Evaluation (Andy)

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

Our media product incorporates generic conventions such as lighting and the relation to tense build ups. We achieved the certain lighting by placing our shots underneath lampposts places in the street. This would much easier than using our own artificial lighting sources. We did have to use a flashlight for two of the shots though as the scene was visible but just not right to fit with the generic conventions of a thriller. The suspense of a thriller was achieved by using a soundtrack which built up with an increasing texture as the track progressed.

Our subgenre would definitely be towards the action side of it. This is shown in the clip with the “drum and bass” sound track used. Also the running scene through the streets give it the fast paced quality of an action film.

This is part of our opening scene where we see a detective writing a report. This is similar to the opening scene of one of our influential films seven.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social groups involved in our thriller are very much the young teen age. The character involved in the running scene represents a young teen out late at night wearing classic teen clothes. Where as in the opening office scene the class is raised and age group increased to a mid/late life character playing the detective. There is no real representation of race or gender. As both of the characters used in the clip are male there can be no comparison of male dominance or female passiveness. Although w

e can see that the detective is a high class important man with the gun and classic smart dress and hat. These representations of gender, age and class could possibly link to our target audience of young and middle aged people as they are involved in the thriller piece. The long haired teen represents a stereotypical teenager rebelling to society ever so slightly.

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

I can visualise this thriller piece being shown in cinemas and perhaps be a Hollywood production. This could hopefully let the production be as successful as it could possibly be which what every director wants. It isn’t unique as a type of film as it has the fast paced, tension building qualities of many other films in the industry. It could be a TV movie but only following a cinema release first. The potential film offers a lot for things such as fra

nchises, merchandise and possibly sequels as the film itself includes certain props such as guns which could be recreated as merchandise. Plus the story line itself allows there to be a potential sequel as the threat in the actual film could easily come back and wreak more havoc! This does not seem a likely thing to happen though as it is rare for sequels to be made on thriller films

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The age and gender of our target audience is set around young adult and adult males and females. We can link this to our product with the young teen character used in the piece. Also the drum and bass music will suit more young adults and teens as it is a

recent modern genre of music.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We attracted our audience with the opening scene of the murder investigation under way. This added with the beginning parts of the soundtrack entices the audience and build up tension which naturally makes the viewers want to see more. The camera angles used in the opening scene are always hiding his face. This can also entice people in as you m

ay eventually find out who the character is and what he looks like drawing in the viewer. In the film we are allowing the audience to see what happens without any character in the film actually knowing by showing the audience the actual murder scene. This has impact as throughout the film the audience will always know more than the characters giving the option for concern for the character from the audience to happen. The camera angles used relate to the lighting used as well which creates suspense.

This is a picture of keys being dropped in the film. This is a vital part of the act as he will find later that he needs them. And if he did not drop them his life would have been spared. We used a complete different shot to emphasize this.

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

The equipment we used was mediocre but certainly acceptable for what we wanted to achieve in our media piece. I wasn't completely pleased with the lighting and how the camera coped with lighting but our media studies centre has a budget they need to stick to. Final cut express is the program we used to edit our clips. This was completely new to me before I started using it. I eventually picked it up after playing around with it for the preliminary task. I already knew how to use a camera to its basics which is all I needed for the filming process. I used Cubase 4 to compose our media soundtrack. This was not really new for me as I have used cubase many times before and was quite easy to make a soundtrack. Using the screen snaps we did we could achieve our desired mise en scene plus we also edited the brightness and contrast of the clips to enhance our desired mise en scene.

Here is a screenshot of our added font to the actual video. We did this on final cut express easily. The font we used was an add on which we downloaded from the internet. We wanted the text to be visible (so we made it white) but yet discreet which explains the lack of dominance on the shot.

Update..

QUALITY CONTROL! Is what we are about, therefore we are re-filming! Tonight, me (Jack) and Will are going to film the outdoor scene. On Wednesday Will and Andy are going to film the indoor scene.

Group Discussion Update

Andy-OK. So we did like filming stuff, I.e The office scene and our running shots. But! Our office scene was deleted somehow on the camera so we cannot upload any samples from that. We have our running shots buts we want to redo them as there is not enough light in them so the camera is struggling to handle the lack of light. So were going to redo them in the near future. After we have done all the shots again with adjusted lighting we will try and upload some samples to the blog. A lesson has been learnt.

Jack-We are looking to film on monday (15/02). With our previous experience we should be more efficient this time round.

