FINAL EDIT.avi

This is mine and Ben's final draft and I am very happy with the way that it has turned out. We have put a lot of work into our clip and overall I think that the outcome is excellent.

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

As a group task me and Ben sat down and decided that a lot of the past AS productions as a majority has been more trailers then the opening to a film. From my own independent research (Seven and The Collector) I discovered that the opening to a film should achieve three things which are to give credit to the people who have directed, started and produced the film. It should give a very slight idea of the story and this could be as little as showing the setting or as much as showing the murder weapon. The last thing and the most important thing the first two minutes should achieve is to engage and retain the audience so that they want to watch the rest of the movie. The way we wanted to develop the conventions of real media products was to challenge this and achieve them but in a way which was a lot more extreme. An example of this is when the titles flash in and out causing confusion to the audience. We also set the scene and gave an insight in to the watcher but in a way that challenges the conventional way of media these days. We also set out to hook the audience so that they would want to know what happens next. We took a lot of inspiration from the film Seven which I mentioned earlier on in my blog. From the first time that we were told about creating a thriller this film stood out to the both of us because of how famous it is and how well it has done over the years.

We believed that this was because they took a different take on thrillers and created something individual which had never been done before which was exactly what we decided we wanted to do. We did not want to follow a typical thriller storyline so we decided to brainstorm some ideas to come up with some great ideas which could set us aside from everybody else. With some of the images that we shot, we wanted them to have a similar impact that the images in the Seven opening did, so shots such as putting the gloves on was something that we used the inspiration of Seven for.

We thought that if you placed attention on an object then it means it is important to the film or something that you should pick up on. We also decided to use a backing soundtrack which we believed was very suitable for our media product because the music heightens when we want it to, at the crucial moments. 

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

When we started to produce our film we didn't really think about aiming it towards any particular social groups but when I look back now I don't think that we really do represent any social groups. We have set our thriller to be in a normal environment which could possibly scare people more because it gives them a feel of insecurity as somewhere such as a train station could hold danger for them.

This plays on peoples fears which is exactly what 'The Watcher' does. He is a man who plays on people's fears and what they feel uncomfortable with. We have tried to set our film in a middle class suburban area because we felt that this was appropriate so that we could make people feel as though they are not safe when they are actually living in a middle class area where crimes are less likely to happen. The audience should then feel uncomfortable and almost as if they are prone to being a victim because they are in the film which connects with their real feelings. When people do not deserve to be the victim it makes a much better storyline than when people deserve the pain that they are caused. 


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

I would distribute my film to Working Title.

This is because Working Title gets a lot of backing from Universal because Universal bought into Working Title's shares. This would help make my film get largely produced because Universal is very big company in the US and funding from them would help the film to get better actors and equipment which would automatically improve my film and make it a lot more professional. Working Title is based in the UK in London and is a much smaller company than Universal. They mainly use the UK for the location of filming and Working Title mainly decide to use British actors. If my film did well with Working Title producing the film then Universal would take the film and distribute it in America and their own multiplexes across the UK. Then Universal could bring some more finance to the project and could make adverts, trailers and an advertising campaign on the internet. We thought from our research that 15-21 year olds would more likely see and interact with an internet advertising campaign than any other advertising campaign.

Working Title have distributed thrillers such as recently Green Zone which has brought in a gross revenue of $94,862,344 which is large for a English company.

Another thriller that they have distributed recently in 2008 is Burn After Reading which has brought in a gross revenue of $161,128, 228 which is much more than their budget of $37 million.

This shows that if my film was to be distributed by a company which has brought in a lot of revenue before then they would be able to hopefully do the same with mine as they would be able to have a larger budget that I have done and better actors. 

 Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for my media product would range from ages from 15+ because the film shows some violence and explores some delicate issues. Our thriller film is very full of suspense and we would want to create lots and twists and turns in the plot to keep people guessing like the thriller (Seven). We hope that our audience would be both male and female because our thriller appeals to both. Violence appeals to the men and the twists and turns for the women which is very stereotypical but one of the best ways to look at it because they have some truth to them. We have created a psychological thriller which should need a lot of attention to keep up with the storyline as it is meant to be confusing and hard to keep up with due to the many different shots. 

