Mae Webb - Evaluation

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

Defnition of a Thriller

• Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, and television programming that uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. 

Our final thriller Title Sequence - Perception

Some conventions of a thriller that we applied to our film:

• Antagonist - the person (or group of people) who opposes the protagonist. Essentially, whatever the protagonist is trying to achieve, the antagonist is the person or thing that is conflict with the protagonist and trying to stop him/her. Here is an example of the antagonists in The Disappearance of Alice Creed.

• Protagonist - (the victim) usually the lead character, the one around whom the plot is mostly focused and with whom the reader should have the most empathy. Here is an example of the protagonist in The Disappearance of Alice Creed.

• Suspense - A state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen, keeps the audience focused on the action.

• Enigma Code - this is Roland Barthes theory that whenever a film narrative creates confusion or raises questions it is creating an enigma code drawing the audience in.

I asked some of our demographic 'When watching this thriller opening, did you find yourself asking questions in your head? If so what were some of them?' - Here are some answers

This audience feedback shows that our thriller created enigma for our target audience and the maing things they were thinking: why is she being taken? what are they going to do to her? who are the antagonists? which is the response that we wanted to get.

• Restricted Narration - when the audience knows the same or less than the characters. Here is an example of restricted narration as by using the extreme close up the audience can't see the characters surroundings, which is revealed in the long shot, and knows less than them.
• Iconography - the use of certain objects/symbols/characters/settings to convey a certain genre. Iconography of a thriller may include: murder weapons (knives etc), shadows, woods, street lamps, tight spaces, characters in hoods. 

• In our thriller film we used quite a lot of these conventions to ensure it fitted to the correct genre. Because what we created is an opening sequence and would be the first thing the audience sees when watching the film we wanted to draw our targeted audience in straight away using lot's of enigma to make them want to find out more.The structure of our thriller film does not follow Todorov's theory of the classic narrative, shown here because our thriller opening shows the disruption (dis-equilibrium) at the beginning, but then switches to normality (equilibrium) through the characters' flashbacks.

9 FRAME SEQUENCE

• This is the second shot in our sequence after an establishing shot and it straight away draws the audience in using the conventions of a thriller. We used lighting to create the shadows of our characters which is an example of Iconography in a thriller and the shadow creates mystery for the audience and a dark atmosphere. We used the composition of our characters in this shot to give the audience a sense of the victim, as Gabi is in the middle she looks small and helpless while the other two surround her and by making the antagonists shadow bigger they appear to be overpowering. This shot is an example of restricted narration because the audience do not know who the characters are/where they are and it creates shock when they see the character being hit with a bat. The restricted narration also creates enigma which draws the audience in further as they want to know who are the characters? why has one of them been hit? where are they? This shot also has very eerie non-diegetic music in the background which creates a dark atmosphere and builds the suspense, when she is hit with the bat there is a very loud, echoed bang which shocks the audience further as it enhances it. 

• This shot reveals the Antagonists standing over the Protagonist. You can tell Gabi (the girl on the floor) is the protagonist as you see she has been attacked and victimised from her makeup of the blood on her head. The use of lighting creating a shadow over the protagonist also makes her look helpless as the antagonists have control over her. This also creates a dark atmosphere. In this shot and many of the other shots that show the antagonists we have used tight framing to restrict the view of the antagonists faces as we wanted them to be unknown to the audience in the opening sequence. This is again restricted narration as the audience do not know who the attackers are. We did this to create shock when their identity is revealed to the audience. This also created more enigma as the audience are kept guessing as to who they are. Once again we have used iconography of a thriller in this shot as it allows us to see the antagonist holding a bat (a weapon) which are often shown in thrillers. Here is an example of where a baseball bat has been used as iconography in the thriller Kidulthood:
  

• This is a close up shot of the antagonists dragging the protagonists body, the non-diegetic music with the diegetic sound of the dragging gives it a really sinister atmosphere, we also made the sound of the dragging louder to enhance the sound and make it seem like the antagonists are dragging her quite aggressively. This shot is a match on action from a previous long shot of the dragging, this is an example of restricted narration as the audience does not see where they are taking her at this point due to it being a close up, which also creates enigma and the audience want to know what's going to happen to her, raising immediate questions: where are they taking her? is she dead? what are they going to do? The antagonists costume also suggests that they have planned this as they are wearing gloves (to cover finger prints) which creates mystery and makes the antagonists seem more dominant and in control.

