Evaluation In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My thriller research allowed me to understand expected and demanded features within a thriller film.

Common features anticipated within a thriller, and features that we wanted to include within our opening

sequence, are running water, large isolated areas and an expected setting such as a wood. To enable us to

include these features, and conform to the thriller genre conventions, we decided that the best location for us

to film was Crick. Both Catherine and Ollie live in Crick and Effie and I live in the next village along, meaning

that we could easily get to the filming location as both of our parents didn’t mind doing lifts, as it was only a

five minute drive. In the occasion where we couldn’t get a lift, Effie and I were both still able to get to Crick as

regular buses travel to and from Crick. The village, Crick is a rural setting and from my primary research I

discovered that this setting is preferred, by target audience, compared to an urban location. Crick, offers a

wide range of settings suitable for the thriller film; with many large, open fields it can offer us the large and

isolated areas. As well as having the fields, Crick also has a wood, allowing us to have the expected setting

which we could then use for the chase scene. Finally, with Crick having a canal it meant that we could include

the running water aspect within the two minute clip.

From my thriller research, I learnt that an ‘establishing shot’ is often used in a thriller. It is seen as a popular way to immediately inform the audience and make them aware of the isolation and the unusual quietness within the setting. Establishing shots are often used to build an enigma, for example, this is done in “The Shining” opening sequence. The enigma created within this shot, was the fact that we didn’t know where the car was going. When the car is driving to the setting far away from others and civilization, the camera shows the wide open setting, and shows the loneliness of the car and the isolation within the area.

In the establishing shot in my thriller opening sequence, we have highlighted the isolation within the setting

by having no people in the shot, house or any sign of being near help, creating a helpless setting, and

conforming to thriller genre conventions.

Another common setting within a thriller film is a wood. A wood setting conforms to thriller genre conventions

by representing entrapment; often in woods the trees are lined up and create a bar like impression, linking to

places like jail or a cage, places that you can’t easily escape from. By having the chase scene continue into a

wood, the audience becomes cautious and aware that what will happen next is unlikely to be good for the

protagonists. In the film “The Blair Witch Project” the main setting is a wood. Although in this film there isn’t a

chase scene that actually takes place where we are able to see both the antagonist and protagonists, it does

feature the theme of being followed. In “The Blair Witch Project” the innocent characters end up accidentally

splitting up, getting lost and making them more vulnerable, similarly to what happens to Catherine and I in our

film.

Running water is a convention often used in a thriller film to create an enigma, demonstrate life and to wash

things away. To include a running water aspect in our film we had to develop and adapt the usual ways of the

convention due to the location. Running water shown in a thriller is usually the sea or water from

tapes/showers. As we aren’t based near the sea and water from tapes/showers wouldn’t fit in the setting, we

chose to feature a canal in Crick. Canal was a suitable place to film as it was close to the fields that our other

scenes were set. The canal develops thriller conventions as it is seen as still water in our film, linking to the lack

of life (perhaps indicating to the audience that life will be lost later in our film). In the film “The Shining” they

use the feature of water within the opening sequence, by showing a lake within the establishing shot and

other shots. This creates an enigma and sense of tension as it there is a mystery because you can’t see what is

at the bottom. The water in “The Shining” opening sequence also seems to be still, also linking to the lack of

life and foreshadowing the lack of life that will occur later in the film.

Another we tried to make our thriller more effective was by including a feature that people link to bad luck,

bad things and scary things. On the bridge that we run under and over, it has the number 13 on. The number

13 is thought to be unlucky and a scary number. Some thriller and horror films are set on the date Friday the

13th as it’s thought to be an unlucky day/date. The number 13 is thought to be so significant that a thriller film

in 2010 was released called “13”.

Also, whilst doing my research I learnt about Helmut Nickel’s theory which suggests that the colour black links

with death, decay, and greed. For this reason we decided to dress our antagonist in all black and had no skin

visible. This made the audience aware immediately that it was likely he would be a threat. Antagonists are

often dressed in all black, for example, the dementors in Harry Potter are all black and no faces can be seen.

