When planning our film we wanted to incorporate some generic conventions of a normal thriller, such as a main antagonist e.g our stalker, its set in a forest towards the end of the scene. And also our victim is a Girl, which in most thrillers, seems to be the case. Our music is tense and keeps the audience on edge this is a lot like most thrillers, we also needed quite dim lighting to make it more edgy.
This is the shot of our antogonist writing notes on kate. This scene helps make our thriller seem more mysterious, as all you can see is an arm and that he writing. We also put a gun in the scene to show the threat that our antogonist presents. The lighting is also good in this scene as its all dark and grim.
As our thriller developed we came across a number of challenges. We wanted to set our film at night, but as that would be hard for us to do, so we filmed in the afternoon. So we had a problem, we didn't want the light to clash with our original setting to be at night. When filming in my house, we had to use sheets and towells to cover up the windows to make it darker, this worked very well i think. We also had a problem with the lighting in the forest, but we filmed anyway. However it paid off because when editing it we changed the opacity to make it look darker.
The windows we covered with sheets to make the atmosphere we wanted. This helped make it look as though it was early in the morning, but as you can see it was as bright as it gets outside.
The conventions to our thriller also suggest a sub-genre of action, we can see this through the change in tempo to the music, and when "kate" is running from the antagonist. Our use of conventions indicate that other thrillers have inspired us, for example the film Silence of the lambs was a big influence to us, as at the start of that film you see you girl running through a forest, with tense music and titles. We aimed to make ours in that sort of way. For example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X4owjfOrCo
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our Project we only have a small number of characters, so its hard to show any particular social group. We have a English middle class 19 year old girl, who represents an everyday English girl. Not only are social groups not a big part in our film, gender does not play a big part either. Gender is not represented in terms of social class, as our production was based on one character and she in the production did not show any stereotypes.
Vicky as Kate
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think our media product could be produced by a big Hollywood studio as i think the basis of the film is well done, I also think that our film is quite similar to existing products so therefore would sell well. As when in the research process we looked at a lot of thrillers and many based them in forests and had a girl as the main character. So we thought we should make a generic thriller.
If we were to release this film it would be a TV movie, in a prime time slot after the watershed, as it would be to explicit for a younger audience. Our film would be produced to make a lot of money, and through this we could earn more money by selling merchandise like, special T-shirts and action figurines of the antagonist.
This is what the mechandise we could sell would look like. Special named T-shirts that could be sold shops or even in the cinema if the film was to get produced. This could earn more money from the film.
From these conclusions we can gather that our film has a dark and gloomy mise en scene, with all the features including a sinister feel, we can see this from what the antogonist is wearing and our use of camera work with dark lighting.
Who would be the target audience for you media product?
The target audience for our media product is for all ages above 15 who enjoy a thrill, its set for both sexes too. i think that the style of our film suits most audiences however, people who don't like to be scared and don't like dark and sinister films wouldn't like it. Many films are similar to ours but the one we got most of our ideas from is silence of the lambs and its audience should be the same as ours.
How did you attract/address your audience?Well our target audience have an age of 15 and over and lots of teens will want to watch this film, as it is mainly aimed at them. Our film should hopefully appeal to both male and female audiences. Their are points in our film that could scare people as they could make them jump, for example the scene in the forest, where she screams.
To attract our audience we needed to get some good camera shots which help the audience feel as though they are in "kates" shoes. And to do this we used a variety of different camera shots. For example we used shots which pan across the rooms and establishing shots which set the scene she is in. we used long shots and mid shots these show what situation she is in, therefore helping the audience relate. Sound was a really important part of our thriller, and we needed to get the right music to suit the scene. We found the perfect music on youtube, and it suited well. And also we didn't want cause any copyright infringements so we sent a message to the producer of the music on youtube and he said it was okay to use it. This link shows our music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcqPq5189VQ
But not only do the camera shots make a big impact on the audience, the way it leads up to a big situation makes the audience nervous for kate, with the tense music. We can convince the audience to put themselves in "kates" position through the way in which Vicky (kate) acts, with the screaming for elliot and the parts leading up to the finale, where the antogonist grabs her and makes her scream. This creates impact as we do not know who the mysterious man is thus making it seem as though kate and the audience are in the same position as they both dont know who this man is.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Our camera equipment had its strengths and weaknesses, its main strength was how easy the camera was to use, however we had trouble with the quality of the camera picture. When filming our peice we came across a few problems like when we started to film, we picked up a broken stand and the camera could not latch on, so we used our iniative and celotaped it to the stand, it worked out okay. We also had a small problem with the battery life when out in the forest, so we had to do as little shots as possible, but it turned out well.
When editing we used a software on the mac called Final Cut Express. This software enabled us to do a variety of things to our peice, like slow it down, zoom it in, add effects and add music. It really helped make our final peice look good however it was a tricky process linking the music to the video well. It took us a little while to get familiar to the software, but after that Final Cut Express worked well for us.
Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When planning out thriller, we needed to make a storyboard to list the scenes and events and to see how much each shot/scene would go on for. By doing this it really helped us film smoothly as we wern't making shots up as we went along, and we knew what we wanted to do. Through all the detailed planning we were able to make sure that our peice was to a high enough standard so that it could be watched, I think that if we hadn't have planned the filming would have been a messy task.
From the preliminary task we had improved durastically for our actual peice as we got familiar with the camera's and the editing software. Our specific choice of shots improved too as we knew what looked good and what looked bad.
After the whole project i feel really confident with the equipment and that if we were to the assignment again, i would find it a lot easier.
Finally i think over this whole filming period as individuals and as a group we improved, and im sure as a group we feel as though our thriller was a success. We were all happy in how it looked once it had been edited and was finished. I also think that our thriller meets all the criteria's of a thriller and the task set.
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