Question 1: In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

In AS media out task has been to create a thriller opening sequence; for this project I worked with Beth Ryman to plan, film, produce, and edit a professional thriller opening. 

A thriller stands for a broad genre of media created with the intention to make the audience watching on edge, feel tense and give a rush of adrenaline; they aim to emotionally affect the audience by causing them to feel emotions such as fear, danger and paranoia.

The common conventions of a thriller movie are:

Whilst researching the conventions of a thriller I looked at a few thriller openings to see if they followed the common conventions of a thriller and whether they were effective or not. 

Element	Why it is used?
Close Up Shots	To show facial expressions, reactions such as fear. It also makes the audience feel more engaged with the film and makes them feel confronted by the character.
Quick Cut Editing	Used to build tension by confusing the audience into what Is going on and give away little but unrevealing information in quick bursts.
Non-diegetic sound	Non-diegetic sound used to create dramatic tension with grim sounds that don’t sound nice to the ear.
Mise-en-scene	Used to cut out information that might give too much information away too soon within the storyline as tension is created with confusion.
Dark / Dim lighting	Works alongside Mise-en-scene to cut down the information that could be given away from setting. Also can be used to make a focus point on a person or object. Dim lighting makes the setting look mysterious and unpleasant.

The thrillers I looked at were:

Whilst looking at these thrillers we developed knowledge on the conventions of a thriller and how films used them effectively to draw the audience into the film within the first few minutes of the thriller. In the thriller genre it is important to instantly create tension and mystery to aid the storyline to be dramatic causing deep curiosity and interest from the audience which pulls them into the film. Title sequences are also very important to thrillers as they can create an atmosphere of mystery and confusion before the film has even started so it is important to ensure it is effective, unique, and rememorable in order to produce a good thriller. Somewhere in the opening of the thriller there will need to be a title sequence, this is very important in a thriller because it can help build a lot of tension without giving away too much information about the actual storyline as it does not have to make sense.

Atmospheres of tension and mystery can be created through:

• ·         Sound (Non-Digetic, but also Digetic)  - Non-degetic sound is used right at the start of Shutter Island to signify the approaching of mysterious and dark land helping to create tension with the low minor notes.
• ·         Shots (Quick camera movements, close up shots, reaction shots) – Reaction shots used in Shutter Island as they enter the island focused on Leonardo De Caprio.
• ·         Props (Wepons) – Used in Leon to show status of the characters by weapons carried through authority.
• ·         Editing (Quick transitions, Flashes to Black/White) – Cuts to black used in The Butterfly Effect to add tension and mystery to the storyline to only be revealed in the end.
• ·         Flashbacks – Used In The Butterfly Effect to reveal the story at the end and what happened in the flashbacks.
• ·         Lighting (Dim Lighting, Flashes) – Used In Leon when the setting is first introduced and characters are moving throughout it.
• ·         Mise-en-scene – Used in The Butterfly Effect to make the storyline vague and mysterious but then to be revealed at the end.

For example in the opening of the film ‘Shutter Island’ many conventions are instantly used to make the opening mysterious  draw the viewers in and instantly create tension. From this screenshot we can see that the convention of dim lighting has been used to create a dramatic and dull scene of a boat appearing from fog. Mise-en-scene has been use as the boat fades in from white it isn't instantly clear to the viewers whether it is a boat at the start and the mystery of the scene comes from not being able to clearly see the boat or anything around it apart from the sea its on.  This creates instant tension and causes the viewer to want to know more information drawing them into what is happening in the film, non digetic sound is also instantly used with the low brass notes that are very loud overpowering the sound of the crashing waves. This is a typical location due to the amount of mystery within it and cuts out too much information being given away purely through setting, in these shots there is nothing given away apart from there is an old looking boat carrying two people sailing in the sea. At this point the audience do not know where the boat is going, why its there or where it is, making the audience entrigued and  engaged in the movie through curiousity. 