The two girls were dressed in normal clothing, we deliberately decided to not dress them in white as this

would make the contrast too obvious and make the outfits seems unrealistic. I wore a pink top, jeans and

converse, just an average, everyday teenage outfit. The pink represented femininity and pointed out that it

was females being the expected victim. Catherine wore a skirt, converse and a yellow t-shirt. The yellow can

link to brightness and happiness, indicating to the audience the innocence of the girls.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my groups media product we used teenagers as the protagonists. We used this social age group as they are seen as more vulnerable than young adults and adults. As teenagers don’t assess risk, they are therefore more naïve and don’t expect to be placed in an unsafe and scary situation. The antagonist is aware of the two teenage girls’ naivety and takes advantage of this and abuses their innocence. We chose to use teenage girls as it is an age seen by society as naïve and most at risk of this type of thing happening. We decided that it we couldn’t use younger children as it would seem unrealistic for many reasons such as, they wouldn’t be allowed to go out on their own for a walk and it would be unlikely that they would own their own mobile phones, which is a key prop within the film. Also, it was easier to use only us four in the group to be characters of the film. Another reason we used teenaged protagonists is because it wouldn’t seem realistic for a young adult/adult to be this type of character. Stereotypically we decided to use a male character for the antagonist as 68% of the people who responded to

my survey monkey questionnaire said that they preferred for the male to play this role. One reason for this

was because “males play a better killer/murderous character as they are seen as a more dominant gender.” I

don’t believe that having male victims and a female antagonist would have worked as well in our film as it

doesn’t seem realistic that males would get scared if a female started chasing them.

To be the victims, we decided that it would be best if we had two girls (Catherine and I). This is because 68%

believe that they enjoy a film more when the protagonist/s is/are female. Females are seen as being the

weaker gender therefore having them as the victims makes it more believable than having a stronger gender

being the victim. Also by having two females, it shows how still one man can be threatening even when the

numbers are with the protagonists.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The most likely and realistic way for me to distribute my thriller would be through social media sites such as YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook. Over recent years the population percentage that uses sites, such as these has dramatically increased, allowing more people to watch the thriller. This would create awareness and possibly (yet unlikely) attract film production companies to release it. My target audience is the age that most uses the websites such as these, therefore this would be a good way to distribute my thriller and grab the attention of my target audience. As I would be able to directly attack my target audience and influence to view my film, I could see this way of release being successful. I am already aware that using social media sites is a successful way to grab my target audience’s attention as I distributed the link of my questionnaire on twitter. From this I was able to get many respondents from within my target audience. As well as using social media sites, I could use lovefilm.com to make people aware of my film and get more of an audience to watch my thriller opening. Although I believe that releasing my thriller through the internet would be the most suitable way, there are

other ways I could successfully release my film such as at Film Festivals (Northampton) and the distribution

company – EuropaCorp. EuropaCorp is a French company that is known worldwide in the film industry.

EuropaCorp were the distributing company that made “Taken” and “Taken 2” a successful release. In the two

thriller films they included similar conventions and themes that are shown in our thriller such as stalking,

kidnapping and voyeurism. As they have already successfully distributed Taken, I believe that they could do the

same with my thriller opening sequence - The Shadow. I also think that distributing my film at Northampton

Film Festival could possibly be good. The film festival has run for the past 6 years and will do so again this year,

and has been a local success. This would be a good way to distribute my film, especially as I only live 20

minutes away from Northampton, so a good way to locally advertise, unfortunately I can only see it being a

local success if this were the way I were to release my film.

Large companies such as Pixar and Warner Bros. are unlikely to release films such as my thriller for many

reasons. One reason for this is because Pixar mainly releases animated films such as Monsters Inc. and Toy

Story and Warner Bros. produces many Sci-fi films such as Gravity and Journey Back to Middle Earth.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I made a survey monkey questionnaire (https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6V7BJQG) for my primary research so that I was able to know what would make my thriller more appealing to the audience I was targeting. Out of the people who responded to my questionnaire, 69% were between the ages of 16-19. Out of them, 50% answered that thriller was their favourite genre of film. 20% of my respondents were between the ages of 0-15 and I know that the youngest out of them was a twelve year old; as I ask my respondents to fill out the questionnaire so therefore know who did the questions. All of that age said that they preferred the thriller genre to others. My secondary research suggests that I should target 15-24 year olds. The BFI statistical yearbook suggests that

this type of age group were the type most into thrillers e.g. Taken 2’s audience was 54% of 15-24 year olds. My

thriller is most similar to Taken compared to other films, which suggest that this age gap would good to target

audience for me to aim my media project at.

