Friday 15 April 2011
Final Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In real media products, a lot of research and development is done on the opening scenes of a film, this could include opening credits and titles, and this is done because it is the first visual or audio aspect the viewer sees. Throughout our thriller project I have tried to apply the most typical thriller conventions as I thought this would add the most effect to my work. The main convention, which is typically used in real media work, is the way in which the film crew builds up suspense and tension and this is the one I have heavily focused on in my work. We focused on this convention as it is a good way to build up an atmosphere, from the second the audience begin to watch the opening sequence. Also by using this convention it regains the audience’s attention throughout and leaves them ‘on the edge of their chair’. In order to retain the audience’s attention we used a soundtrack that was stereotypically thriller orientated, the soundtrack is played throughout the opening sequence.
From the sound post, which I posted on my blog, you can tell that I have tried to use sound, which helps build up tension and suspense throughout the opening sequence. I found a copyright free website, which had many sound effects that were free to use! Whilst looking on the internet I could not find a suitable soundtrack which would fit into our Thriller, so I looked on You Tube and used a You Tube Converter to convert it to MP3 format. Before I did this, I insured it was copyright free so that I would not get into trouble using it. The soundtrack, which I choose, was very mysterious and fitted perfectly to our stalker opening sequence, this soundtrack was also very good at building up tension and suspense to add to the atmosphere. The soundtrack is called ‘Stalker’, which typically relates to our Thriller. In addition, I added one sound effect when the door is opening as I thought that it would seem more realistic and believable.
When choosing and deciding on music for our Thriller I watched a variety of opening sequences on You Tube, so that I could get an idea of what real media products use for their sound tracks. I did two detailed Thriller research tasks on ‘The Black Swan’ and Se7en (David Fincher, 1995), from doing this I could get a good idea of the conventions, sound effects, sound tracks and shots which they used in them. When comparing our opening sequence to real media products I would say Se7en (David Fincher, 1995) is very similar as it uses a similar soundtrack and shorter shots one after another to add suspense and tension.
I also looked at the Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) so that I could gain another idea on conventions, sound track, sound effect and shots. ‘Black Swan’ was very different to what I had looked at previously, as it did not have the obvious conventions you would expect to see in a Thriller, it was very smooth but had a suspicious feel to the opening sequence. The music was suspicious and tension was built up in the early stages of this film. The shots were very cleverly done and look very effective and from this we were able to gain ideas from this, we decided to have shots of just the characters feet as we got the inspiration from this sequence.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In my media product have aimed our opening sequence at teenagers ranging from 15-18 year olds. From doing significant audience research, I found that 14-17 year olds were the second largest audience that thriller films are aimed at according to http://www.valmorgan.co.nz/nz/audiences/profiles/thrillers/. To convey this we used two characters that are aged 17, this is so that the audience can relate to them. As both of the characters are of a similar age it makes it seem more realistic, the female character is a hard working student and is from a middle class background, she has noticed strange messages but does not yet know she is being followed. The boy in our sequence is persistently following the female. As the boy is a stalker mise-en-scene was important as it represents the clothing, surroundings, props and location. Mise-en-scene is mainly applied to the male character he is dressed in a hooded jacket and dark clothing.
We have typically stuck to both the male and female stereotypes, the male being the stalker and the female being stalked. The stalker is always white and male. As of this, our media product is showing representation of gender in a stereotypical character. The male typically leads in our Thriller this is due to us not being able to see his face and his characteristics. Different camera angles and shots are used to convey this. The audiences of thrillers typically expect the male to be the most dominant as men are seen to be superior. This is what we stereotypically think as we associate males to be more threatening towards females.