Will- hey

Music with video

I am currently working on our thriller soundtrack on Cubase 4 at school and home. I have the main structure and a thorough idea of the sound track but wish to attempt to synchronize it with our actual film footage. Obviously this can only be done when the filming has finished. I can use cubase to do this. And by synchronizing I mean maybe clashes or staccato hits when a head is turned side to side e.t.c.

Filming Timetable

4.00- Organize Office ready for filming. i. e Lighting, Prop positioning and Health and safety issues.
4.30- Start filming first scene taking 3 takes of each shot. look through shots.
5.30- Organize outside scenes. E.g health and safety.
6.00- Film at least 3 takes of each shot. We will be filming outside as it will be darker and suits our needs.
7.00- Look through shots.

Filming!!

We are hoping to film tonight in newport. We would be more than happy if we could do it all tonight. We are signing one of the school cameras out and will be hopefully returning it in the next week or two :)

Logo Update

We have discovered that our "Pluto Pictures" picture is not royalty free so we need to change it to a royalty free appropriate picture. This will be uploaded at a later date.

Lighting ideas

We mostly planned everything out well.

While making the story board I Placed all of the shots strategically, so that all of the action (if any) would happen underneath street lamps. For any places that require slightly more light we will use will's brothers car headlights at the appropriate levels to give the light we need.

Hello

Just posting to let you know we are on our way to catching up and being completely comfortable with our time period. All is good dont fret!

Changes in narrative

We have decided to change a few things in our narrative in conjunction with our earlier narrative post. We will not have credits shown on an actual envelope in the opening scene as we think this will cause a dip in the intensity of a thriller by creating a slightly more humorous context. The credits will just show as text like the other credits.

The other change we have decided to make is the transition between The first scene and the second made to be two days earlier. We were going to just have text at the bottom saying two days earlier but instead we will use a transition to show this subliminally. By using a picture of the victim on the investigators desk we can show that he is the subject being thought about. This will then blend in with the other scene of The Victim running.

Font for title

Based on a group decision we have chosen the font: Evanescent.

It looks like this:

Health And Safety

Health and safety is vital in our media piece as we are running through streets where cars are a threat. Obviously we do not want to be in any danger throughout our filming process from cars or any other moving vehicles. To prevent this from happening we will have people marking either side and center of the roads we are currently producing our thriller opening. This should prevent any accident happening. There is also a scene where i am writing a letter. There is also a danger from our actor Will tripping as he is running through the street. To prevent this happening we will have someone checking dangers i.e shoelaces are done up tightly and there are no objects/substances on his running way that could cause slippage/tripping.

Title for our thriller! (And credits)

Title name

We've decided to call our film "Acronychal". Which is an adjective for occurring at nightfall. This fits rather nicely with the content of our thriller introduction as it is all set at night.

Credits

(in order)

Pluto Pictures presents..

A JAW Production..

Acronychal

Target audience

"In marketing and advertising, a target audience, or target group is the primary group of people that something, usually an advertising campaign, is aimed at appealing to."

We are going to aim our thriller at the 15 + audience. This is because although we are only doing an opening, if the target audience is of a high age it may show that our film is scarier and more thrilling. The majority of thrillers are aimed at 15 and over, so we want to create an "authentic as possible" scene.

Update! Storyboard complete.

The story board is now complete! In this post will contain information on props, lighting, sound, location, cast list etc..

Props

Handgun - Realistic BB gun

Keys

Police badge

Investigative documents

Pencil

Newspaper clippings

Cast List

Will Shaw - Jared O'Callahan

Andy Watts - Investigator

Jack Dunn - The Walkin' Dude

Costume:

Jack Dunn - Long coat covering suit trousers with black polished shoes

Andy Watts - Tailored tweed suit

Will Shaw - Jeans & Hoody

Lighting

Outside - Scenes are appropriately placed near street lamps for natural dark lighting. Will use artificial light, such as car headlights, torches, spot lights, if needed.

Inside - Just a desk lamp to make it damp

Sound

Non-Diagetic - Music created on computer using cubase. (slow, minor, creepy/fast paced heavy texture/background, unobtrusive)

Diagetic - Footsteps, Gun shot, Breathing, Scribbling

Location

First location (writing the letter) - Will Shaw's home office

Second location (running scene) - Newport - Frambury Lane, Cherry Garden Lane, Bullfields, Will Shaw's brothers house

Problems - Cars will be a constant problem (in the way, making noise). Tripping over while running.

Editing

The titles and credits will be added via editing on computer. We will use editing to cut scenes.