• This medium close up shot is an example of one of our flashback scenes. We used a special effect on these scenes to made them stand out from the darker, attack scenes. The effect made these shots look very distorted, enhanced the brightness making it look dream-like, and created lines around the sides smudging the image, which gave it the effect of going back in time.  This shot shows our two antagonists in a flashback, by using a medium close up it allows us to see their facial expressions as they look at each other and laugh showing a subtle hint that they perhaps don't like the protagonist. We also continued the eerie non-diegetic music throughout these flashback scenes, making the music contrapuntal to what's being shown as these scenes appear happy, however the non-diegetic sound hints that there is something sinister happening, and that things aren't as they seem. We also added diagetic sound of laughter over the top of this shot that we created a foley of ourselves, however we did not make it in sync with the clip making it appear distorted and again makes the laughter contrapuntal to the non-diegetic music.

• This is an extreme close up shot which is part of a match on action of closing the car door. This shot only shows the antagonists glove, highlighting their unknown identity and not giving much away to the audience. We also enhanced the sound of the door closing here to show how forcefully the door is being shut, showing their anger and determination to finish what it is they're doing. This creates suspense as it appears that the antagonists appear to be getting more aggressive and controlling, creating fear as to what they're doing to do to the protagonist.

• This medium shot reveals the antagonists upper body and head, whereas before we would only see them from the shoulders down, which reveals more about them, for example we see more of their costume as they're wearing hoods - suggesting they don't want to be seen and want their identity to be unknown. Characters in hoods are also often used as iconography in thrillers as they are seen as intimidating and mysterious as it hides their faces. We placed the camera just behind the antagonists so that their faces still remained hidden to the audience, this shot enables the audience to see the protagonist in the car boot creating enigma: why is she in the boot? where are they taking her? is she dead? The protagonists body language also reveals something about their character as they're standing over her making them appear dominant, they also stand their watching for a bit suggesting that they are enjoying what they've done as they are calm and not frantic or panicking.

• This shot shows the graphic match we used from the present to the flashback,which hints that there is a link between the characters in the boiler suits and the two girls, but does not give it away that it's them. This creates enigma as the audience are wondering what the link between them is and if they are the antagonists. We also used a special effect which merges the two images together enhancing the match between them. Here is an example of where a graphic match was used in a flashback in the film Oldboy. 

• This big close up shows Gabi (the protagonist) in her most vulnerable state as she in the car boot and her facial expressions show she is scared and confused. Her eyes looking up showing she is trying to look for a way out. The tape on her mouth, the material around her and the low-key lighting show that she is trapped and makes her appear very vulnerable and helpless. The confined space is also iconography of a thriller and may make the audience feel like they are trapped too and want the character to escape. The way her eyes snap open also creates shock for the audience as they thought she was dead, this then creates enigma as it raises the question of if she will get out or not. 

• This is our title which appears at the end of our thriller. We decided to call it Perception as we feel it fits best with our thriller as our film is about how people perceive others and how these perceptions may not always be the truth and can lead to trouble. We decided  to put an effect of it being typed on the screen making it be revealed slowly representing the way our thriller is slowly revealed throughout. We also decided on this   distorted, un straight font to represent the distorted thoughts and memories that our protagonist has. It also suggests that everything isn't as straight forward as it seems and there are bumps along the way.

I asked some people from our target audience: What is your overall opinion of this thriller opening? What sort or mood does it create? - here are their answers

The overall response from some of our target audience is that the thriller creates a sinister atmosphere and raises a lot of questions, some constructive criticism is that some of the flashbacks are not very clear as to who's perspective it is and perhaps they could fit in with why the protagonist is being taken rather than just random clips and we needed to make our antagonists appear more suspicious in the flashbacks - our intention with these flashbacks was to show our protagonists memories of the antagonists from her point of view as she is going in and out of consciousness, we did not want to give to much away because we wanted it to create shock when we reveal that they are the antagonists later, however we obviously needed to make this clearer to the audience. 

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

• In our thriller opening we only fully reveal three characters to the audience. These three characters are: Gabriella, Livi and Georgia, who are all teenage girls aged 16/17 which is the same as our target audience. We chose to represent these characters as we feel our target audience will be able to relate to them as they appear to be typical teenage girls.
  
  I asked some people from our target audience 'Would you say you could relate to the characters in this thriller being a teenage girl yourself? Why?' - Here are some answers

The audience feedback revealed that our target audience felt that they could relate to the characters in our thriller because they seem like normal teenage girls just like them, therefore they can understand them as teenage girls generally enjoy the same things and talk about similar things.