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| This is the male character which we used in our opening sequence |
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| This is the female character which we used in our opening sequence |
If we developed our Thriller further we would see how and what the male character would do to the female and the truth of what has happened between these two characters would be displayed. In the opening two minutes, the audience is already able to relate to the female character and this would be developed further. As at the end of the two minutes you only see the two characters running we would see what would happen after and the length the stalker would go to intimidate the female character. Both of our characters are filmed wearing clothing from the modern society this is so that the auidence can tell our thriller is up-to-date.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The type of film Distribution Company which could distribute my thriller would be low budget independent companies, such as ‘Universal Home Entertainment’, ‘Guerilla Films’ and ‘Slingshot’. These three companies specialise in mainly the distribution of British films. I have also researched into larger scale distribution companies, such as Warner Bros. Pictures and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Although they are very large scale and have produced big success films, they have produced some films similar to ours in the same genre.
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| Guerilla Film distribution company logo |
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| Film distributed by Guerilla Film |
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| Film which was distributed by Guerilla Film |
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience for The Day After is teenagers- 15-18 year olds. I have chosen this age range as following the audience research I did, I found that the second largest audience for thrillers is 14-17 year olds. I thought that 14 may be too young to watch this thriller as it may be disturbing to younger children. As the two characters are aged 17 I think that this age range is perfect for our thriller. I have also looked at other thrillers such as ‘Scream’, ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Heat’ and they are aimed at 15 year olds, although these may not include stalkers they are very similar to our sequence.
The narrative of our thriller focuses upon teenage characters, both male and female aged 17 therefore this film will appeal to people of the same age as that, from both sexes. In our thriller no swearing, gore and explicitness is used which keeps it in the 15 certificate rating. We have tried to make our thriller as realistic as possible in order for it to be believable furthermore we have tried to keep it in a realistic situation that happens every day in our lives.
When conducting my questionnaire I found out that 50% of audiences enjoy watching action thriller films. Although this isn’t portrayed throughout my whole thriller we have tried to incorporate this near the end in the running sequence. Although we haven’t necessarily been able to do this throughout we have tried to use all of our research to the best of our ability.
Also from the questionnaire results that we received, it suggests that more males prefer to watch thriller than females although it was only 60% of males which I asked. This research cannot be accurate as I only asked a small amount of people, if I had more money and did larger scale research I could have found out more accurate results.
I also undertook secondary research which already exists I found this research off the internet. I found out that generally 14-17 years are the second highest viewers of thrillers we have based our age range on this figure. I found this information from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbcCVtMWKRQr5dOmLVlpNb8PC9IDwIh11BsPTUOlq4_Ai5_HvkoEdKtQcd8C8pGfUgX-JLlPhJzGi9cWUZEZbOcYnNxcbzkrD7AO2j2pE0PyjhCk3NnkdVPOuJ37URYvSpPgOXxLK8tZrW/s1600/thriller_age.gif
How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience by using young characters that are at college, as the target audience is this age range as they will be able to relate to the characters. We also used a male as the stalker as this is a stereotypical convention and the female is the vulnerable victim. The music which we have used builds up suspense and tension throughout the opening sequence. We found the soundtrack from YouTube and used a YouTube Converter to convert it into MP3 format. As the door opens the tempo of the music decreases for the sound effect to take place. We set our thriller in an open space so that the storyline seems realistic as we felt that the audience could relate to this as it is a part of everyday life. Also we did some research into films that are aimed at the same target audience as our thriller. We looked at Se7en (David Fincher, 1995) which is an American horror thriller film which includes actors such as Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, ‘Se7en’ is a filmed about two detectives working in a crime-filled city, who become deeply involved in a case involving a series of sadistic murders. Each murder corresponds to one of the seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Envy, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Greed and Wrath.
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| Close up shot from the film 'Se7en' |
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| Screenshot from the film 'Se7en' long/med shot |
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Whilst constructing my media product I have learnt a lot valuable skills from my teacher, personal experience and from peers. Although we re-filmed a lot of our work, we thought that this would be beneficial for the final product.
