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

As thrillers go there are a number of typical conventions that make them instantly recognisable, as being a film of that genre, these conventions can be seen through the use of all four film mediums: Mise-en-scene, Editing, Cinematography and Soundtrack.

Mise-en-scene

Low lighting in a Thriller film is used to make the audience feel uneasy so in our film we decided to use a place that has a very eerie lighting to it already. The car park we have used has lights but they miss the corners and certain parts of the car park, so therefore at night there are blind spots all around which makes the audience uneasy because lot of people have a fear of the unknown. This therefore gives our film that gritty and edgy we want to achieve.

In the thriller films we chose to look at closely and take some strong inspirations from they show a big theme of blood, which is why our film involves this thriller convention. For example if you watch the clip from Pulp Fiction below from 2:48 they use blood to impact there audience as is a horrible image and they wish to shock there audience. This is very similar to our film attempts to do with the scenes of death, blood and sick.



Cinematography

We used long shots in our film to give the audience a sense of isolation of the two characters. The long shots show the setting and the state of the characters which gives the audience a small insight to what has gone on. We then used close ups to give closer more detailed clues to the audience which will give them a bigger insight to what has gone on.

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Editing

In certain parts of out film the editing is quick and very fasted paced. This is to make the audience feel what the characters feel. For example the girl is scared but her adrenaline really kicks in when she begins to run away from the scene of the crime. Therefore the editing conveys the idea of panic and adrenaline to the audience who then because of the editing feel how the character is feeling. One of the best examples of our film editing is in the video underneath, it's quick but the continuous editing is what we have focused on. When I step back the cuts are near perfect and it looks really effective.



Soundtrack

We carefully picked our music so that we could edit our shots to the bass notes of the soundtrack. It starts of slow paced and calm and as the girl finds out more and more as well as the audience does the music becomes more intense which reflects again the mood and the panic the character is in. At the end of our film a heartbeat kicks in and the screen fades to black before the title at the end. This creates tension in the audience as they can hear the panic in the characters heartbeat and it forebodes trouble.



Our opening sequence therefore does follow the basic well known conventions of a Thriller film. For example our main themes involve blood, death and a very mysterious storyline. It makes the audience ask questions from the very beginning and keeps them engaged to the very end. In Thrillers films is is crucial to add mystery to the situation the characters find themselves in because it involves the audience in the storyline and makes them think about where the film is going. The only thing that's challenged the conventions of a Thriller is that we've used as strong female character the same way the makers of 'The disappearance of Alice Creed' have done. We did this so that we could include different female characteristic into our protagonist. She, like Alice Creed is very clued up and 'street smart', instead of using that typical violence we see in many thriller films like Se7en.

(Alice Creed and Our character)

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

Before starting our final product we filmed a preliminary task, this is so we could look back and seen that in our final product how much we have improved. In our film there is a vast improvement in camera angels and shot types, it slowly reveals our characters and gives the audience time to ask questions about what it is that's happened and why they think these characters are there. This is a contrast to our preliminary task because you see the characters straight away and there isn't a build up. This short clip shows a few of the interestiong camera angels we have used and indicates how effective they are



This next clip shows how creative our group has been and the idea behind our film. In the preliminary task the story line was very limited but in our final task the audience have to guess what our film is about. We give no clues as to why the girl is there or why the man is laying dead next to her. This is because we are supposed to make the audience make pre assumptions of the characters and what they have done that has led up to this scene. This short clip shows the girl rubbing blood from her hands, the audience may think she has killed the man seeing as she has the blood on her hands or is it that simple...



When we made our preliminary task I was very new to the Macs and all the different programs. However now I am very confident in using imovie and editing our clips together to make our film look professional.

Overall all my media skills have been greatly improved. I find it easy now to use the camera and tripod and keeping all shots steady. We as a group work very well we use everyone's ideas and try each out to see which is best, one thing we may need to work on is getting cuts and shots to link continuously perfectly because we need our film to look professional to get the A we all hope for.

5. How did we attract or address the audience?

Our opening sequence is dark and sinister, it straight away puts the audience in the middle of a crime scene and asks them to judge who has done the deep. Adrenaline packed films attract boys aged 16 - 24 as they are fast paced full of fighting, blood and explosions. our film is full of adrenaline and fast editing to create that feel but it also makes you think. You follow the story of a young girl, similar to 'The disappearance of Alice Creed' or 'Salt' we use a strong willed woman character to challenge the woman stereotype and appeal to a bigger audience that like films that make you think with the character. She is a teenager which most of our audience can relate to her, maybe in her personality traits or appearance. Both character in the opening sequence look out of place, for example why would a man in a nice, fitted suit be laying in a run down car park. We use this starting image to create a sense of mystery our audience will like, it's sets up the beginnings of a 'who done it' story line. It may look as if the girl has committed a serious crime but she is young. In our film you have to think and this will appeal to our audience because they become emotionally involved with the girl therefore stereo-typically emotions appeal to woman and the full adrenaline packed actions sequences within appeal to mean, making the market of our film bigger.

Our opening sequence appeals to it's target audience through typical features of a thriller. For example, quick cut editing is one of our main focuses. This is because action/thrillers are typically fast paced to draw the audience in. Also a fast paced heart beat and a eerie score creates the suspense the target audience want. we realised that men tend to watch thrillers more than women. This is shown from our questionnaire results. The results also show that thrillers appeal to men more due to their mystery, suspense and exciting story lines. Men like action. However we have challenged that strong male lead role stereotype and used a female. This is because we want to have a strong female lead like in the film 'Salt', which bought both female and male audiences together as the film appealed to both.

We have gathered audience feedback for our film. People have been giving some very constructive feedback and it shows that we have really catered to our audience our audience of 16 - 24 year olds because we asked people between this age gap.

