Individual Evaluation

Thriller Opening Sequence Evaluation

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

Throughout our thriller opening sequence there are many generic conventions as well as incorporating challenges to type of conventions. We created a soundtrack on GarageBand that included many generic conventions, such as having the music low key and unsettling. We played many different sounds to find the best suiting ones for our opening sequence, but the ones we found most appropriate were sounds that gave us the feeling of being dark and gloomy. When we listened to a sound effect and felt emotion towards it as you would when watching a thriller movie, we decided it could be a perfect match. This, we believe, makes it into a generic convention as the attributes we have used are matching to what a thriller should be like. Deciding to convert our thriller into black and white gave the opening sequence a sense of immorality and gave the feeling of a dark and tense movie, therefore conforming to generic conventions. As we also slowed down the speed at some points during the opening sequence, such as the over the shoulder shot of the main character walking down the pathway, we believe it to add a sense of discomfort and weariness for the audience watching. This also creates a generic convention. Using camerawork such as POV and high angle shots convey to the audience what the main character is experiencing and showing them as weak and vulnerable by looking down onto them, therefore she is being portrayed as easy to manipulate and influence, emphasising the use of the mind. These different factors created enable the audience to recognize the sub-genre we have chosen to portray, psychological. For example, these type on conventions are portrayed throughout the movie The Woman in Black, there are many scenes during the thriller that convey the sense of vulnerability and suspense by using high angle shots.

2.  How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The different social groups represented in our thriller were a gang of female youths and a young female worker. We took a very stereotypical route with the gang of youths, trying to embrace what many people’s perceptions of young people are. We filmed the youth’s scene from the main characters point of view to show her vulnerability and helplessness to the audience. By doing this it will show the youths to be the dominant, aggressive type, over shadowing the main character. Overall, conveying the youth’s to be a stereotypical archetype. The main character is shown to be walking home from work, as she is dressed in a classical work uniform it allows the audience to understand where she has been, maybe not what job she has but that she seems to have a highly profound job by the clothing she has on. This can be seen to challenge a woman’s stereotype as they are usually portrayed with a lower status, whereas she is shown with a high status. However, she is seen as vulnerable and weak through her body language. The different camera angles we used also helped to convey these emotions and characteristics, such as using high angle shots to show her as defenceless and passive. Overall portraying her with archetype and countertype stereotypical traits.

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

Metrodome is a small British company that distributes small movies. Through their microwave scheme they give small British films a chance to be made with a budget of £100,000 and 18 days to make it. For example, the movie Shifty as it is also a small scale British film that needs to use viral marketing to get their film across to the media market. I see this movie to be only as internet release as it’s a small scale film itself that no one will have heard of and we will not have much money to market the film so we need to get our film across to everyone cheap and make sure we attract them to watch our film. Having the money given to you to produce this thriller it will enable the film to have a chance to be made with sufficient funds from the company.

4.  Who would be the audience for you media product?

We anticipate our target audience to be within the ages of 15 to 19 with a split of both female and male genders, with there being slightly more female candidates than male. To find out our target audience we carried out primary and secondary market research. We asked many different people, from ages 15 to 50, male and female many questions relating with their personal life, such as what are your hobbies? And how old are you? This enables us to establish what kind of audience we were going to be aiming our thriller opening sequence to. This allowed us to match our opening sequence to appeal to the most likely potential viewers. Then we created the audience profile to finalise our actual potential audience and help us in the making of our thriller. We believe that as we have produced a psychological thriller, which engages the mind quite thoroughly it will appeal less to males as they would prefer a more action related thriller. This is not saying that all men would prefer an action thriller to a psychological, but that it’s the minority wanting to. A familiar thriller to our opening sequence “No Way Out” includes “Shutter Island” and “Black Swan”. As with Black Swan, it is mainly aimed at young females aged 15 to 30, yet with a high aim to males. This thriller is similar to ours with the consideration that it is all to do with the mind; however, it is very different as we have a murderer in our thriller whereas “Black Swan” doesn’t. “Black Swan” involves two young dancers who expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, where one of the characters begins to get more in touch with her dark side- a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.

5.  How did you attract/address your audience?

Through our audience profile we finalised our audience to be of the age 17 and above, with a split of both male and female viewers. There are not any particular points in the opening sequence that would appeal to or particularly terrify a certain age or gender. We aimed to produce a beginning that wouldn’t be terrifying or disturbing but to set the scene for the audience, as the thriller continues we intended to use more frightening and startling shots to make the audience scared. The audience we would’ve aimed to terrify and appeal to, if able to produce the rest of the thriller, would be the majority of viewers, we didn’t want to pin point any specific age or gender as we want most people to have the chance to feel involved and drawn in, and appeal to the thriller, making more people have the enjoyment of watching a thriller movie. Camerawork we could’ve used to enable us to do this task to the best of our ability are high angle shots on the main character to show her as vulnerable, handheld POV shots to show the shakiness and the unsettledness of what the main character is feeling and going through. Maybe a few shots of short shot duration during a murder or a breakdown type scene to show the rush and intensity of the situation. All of these will help to convey a terrifying and bizarre narrative to our target audience. The audience are asked to put themselves into the main characters shoes, to see what she is seeing and what she is going through, this will aid viewers understanding if they can see from her POV and witness the events she is going through then they will understand and maybe feel empathy towards her, yet feel angry and terrified of her at the same time. This may leave viewers to feel more connected to the movie and understand what is going on rather than being completely oblivious and confused. All in all this can have a huge impact when it comes to building up the suspense. In the making of our opening sequence we used sound, mise-en-scene and editing to also keep our audience interested. By using our editing skills on Final Cut Express it allowed us to use many transitions such as a fade in to produce an opening sequence that didn’t entail the same boring cut all the way through, this made it much more interesting to watch so the audience will want to continue watching. Using sound, we created a soundtrack on GarageBand full of many different sound effects to create a realistic yet spooky backing track to match our sub-genre. By doing this is will aid viewers understanding and add emotion so the audience won’t get uninterested.