After closely analyzing all of my secondary research and primary research I believe that the best target age for

my film would be people in between the ages of 12-15.

How did you attract/address your audience? To attract my audience, we decided to film and locate our film in a rural setting. From my primary research I discovered that more of my respondents preferred a thriller film to set in a rural area. The large open fields, which seemed to be surrounded by nothing was the most rural setting possible for this film. I asked my classmates that watched the thriller whether or not they felt that having this film set in a rural location was best and one said “Having this chase and kidnapping scene set in a rural location, it makes the situation seem worse and more threatening as it suggests no one is near to help, suggesting that the two girls are at more of a risk.” Another way that my group and I thought it would be appropriate to attract the right audience was by using

teenage characters. By using Catherine and I as the characters, it allowed us to engage the target audience as

we are both 17, so therefore a similar age to my target audience. Using characters at a similar age to the target

audience it enables them to feel closer to the character and feel more emotions and fear for the girls as they

could link themselves to being Catherine and me. They could then perhaps imagine being in the situation and

feel more uncomfortable and scared by the storyline.

I also tried to attract/address my audience by looking at my primary research to see what sort of things they

preferred. I was able to see that 45% of my respondents liked to see action featured within a thriller film, so to

try and incorporate this into our film, we decided that a fast paced, upbeat chase would be a good thing to

include. We tried to pack action into the chase by having Catherine fall over and then having Kate help her up

to make tension build and include more movement within the chase. The fall could, as well as being seen as an

action feature, also could have a comedic aspect which could again address my audience’s needs as 50% of

people, who answered my questionnaire, said that they liked having comedy as a sub-genre to a thriller and

people often find others falling over funny.

To again try and incorporate what my respondents seemed to like, we decided to use female protagonists as

68% of my respondents said that they preferred female protagonists for a number of reasons such as, “it works

well” and that they “like the fact the man comes along to save a female victim”.

We also used a male antagonist to attract and address my audience to the film as my questionnaire showed

that this was the preferred gender, by my target audience, to play this character. 68% answered saying that

having a male antagonist would be better as it is “expected” and “more believable”.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Although I did not film much of the film, as I was a main character within the film and in almost every shot, I

still was able to learn about the importance of different type of shots, movements, the effects of the different

shots and movements and how to create different angles from different positions etc.

Over the filming process, along with the others, I realized the importance of having smooth and still shots. We

all decided to have almost all of the shots that were taking stationary as it allowed the audience to see fully

what was going on in the shot and not be distracted by any unsteadiness. Having said that, we did include a

hand held scene to create an unpleasant setting and viewing for the audience to create an enigma and

increase tension. After speaking to fellow class members and other peers within school that had watched the

film, they said that all filming was good and effective. One said “I liked the smoothness throughout most of the

scenes and thought that the contrast with that one running shot through the woods…that was really effective

because it made me feel nervous for the girl and I was uncertain and cautious about what was going to happen

next.”

Throughout the filming process I also learnt about the different angles and the effects of them. I was able to

experience, first hand, all different angles being created such as, high angles, over the shoulder shots, low

angle shots and eye level shots. I learnt the effects of these, for example, a high/above shot shows the

vulnerability of the characters the shot is mainly focusing on and also highlights to the audience that those

characters are at risk and in danger. Low angles can represent someone who is meant to seem threatening

and/ or looked up to. We used a low shot when Catherine and I were running away from the antagonist to

show that we were at risk. Shown in the picture below.

As I said above, I was unable to actually film a lot of the opening sequence; however, I filmed the section

where Catherine was looking for me. At first it was a show that was difficult to decide how to capture, but

eventually the group and I came to the conclusion that the best way to film this part was a good opportunity to

incorporate another hand held shot. I asked a member of my media class what he thought of this specific shot

and he replied “the handheld part on that shot worked well as the movement almost matched Catherine’s

which made me aware that the situation was unstable and unsafe as the two girls had now split.”

As the editing began I was able to see and learn about what sort of different effects that were made when the different transitions were put in place. Using a fade to black established a new setting, for example, when we started the title sequence with an establishing shot, we then faded to black to then show th stalker pictures of Catherine and myself. We also used a swipe across the screen to show some time passing to allow Catherine and I run ahead slightly. When editing, I also realised why our media teacher had said to film every shot at least two times. When

editing sometimes things don’t work as well as you first thought. For example, we shot the finishing shot at a

different angle to the one used in the finished film, and originally thought that it would be the one we used in

the film, as when filming it we thought it looked good. When we put it on the computer and started editing it

didn’t look as good as we had initially expected, luckily we had shot the scene from a different angle which

worked out and went well to finish the opening title sequence.