This is another screenshot from Shutter Island and is a typical thriller shot. This shot is a close up shot and also a reaction shot so you can see the facial reaction of whatever the character is looking at, this helps the audience to relate to the character and feel the fear that he displays. The lighting is also dim in this shot which relates to mise-en-scene in the way that the dim lighting helps cut down what is seen from the shot as here we see nothing behind him at all. This is tightly framed  to be extra dramatic to the audience, by filming so close rather than further away it makes the audience feel claustrophobic and feel like they are close to what his facial expressions are reacting to.

The Thriller Sub- Genres Are:

For our thriller opening we chose to work around the  elements of a psychological thriller as from watching and analysing thriller openings we felt that psychological thrillers work very well in engaging the audience and getting them emotionally and psychologically involved in the film, the more the audience relate the better the movie will be. By aiming to connect with the audience with the film we can cause the emotion of fear and cause suspense much more successfully which will help our movie achieve many of the elements used to create a good thriller movie.  There will also be incorporated elements from the mystery and drama genre in addition to the typical traits of  the thriller genre.

Typical themes of psychological thrillers are:

• ·         Reality – The quality of being real. Characters often try to determine what is true and what is not within the story line.
• ·         Perception – A person’s own interpretation of the world around him through his senses. Oftern characters misinterpret the world around them or their perceptions are altered by outside factors.
• ·         Mind – The human consciousness; the location for personality, thought, reason, memory, intelligence and emotion. The mind is often used as a location for narrative conflict where characters battle their own minds to reach a new level of understanding of perception
• ·         Existence/Purpose – The object for which something exists, an aim or a goal humans strive to understand their reason for existence. Characters often to try to discover what their purpose is in their lives and the narrative’s conflict often is a way for the characters to discover this purpose.
• ·         Identity – The definition of ones self. Characters are often confused about or doubt who they are and try to discover their true identity.
• ·         Death – The cessation of life. Characters either fear of have a fascination with death.

A common convention with psychological thrillers is that the title sequence does not always feature at the very start of the film and the film starts straight away with no introduction, alike the film Shutter Island where the opening scene is a mysterious boat rather than a tile sequence. This technique is effective because it adds to the feel of mystery and engages the audience as they are trying to figure out what is going on in the start of the film and why. In our thriller the credits feature in the middle of some of our footage during the opening sequence, this works with the convention in the way that the movie starts off very mysterious with the intention to engage the audience however it also challenges it by the way that the credits are incorporated within the footage of the opening sequence rather than another separate section of the film that may not entirely relate to the storyline. We have also challenged the convention by separating the movie title from the movie credits as our movie title does not appear until the end of the opening sequence. However we feel that this works well in our thriller by signifying the end of the opening sequence and certifying the change in time from the past to the present.

Also common in psychological thrillers is the location, in psychological thrillers the location is usually a setting relating to reality such as a normal house within a city. This  dramatically adds to the effect of the psychological thriller in the way that the audience can relate to the film much more easily due to the realistic setting similar to the one they live in with unusual events happening in a familiar setting. Our thriller complies to this  as towards the end of our opening a normal bedroom and bathroom are featured as the protagonist awakes all flustered from the terrible dreams he  was having and goes to rinse his face. However as the first part are unknowingly the dreams of the protagonist and are filmed in an old part of a factory, it also challenges the common psychological thriller theme.

Other conventions that our thriller complied is the costume that the antagonist was wearing which was very smart signifying that he is not a stereotypical killer. This helps out the theme of  the psychological thriller as it is something out of the ordinary and makes the audience question why these tragic low level events are being carried out by someone who appears very sophisticated and upper-class  Also we introduced non-digetic sound of a piano playing extremely high and extremely low pitch notes as they give an eery feel; this starts as soon as the opening starts which is also very common within psychological thrillers and even other sub genres of thriller such as Psycho.

In the film ‘The Butterfly Effect'  the narrative of the film is based around a lot of unknown information and uses the element of flashbacks to tie together all the loose ends in the film. I think this works well because it at first makes the film very confusing with the mystery and encourages the audience to try and guess why certain things are happening  within the film. This gets the audience interested and involved in the film and helps the film be effective overall. The editing on this is very important are many cuts to black within the film to help signify the change in time from past to present, non digetic sound is also important here to help trigger the drama that is about to happen in the flashback.