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

During the beginning process of using different technologies we used many technologies such as Final Cut Express, GarageBand, camera and more. As we started to use the different software’s and technologies we found it hard as we weren’t sure how to work it 100%, however as we got used to it, it became natural to us and we became much quicker at it. Whilst filming we had many problems, yet successes when it came down to using the camera equipment, some problems were that the actual camera lens itself had dirt on it that we couldn’t see when filming, but was clearly evident when we put it on Final Cut Express. This made the sequence look unprofessional and not clean and cut. We had to solve this by cleaning the lens thoroughly even if we hadn’t touched it, just to be 100% sure.  When we took the camera out to film, most of the time the camera was fully charged, but one time it had a low battery which could have been detrimental if the whole battery had gone whilst we were in the middle of filming. Luckily we had enough battery life to film the needed shots at that time, but next time we are going to check if it is charged thoroughly before filming, so we have the needed time to film and endure less panicking that we don’t have enough battery. We had many strengths whilst using the camera equipment, such as, when we needed to film a steady shot we used the tripod, and as we knew how to use it and how to connect the camera, foot, etc to the tripod it made it easier to function. Making the process much quicker as we had the knowledge of what to do, allowing us to have more time to focus on the actual filming itself rather than wasting time trying to figure out how to function the use of a tripod. Also, we made sure we had ALL the correct equipment with us before we left to film, such as a camera, tape, tripod. This helped us greatly; as we had everything we needed therefore less time was wasted. Whilst we were in the filming process we did have some problems such as not pressing the record button at the right time, which we had to resolve by being patient and directing each other better, allowing us to not leave out any valuable footage.

After the filming process we used editing software, including Final Cut Express, this enabled us to edit our filming so only the important, useful parts were used.  We learnt many different techniques involving the software, such as how to cut out particular parts we don’t want, add text into the sequence to make it look professional. Using Final Cut Express we also discovered how to change the speed and colour of the shots and many more. This all helped us to create a sequence to match the sub-genre we picked, which will help to portray a psychological thriller to out audience. This helped portray the mise-en-scene ideally as it allowed the location to look mysterious and spooky, as well as the costumes looking dull and the lighting very low key. All creating a perfect match to our sub-genre, psychological. Another software we used was GarageBand, this programme allowed us to create a soundtrack to match and compliment our thriller opening sequence. It had many songs, dialogue, ambient sounds and artificial sounds to choose from, giving us a wide variety to work with, helping us create the most suitable match for our opening sequence. There were some challenges with both software, such as having to get used to it before knowing where every single thing was to help create the perfect soundtrack. But after a while, as we got used to it, it became natural to us and we came more familiar with where everything was place, making us quicker and more efficient in using the software. Lastly, we used Photoshop in order to create a logo and a poster for our opening sequence, in order to do this our teacher gave us a lesson on which tools to use and how to use them effectively. This looked like a complex task, but as you got the hang of it, it began much simpler for us to use.

7.  Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full production?

During the preliminary task we were quite weary and cautious with the equipment as we weren’t very fond of it and didn’t feel 100% comfortable using is, however. When doing the actual task we knew what to do and how to overcome any camera issues. This enabled us to feel more confident filming and editing as we had already practised on them before. I believe that our end product is a success of fulfilling the task as we worked hard in the research and planning tasks, filming it and editing. We also continued to do work in our own time, allowing us to get more done and have a continued knowledge.

We had many weeks to complete research and planning tasks to help us in the actual production of our thriller opening sequence. As a group we explored into the movies sub-genre; psychological and discovered the well known conventions to do with it and understood the challenges against that convention. We thoroughly planned every detail of what we wanted our actual opening sequence to be like, such as creating a storyboard, creating an animatic, researching and analysing many psychological opening sequences to understand and be able to help us recognise what one entails. We created a shot list of the different camera techniques we wanted to use in our opening sequence and put them in order to help us reach this task in an easy manner, as we have planned for it. Creating a storyboard where we sketched out each camera shot and wrote the different technique and location we were going to use, such as, close up of main character as she walks down the pathway helped us to film smoothly. This enable us to have a quick and easy start to begin filming as we knew what we wanted/needed to do therefore we got on with it without any queries to do with camera shots and movements. It also allowed us to film in the correct order instead of filming the ending, then the middle ect. This made it easier for us to edit as it was near enough straightforward as it ran from the beginning scenes to the ending scenes allowing us a simpler way of editing. As we created test shots and a preliminary task before our actual opening sequence it gave us the well needed experience to carry out the main task later on. Choosing of the shot types from the preliminary tasks to our actual task have improved as we were more aware of what shot types worked well and what didn’t. We also found out which camerawork techniques fitted in with a psychological thriller to be able to portray to the audience the theme we want to produce. During the preliminary task filming of some of our shots, such as over the shoulder we realised that we filmed it rather shaky and didn’t pay much attention to what was actually in the shot (cutting half of someone’s head out of the shot). This was intentional therefore it didn’t fit in very well with our particular scene. So when we went to film our actual thriller opening sequence we made sure we were aware of what was in the shot, to be able to produce the full effect and tried to be steadier with our hands to reduce the shakiness. Overall producing a better outcome.