Incorporating the titles and credits into the thriller opening scene seemed to be more difficult than I first

expected. Trying to find suitable times and positions to for the names and URL’s proved to be a hard task as we

struggled to find the right times for names etc to be placed on the screen, but I believe that we now have

placed them in good positions and that they look right and not out of place in the places where they are.

I also learnt that the use of sound when editing made a massive impact on the film. Before the music had been

added to our film, I was really worried as I didn’t think it seemed good at all! It took us a long time to come to

an agreement within the group as to what music to use, but eventually we all agreed with the one that is now

on the final product. We chose to use this music as we believed that it created tension and suspicion

throughout chase and when we felt that more of an impact needed to be put in place at specific points, we

added sounds on top of the music to create more of an impact.

As well as realising and learning things during the editing process, I have learnt about other technologies such

as social media sites. I know realise and understand the importance of social networking sites as they are

places to easily share information and distribute products (in my case my survey and word about my film).

From tweeting about this project, I gained interest from people outside of my friendship group who were

interested in the product, who were within my target audience. They asked about the film and asked to see

the finished product. Also from tweeting the link to my survey monkey, I was able to gain an understanding of

how effective social networking sites are when needing to do research, especially to do with media as the sites

themselves are a form of media.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? The performing, shooting and editing of our preliminary task has led to my ability to plan, shoot and edit my

groups film production to get better as I learnt from mistakes made during the time of making the preliminary

task.

As well as being one of the main characters within the thriller opening sequence, I was also one of the main

characters in the preliminary task. Whilst performing in the preliminary task I found it hard to take it seriously

at first, I found it strange being filmed and kept losing concentration and laughing, which was completely out

of the character that I was playing, as the girl was meant to be in trouble and upset because she was being told

off. From this experience I learnt that I had to keep it serious and stay concentrated when filming for the

thriller opening otherwise we would have wasted a lot of time and could have led to the rest of the group

getting frustrated, causing disagreements within the group, but luckily this didn’t happen as I learnt to be

professional whilst working on the preliminary task.

I feel that doing the preliminary task helped us improve and be prepared for the ‘shooting’ aspect of the

opening sequence. Whilst doing the preliminary task, we made a couple of mistakes in the positioning of the

shots and not including some finishing movements that needed to be featured within the shot. For example,

Catherine slammed her hands down on the desk and then in the next shot we had forgot to make sure her

hands were in the same position so it ended up not looking right, resulting in us re filming that part of the task.

To make sure that we didn’t make the same mistake, we made sure that if we were changing the position of the camera, then the actors/actresses would stay in the same position so that everything would look smooth and flow well. Since the preliminary task, I feel that my editing skills have grown and that I have understood a deeper

meaning behind the importance of making sure the transitions and movement between shots etc look good.

When doing the preliminary task, we didn’t add any transitions between the different shots, or us any effects

like slow motion or effects on the colour/quality of the picture. Over the editing process of the of my groups

thriller film, I was able to expand my technological knowledge and learn how to put different effects,

transitions etc in and for set amount of times as well as learning other basic skills, that I didn’t know how to do

before. I have never worked on an apple programmed machine to do anything like this, so it really widened my

ability to work on Macs/apple laptops.

Working in a group enabled me to improve upon my skills when working with others. In the group we shared

out the work load equally when it came to every different aspect including planning, the shoot and the edit. In

the planning stage of the thriller, every group had to prepare a pitch to explain details of their film, including

the script, story board and screen shot list, list of props, explanations of costumes and locations and much

more. As we shared the work load out equally, it was my job to create the script, amongst other things. I wrote

the script for both the preliminary task and then the thriller opening sequence as well, and because of doing it

for the preliminary I know that I needed to make the one for the actual thriller much better. When I wrote the

one for the preliminary task it was very basic, just said who spoke, in what order and what they said. The

wording wasn’t very realistic, as I found it difficult to come up with a natural conversation for this situation as I

have never experienced it in real life. When I wrote the script for the thriller I did research into how I should

lay out the script and what it was realistic to say, although we still had to slightly adapt and improvise as it just

didn’t seem to flow in the film. Still, it was much better than my first attempt at a script which I did from the

preliminary, so that is another aspect that I have improved on since then.