I have learnt many things whilst filming our thriller, as I have learnt how to use the camera and the equipment appropriately, also I have learnt how to get certain camera angles and how to position the camera and also how to get the correct brightness and white balance. Although we re-filmed a few of the scenes in our thriller to get the perfect scene and the screen balance it has gave use practice to achieve perfect filming skills in our final edit. Although at the beginning of filming our thriller we did have some problems with using the camera but we soon fixed to with plenty of practice. We had trouble using the cameras as we had to set the white balance but we wasn’t sure how to do this, we had to play with the different settings on the camera until we found out how to do it. Whilst editing our thriller we did have some problems on how to use the software as we wasn’t use to using software like this, but we soon solved this as I got used to the different tools and transitions on the software, we discovered new things to use in our thriller to make our thriller look good and how to add tension in the thriller as we learnt how to use an cutting tool which created the stalking scene in our thriller as there are rapid shots between two scenes. We used two music soundtracks in our thriller as we used the soundtrack and also we used a sound effect. The soundtrack is played throughout and the sound effect is used when the door is opening.
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 felt that I have progressed a lot since first starting using the equipment and the program. I have learnt new skills and have developed my existing skills in editing and camera work. Also, I have learnt how to edit more efficiently and professionally using Adobe Premier Pro CS4 compared to my preliminary task, and how to use effects and transitions to ensure out final product looks effective. Also I have looked and have done more research for our thriller. Also for our thriller we have done more planning and have worked on every detail in our thriller, whereas we only did one shot for our preliminary task, as we didn’t have time in our preliminary task to consistently re-film. Also for our Preliminary task we had a short period of time to film this so we didn’t have much time to plan for our final outcome, as for the thriller we had numerous of months to plan, film and edit our thriller to create the best outcome.
Overall, I have learnt how to successfully film and produce a short film using software that i had previously not worked with. I also learnt how to manage my time efficiently in order to get all editing, blogging and filming done in an achievable space of time. I believe the knowledge and skills which I learnt from doing my preliminary tasks has definitely benefited whilst completing my full product.
Another convention which we used was the gender stereotypes, we used a female character as the victim as they are seen to be more vulnerable and fragile compared to males. Throughout our Thriller, you see more of the female character than the male character this is so that the audience can relate to her. Through our Thriller you only see the back and the legs of the male character this is so that the audience is unable to relate to him and so that he cannot show any emotion towards the audience.
In most thrillers, the lighting tends to be dark and mysterious as this allows an atmosphere to be built up. In the Thrillers, which I watched Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) Se7en (David Fincher, 1995) Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) and Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) the lighting tended to be dark but we decided to go against this convention and set it in the daylight but in a wooded built up area. We went against this convention as the stalker scene wouldn’t look very realistic inside, we tried to film it in the trees and make it look as isolated as we could.
Tuesday 5 April 2011
Draft Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In real media products, a lot of research and development is done on the opening scenes of a film, this could include opening credits and titles, this is done because it is the first visual or audio aspect the viewer sees. Throughout my Thriller project I have tried to apply the most typical Thriller conventions as I thought this would add the most effect to my work. The main convention, which is typically used in real media work, is the way in which the film crew builds up suspense and tension and this is the one I have heavily focused on in my work. We focused on this convention as it is a good way to build up an atmosphere from the second the audience begin to watch the opening sequence. Also by using this convention it regains the audience’s attention throughout and leaves them ‘on the edge of their chair’. Another convention which we used was the gender stereotypes, we used a female character as the victim as they are seen to be more vulnerable and fragile compared to males. Throughout our Thriller, you see more of the female character than the male character this is so that the audience can relate to her. Through our Thriller you only see the back and the legs of the male character this is so that the audience is unable to relate to him and so that he cannot show any emotion towards the audience.
In every Thriller, the lightening tends to be dark and mysterious as this allows an atmosphere to be built up. In the Thrillers, which I watched (Black Swan, Se7en, Inception and Psycho) the lightening tended to be dark but we decided to go against this convention and set it in the daylight but in a wooded area.
