Thriller Task- Evaluation

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

For my media product of the thriller opening sequence I tried to follow the typical conventions of a thriller that could be easily recognised for this genre of film. As a group and individually, we watched a wide variety of thriller openings during the research process of this task to help us gain the knowledge of what made a thriller film. This helped me especially create potential ideas that could be incorporated using the conventions in the opening sequence.

My opening sequence does conform to some of the conventions that are often seen in thriller films. For example:

The over the shoulder shot which shows Character A looking out into the distance this creates an narrative enigma to the audience of why she is there on top of a cliff and may want to watch more to find out why.

An establishing shot which shows the location of where the opening scene is based around. This sets the scene and gives the audience an idea of what is going to happen. This establishing shot is similar to the thriller film of Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme,1991) where the audience first see that opening sequence is also set in a forest.

The establishing shot is similar to the thriller of Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) as it creates ambiguity and suspense.

The protagonist is clearly identifiable as she is dressed in fashionable young clothes and looks vulnerable. The character who plays the protagonist in Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) is also very easy to identify, she is young, pretty and also looks vulnerable.

The conventions that I have challenged is filming in a naturalistic light environment which is not commonly seen in a thriller film. It is usually dark and gloomy which gives an sinister atmosphere towards the audience like in the opening sequence of Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori, 2002).

Another convention that we have challenged is the using the handheld camera which is zooming in on Character A. This draws the audience in as it creates an narrative enigma in the way the audience want to know who is looking at her.

We have challenged the conventions to try and make our thriller opening sequence unique and distinctive to the audience so it can stand out from other thriller films. Another reason is because this may create a new style that could be integrated into new films for the future.

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 thriller sequence at teenagers and young adults ranging from 14-17 or 18-24 which I have found is the second largest audience that thriller films are aimed at according to (http://www.valmorgan.co.nz/nz/audiences/profiles/thrillers/files/thrillers/) . This is done by the use of characters and the actors that we have casted which are used to represent them. Character A (protagonist) looks like a normal teenager who is quite social. Her character can be compared to Casey in Scream (Wes Craven, 1996) is a young and beautiful character that appears helpless as she answers a call from an unknown character. Character A can been seen in the photo with her friends. The audience see her looking depressed and alone on the cliff top symbolises today's society where the youth now exclude and bully those who dare to be different. This can cause depression which may explain why she is all alone. The naturalistic lighting establishess the location that teenagers may go out into the fields and may break the stereotypes that teenagers are normally lazy and never exercise. The close up of Character's A face shows her youth and innocence which can be very misleading to the audience. Her costume may represent teenagers as well as fashionistas who maybe interested in thriller films. This is because the clothes she is wearing are quite modern and the audience may envy her. The props may represent the teenager group of the 'geeks', as in the thriller opening sequence up to date technology is used such as mobile phones which are very popular with teenagers. Character B (protagonist) represent the older generation of males shows this by the use of costume of the long black coat. This suggests he is more sophisticated and discreet when appearing in the opening sequence compared to the antagonists. Another similar character to the protagonists is Rachel in The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002).

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

The distribution company that could market and distribute the film would be Lionsgate. This is because Lionsgate is a leading independent company with a strong and diverse range of motions pictures, television, home entertainment and digital distribution. Over the past few years Lionsgate had an annual revenue of $1.2 million in 2008, this has increased their market capitalisation from approximately $80 million to nearly $1.5 billion. I think this would be an appropriate company as they have a good reputation of distributing successful films in the past. These films include Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), Saw (James Wan, 2004) and Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004) can be classed as typical in the genre thriller films.

Saw has been one of Lionsgate most successful franchises with the first four films already grossing more than half a billion dollars in worldwide box office and has sold more than 15 million DVD's. Lionsgate aims to distribute small production companies that have low budgets like Saw. This company could be interested in my thriller as it is unique in terms of challenging some conventions that the average audience may not see. Their distribution strategy would include word by mouth which is a popular method and marketing the film in the UK by posters and adverts.

Another strategy could be viral marketing which is a powerful marketing tool used on the Internet. They could use social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace to promote the film targeting the audience. This could be done by above the line marketing where on the Internet trailers, wallpapers and games could be available. Or by below the line marketing which can also generate a lot of publicity by interviews and reviews done by the actors. The audience maybe interested in seeing a film that is associated with Lionsgate because it is well known because of films like Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004) which won a Oscar. Saw is quite similar to my thriller in terms of Absent becoming part of a franchise if the profit that the film made was successful. This could lead to European and US openings which would increase box office profits.