Representation of gender

• All three of the characters revealed are female. We have represented two of our female charcters in quite a negative way as we show the two antagonists (Livi and Georgia) being 'bitchy' towards the protagonist (Gabi) and isolating her showing how nasty girls can be to eachother. We have represented this in different ways:

Mise en Scene: Composition

In our thriller film we have used composition to show a divide between the two antagonists (the brown and blonde haired girls) and our protagonist (the red haired girl) as two antagonists are always stood or sat next to eachother and the protagonist is by herself at the side, showing that she is not as close with them.


In addition in the panning shot showing the girls having their makeup done, we see the two antagonists having a good time and the protagonist is left standing by herself, showing that they feel they are more important than her and she is not as involved with them.




Camerawork: Point of View shot and Sound: Enhanced diegetic

This point of view shot from the protagonist shows the two antagonists looking at each other and laughing showing that they may have inside jokes between them and are not including Gabi (protagonist) or also that they are laughing at her. In addition we used enhanced diegetic sound (created by foley) of the girls laughing which shows that in the protagonists memories they were always laughing together.

Editing: Match on Action

 This match on action of the antagonist passing the cup to the protagonist and asking her to drink it shows that the protagonist will do whatever they say just to fit in and won't say no, making her seem vulnerable and them in control, showing how bullies can be. In addition, the extreme close up of the cup shows how much control they have and enhances the moment.

Stereotypes

• We have used a stereotype of girls as we have presented them as typical teenagers, for example we showed them going shopping, brushing each others hair, gossiping, getting their makeup done, which are all quite stereotypical activities that girls do, however this is not a negative representation because many girls are like this and enjoy these activities, when asking our target audience if they could relate to the characters they said yes because they seemed like normal girls just like them.

• We also used the stereotype of a female being the protagonist and we made her appear weak and vulnerable. This is often the case in thrillers as male characters are seen as more dominating than female characters. 

Here is an example of our protagonist looking weak and vulnerable in the boot of the car. We smudged her makeup to make it appear like she'd been crying, we also used the makeup of fake blood on her head to show that she had been attacked. In additon her facial expressions show she is scared and doesn't know what to do.

 Here is an example of where a female character has been

used as the protagonist in the thriller 4.3.2.1, she also has a scared facial expression and is alone.

Here is an example of where a female character is used as the protagonist in the thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed, again her facial expressions look worried and her makeup has been smudged showing that she's been crying, making her seem vulnerable.

• However, we have gone against the stereotype of male characters being the antagonists as the antagonists in our thriller are also female. This is not very common in thrillers as often people see men as more likely to take part in dangerous activities and break the law. Although in our opening sequence we do not reveal the identity of the antagonists, if the film were to continue it would show that the antagonists are in fact the girls in the flashbacks (the protagonists so called friends)
• We have created subtle hints throughout the title sequence showing in the flashbacks that there is something sinister going on through the contrapuntal non-diegetic sound and the antagonists facial expressions, composition, etc. One of the most important parts of our opening sequence is the graphic match at the end, as it creates a link between the two antagonists and the girls, hinting that they have something to do with it.

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

• Considering we have produced our thriller in the role of an independent British film company our thriller film would be on a low budget, and therefore we would need to choose and indie distributor to distribute our film. 
• When researching some distributors I found Kaleidoscope Film Distribution as they have had both cinema and DVD releases of thriller films that have been successful and they work with independent British film companies 'supporting independent film and filmmakers, is a key mission.'   

•  One of the thrillers that they have distributed is 'The Seasoning House', along with 'Mine Games' and 'iKillr' which I feel would appeal to our target audience as, similar to ours, it includes females as the main characters and also goes against the stereotype of women being helpless victims as the antagonist (who is female) fights back and takes control over the antagonists. Therefore I feel they would be a good distribution company to go with as they have had experience distributing films of our genre and similar target audience.

•  I think we should have a simultaneous release of our film (in the cinema and on DVD at the same time) as it gives our target audience the choice of whether to watching it at home or in the cinema; our target audience of teenage girls (15-19) may choose to either have a watch it at home with their friends and have a 'movie night' in, or have a night out and watch it. Also giving them the option to buy it on DVD means more of them can watch it because it's less expensive than going to the cinema, and often teenagers do not have a lot of money as they're still in education.
• I would also suggest that we release our film in an art house cinema rather than a mainstream one because it would cost us less money as they're independent. 
• The majority of our target audience would be in full time education or have a job, and therefore I would release it on a Friday because I feel that this is the day that our target audience would most likely go as they may want to celebrate the weekend and do something fun to get their minds off work.

