Amy King- AS Level Media

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

The main conventions of a thriller movie are:

To research the thriller genre I looked at a few different thriller films to see what conventions they use in their openings and how effective these make them:

Memento: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z87iY8rPJF8&feature=related

Donnie Darko: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_EtwhKmMMY

The Dark Knight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYBEquZ_j0

The first two minutes of a thriller, need to hook the audience in a way that will make them want to watch the rest of the film and so it will need to create tension and be somewhat mysterious so that the viewer will want to watch on so they can find out what happens and what it’s all about, narrative will do this ….. The opening two minutes of a thriller should also include titles stating the names of people that worked on the film in different roles, such as the editor and director and should also include the name of the film and the names of actors that starred in the film, which will give the audience a sense of star quality within the film. The creation of a narrative is also required in the first two minutes of the opening of a film to set the tone for the rest of the film, this can be done through:

Camera shots- such as close up, reaction shots, establishing shots…
Editing- such as transitions and still that will create a dramatic and tense effect.
Sound- such as use of sound effects that will create suspense, diegetic and non diegetic.
Mise-en-scene

For example in the opening of Mission Impossible the background music playing throughout the opening is very effective in the way that it gets the audience ready for the rest of the film, it creates drama and tension and lets the audience infer that this film will be very fast paced and dramatic, as they infer that it will mirror the music playing, as this is quite a fast paced track.

The way that the shots have been cut together, by the use of very quick transitions will also add to the impression this film will be very dramatic and fast paced. Another creation of narrative is through the images that have been shown, the use of close up and extreme close up shots of objects such as the bomb and ID cards, gives the impression that this movie will be relevant to crime and the law and so will be quite action packed, and the way that reaction shots have been used gives a sense of tension and shows the high amounts of drama in the film. The mise-en-scene in this thriller opening is quite dark with the occasional flash of colour, this gives a sense of tension through the darker colours as the audience cannot see the whole picture and drama through the colour shots as the audience are shocked as the colour comes onto the screen.

The use of mise-en-scene is important in the first two minutes of any opening to a film, and thrillers as it will set the mood for the rest of the film, thriller are typically set in mysterious and tense places depending on their sub genre, places such as church, abandoned building and city streets. The use of props and colours and the fonts used for the title will let the audience know what type of film it will and so will create emotions within the viewer as they prepare to watch the film.

The conventions that are expected by the audience to be in a thriller opening are:

The Key Elements for a Thriller opening are:

Most directors will use these conventions as a way to hook the audience although some directors may choose to ignore the conventions as a way to confuse the audience and so keep them watching. They may also choose to use or ignore them as a way of creating different types of tension in the viewer. The Happening followed the expected conventions of a thriller; they had the event happening first, showing people killing themselves in the park and in the city, and then the rest of the events followed.

Some directors instead of distorting reality may choose to make their opening realistic as a way to make the audience relate more to it, and so creating a lot of tension in the viewer as they are able to relate the events to their own lives, this will make the film seem much more real and so will heighten the sense of terror.

The director of Memento, Christopher Nolan goes against the regular conventions for a thriller opening by completely changing the order and narrative of the film, still starting with an event which is conventional, but working from the end of the film towards the beginning through use of different flashbacks, as though the main character is revisiting the story. This is effective as it confuses the audience as the conventional narrative is not used, and so creates mystery and tension.

Our opening has also challenged the normal conventions of a thriller opening due to the fact that it doesn’t begin with a main event, it begins with a man running into the church, letting the viewer infer their own reason as to why he is running, this has been done deliberately to hide what has happened from the audience as a way to confuse them and so add tension.

The DaVinci Code influenced our production in the way that a lot of information has been hidden from the viewer; in our production nothing is given away as a way to create tension and mystery. The viewer only receives small parts of information that they can use to infer their own explanation as to the story, but nothing that would give away the true reason behind the events taking place, we used close up shots and establishing shots but made sure to show nothing behind the main character, the viewer could only see what he was running to, we also took out all speech so that nothing could be given away and we made sure that nothing was revealed about the characters through the mise-en-scene, having a completely isolated setting. The DaVinci Code also influenced our opening in the religious aspects that it uses, filming in churches and showing certain religious symbols, such as the cross, which gives the idea that people are going against religion, showing that are doing or have done something they are not meant to.