Thriller music details

Looking at a few songs or sequences we may want to use for our piece and music from Other thriller movies such as I am legend and seven. There are two different types really used. There is the slow minor tonality music which is usually quite expressionist and has very little texture to the music. Often the stylized dark piano is used with a minor bass and a odd scale played over the tops to give an eery/unusual affect. An example of this is air bender's lullaby from avatar.
There is fast paced action music for an opening scene where there is action or adventure. This is usually backed up by fast drums and a lot of synthesized sounds. The song would still be minor but sometimes atonal to not set it heart on either major or minor to give it that weird effect. Ambient is also very used in thriller movies. The Lo Fi quality and slow pads give it the "out of this world" effect. An example is microscopic by Gas.

Thriller Music

Here is a good example of the sort of music we want to have as our opening shot music. Obviously we cannot use this due to copyright and loyalty reasons but it helps us on what sort of things we want to use. hoefully you can understand a bit more as well

Clear Definition of a thriller

The genre of thriller is a very small one. Broadening between action and horror. Films such as Saw is seen as a thriller by alot of people and critics but it is actually of the horror genre as it has detailed explicit scenes which are usually left out of thriller movies although maybe still playing a part in the films. E.g in Saw there is a scene where A man is chained to the wall and out of desperation cuts his own foot off. This is shown clearly in the film where as the same thing may happen in a thriller but they would leave out the gory, distasteful, bloody scene.
The actual definition of a Thriller as approved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/THRILLER

a work of fiction or drama designed to hold the interest by the use of a high degree of intrigue, adventure, or suspense

Obviously this isnt very detailed but i hope i have expand on it a bit more.

Establishing Shot

These are some establishing Shots and what happens in them.

Thriller Opening
Death comes at a price
Thriller opening examples
The Dark Knight
-Fast pace edits
First scenes a criminal act
Naturalistic sounds, minimal talking
Se7en
-Loads of Extreme close ups
-No Dialogue
-Tense Music
Sleepy Hollow
-Close ups, established shots
-Props- Book, detective
- No dialogue
Terence’s idea
Psychopathic serial killer breaks out of prison and tries to kill his father who he blames for the way he is. The father of this serial killer is the president of the United States. When this serial killer was a boy he was neglected by his father at the age of eleven and was put in a special home. Ten years later he would be the most dangerous serial killer in America. President tries to hide background and covers up everything. His son then announces his intentions to kill his father.
Gulaid’s idea
An extraordinary man is in the park where he is in a standstill whilst the world blurs past time, the man has an eerie presence about him as the camera closes in on him you scars over his face with blood all over him, but as time moves on you tell it’s not his blood but the blood of someone or something, someone is following him he don’t see the person but can sense them like he has a sixth sense. As the person is in touching distance the man disappears all of a sudden leaving the follower angry and distressed.
Rahib’s idea
Pitch Black – credits will appear slow and faded
Short flashes of voice over of a police interview(no dialogue throughout rest of scene)
Camera following a man from his house to road where he meets a girl, shots of knives, rape (not explicit) film grain affect. Black and white
Shots of police photography, taking fingerprints, evidence etc.
Henna’s idea
Starts off silent and a pan shot of park. Twilight time of the day. Then suddenly hear a gun shot and blood on the screen with the name of the movie.
Then have a follow shot of a woman running wearing a long black coat and you only hear her heels hitting the floor and he breathing. She then get’s pulled into a ally way by a man, (you do not see the stranger’s face)
they walk out as soon as another man (authority figure) passes the ally way with a gun and you see she has now changed her clothes and her hair (wig) and walk in the opposite direction. Then there is a cut to the cemetery during the day and the same girl at a grave stone on her knees. Names of actors flashing across the screen
Target audience
“Contains strong bloody violence and very strong language”
Release date: October 2010
Final IdeaRahib’s idea – Death Comes At a Price
Characters – Man, woman, and figure of authority
Setting – house, dark lit road
Props – knives, hoodie
Storyline – a case being re-open after 20 years, and we tell the story from the criminals point of view and the goings on of that night.
Meeting the thriller convention
No dialogue
You get small hint of what character is like
Very dark and mysterious
Tense music
Low key lighting
Leaves you at the edge of your seat

Sound

Sound is not all just about the music overdubbed at the beginning of films and at tense moments. It is used for emphasis on certain things i.e a mobile phone ringing may be completely overdubbed off camera to make sure it is known it is ringing to the audience and is playing a big part in the scene. I like the idea of fusing diagetic sound with non diagetic like a scene from the film "One Hour Photo" where the diagetic shop music merges with the overdubbed sound track of the scene. Alot of the time the audience may not be aware this is happenin but when you take it away it removes alot of authenticity and realism away. I.e in an office there would be phones ringing in the background of the scene. I will posting alot more on sound as that is what our group have decided to assign me.