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