Memento also influenced our thriller opening due to its use of flashbacks and how they create tension and suspense within the film, and also how they give the film a sense of mystery and confusion. We chose to use flashbacks in our film as a way to give information into the main character to the viewer. We also chose to use them as a way to confuse the audience by adding an almost separate story and time into the film, as well as the story and events that the viewer has already seen taking place, this is a normal convention of a thriller film; having two story lines/events, but instead of making them completely separate we have linked the two together.
Due to research into the thriller genre, and watching other thriller openings we could see what created an effective opening, and what working in what style of film, we used this information in our own thriller, such as the use of shots to help connect the audience with the characters, the use of high and low angle shots to give a sense of power or a sense of fear, we used a high angle shot to see our main character running through a Church to try to show the idea that someone was watching him.. giving the audience the impression that he is being judged by God as he in in a Church, and so creating a dramatic and tense effect. In the film The Happening, the music playing at the beginning is very quiet and tense and then builds to the climax when more dramatic events are taking place as a way of creating tension and suspense, we have used this technique in our own thriller opening, as a way of create tension and suspense in the audience.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our thriller we have let the audience infer how we have represented the genders of our characters, we have not revealed to them whether the woman is the victim or the aggressor, we have done this to confuse the audience and create a more interesting narrative.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think that this institution would be the most suitable as it has been involved in the distribution of a number of successful films from a wide range of genres such as: Star trek, The Beverly Hills cop, The Odd Couple, Ghost, Saving Private Ryan and Indiana Jones but has also been involved in the distribution of a number of famous thrillers such as: Vertigo, Transformers and The Godfather. By making a larger number of films from a variety of genres Paramount will have gained a good experience and will know what the audience will want. Also from working with a number of different directors, some of those who have worked on other thrillers, they may be able to give some input into methods that would make our thriller product better and will have knowledge on the best ways to distribute it as they will know where and who to target.

Paramount Pictures has been going since 1910 and is a very well know media institution, also through running for so long it is trusted and so will have a lot of useful connections.

They also have a very large income, with revenue of $3.0 billion in 2005 and so they will have enough money to fund new and upcoming films, and see them all the way until their release date and further. Also through having this money they will be able to afford to publicise the films in order to get them a lot more known to the public and the films target audience.

Paramount Pictures is one of America's oldest media institutions and is based in LA, Hollywood; by being based here they will have a lot of useful resources at hand, and will have a wide variety of places near that could be used to make the film. Hollywood is also very dominant in the film world and so will mean our film can get global distribution.

Paramount Pictures is also a company known and trust worldwide so will allow our film to have a lot of publicity all over the globe.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

To identify the audience for our thriller opening we looked on the BBFC website to determine what was allowed to be put into the thriller so that we could, based on our thriller determine what age group it would be suitable for, we also looked at other thrillers to see who they had targeted as their audience.

We also sent out a questionnaire with questions relating to different aspects of a thriller movie we asked what age they were to help determine what age group to aim our thriller at and we also asked what people look for in a thriller to help us determine what type of thriller our opening would be for e.g. action, mystery, religious ect…

From our research we got valuable information into what our target audience expect from a thriller, the research influenced our thriller in the number of main characters that we used, and also in the music that we used, we were planning on having quite bold music but from our research we could see that this was not preferred and so used quiet and tense music that works much better in our thriller opening.

We decided to classify this film as suitable for 15 years or over, as it seemed to be the most suitable for the opening, in this type of film classification:

Drug taking is allowed to be shown although it cannot in anyway promote drug.
Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic.
Dangerous behaviour shown should not dwell on detail.
Nudity is allowed.
Violence can be quite strong.
Any theme in permitted although it must be suitable for a 15 year old.

