Main task: Create the titles and opening of a new ‘thriller’ film, to last a maximum of two minutes.
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My thriller uses aspects of Hitchcocks thriller conventions with the quick cuts between the two different groups of people on the train bridge which Hitchcock uses in 'The Birds' in the playground scene which is effective in the build up of tension.
I chose to use this technique in my thriller as it's effective and succesful in building up suspense to the audience and worked well with portraying my narrative of the teenagers being followed by a pyshcotic woman.
The close-ups of the eyes and dead body parts at the end of the opening is also a technique used in Hitchcoks work in the Psycho shower scene, with the close up of Marions eye when she's dead in the shower scene.
I also chose to not see the psychotic womans face in the opening of our production to add an element of mystery which Hitchcock also uses in the shower scene from Psycho as this creates a weary atmoshphere for the audience as it keeps them on edge throughout the entire movie as to who it is and if it will happen again. Having the mysterious element to the thriller makes it more of a psychological thriller as the audience are persistantly unpuzzling the narrative to make sense of it, which i found effective in the build up of suspense for my thriller opening to reveal the victims later on in the movie.
I chose to create and use a distorted voiceover to show the physcotic womans frame of mind as I found that using a voiceover was a succesful convention in the Coen Brothers thriller openings to engage the audience with the narrative, and the Coen Brothers also use establishing shots at the begining of many of their thriller movie openings to set the scene for their movie, I also found this technique effective however decided to use the establishing shot further on in my opening as i felt it would be more significant in having the establishing shot as they were reaching the abandoned canal setting to signify to the audience that this is a significant setting for the thriller.
The editing of my thriller is also important in portraying the narrative as i chose to make all of the shots with Hannah (psycho lady) slightly drained of colour and a final cut express 'wind blur' to emphasize her distorted mind for the audience to also feel distorted and to be inside her head.
My overall thriller is based on the Horror thriller 'Eden Lake' which is what inspired our narrative however I turned it around to be against the negative representation of teenagers in society, to make them the protagonists and innocent characters.
The flashbacks I took inspiration from the film noir film Double Indemnity, which I found effective with the narrative of my thriller as it's mysterious and keeping the audience involved, however I didn't choose to create my whole thriller in film noir as I thought it was important to make a clear distinction between who was the protagonist and antagonist, so I kept the teenagers pictures as clear as possible and only made the psychotic lady blurred.
In terms of mise-en-scene I chose for the psychotic woman to wear a black t-shirt as from the semiotics theory this signifies danger and death to society and therefore will be significant in showing that she is the antagonist.
The prop of the knife was used to create suspense and tension to the audience as at this point we're aware that she's following the teenagers and that there will be a dangerous situation. The soundtrack also adds to the build-up of tension, suspense and creating a weary atmosphere which keeps the audience enthrilled as to what exactly will happen, as there is a group of teenagers which have an instant negative representation within sociey making the audience suspicious and weary.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My thriller represents teenagers positively through the use of the natural lighting which i chose to use to contrast with the dull lighting on the antagonist (pyschotic lady). Although they are wearing stereotypical teenage costumes (hoodies etc) they go against the stereotrype of teenagers being the criminals, the lighting empasizes these antagonist and protagonist roles.
Whilst researching existing thriller openings I found that representing particular social groups wasn't only done through choice of characters but by the choice of setting and shot types, as for example in the Coen Brothers they open their movies with distinctive establishing shots of abandoned land cutting to voilent scenes which show representation of stereotypical gangs making the audience on edge and fearful, therefore whilst creating my thriller I considered the various shot types and cuts, for example starting with close ups of their feet cutting to the conflicting character clearly showing the representation of teenagers, to create the same effect on the audience as the Coen Brothers thrillers and show distinct representaion going against the stereotype or criminal teenagers.