When watching The Butterfly Effect these conventions that influenced us was the way that it was set in an everyday setting. This is generally an uncommon convention but can be conventional with a psychological thriller; we thought this element was very effective for a psychological thriller as it interacts the audience more as the film is more in relation to them and is set in the kind of setting they live in.

The Bourne Identity influenced us in the way that it used flashbacks to create tension, mystery and a way to show past and present in the movie. This is a commonly used element within a psychological thriller and helps there be a clear separation between past and present, without this it may not be clear when there is a time change or one may not be able to be used. We thought this was an effective element and would work well in our thriller as it would enable us to link two contrasting locations together which would add an effect of mystery to our thriller. The way we linked the two settings together in our thriller was to have two different time periods one starting in the past and then changes to the present by a close up shot of the protagonist waking up signifying to the audience that what they have just seen was a dream. As well as making our thriller more interesting it also adds mystery as at this point it isn't known whether the dream was a dream from memory or if it was all fiction and just thoughts of the protagonist. When our thriller goes on to show pictures of the woman from the dream and she is also revealed in the bathroom mirror, it links the girl in the dream to the protagonist but a large part of the story line is unknown. These small give always of information keep the audience intrigued and drawn to the storyline.

In our thriller we have used a few close up shots and some reaction shots which are very common in thrillers, in our thriller they are effective and come across dramaticly to the audience as intended; they also allow us to show fear within the characters facial reaction and see facial expressions very clearly. We have also used non digetic music almost throughout our film when editing  to add tension throughout the film. Mise-en-scene was very important whilst filming as we where filming in two completely separate locations and in order for the storyline to work it was important that some features of the room where kept out of shot. Whilst filming in a house it was important that any famly photos unrelated to the film where not in the shot. 

Question 2: How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

The main influence behind the story of our protagonist came from the film ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ where the protagonists girlfriend dies and the storyline is based around her. In our film there are representations which is very unconventional, the reason behind this is to try and display how the events that have occurred have destroyed the protagonists life. This has been displayed in many ways throughout our thriller opening.

Victim

This character is the victim of our thriller, this character is a woman and this is fairly conventional in a thriller movie as they are generally more vulnerable than men. Because has been kidnapped it shows that there is possibly more behind the story of what is going on and reasons behind why evens are occurring which helps create mystery in our thriller. It may also make the audience question the possibility of why this is happening and whether it is an act of hate or revenge.

Circled Pictures  & Knife

The circled pictures and knife on the table display the character as a target and cause the audience to search for reasoning behind the events. Mise-en-scene was important here as to make the shot dramatic we didn't want anything in the shot other than what was relevant which was in this case the pictures of the victim and a kitchen knife. This makes the shot more dramatic and draws much more attention as it is the only thing to look at in the shot other than the plain green table.

Antagonist In Our Thriller - Factory Walk Away Shot

The antagonist in our thriller movie is wearing upper class smart and business like clothing which is very unconventional and may signify a possible psychological issue with the character as its not usual that upper class people would carry out these kind of events. And it is very unexpected to the audience for events to be carried out by someone they see to be very respectable from their appearance  The way that the identity of the antagonist is kept hidden by his face not being shown also adds mystery and suspense. 

Donald Red

The influence behind the antagonist wearing smart clothing came from Donald Red Grand from James Bond where he is wearing a suit and displayed as an upper-class person, this is very good at creating mystery and making the film less predictable keeping the audience engaged. 

The Joker

The influence for the hidden identity of the protagonist came from the film ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ where the jokers identity is hidden behind make up. 

Question 3: What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

For our production company name we chose RawCut Productions.

We chose this company name as it is very unique and has a hard impact. The visual and the sound of the paper ripping is very distinctive and nothing else sounds alike it; this will allow people to instantly pick up and recognise our production company.