How did you attract/address your audience?

I tried to attract the audience through my piece by being disjointed and trying to make the audience keep guessing throughout the piece. We attract the audience through the fast pace and the different shots which makes the audience want to keep watching because they want to know what is the source of the shots and why they are being used. We use reverse shots to give the impression at the start that ‘The Watcher’ was going in to the house then at the end we also try and give the impression that ‘The Watcher’ has left the house.

 If the audience cannot guess what is going to happen next then this makes them want to carry on watching. They will not want to stop watching our film because we have made it so that they cannot possibly guess what is going to happen and who the victim is from the first two minutes. The whole point of the first two minutes of the film is to engage and retain your audience which is what we have definitely tried to do. Certain images such as 'The Watcher' on the other side of the platform and then when the train goes past he has disappeared, attract the audience because they want to know where he has gone.

The gardening tools also attract the audience because they do not know what 'The Watcher' is going to do with these tools and how he is going to use them. We want to keep the audience enticed by confusing them and keeping them guessing. 

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

I have never really used a camera before to film something for myself so I was completely new with all of the technology, also including the tripod. I am familiar with picture cameras so I did have some knowledge on how to use cameras but nothing too specific. If I had a problem I would probably have been able to figure it out with the knowledge I did have. I had never used Adobe Premiere Pro before which soon became obvious to myself because when it came to editing I had to learn everything from scratch. Fortunately, it was quite easy to pick up as I am quite good with technology but it took longer than maybe it should have done. The preliminary task was helpful but it still did not tell us as much as maybe was needed throughout this task. I was also an actor when we were filming our preliminary task so this meant that I did not get to play around with the camera and actually do any of the filming myself. We had a few problems with the white balance but we learnt how to use it as in different settings, the white balance needed to be different due to the lighting that was available in the setting or at the time of day.

We needed to do this so that the quality of the shots was as high as possible. Adobe Premiere Pro can do some amazing transitions and edits as long as you know how to use it properly and fortunately one of our close friends is doing A2 Media so he is familiar with the program and he showed us some effective transitions and effects which were great and definitely helped to make our media product better. We discovered many different things to use after he showed us where to find the best transitions and effects. Editing is a large part of a film and if it does not look correct then it will not create a good finishing product. 


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


I have learnt a lot within the camera and Adobe Premiere Pro since I did the preliminary task because of the experience and just generally having time to look around the different areas of the program to see what is available to us. By spending more time filming I have managed to understand and more control over the camera because over time my skills have increased. When we were doing our preliminary task we did not have a lot of freedom. Although we were allowed to choose the storyline we had technically stay inside college and this meant that we were limited to the rooms available to use and also the casting had to be somebody out of our group because it was just easier and there was not much time for other casting. Fortunately, Louise from my Drama group was happy to come and help us in some of her free time whereas some other people would not be willing to do so. We did not need to do so much planning for the preliminary task because it was a simple task and not so much was needed from us. Planning was crucial for us in this final product because we did not have time to waste and we needed to know what was going to be shot and when so that we had enough time to edit. We were able to choose our own location and casting which made our clip automatically a lot better and individualistic. 

Thriller First Draft

Editing

For the editing we decided to use this sound as one of our sounds; http://soundbible.com/1548-Scary-Scream.html and also sound off of this website http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/index.html?genre=Horror
We felt that this was appropriate because we thought that it would scare some people when we put it into our clip. This is because they would not be expecting it to come up into their hearing. This is a typical convention of the Thriller genre. When people are not expecting what they hear, they are scared because it is natural of the human nature to want to know what is happening. When they don't know they feel uncomfortable and out of their comfort zone.

We decided to use many straight cuts instead of using transitions such as fade because we felt that this was appropriate as we did not want people to wait for something to happen. We did straight cuts so that we could get straight to the point and make sure that people felt on edge when they were watching our clip. We made everything that we did within transitions fast and straight to the point as we thought this would be most effective. Although we did use a fade edit when changing from the train to the house, we decided that we would make this a quick fade so that we did not leave the audience waiting for too long. Flashing shots were also used for effectiveness because this meant that the audience we scared and waiting for something to happen. The audience want to see what is going to come after the flashing shots. We used a zoom effect on the weapons inside the bag as we also thought that this would be effective as it gives the audience a chance to recognize the weapons that 'The Watcher' is going to be using to get away with his crimes.