From the sound post, which I posted on my blog, you can tell that I have tried to use sound, which helps build up tension and suspense throughout the opening sequence. I found a copyright free website, which had many sound effects that were free to use! Whilst looking on the internet I could not find a suitable soundtrack which would fit into our Thriller, so I looked on You Tube and used a You Tube Converter to convert it to MP3 format. Before I did this, I insured it was copyright free so that I would not get into trouble using it. The soundtrack, which I choose, was very mysterious and fitted perfectly to our stalker opening sequence, this soundtrack was also very good at building up tension and suspense to add to the atmosphere. The soundtrack is called ‘Stalker’, which typically relates to our Thriller. In addition, I added one sound effect when the door is opening as I thought that it would seem more realistic and believable.
When choosing and deciding on music for our Thriller I watched a variety of opening sequences on You Tube, so that I could get an idea of what real media products use for their sound tracks. I did two detailed Thriller research tasks on ‘The Black Swan’ and ‘Se7en’, from doing this I could get a good idea of the conventions, sound effects, sound tracks and shots which they used in them. When comparing our opening sequence to real media products I would say ‘Se7en’ is very similar as it uses a similar soundtrack and quick shots one after another to add suspense and tension.
I also looked at the ‘Black Swan’ so that I could gain another idea on conventions, sound track, sound effect and shots. ‘Black Swan’ was very different to what I had looked at previously, as it did not have the obvious conventions you would expect to see in a Thriller, it was very smooth and had a laid feel to it. The music was not suspicious and no tension was built up in the early stages of this film. The shots were very cleverly done and look very effective and from this we were able to gain ideas from this, we decided to have shots of just the characters feet as we got the inspiration from this sequence.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In my media product, we have tried to represent many social groups, but have especially aimed our opening sequence at teenagers ranging from 15-18 year olds. From doing significant audience research, I found that 14-17 year olds were the second largest audience that thriller films are aimed at according to http://www.valmorgan.co.nz/nz/audiences/profiles/thrillers/
To convey this we used two characters that are aged 17, this is so that the audience can relate to them. As both of the characters are of a similar age it makes it seem more realistic, the female character is a hard working student and is from a middle class background, she has noticed strange messages but does not yet know she is being followed. The boy in our sequence is persistently following the female. Seeing, as the boy is a stalker mise-en-scene was important as it represents the clothing, surroundings, props and location. Mise-en-scene is mainly applied to the male character he is dressed in a hooded jacket and dark clothing.
We have typically stuck to both the male and female stereotypes, the male being the stalker and the female being stalked. The stalker is always white and male. As of this, our media product is showing representation of gender in a stereotypical character. The male typically leads in our Thriller this is due to us not being able to see his face and his characteristics. Different camera angles and shots are used to convey this. The audiences of Thrillers typically expect the male to be the most dominate as men are seen to be superior.
If we developed our Thriller further we would see how and what the male character would do to the female and the truth of what has happened between these two characters would be displayed. In the opening two minutes, the audience is already able to relate to the female character and this would be developed further. As at the end of the two minutes you only see the two characters running we would see what would happen after and the length the stalker would go to intimate the female character. Both of our characters are filmed wearing ‘up-market’ clothing so the audience can tell that it is filmed in modern society.
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| This is the male character which we used in our opening sequence. |
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| This is the female character which we used in our opening sequence. |
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The type of film Distribution Company which could distribute my thriller would be low budget independent companies, such as ‘Working Title’, ‘Guerilla Films’ and ‘Slingshot’. These three companies specialize in small budgeted films and mainly distribute British films. I have also researched into larger scale distribution companies, such as Universal Pictures Fox Film Corporation and Universal Pictures UK. Although they are very large scale and have produced big success films, they have produced some films similar to ours in the same genre.