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

We were asked to make a production company for our film and our group decided to call it SEEDY MOTEL PRODUCTIONS. This is because is many horror and thriller film an off road dark seedy looking motel is the typical setting. We chose a font to go with the same and created just a simple yet effective logo...

It's a very strong bold title and no one would miss it. I think the font reflects our film because it reveals nothing. This is rather like the font for the productions compant 'Troublemaker' which produced films like Sincity. It uses the same block font, which is stong and relates to the hard hitting film matter and also reflects the slight violence and blood involved.

We can change it our fony and take it down different roads and use it for different films this is how we developed it for Trace Decay..



We then had to research distributions companies that would distribute our film. We looked originally into using distribution company such a Miramax people will see that straight away our film is an alternative thriller following the likes of 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Kill Bill' whom also creates a woman character who is strong and fights for herself. We then looked into the company Lionsgate that take on controversial films like 'Saw' or 'American Psycho'. This would suit our film because it does involve a lot of blood and gory images. On the other hand that is not all our film is about, this film should make you think about the violence and make the audience become involved with the characters they are watching.

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So after some research we are going to use 'Paramount Vantage' to distribute our film whom have also distributed films like No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood, which won endless awards like best sound, editing and cinematography. We looked at other possible options and eliminated companies such as, 'Universal' but this is a HUGE company and distribute money making film whereas our film is for a more indie market with a lower budget.

'Paramount Vantage' is a low budget, American distribution company which is the indie label of Paramount. They came about in 2007 and focuses more on the art and production of a film as opposed to making money. As our film qualifys as British because where it is made and who made it we then qualify for BFI funding which we would then invest into the making of our film. Also because Paramount Vantage is the indie label of Paramount we could be given funding from Paramount to use in the making of our film. Finally we as a group believe our film would be an 18 because of it's strong adult themes and violence we compared our film to films like Se7en.

Tools or effect we have used?

We are using contrast difference on the house shots to make the lighting look simular and enharnce the girl is at home alone and night. We have to make sure it looks as if it's at night so that the shots look continuous and work well together. ALso blur is being used in a point of view shot in the car park, this is to indicate that the girls vision is blurry and that she had been knocked out also it could represent the girls loss of memory. We tried a slow motion effect during the running sequence of our film but unfortunatly it did not go with our music so we did not use it. You need slower music like this video:



Finally we would like to maybe try and use a fade in and fade out through the blur shot to indicate that the girl is trying to get her eyes back into focus and to actually be able to see what her surroundings are and if they are familliar.

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

These are all the different programs, websites and equipment we have used to create our film. Before starting media at Alevel only one of the members in our group knew how to use a mac. Every single bit of software we have used has been very important and use full in making our film. For example even though JING is not used in the making of our film it is very use full in creating blog posts by being able to record our computer screen and make it into a file that we can include in our blogs. The main bit of software we have used is imovie HD, this is the program we edit and create the main bulk of our film. Editing for all of our group has become a lot easier after our practice tasks at the beginning which made us understand the importance of continuous editing and the 360 rule. Finally we can see the vast improvement in our camera skills from the beginning, the camera is hardly shaking and a clear rage of interesting and interesting shots used in our film. Overall I have good skills in all these technologies and more and it is clearly shown in the improvements I have made in my coursework and practical work. One skill that we learnt at the beginning of the course is how to use a tripod correctly here are some of the tripod rules...

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

We as a group decided to focus on people aged around 16 - 24, we gave all our questionnaires to people of this age. We focused on this group because a lot of people this age like action thriller films. We've put our audience straight in where the action starts to make sure they are engaged and asking questions from the very beginning. Our target market is made up of people from a working class background. This is represented through the use of location and setting, the area we chose to film looks industrial and rough, which is an area that you don't associate with the upper class. However we see a man in a very nice cut and styled suit. Therefore the audience are asking questions about the actors and the situation the have found themselves in. As a group we have aspired and analysed films such a 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Se7en' and 'The dissapearence of Alice Creed' which are very gritty and adrenaline packed films, we looked particularly at these films because they attract a similar audience and they give the audience the same adrenaline rush when they watch them as we want our audience to feel watching our film. For exapamle in 'Alice Creed' we see clear moments of very face paced editing...

 

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Which we then also see this fast paced editing in moments of panic in our film...

 

The fast editing makes the film seem alot more adrenaline packed therefore relating to the audience we are trying to achieve. Finally we made our film with actors who are similar ages to the audience we want to attract, this is so the audience can relate to the characters and really get into the life of the main girl and understand what might of driven her to this or what might make her so strong as to find out why she has been framed.

This screen cast shows a few films that we were inspired by and that have the same audience that we wish to target, some of the pictures in the screen cast are from our film and as you can see they are not so different from the films we have analysed. Seeing these pictures all together shows that our film will appeal to the same type of audience because our film is very similar in the camera shots we have used and the costumes and blood that is conveyed in all films.

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

In our film we focus on social class by using both the setting and the clothes to portray this. For example our film is mostly set in a car park in which both a man and a woman lay, the man is dead and the girl has blood on her. The car park is quite dirty looking and run down, conveying the fact it could be in a lower class area. It fits in with our Thriller film because is a dark, isolated setting which makes the audience think why this young girl and man are there and what has happened.




Also we use the characters costumes to convey a divide between lower and a high class of person. For example the dead man in the film is in a suit and looks very out of place in the middle of a car park. He looks from a higher class and this then adds a lot of mystery to our film as the audience are asking why would a man who looks so smart be in a place that so run down and 'rough. The girl however is in loose fitting clothes and is very dressed down, she sits in with her run down surrounding but she is quite young. This again makes the audience think why would someone like that be laying in a place like this with blood on her hands.