera techniques such as; panning of the bus approaching and tilting of the girl searching for her keys to create the feel of eyes following the movements of the focus.

We used soundtrack pro to put together our soundtrack then exported it to final cut pro where we played around with the volume levels and made sure sounds came in at the right times giving the right effects (Audio of Sound Track). Logging and capturing was simple. The editing process became more enjoyable once we got the hang of using final cut pro. As I became more familiar with the program editing became quicker. 

 The trouble we faced was meeting the rule of the thriller being a maximum of two minutes. We had exceeded the 2 minutes by a minute. Cutting out some footage was difficult as we felt every clip was important. We overcame this by repeatedly watching our footage and taking out different bits and deciding if the narrative would still be clear without the bits, we also asked the opinions of class mates and teachers.

Although Filming and editing was important we also had to record everything that we had done throughout the process and we did this on Blogger. At the end of every lesson or sometimes every week I would blog what ever I had done in the lesson. This was a good way of keep a track of whatever I had done within that week of lesson.

When I look back at the preliminary match cut task that I did. I have realised how important it is to plan and story board the ideas that you have for your Thriller before we go and film it. For the actual Thriller we decided to film many different angles of the same piece of action and this was something that we didn’t do in the preliminary task. The match cut task really helped me when I came to do my actual Thriller as it allowed me to have knowledge of how to do really good match cuts. I believe match cuts are important for helping to establish a strong continuity of action. It can be used to underline a connection between two separate elements, or for purely visual reasons. (Video of Preliminary task) When it came to editing the Thriller it made it slightly easier as we had practiced on the preliminary but there were still things that need to be learnt. Having done the preliminary task, it allowed us to also get to grips with our organisation and also sharing out the task. We knew that it wouldn’t be easy to do anything without the whole group pulling their weight. As the process continued I found myself being more confident in using the software’s like Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro and Live Type.

We had very positive audience feedback which made me proud of my work. We were told that the black and white effect was effective and the use of sound effects worked. I was really pleased that people enjoyed watching the Thriller and that they were supportive of the work. If I had to do this again I would plan more in depth and know exactly what I was going to go and film before I started as this wasted a lot of time. (Video of Thriller)

Louise Olanipekun

Final Edit and Finished Thriller

On Friday I came into college at 9:00am in order to try and finish the Thriller. I was shortly joined by Louise who helped my to finish off. When we first opened up the project we played the whole Thriller through in order to see what needs to be done.
We needed to put on sound effects on important things like the girl and also the name of the road "Massie Road".

Before we did that we finished off blending in the different soundtracks and mixing the radio bit together. When we had finished blending all the music together we exported the project to soundtrack pro in order to put in sound effect. We found it hard finding sound effect that would go with all the different bits. We finally found some effects and it worked well.

We wanted the last bit of the stalker to really stand out so we slowed down the footage and also put heartbeats on it gradually increasing in volume as the stalker approached the girl.
We tried to put several effects on different part like where we see the flash of the girl, but was unable as the shot was too short. We instead had to just use a sound effect.

We looked at the footage and realised that in several times it was sunny at sometimes the floor was wet and so we decided to make the whole Thriller black and white. We we watched it again in black and white it looked more professional and stood out more. It really gave the effect that we was looking for.

At the end with stalker we used an effect that made the screen sharp this gave a more thrilling feel and made it look more effective. I was unable to attend tutorial as the deadline was fast approaching but luckily we was able to finish the Thriller at 12:25pm.

I was really happy that we was able to finish. A lot of work was put into making this Thriller and together as a group despite the absence of one member and sometimes the lack of commitment we was still able to finish and in my eyes have a successful Thriller.