Towards the end of the clip, we decided to use some white flashing images so that we could let the audience see what the important parts of the clip are and the parts which they should have picked up on e.g. the hanging pictures below. We thought that the white flash to the next image would be effective because it basically tells them the storyline.

Filming

As planned, we were supposed to go to Alex's house to film in his basement on Friday 11th of March but unfortunately he was not available on this day so we decided that to make things easier for ourselves that we would change the location and film at Ben's house in his garage. As we were filming in the daytime we had a few problems with the lighting as the garage was not as dark as we needed it to be. We managed to come across these small problems by using bin bags to cover up the places where the light was coming through. We used a small lamp so that we could get some light into the room and this light managed to create some good shadows which also adds to the eerie effect.

The next shot was done outside of Ben's house which was done as an establishing shot of the house. Ben stood outside of the house with the camera to film whilst I stood inside and dimmed the lights. We wanted this shot because it makes it seem as though somebody is watching from outside and it also lets the audience know that there is somebody inside the house too. By filming this shot it lets the audience know that the person inside of the house is more than likely in trouble or that there is somebody in the house that isn't supposed to be.


We filmed some shots on the platform of the train station so that we could get a shot of 'The Watcher' on one side of the train and then when a train went past we made sure that he had disappeared which created a shot which confused people as they did not know where he had gone so fast. 


When we shot in Ben's garage we used my hands to create the shots with the gloves. This was an easy shot that Ben had to shoot as my hands were already being used. This shot was used to create tension for the audience because when the leather gloves are placed on it gives the impression that a crime is going to happen because they don't want their fingerprints to be placed onto whatever they are damaging or harming. 

Analysis of seven opening titles

Seven (David Fincher,1995)



When we were told to design an opening to a thriller the film that came into my mind was Seven. Seven was well above its time in the thriller genre when it came out and was nominated for an Oscar. Me and Ben found most of our inspiration from Seven.


Sound
Non diegetic music is used within this film clip and it has an electric sound to it which sounds a lot like screeching. This is not necessarily a nice noise that many people would like to hear. This is done deliberately because similarly to the soundtrack in 'The Collector' it hits some peoples nerves and makes them feel uncomfortable. The music has definitely been done to make the audience feel tense and uncomfortable. This is typical of the Thriller genre. There is a height in the music when what seems to be a razorblade goes across the persons finger. This is something that would also hits some nerves because it makes people feel uncomfortable again.

Camera work
The shots that are used are mainly close ups of different objects such as hands and animals. This gives away the storyline a little bit because the director would not put clips of different objects into the opening scene unless they were important and part of the film. It would seem unlikely because the opening scene sets the scene for the whole of the film. There is also a lot of close ups on a book which shows that this book must be important because they would not focus on the book otherwise. I like the way that the flashing is disturbing and they use shocking images so that you feel as though you shouldn't have seen the image. The lighting is also good in this opening scene because it is dark and off colour which makes it look merky which gives the impression that it is dirty where they are filming.


Editing
The editing is mainly just straight cuts to the different images. They have decided not to use any fancy transitions and the straight cuts do exactly the job that they need to do. There is a flicker effect which makes it seem old fashioned and not very modern in the film industry. Even though it could have been done this way because of the lack of technology at the time but it creates a good effect for the thriller genre.


Mise en scene
I feel as though the mise en scene for this scene is very good because all of the props fit into the killers mind. For example, in the image below there is a man with a long drill through his head which shows how the killer is researching death and murder. On some of the images it almost shows the inside of the killers mind because he thinks fast about what he is doing and seems as though he doesn't hesitate before killing someone.