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

• We decided that our target audience will be teenage girls. The main characters in our film are all teenage girls and therefore we felt the best target audience would be those who can relate to the characters and empathise with them, and would want to find out what happens to the characters. I also feel that girls will understand some of the issues in the thriller such as being an outcast in friendship groups which many girls may have experienced at one point and therefore may be more interested in it.  
  
  
• After looking at the British Board of Film Classification website for information about the different certificate ratings, I feel that our thriller should have a 15 certificate rating. The reasons for this are:
• It will include 'strong' violence throughout the film 
• There may be a 'frequent use of strong language'
• Some of the themes may not be suitable for a younger audience such as the bullying, murder and revenge.

I asked a few people from our target audience - 'What real thriller films do you enjoy watching?' Here are some answers:

Responses:

Jurrassic Park

Phone booth

Inception x2

Shutter Island x4 - it seems our target audience like films which create a lot of enigma and keep you guessing throughout, this is what we aimed to create with our thriller.

Silence of the Lambs 

Last House on the Left

Eden Lake

Alfred Hitchcock movies

Women in Black (more of a supernatural thriller)

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I asked a few people from our target audience - 'what about this title sequence would attract you to watching this thriller?' here are some answers:

• Kellie comments on how the twist at the end when the protagonist opens her eyes would attract her, we used a big close up in that shot to emphasize the fact that she is still alive and to shot the audience.
• Nadine and Livi said the actual storyline would attract them to watch it as they want to find out more. We used a lot of restricted narration in our thriller creating a lot of enigma so that our audience would be intrigued to find out what happens and answer all of their questions.
• Sally and Miya said that the music attracted them as it created tension and a sense of mystery, we used the contrapuntal non-diagetic music to create a sinister atmosphere and suggest that there is something dark going on.

Costume

• They are dressed in fashionable, but average clothes that a typical teenage girl would usually wear meaning that our audience can relate to them as they appear like normal teenage girls. They are also not wearing any revealing clothes and it is quite modest which appeals more to the female audience as we are not portraying girls as a sex object. 

Setting

• We used settings that our audience can relate to and kept them quite ordinary, everyday settings. For example using the shopping mall in Brighton, a shopping mall is quite a typical place for girls to hang out in with their friends and wonder around, whereas boys wouldn't tend to spend as much time in there. In addition, a cafe which is seen often as a place that girls go to 'chat' or 'gossip' so our audience may be able to relate to our characters going there. And finally the use of an average, middle class looking house which despite looking quite creepy in the shot, does appear to be normal and not out of the ordinary.

 Characters

• The fact that all of our characters are female means that teenage girls can relate to them more and understand the situation better.
• Also the breaking of the stereotype of antagonists in our thriller may attract an audience of teenage girls. Often in thrillers it is the male characters who are more dominant and seen as the antagonists, while female characters are often victims. Although we have used this stereotype of female characters with one character our two antagonists are in fact female, which may attract teenage girls because it's controversial and different to most thrillers that have male characters as antagonists. We purposely did not show the antagonists identity in our opening to keep the audience guessing who they were, and to shock them when it's revealed that they are girls in the actual film (if it continued). 
• We were influenced by the thriller film 4.3.2.1 because the main characters are female and take part in what is usually seen as male activities, such as using weapons, fighting etc, and break the stereotype that women are always victims. 
  
  

Examples from the film 4.3.2.1 of where it goes against the female stereotype.

I asked some people from our target audience 'Was it clear to you who the protagonist and the antagonists were? And did you think that the characters in the boiler suits are the other two female characters (the blonde and brunette)?' Here are there answers:

• There was a mixed response to this question, some people said that they did think the antagonists may have been the female characters because of the flashbacks and the suspicious looks throughout them, however some did not think they were at all "I just assumed they were men" showing that stereotypically people tend to think of the antagonists as being men in thrillers because they are seen as more dominant and more likely to do these things. We wanted to break this stereotype in our thriller by having the antagonists as being female.

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

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

I learnt a lot from our preliminary task  and have also progressed a lot since completing it in terms of editing, using the camera, use of lighting and continuity editing, the importance of mise en scene etc.

9 Frame Sequence of our Preliminary task

Visual Editing

• I've progressed fully in my skills of editing. I have learned how to use Final Cut with minimal help and am able to apply special effects to shots as well as create a sequence.
• I have also learned how to include titles on final cut which we did not use in our preliminary, there was lots of different effects that you could put on your titles and we decided on a typing effect on ours so it revealed slowly.