Although our opening does not involve much of this, by using this film classification it will give freedom for the rest of the film, we also chose this age classification as most people age 15-17 as well as people aged 18+ enjoy thrillers and so this classification will be the most suitable to use as it will mean the thriller will be able to be viewed by a large range of people.

The BBFC rating affected our target audience due to some of the guidelines for the age limits, we had to consider how the rest of the film would lead on and what we included in the opening such as violence and whether or not it had any offensive language, to find an age range that would be suitable to mark our film as and so this affected the audience as some would not be able to go and see the thriller.

The key demographic for my thriller are any male of female age 15+ from any ethical background, that enjoy the thriller genre.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

We posted our finished product on a c0uple of different public sites, such as Facebook and YouTube as a way to get feedback from our audience. Most of the feedback was positive, saying it was well put together, worked well, that the continuity was good and that it was very realistic and effective. Some commented that the music worked really well although it would be better if only the non diegetic music played, rather than it playing as well as some diegetic sound. From these comments we can see that our product meets the needs and expectations of our audience.

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

Some of the different technologies that I used when planning and making my media product were:

Blogger- To post information and research into the thriller genre and different thriller openings, and to post planning for out thriller opening. This helped in the organisation of our thriller as we could put all of the research together, it also helped with the planning as we could go back and look at all the research that we had done.
Search Engines- Such as Google, and YouTube to research into the thriller genre, from this we could view other thriller openings which helped us to find which conventions worked and which didn’t.
YouTube and Facebook- After publishing our thriller on YouTube and Facebook we learnt from our target audience what worked well and what didn’t in our thriller, we got useful feedback and constructive criticisms that helped us in our evaluations.
Video camera and Digital camera- To shoot our thriller opening and to take images of the setting of our opening, and images relating to the setting to cut into our thriller opening. From using this we learnt how to get effective shots for our thriller, what worked in the mise-en-scene and what didn’t.
iMovie- To edit the opening, from using this we learnt how to add transitions, and edit the thriller to make sure that it worked and looked effective.
iDVD- To add the finishing features to the thriller opening such as a title screen.

During shooting I’ve learnt how to create effective shots through the placement of the camera and I have also learnt how to get steady shots through trial and error whilst shooting. Also during shooting I learnt that using the objects in the shot to frame the shot worked well, such as some of the trees surrounding the church. I also learnt how to set up a shot so that all could be seen and so that the lighting would not be a problems in the shot, I found getting the write light quite difficult making sure that the sunlight wasn't blocking anything in the shot and making sure that the inside shots has enough light so that everything could be seen.

I have learnt and developed a lot of editing skills during the making of this piece; I have improved the continuity of the piece through cutting the clips at the right time, I have also improved in my choice of transitions between each clip making sure I use them at an appropriate place and time, and making sure that they are suitable for that part of the opening and that they don’t look out of place. I also learnt about using fade to black shots rather than leaving them as jump cuts as a way of making the two shots continuity between each other much better. I also during the editing of this production learnt how to change the contrast to fix some of the lighting in the shots, in one shot where the main character is about to jump a metal gate, we had to change the contrast so that his head does not blend in with the background of the shot. I also during editing learnt how to add different effect to create a different emotion to the shot, in the flashback we added a blurred effect and made it lighter to try to create the feel of it being a dream like environment.

I have through using the Apple Macs learnt how to import and loop music through my piece and edit it so that it still sounds like a whole piece of sound.

Some problems that we overcame whilst editing the thriller opening were not having enough different types of shots to create an interesting and tense effect, to fix this problem we looking at some other material that we got from the day shooting and found some still that were taken of the church and inside the church, we decided to cut these still into the opening in random places and at the end of the opening to create a tense and dramatic effect.

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq3vtG3p2Cw

I think that I have improved a lot since my preliminary task compared to my thriller opening, especially as I used a range of different shots, editing and techniques. I have also developed a lot in my editing skills, makes sure not to over-do it with editing, such as adding too many sound effect or transitions when they are not needed so that it still looks realistic, but editing the product enough so that it looks finished to a good standard.