There are many distribution and production companies in the world that acquire many films  each year and create individual release plans for them. Production is the first stage and involves creating a high quality film from a certain narrative that will gain lots of interest and be popular to film watching audiences. Distribution involves acquiring a film from the producers and trying to make it reach the widest audience possible by selling it to cinemas, a film needs to make about 2.5 times what it costs to make so that it doesn't loose money. Film distributors will control:

• ·         Promoting films (trailers, billboards, posters)
• ·         Getting them into cinemas
• ·         Getting them onto DVD
• ·         Related products (merchandise, clothing )

Getting interest from film distributors is important as the larger film distributors you get interested the better they will promote and sell your film as they will have a lot of experience at getting films to the top of the film charts.

The movie institution most likely to distribuit our thriller movie in our opinion is Paramount Pictures as it has distributed thrillers such as ‘Transformers’ and ‘The Godfather’. Paramount pictures started distributing in 1910 so has a lot of experience with distributing films of many genres. Being one of Americas oldest media institutions and based in Hollywood it will have many connections and is definitely one of the bestly known film distributors  Being such a large distribution company they have a very large income so would be able to fund new upcoming films even films that might not make as much money as larger title films. 

Question 4: Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

After researching the BBFC and analysing the contents charts that are used to determine certificates of films by the BBFC, we came to the conclusion that our thriller came under the 15 certificate  Psychological thrillers tend to have around a 15 certificate due to the psychological element within them that could potentially upset younger age groups such as: violence  death, paranormal activity.  Our thriller is not aimed at a particular gender but the age group we predict to be most interested in our kind of film is 15 – 25 year olds due to the questionnaires and research we carried out on people’s interests in thrillers. We aimed the majority of our questionnaires at this age group due to the research we carried out online to find that the majority of audiences for thrillers where in that age range.

From the research we carried out we found out that the audiences preference were in psychological and action thrillers, as an action thriller was less practical to us we choose to go with the psychological theme. We also found out that our audience liked to see close up shots and flashing images within the thriller so we tried to incorporate these elements in as best as we could to please our audience.

Our main target audience is teenagers and adults between the ages 15 and 25 of both genders. We are targeting people interested in films with interest in thrillers in general possibly favouring psychological thrillers. The audience member is a generally normal stereotypical teenager / young adult with common interests in TV and music taste up to date with the music and blockbuster charts. We are not targeting any kind of ethical background.

Question 5: How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

These two shots are edited together fairly quickly and especially the bottom one is only shown as a flash, we did this because from the results we gained from asking our audience quick, flashy shots were one of the main elements that they liked to see in a thriller movie. These shots of un-pleasant possibly disturbing scenes work well when incorporating quick shots to build tension within the thriller movie.  For this shot we used props of water fountain bottles on the bottom shelf covered by a white sheet, and Beth on the top also covered by a white sheet in order to look like dead bodies on storage.

There are many shots of the photos on the wall which all move in different directions quickly going in and out of focus. This confuses the audience and doesn't give them time to analyse the shot properly causing missing information in their interpretation of the film; this causes mystery and can result in their imagination drifting to think the story is something different to what is revealed in the end. This can be very effective in a movie and is favoured by our target audience from the questionnaire results we gathered.

From the verbal responses we gathered from showing the thriller we produced to our peers we gained mainly positive comments saying that it looked interesting and they would be interesting in watching a thriller with that opening as it pulled them into the storyline with the common elements as well as elements we developed that gained us a positive result. We used non- diegetic sound in our thriller throughout all of the flashback scenes which was also one of the demands we received from our audience in the questionnaire results. From the verbal feedback we received it is clear to see that we have met if not exceeded the expectations of our audience. The main points that we met where:  theme, setting and shots used. For the theme we used a everyday setting as the main setting to carry on throughout the film which is what our audience preferred. We also based our thriller round a psychological theme and used some jump cuts and quick shots when editing together our thriller which were also conventions that our audience favoured. By meeting these we can certify that we are creating a film that audiences will want to watch enabling it to be a success overall.