  

  Here is our title from our thriller opening

• My editing skills have improved a lot. We only used really basic editing in our preliminary by cutting the different shots together to make the sequence flow and using basic continuity editing such as match on action. 
• However in our thriller we developed more advanced skills, we wanted to create a flashback and felt that we needed to put an effect on it to make it different from reality and sort of dream-like. We used a special effect which made the shots look distorted and enhanced the brightness, giving the effect that we wanted. We also worked out how to get a fade in/fade out from white which gave the effect that our character's (the protagonist) thoughts were coming in and out of conciousness. 
• We also used a graphic match in our thriller sequence

Here is an example of the flashback scenes where we
used a special effect to create a distorted feeling.

The graphic match we used in our thriller

Sound Editing

• I also learned how to use garage band after completing a task on it adding in background noise and different sounds to a silent clip. In our preliminary we did not include any non-diegetic music and it was very basic sound editing, I have improved my skills since as we included a lot of diegetic sound and non-diegetic music throughout our thriller opening, we also learned that you cannot use any soundtrack for your non-diegetic music and have to find non copyright music to download and use which i did not know before this process.

• I have also learned since the prelim that dialogue is not needed to create a mood, and having no dialogue at all can infact be a lot more effective in an opening sequence as it keeps the audience guessing and does not give too much away, making them want to keep watching. We used non-diegetic music in our thriller sequence which gave it the eerie, sinister feeling that we wanted. We also created our own foley's to include in our thriller which enabled us to enhance the diegetic sounds and make them louder giving a better effect to the audience as it makes them stand out more.

Lighting 

shots from preliminary task - natural lighting

shot from our thriller - well thought out lighting to create shadows

• We did not really think about lighting in our preliminary task and used natural lighting throughout which created some problems as we filmed on two different days, meaning in some shots the lighting is brighter (shown above). However, since the preliminary task we experimented with lighting techniques and completed a lighting task to demonstrate different lighting techniques which improved my knowledge as to how lighting can effect characters and the mood, for example bottom up lighting creates quite a dark atmosphere and makes the character seem evil. In our thriller opening we were filming at night so using natural lighting would not work. Our lighting was well thought out to create the mood that we wanted, we used a lot of shots with shadows in the darker scenes to make it eerie and a dark atmosphere. 

Continuity editing

• I have learned the basic things that you need when having continuity editing:
•  180 degree rule - since the preliminary task it has become a lot easier to automatically think about this, in our thriller we did break the 180 rule in one of our shots in the cafe, however when editing we realised our mistake. We would not have realised out mistake if we had not had practise of this in the prelim. 
• Match on action and shot reverse shot  we learned these during our preliminary task and applied our skills to the thriller, we used quite a few match on actions in our final thriller and we feel it gave a good effect as we were able to do close ups on certain actions to give effect. Because of the preliminary these skills became more natural and easier to do.

Example of match on action in our preliminary task

 Example of match on action in our thriller

Camera

• We became more skilled with our camera work in our thriller film compared to our preliminary, we thought more about our framing and remembered to do white balance.

This shot shows an example of bad framing from our preliminary task as the top of his head and his chin have been cut out and we were too close in, showing we were lazy about our camera work and did not properly think about it. 

However this shot shows how we have improved in our camera work as we have thought about our framing carefully. By placing the camera at a low level we purposely cut off the antagonists from the shoulders upwards so that they remain unknown to the audience, only revealing what we want them to see, the protagonist on the floor and the weapon used to hit her.

Here is an example of where we forgot to do white balance in our preliminary task. This shows because the colour and brightness of the shot is quite yellow/orange compared to the other shots. However in our thriller we remembered to do white balance each time.

In conclusion

I feel that our thriller opening sequence is definitely of a higher quality than our preliminary task and we have thought about things a lot more carefully. The preliminary task was primarily to test our camerawork and editing skills and not mise en scene or sound, however in our thriller we had to think about all four aspects which made it more effective. For example things like setting and props, we filmed our prelim inside a room at college so it did not look very realistic or go with the character of an evil assasin, however for our thriller we thought about setting carefully and chose a dark, creepy looking house at nighttime because it gave a good effect and went with the characters. In the prelim we had minimal props to work with, for example a gun which did not look very realistic at all, however in the thriller we used a baseball bat which was much more fitting. I definitely feel that in terms of character our thriller sequence is better than our preliminary because we really thought about what actors to use and how they would fit with the film and our target audience, in addition I think the use of our sound in our thriller makes it a lot more effective and creates the correct mood/atmosphere that we wanted whereas we did not think about the atmosphere in our preliminary task and our desired effect was unclear as we didn't think about a target audience.