Titles
There is a white font on black background font on the titles ground. There is also a flicker effect which could be done to create a ghostly effect. It attracts the audiences attention when it is flickering because they see something moving on the eye. I really liked that the titles were floating in random places on the screen because it gave the impression that not even the title knew where they were meant to be. The font and how to words are scattered around suggests that the titles are not really put together but this is done deliberately because this is what the director wanted the audience to feel.

                                                                                                           

 

Time Management

Risk assessment

Risk	To Who/What	Prevention of Risk
Loosing equipment	Camera , tripod, film	Make sure all equipment is accounted for before and after every filming session and locked away in media storage cupboard as soon as possible after filming is completed.
Impaling/ being sliced by tools	All members of crew	Careful handling of props to make sure no injuries occur.
Falling into train lines	All members of crew/equipment	Make sure no filming happens over the yellow lines on the train platforms.
Weather damage of equipment	Camera, tripod, film	Don’t film in the rain or make sure the camera is covered well.

Filming Schedule

Date, Location, People Attending
Friday 11th - Alex Brown's cellar - Jake Frost, Ben Clarke, Alex Brown
Monday 14th - Attenborough Lane - Jake Frost, Ben Clarke
Monday 14th - Attenborough Train Station - Jake Frost, Ben Clarke

Props

The Teddy Bear 

We used a teddy bear as one of our props so that it was known to the audience that 'The Watcher' has been watching a child. It makes the audience believe that 'The Watchers' crimes are being aimed towards children which makes the crimes a lot worse. People tend to be more scared if the crimes are aimed towards children.

Leather gloves

We decided to use some leather gloves because they could become very important for our scene as he needs to hide his identity and fingerprints. It shows that 'The Watcher' is good at what he does and has the knowledge to keep his identity hidden so that he won't get caught. The fact that they are black gloves represent his dark nature.

Gardening tools


We decided to use gardening tools in our production so that we could show that 'The Watcher' does not use the stereotypical knife or gun to kill someone. We wanted our villain to be different so we decided that we would use gardening tools for his weapon. This is what he will kill his victims with.

Location

Our friend Alex has quite an old house which has a basement and we thought that this location would be great for some of our footage. We would be able to catch the eerie look that we wanted within our sequence, the natural darkness and old features to the house were perfect and hopefully will come up well on our sequence. 

The second location which we have decided to use is Attenborough Lane. This is Ben's road and where his house is there is a lot of bushes which means we can get inside them to create a point of view experience for the people watching our sequence. 

The last location that we have decided to use is Attenborough Train Station. It is easy to get to and we are going to produce a shot where somebody appears after the train goes by. This can only be created at a train station and this is the most convenient one.

We have decided to use Ben's garage instead of using Alex's basement because when we have to do improvements it is more convenient as it is easier to get to each others houses. It does not take any organising whereas going to Alex's house in Stapleford would.

Update : 


We decided that another location that we are going to use is the train track and platform. We have done this because it is very convenient and we are able to get some good shots e.g. the shot of 'The Watcher' on the other side of the train track and when the train goes past, he is gone. This was a shot that we thought was very effective as it plays with the audiences mind and makes them wonder when he has gone. 

Actors

Character : The Watcher
Actor : Ben Clarke


The Watcher is a peadophile, stalker and killer. He hides to watch children hence the name of 'The Watcher'. Ben does not have any Drama experience but he when he does act he does not need to speak or do any actual acting which means that this is not a problem. He just needs to stand on the other side of the train track and we cannot actually see his face because this would mean that 'The Watchers' identity has been revealed.






 
Character : The Watcher's hands
Actor : Jake Frost


I have experience in Drama as I did it at GCSE and also am taking A Level Drama. I am comfortable with being in front of the camera as I do not have any problems. Our sequence does not involve a lot of acting as we would like to concentrate more on objects.

Internet Audience Research

The collector (2009 Marcus Dunstan) 

When I knew we had to get some inspiration for the opening of my thriller I went out looking for something a long the lines of the film Seven and I decided to research on the Internet about The Collector opening scene which I found was similar to that of Seven but does everything a lot more extreme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3U72EqhOuM&feature=related

Sound

Non-diegetic music is used throughout the clip which creates a very sci-fi feel to the clip due to the music which has been used. The music which has also been used seems to be created to go through you because it creates a sound which is a bit like scratching fingernails on a blackboard which hits a lot of peoples senses and they do not like the sound for this reason. This is a great choice of music for a thriller opening scene because it automatically within five minutes hits the audiences senses and nerves. The sound keeps on getting louder to make people feel the suspense so that they keep waiting for something to happen.