Due to our preliminary task, we created plans, storyboards and shot lists for our thriller opening as we found that it helped us a lot in the organisation of both of the products.

As well as a shot list and story board we create mood boards to help up with the type of shots that we wanted to include in our thriller opening and the type of props and costumes that we wanted to show, we also created a mood board of the type of location that we wanted to use, that would create the most dramatic atmosphere for our thriller opening, as this was one thing we did not plan for our preliminary task, which led to the setting not being a very suitable one, as it did not suit the genre and did not create enough tension.

This planning acted as a base for our main production, during the filming we changed certain aspects such as the props used, and some of the ideas for shots and when we got to our location we found better shots that could be done for a much more dramatic scene, for example instead of having a long shot of the man running through the tree into the church, we have a close up of the man’s feet running past through some shrubs, creating a more tense and mysterious effect rather than just a mysterious one.

During the filming we also decided to add still images into our product as well as other shots, stills such as images of words from the bible, images of gravestones and different views of the church to create a more tense effect.

The filming of our thriller opening went well. The location was perfect for the opening and worked really well for the story. There were also parts of the location we had no planned to film in that when we got there found looked really good for the story as well as the main location, such as the area of land that we used for the flash back, which was a small walk from the church but showing the church in the background helped us to link the flashback to the church much more than we had originally planned to do. The actor that we chose was effective for the part, he played it well and suited what we needed him to do; I also feel that the costumes worn suited our 1960's theme. Some problems that we came across when filming were:

The weather- We found that the icy and snowy conditions were quite difficult to film in as we had not planned for them, we found it hard to stand the camera at a steady angle in the snow, and also because of the snow it was difficult to get to some parts of the church that would have been good to film in and it was also quite difficult to film some of the running shots as, because of the ice it was hard to get the speed that we needed for the running shots. The weather also effected the lighting in our production as the sunlight reflected off of the snow causing it to show up much brighter on the camera.

Battery Life- Another problem that we had was the battery life on the camera, at the beginning of the day it was fully charged but with all the shots we took the battery ran out quite quickly and so we found it hard to get some extra shots from different angles of some of the different scenes.

Organisation- We also had some problems with actors, some of the people that we had planned to act in our opening, on the day couldn't do it and so we had to find actors that could step in. This worked out well for us in the end, but we could have been more organised in making sure that all the actors could come on the day.

Over all I think that the filming went really well and we got a good number of shots. The location working really well for us, and our group worked really well together each putting in our own opinions in how we thought each shot could be improved.

I have learnt that to produce a short film it takes a lot more work that I first thought and a lot more planning and time. If I were to redo this product I would make sure that I was much more organized in my planning, making sure that all the actors could make it on the day and know exactly what they

were doing, I would also try to get a range of different shots for each scene as when we came to edit our production we found that we did not have enough variety of shots to put into the final product.

I thought that my partner and I worked well together, we discussed each decision and came to a joint conclusion, we also both worked on every part of the filming and editing not have set roles so that both could put out own ideas into the final product.

I feel that the establishing shots of our church work well, as it give a number of different views of the church rather than just one, and so give the viewer a better idea of the setting.

This is a screenshot of our flashback, after filming when editing we decided instead of having it play just at the end of the opening, we would have sections played throughout the opening to show a link throughout the story to the main character and to create a sense of mystery. I think this shot works well as you can see that it is in a different time, but it still relates to the setting as in the background you can see the church just from a different angle. Also during editing we added an effect to this shot to make it look like a ideal setting and so lets the audience infer that this was a happier time compared the present that it being witnessed.

I feel that this shot works well as you can see the main characters breath which adds a sense of drama and tension. Although I feel that the lighting in the shot could be improved as his face blends with the background of this shot due to the sunlight reflecting off the snow in the background of the image.

I feel that looking back at our preliminary task we have improved in our skills a great deal, in the way that we frame the shots and the mise-en-scene that we created for each of the shots. For this production we put a lot more thought into the smaller details, such as what was in the background of each shot, making sure that nothing looked out of place, this is something that we didn't consider to much during the making of our preliminary task.