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| Guerilla Film distribution company logo |
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| Workin Title film distribution company logo |
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| Other films which Working Title have distributed |
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| Other films which Working Title have distributed |
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| 'Shaun of the Dead' (2004, Edgar Wright) Distributed by Universal Pictures The film has earned $30,039,392 worldwide in box office receipts since its release in 2004 The film was a critical and commercial success in the United Kingdom and the United States. |
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| 'Billy Elliot' (2004, Stephen Daldry) Distributed by Universal Focus, StudioCanal, BBC Films, Tiger Aspect Pictures and Working Title 2 Productions. The budget was £3 million ($5 million) Gross Revenue: £72,853,509 ($109,280,263 |
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience for ‘The Day After’ is teenagers- 15-18 year olds. I have chosen this age range as following the audience research I did, I found that the second largest audience for thrillers is 14-17 year olds. I thought that 14 may be too young to watch this thriller as it may be disturbing to younger children. As the two characters are aged 17 I think that this age range is perfect for our thriller. I have also looked at other thrillers such as ‘Scream’, ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Heat’ and they are aimed at 15 year olds, although these may not include stalkers they are very similar to our sequence.
The narrative of our thriller focuses upon teenage characters, both male and female aged 17 therefore this film will appeal to people of the same age as that, from both sexes. In our thriller no swearing, gore and explicitness is used which keeps it in the 15 certificate rating. We have tried to make our thriller as realistic as possible in order for it to be believable furthermore we have tried to keep it in a realistic situation that happens every day in our lives.
When conducting my questionnaire I found out that 50% of audiences enjoy watching action thriller films. Although this isn’t portrayed throughout my whole thriller we have tried to incorporate this near the end in the running sequence. Although we haven’t necessarily been able to do this throughout we have tried to use all of our research to the best of our ability.
Also from the questionnaire results that we received, it suggests that more males prefer to watch thriller than females although it was only 60% of males which I asked. This research cannot be accurate as I only asked a small amount of people, if I had more money and did larger scale research I could have found out more accurate results.
I also undertook secondary research which already exists I found this research off the internet. I found out that generally 14-17 years are the second highest viewers of thrillers we have based our age range on this figure.
How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience by using young characters that are at college, as the target audience is this age range as they will be able to relate to the characters. We also used a male as the stalker as this is a stereotypically convention and the female is the venerable victim. The music which we have used builds up suspense and tension throughout the opening sequence. We found the soundtrack from YouTube and used a YouTube Converter to convert it into MP3 format. Also we have set the storyline to a natural realistic storyline as we felt that the audience could relate to this as it is a part of everyday life. Also we did some research into films that are aimed at the same target audience as our thriller. We look at ‘Se7en’ directed by David Finched 1995 which is an American horror thriller film which includes actors such as Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, ‘Se7en’ is a filmed about two detectives working in a crime-filled city, who become deeply involved in a case involving a series of sadistic murders. Each murder corresponds to one of the seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Envy, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Greed and Wrath.
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Close up shot from the film 'Se7en' |
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| Screen shot from the film 'Se7en' long/med shot |
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Whilst constructing my media product I have learnt a lot valuable skills from my teacher, personal experience and from peers. I have learnt how to use the camera and the equipment appropriately, also I have learnt how to get certain camera angles and how to position the camera and also how to get the correct brightness and white balance. Although we re-filmed a lot of our work, we thought that this would be beneficial for the final product.
I have learnt many things whiles filming our thriller, as I have learnt how to use the camera and the equipment appropriately, also I have learnt how to get certain camera angles and how to position the camera and also how to get the correct brightness and white balance. Although we re-filmed a few of the scenes in our thriller to get the perfect scene and the screen balance it has gave use practice to achieve perfect filming skills in our final edit. Although at the beginning of filming our thriller we did have some problems with using the camera but we soon fixed to with plenty of practice. Whiles editing our thriller we did have some problems on how to use the software as we wasn’t used to using an software like this, but we soon solved this as I got use to the different tools and transitions on the software, we discovered new things to use in our thriller to make our thriller look good and how to add tension in the thriller as we learnt how to use an cutting tool which created the stalking scene in our thriller as there are rapid shots between two scenes. In our thriller we used an addition two music soundtracks in our thriller as we used the soundtrack and also we used a sound effect.