Question 6: What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

Cannon 550D

For our thriller we used a Cannon 550D SLR camera which can capture recording in full HD 1080p meaning all of our shots are of professional quality and also allowing us to change more within the shot when editing such as brightness and colour. Using this when recording our preliminary task we developed our skills a lot and have further developed them to a good level in how to capture a large variety of good quality interesting shots through experience. When using this camera for the credit  shots and the shot of Beth’s hand we discovered that using manual focus works very well when taking shots especially when panning as it allows us to cut into and out of focus at certain points to add mystery to the shot and hide information from the audience that might not be revealed till later on in the film when it starts to make sense.

Manual Focus On Hand

To get effective and clear close up shots of the photo in the protagonists hand, and the shot of the side of Beth’s face by using a macro lens for the camera we were able to take the shots professionally so they have a greater impact within the film. 

Macro Lens On Cannon 550D

To get good shots the focus was very important in order to get a very clear shot with more impact with the higher resolution; along with this getting the lighting right was also very important as we needed to create a dim and mysterious shots but still ensure they are clear. By not using natural daylight we managed to complete this fairly well and the bright lights in the factory could be used to lighten parts of the shots whilst creating mysterious looking shadows in the background.

iMovie

Power Director

When editing we used iMovie to edit together our thriller however due to limitation of tools and ability to adjust clips we edited the shots of the protagonist in the bedroom on Cyberlink Power Director 11 as we could lighten the shots and make them look more mysterious and effective with controlled amounts of distortion and fuzz. We then transferred them back onto iMovie to edit them together with the rest of our thriller. When editing on iMovie we soon found that getting length of certain shots was vital and getting the timing for the cuts to link shots had to be to perfection so there were no jumps and it was not too confusing to the audience but still keeping the element of mystery within. When editing together some of our flashback shots the clip speed adjustment tool came in very handy to easily speed up or slow down certain shots to help flow within the movie. When editing together some of our shots we discovered that some of the shots where slightly too dark so that is when we transferred them over too Power Director which enabled us to lighten them and soften them to reduce the grain within the clip.

Lightening & Re-focusing in Power Director

Before

After

 When we captured and edited together the mirror scene where the protagonists girlfriend suddenly appears in the mirror, timing between the cuts needed to be just right to keep the continuity and the camera position and status of the characters needed to be very similar so it didn't seem like they were totally different shots just stuck together and it gave the intended effect of Beth appearing as some kind of paranormal activity. Getting the right lighting in our bedroom scene was very hard as we wanted to give the impression of a dark atmosphere without cutting picture quality and visibility to the audience too much; this proved to be challenging as we later discovered that the resolution of the cameras much smaller screen displayed the captured shots as much lighter than the bigger screen of the Mac when editing them together. However I feel that our overall result has turned out as well and this is not as apparent or big a problem as we first anticipated.

Blogger

Blogger - Blogger enabled me to compose and display all of my media work digitally which enabled me to keep all of my media work in the same place where I can add any more information or manipulate it easily at any time. It helped my organisation by the dated posts and the images and videos I could embed made it much more appealing and allowed me to create work with fewer words keeping me motivated. It also enabled me to incorporate the use of multimedia such as images, animation, video, prezi, and sound.

iMovie – Used to edit together the shots for our final movie allowing us to manipulate clips and add non-diegetic sound adjusting levels easily. When using iMovie we were able to add sound effects at certain points in the movie to dramatically add tension. We then used it to export the movie ready to be burnt to disk.

Power Director – Used to lighten and soften clips was easy to use and had many more tools and effects than iMovie but was not useful for editing together the final movie as it ran very slow and rendering the movie was an issue so editing together clips smoothly would have been a much harder task.

iDVD

IDVD – Used to produce interactive DVD menu and burn our movie to DVD

When composing our film we stuck to the 180 degree rule which we learned in our preliminary, this was very important in our movie as characters move through settings that are mysterious; navigation throughout the settings through shots that don’t link well could easily confuse the audience. We also used a good quality professional tripod to ensure that the panning was a consistent speed and didn't jump of wobble as this may disillusion the audience. To build tension effectively it was important that all of the elements worked well together to give a good effect overall. For instance at tension building points in the movie we use together: fast cuts, non-diegetic sound, and close up shots to build tension effectively together.