Camera work

Not many shots have been used throughout the clip as they are very fast shots so that not much is given away. Quick panning shots are used to show frogs, spiders and other objects which are contained in jars to keep it concealed. Many close up shots have also been used on the animals which are moving. I believe that this has been done to scare people and hit their senses as a lot of people are scared of animals such as spiders and suffer from phobias such as arachnophobia. Another shot which is recurring is one of what we guess is 'The Collector'. It is a shadowed image which is done to make people feel scared as people tend to fear what they cannot identify.

Editing

Throughout the opening scene there are many different clips with fast changing sequences. At one point there are three different shots within a second which demonstrates how fast changing the transitions are. We only see an image of 'The Collector' which shows that he is the main character who we should be interested in. The fact that he has been set to be shadowed within an orange background and we cannot see any facial features which makes the identity of 'The Collector' unknown. Orange is also a connotation of fire. Different shots have blurs within them which makes sure that the audience cannot quite make out what they are seeing which can make them more scared as they want to know what is happening otherwise they begin to get on edge and curious. Most of the images have a backing colour of green which could be used deliberately because they give connotations of darkness and oddness. The fast cuts makes the audience feel confused because they cannot see one thing long enough to realise what is going on.

Mise en scene

We cannot really interpret the location but we know that it is somewhere underground. We know this because when the image of 'The Collector' is shown we can see a roof above him. This is also typical of the thriller genre as when somebody is underground there is nowhere that they can actually go. They cannot get out into the open from underground. An image of a spider is used to get to peoples worst fears as many people have arachnophobia in the world and when they are beginning to watch the film they cannot handle it for very long without being scared.

Titles 

The titles in the sequence are a simple white font on black background in a typewriter font.

Internet Audience Research

Storyboards

Thriller Questionnaire

How old are you? 

15-21  

21-35

35-50

50+

How often do you watch a film?

Daily

Weekly

Bi-weekly

Monthly

What is preferred genre of film?

Comedy

Horror

Thriller

Drama

Romance

When watching a thriller what do you expect?

To be scared
To be on the edge of your seat

To not know what is coming

How do thrillers make you feel?

Shocked

Excited

Thrilled

Scared






After you have seen a thriller does it make you think deeper into it? 

Yes

No 




Do explicit images make more of an impact than subtle implicit shots?

Yes
No

Results

Age:

Our sample was mainly in the ’15-21’ age category. This was mainly for convenience as it was easier to ask our peers to partake in the questionnaire as they were in college with us at the time that we created the questionnaire. They seem to have a similar intake on thrillers as we do but with some variations.

How often do you watch films? :

This shows that the people we asked watched a film at least once a week if not every other day. Also showing that they have some knowledge about film and are likely to watch many different genres and have a lot of knowledge and opinions on thriller films and the conventions that they would like to see. 

 

What is your preferred genre? :
When we asked people this question they said that they had more than one preferred genre and that it depended on the mood they were in. But from the results given most people had preference to comedy. Perhaps because comedies are easy-watching and keep people entertained without having to put too much thought into it.

When watching a thriller what do you expect? :

The majority of people replied that they expected to not know whats coming to keep them guessing, so it is useful to take that into account and live up to the expectations of the audience. However, only filming the first 2 minutes means that we can’t give away too much of the story.

 How do thrillers make you feel? :

Most people said that they tend to be scared when they watch thriller films. This could be for many different reasons such as the jumpy scenes and not knowing what to expect. People are prone to get scared when they feel something is not right and when they do not know what is happening.

After you have seen a thriller does it make you think deeper into it? 
 This shows that people expect a huge twist at the end of the films with people making reference to ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Shutter Island’. 

Do explicit images make more of an impact than subtle implicit shots?

The majority of people said that the diegetic sounds make more of an impact on them than actually being able to see a graphic shot.