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 felt that I have progressed a lot since first starting using the equipment and the program. I have learnt new skills and have developed my existing skills in editing and camera work. Also I have looked and have done more research for our thriller. Also for our thriller we have done more planning and have worked on every detail in our thriller, whereas we only did one shot for our preliminary task, as we didn’t have time in our preliminary task to consistently re-film. Also for our Preliminary task we had a short period of time to film this so we didn’t have much time to plan for our final outcome, as for the thriller we had numerous of months to plan, film and edit our thriller to create the best outcome.
Monday 4 April 2011
Re-editing the Thriller
From the feedback we received from our first draft we decided it would be a good idea to re-film once again, this obviously means that we will have to re-edit, although this was a time consuming task it will be beneficial for us to do this. As we already had a lot of footage we already had the basic layout of a thriller it was just a case of adding and taking a small sections of footage. As we both had previously used the software Adobe Premiere Premiere before to edit the first time it was second nature to us both. Bot of our confidence whilst using this program has grown massively and we have learnt a lot of skills. All of the footage is imported by clicking on 'file', and then 'import' once on import you just select the files you want to import. Then it is a simple drag and drop process onto the timeline, you can edit each clip and add transactions or effects. Once I had learnt the simple skills I found it easy to create my thriller.
We managed to get all of the filming done in one afternoon with help from Alex Redford (the male) and Emmie Bloor. As the filming had been done it was a perfect time to begin the re-edit, we both have work continuously on the re-edit this week in order to finish it for the final deadline. The idea was the same as the first one but I had to change it slightly for maximum impact and for it to look effective. We also had to change the location due to time. We both have done the re-edit this week and have worked incredibly hard. In the re-edit we both shared the work load between us so that we was doing the same amount of work each. Although whilst filming we was unable to stick to the storyboard completely, this was due to some of the shots not being as effective as we thought, we have adapted the storyboard to make it seem more effective and we have stuck we the ideas we initially had.
All of the sequence had to be re-edited and put in a different order so that it runs smoothly. The part that we both found hard was the credits, as we know this is one of the most important parts to the opening sequence it was important that we got them right and accurate. We asked for help and assistance from members of the class and from our subject teacher. We both also did research into opening sequences on You Tube and we found this very useful.
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This is Adobe Premiere during the editing process, on the left handside it shows how I added effects to our thriller and how I inported each part on the film onto the timeline. |
We both have found the editing process relatively easy and are proud of the skills we have learnt and what we have achieved throughout this process.
Friday 1 April 2011
Re-filming
On Monday we both began to re-film our work with Alex Redford, we managed to get all of the filming done and we was quite confident that all of the re-filming was done to a high standard. I had to act in our Thriller work again but we had to change some aspects of our Thriller as we didn't it was very effective. Both me and Emmie was unavailable on the day we re-filmed so we found it a lot easier this time. The day which we filmed on was warm very similar to last time.
Before we began to re-film, the night before I created a schedule of what will need to happen today and the times of which everything is happening, we tried to stick to the schedule as much as we could but it was hard due to some scenes took a little longer than expected and some took a shorter amount of time. The planning schedule which I created was very helpful as it allowed the day to run smoothly and we could make sure that we was on schedule for everything throughout the day. Also the risk assessment was very helpful as it allowed us to know the risks which was involved in filming in this specific area and preventing any injuries happening to all of us.
After I had filmed I sat down and decided whether or not anything else should require to be re-filmed, I decided that we should have enough footage for our thriller film. We both worked incredible hard in order for the filming to take place. We both undertook the filming. We are both very happy with the work we have produced.
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