From the preliminary we learnt as a group that during the shooting process everything had to be precise shot

twice and made sure that characters featured in the same position if the camera/camera angle was moving.

The whole group improved on this since the preliminary and everyone helped one another out when it was the

others turn to be in charge of the camera when they were struggling. As I was in all scenes in the preliminary, I

didn’t do any filming then so didn’t have much of an idea about what to when it came to me shooting very few

scenes in the actual thriller film. To help me decide which way to do things, Ollie and Effie helped me and gave

me guidance yet still allowed me to make all the movements so that I learnt for future reference.

Another way I feel that my skills have improved since the preliminary is researching skills to attract and address

my audience. From my primary and secondary research I now have much more of an insight into what people

like and dislike being included in a thriller film and the reasons behind this.

When editing, we all shared during the process and each did a few scene clippings editing ourselves, whilst

accompanied by the other members of the group to see if they agreed with the way each of us did things. As I

said above, I had never worked on apple programmed machines to any form of editing before so was a bit

wary at the start of my editing turn, but from the preliminary to now I have improved massively thanks to my

fellow group members giving me a helping hand. When editing, if one of us didn’t like the way in which

someone had done something we would give constructive criticisms, by saying what we liked, but then saying

what we didn’t like and asking if we could change it. We would then all come to an agreement about what to

do, sometimes one had to compromise, but at the end of the editing process everyone was really pleased with

the finished product.

When trying to find an appropriate soundtrack, it was very time consuming as it was hard to find one that fitted with what was happening and one that everyone was happy with. It must have tried using at least 10 or 11 different soundtracks before we finally all found we liked and used in the final edit. Then to add to the time, we wanted to, as a group, put extra sounds on when it was a specific point. I feel that this has made us work better in a group as we have learnt when to say our opinions and made the team become one that works better together compared to at the beginning during the preliminary. To decide the title of the film, we worked as a group to produce a mind map of different ideas that we all

contributed to. In the preliminary task, the decision we had to make was to decide the idea of what was going

to happen in the clip, and because we had no organised structure/way of doing this we had slight disputes

about what should happen. If we had done a mind map, to make a decision then it would have prevented this

from happening. So when it came to a decision making process during the actual thriller film, we decided that

doing a mind map to decide the name would be a good thing to do. This makes me believe that the workings

within the group have improved since the preliminary task.

When getting audience feedback, I was pleasantly surprised with how much positive feedback we received.

The feedback was much better than I had anticipated, which made all the hours that we put into the product

seem so worthwhile. A lot of people gave us good comments on the music chose and how effective the

different angles were. People said things such as “I don’t like the music, it makes me scared and tense. Which I

suppose is good for you as that’s what you intended.” Which is very true, we had hoped that the music would

create this effect, so it pleased me that someone felt this way when watch the film. Another member of my

year said that “the camera angles we good, they made the girls seem vulnerable”, which again as the

intention. From these comments and the other people who seemed to agree with them, I believe that the

groups’ intentions have been understood and that the audience intended have been able to read the opening

sequence of “The Shadow”.

Within my thriller opening sequence I feel as though there are many strengths such as the influential music,

the wide range of camera angles, the use of different effects and the story line itself. From my audience

feedback I have been complimented on the music, different camera angles and different effects. As well as

having good comments on those specific features, many people said how the story line and the things that

happen within the two minute opening were good film material. They said that the story line had depth and

“could [have] see[n] it continue into a proper full hour and half long film.” A weakness of our final production

is perhaps the timing at the beginning of the walk; I feel that perhaps the scene could have seemed more

upbeat and effective if the length of the different shots were perhaps slightly shorter, but I have only noticed

this when one person pointed it out, as the only weakness they could spot.

I feel as though there are many important things that I have learnt about film making that I didn’t know before the coursework started, but feel that the most important thing I have learnt is how to edit and piece together

different clips to make a smooth running film clip. Over the editing period, I learnt such a lot about the editing programmes on apple and was allowed to really expand on my knowledge of the programme and specific details to make the editing the best quality I could possibly do. I have really enjoyed making the film as it has

given me a chance to improve upon many aspects such as filming, acting and most importantly editing!!