Saw made $18,276,468 on its opening weekend and went on to gross $103 million in 9 weeks of being in cinemas.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience that I have aimed my thriller opening sequence at would be teenagers and young adults. But would also like the thriller to appeal to a large audience as possible. A reason for this was because the sample for my questionnaire was students whom I asked at college. It will also depend on what age certificate the finished film would receive. It is aimed at this audience because the actors that are used are similar in age this way the audience could relate to the thriller in why Character A is alone and about to jump off the cliff. It also may appeal to thriller enthusiasts as it is a niche audience, it follows some of the typical thriller conventions. For example the protagonist is a young pretty girl/woman who is the victim and creates the narrative enigma. It could appeal to the female and male audience because they may want to know what happens to Character A and who this mysterious Character B is stopping her from jumping. Another reason is because the thriller genre of films are more popular with males, as it is often scary and disturbing. They may been seen as brave and strong which are connotations of being masculine. This would be the best audience as many teenagers like to go out to the cinema and is more economically viable as the prices for the cinema are not that expensive.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I tried to attract my audience of teenagers and young adults through the the casting of actors and props which I have used. The actors do represent the age that I wanted to aim my opening thriller sequence target audience at. The close up of Character's A face when she is on the phone shows her vulnerability. The props used may appeal to the audience because of the latest technology which is used for example her phone, which is a new Blackberry phone that the female audience especially may envy. We have tried to keep the opening sequence ambiguous and the suspense throughout. The sharp transitions from each shot shows the contrast between the protagonist and antagonist which leads to an creative enigma for the audience.

Although this still image is not clear, it shows Character A holding a Blackberry.

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

When filming the preliminary task this was the first time that I had used a DV camera and tripod, I learnt very fast of how to work the camera and the tripod as we were working to a deadline. I increased my knowledge of the equipment during this process when filming tracking and over the shoulder shots. When filming for the main task I found that I had more time to learn how to use the tripod which enabled me to film steadier close ups. I learnt how to change the white balance and use the various settings on the camera which helped to gain the best quality of film we could. We also used the high key lighting equipment in some of our shots. But this casted unwanted shadows. For future I would prefer to use naturalistic lighting. Although, when it came to the editing process I used the software Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 for the first time. With the help of Shaneece who had previous knowledge this helped me gain the knowledge and confidence to use this software to the best of my ability. When editing I felt comfortable that I knew how to edit the shots that I did not want and merge them together. For the audio I searched many websites till i found the right music that would accompany Character's B long shot of him walking towards the camera.

When I was editing I found it hard to layer the audio with the extra footage, as this software was new to me. I overcame this by the help of Shaneece who showed me what to do. The problems that I encountered that I now realise, is continuity errors, as the lighting is noticably different in some shots which dont seem to make the opening sequence look as professional.

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

Since my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot and have made good progress which hopefully can be seen in my work. The preliminary task allowed me to firstly learn the match on action shot, the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot. It also allowed me to use the camera, tripod and editing. This limited me to what I could explore with these as the preliminary task was shorter and had a smaller time period to complete. When carrying out the final piece I could use them to their full potential as I had less to learn but was able to explore more. This gave the group more time to plan and perfect our final piece the best we could. When planning I got to try different camera angles, shots and movements like many match-on-action shots; close ups; mid-shots; long shots; over the shoulder shots; extreme close ups; establishing shots and zooms.

I think this is one of the transitions that was not neccessarily needed, but the use of them showed us what effect it gave.

During the editing process in the preliminary task, I came to see that certain shots flowed best when a transistion was inserted. This was a negative in this task for me as we used too many transitions this made the sequence look exaggerated (above). For the audio which was used to set the mood and create the atmosphere for the audience. We recorded a vareity of digetic, non diegetic and ambient sounds like traffic and birds to create the effect. This task showed me how much work goes into the planning a film and how many individual shots need to be filmed to get the continuity right. I learnt about what conventions were included in a thriller film. I then used these convention in my own thriller opening sequence to make it look authentic.

This is our final thriller opening sequence timline, as you can see that a lot of work that has been put in all the way through.