Using the over the shoulder shot to show the (meant to be slightly older) psychotic character, also showing clearly what she's seeing; the photo of a child, really shows the characters vulnerability and leaves the audience on edge and asking questions making them want to carry on watching and this represents women as dillusional and vulnerable resulting in pyhscotic behaviour, which again goes against the stereotrype as its usually a male character that plays the criminal pyhschotic role.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Media institutions such as forms of the web would promote my thriller using sites such as YouTube (Web 2.0) as it's available for everyone to access and is pacific to my target audience of teenagers to middle aged adults, as they're more likely to use this form of the web and will be-able to share it and make it become recognized to promote it to a wider audience. Film industry institutions such as
Universal will distribute my thriller as they already have similar crime/psychological thriller movies such as 'Eden Lake' which is a popular rated thriller movie, i think they would distribute my thriller as it would progress to keep the suspense going as in the opening as the plot unravels and becomes clear to the audience, both my thriller opening and Eden lake use quick cuts to show flashbacks and introduce the characters clearly showing the antagonist and protagonosists, and Eden lake progresses throughout the movie to reach an equilibrium ending of the couple being happy together again following Todorovs narrative theory, whereas my thriller will not reach an equilibrium as there has been murders and peoples lives have been permanently effected and therefore Todorovs narrative theory wouldnt apply to my thriller but it would fit into Blumler and Katz theory that the purpose of all film will fit into five categories, and my thriller will fit into the entertainment category.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my thriller will be teenagers as it has an element of crime and is succesful for building up suspense and tension, creating a weary sinister atmosphere through the element of mystery, which will keep teenagers engaged and enthrilled, the variety of shot types is also important to help portray the narrative to the teenagers, for example through the panning and establishing shots to set the scene which teenagers will be-able to relate to. The close-ups of the feet, eyes and dead body parts show significance and make the audience aware of murder however cause confusion as to who is dead and why, which will make the audience want to watch the rest of the movie to find out all of the unanswered questions from the opening.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
From the initial planning of my thriller I thought of how I could attract my target audience of teenagers, and therefore I chose to use teenage actors to make a crime thriller which would appeal to teenagers as they could relate to whats happening to the characters. Whilst planning the final storyboarding of my thriller I was relating all aspects of it to pacific mise-en-scene that would help show the narrative to the target audience for example using an abondoned canal would be somewhere teenagers might go with their friends to relax. The main way to attract my audience I thought was keeping alot of it mysterious with a basic narrative that was easy to understand without revealing everything, and then cause confusion at the end to make them want to carry on watching. I think the flashbacks were also important in addressing my audience for my genre of thriller because it shows whats going on and places the audience in the flashback making them aware of whats happened and how they got to whats happening in the rest of the movie.
6)What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the process of producing our media thriller i've developed a detailed understanding of the production skills required for this task, to gain this understanding I had to do alot of research and planning of existing thriller openings and analyse them to understand what tecniques are succesful and that i'd be-able to use on my own production. We then had to produce a preliminary task, which was our first opportunity of using the media equiptment; cameras, apple mac software - final cut express and garage band. This allowed me to gain understanding of what was required to create a succesful thriller such as different camera angles, the 180 degree rule. Throughout the creation of our preliminary I learnt the process of using final cut express and creating sub-clips and realised how long I needed to be-able to produce a 2 minute thriller opening, aswell as this I learnt how to add sound and make it sound effective by laying it up on garage band and adding the right transitions and video effects to make it succesful, this was a lengthy process as we had to constantly render the video in order to make changes.
Whilst filming the final production I had a few problems with the camera equiptment and had to film the majority of it twice, although this took alot of my time I also found it better because i was able to see my mistakes and film at better times to get more accurate lighting. This also helped me with how to use the camera properly and had no problems with the filming the second time,
For our final production I became more familiar with using the software and was able to create voiceovers on garage band to add in with exisiting sound effects already on the software, and I used garageband alot to try and find appropriate sounds for the set task, however I found that some effects that i wanted to use in my production to add to the suspense i couldnt find on garage band and i was able to export sound clips from YouTube onto Final Cut Express to add onto my filming this was a very lengthy process at the begining however as i started using it more i had better understanding of the software and was able to edit precisley to get it how I wanted it.
In order to do certain things on Final Cut express such as changing the colour of the fades to white I found challenging and I had to use Google and other programmes to help me edit it exactly how I wanted which developed my understanding for the whole editing process.
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the process from it to the full product?
From the production of our preliminary, we had very unsteady camera management as we didn't use a tripod and the high angle shot over the cubicle of the dead body we had the camera the wrong way round so when filming the real thing I made sure this wouldnt happen again, the filming of our preliminary we managed to export the sound of what we had already filmed from the camera (although we didnt manage to film the whole of what we wanted to as we had various members of our group absent) however when we captured our final movie onto the mac the audio didnt transfer with the movie and we therefore had no dialogue, however we researched into this and found out how we could solve it, but I decided that dialogue wasnt necessary in creating a succesful thriller opening, and from the preliminary task I feel i have progressed in using the camera accurately and being able to change the colour of the video transitions to make the narrative clear that it's a flashback and in our preliminary I used the dissolving shots of black, however i think the white makes it look more dramatic and emphasizes the thriller genre of film, I didn't know how to do this from the preliminary. From editing my preliminary I learnt how to adjust the volume of the soundtrack to make it intense and precise on the points i wanted, however i found this very challenging in my preliminary to increase/decrease the volume in the right parts so this was useful in preparation of my final production as i knew that i needed more time to get the volume accurate.
Overall from the production of our preliminary I gained basic understanding of techniques required on the software which was an advantage in creating the final thriller as we knew how to use certain aspects of programmes and the final product allowed us to explore further into the software to get our thriller accurate and precise to what we wanted.
Natasha
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