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

When I look back to all our previous work especially the preliminary task, I can now see that it was to prepare us for filming our thriller opening scene.  Reflecting on the task, I can see how far I have come on my own as well as in a group, regarding the film industry. I learnt that all about setting up the equipment properly. If we hadn’t had a chance to take part in the preliminary task, I do not believe that our thriller would have turned out like we had expected.

Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product? - Prezzi

http://prezi.com/his7djnr6l2b/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Question 5 - How do you attract/address your audience? - Video

Question 4 - WHo would be the audience for your media product? - Video

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? - Prezzi

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My opening sequence consists of 3 main characters. These are; the main male, the young female and the killer. We didn't want to have too many characters as we wanted out narrative to be focused, and not have several back stories, and so decided on these characters. 

The young male is portrayed as being manly through his body language and dialogue which will make him seem macho and grown up, making the audience believe that he will not be the victim. This character will appeal to the audience because of this, as they will believe he is going to protect the other character.  Gender is represented in a subverted way, which is uncommon in thrillers, the victim is stereotypically always a female. By presenting him in everyday, young clothes such as jeans and a hoody, it shows his youth, meaning anyone who is a parent or has young friends etc will be able to relate to him.

The young female will confuse the audience. They will begin thinking that she is the victim and that she's weak. She is used to help create an enigma which is conventional to thrillers as it leaves the audience unsure of what has happened and so they question it and continue to watch to see what happens. We dressed her in jeans and a hoody as this is a normal example of everyday clothing for a teenager. 

The killer is the main enigma in my thriller opening as his identity is kept hidden, which is very conventional to the thriller genre as it makes the audience eager to know who the killer is which keeps them engaged with the clip. The audience should react to the killer in a negative way. He/she should make them feel uncomfortable and should be responsible for creating all of the bad emotions the audience feel. 

Question 1 - in what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My groups thriller film is called, 'The woods', the plot involves a boy and girl walking into a low lit forest, and who go into an abandoned building. They are interrupted by a knocking at the glass, the boy trying to be manly goes to investigate the strange sound, leaving the girl alone. After a while the boy has not returned leaving the girl to go and find him. When she does find him she is surprised to find his is dead and hanging from a tree. In the back of the scene we see the killer go to kill the girl.

Our brief for our group was to create a opening scene for a thriller film which had to last no longer then 2 minutes. The brief had many expectations and had to include a range of camera angles, sound, and a varied use of conventions which all fit in to the thriller genre.  My group consisted of Noah and Alex, who all took up different roles within the film making process. Such as, I was editor and time keeper, meanwhile Alex was in charge of the equipment and also director.  By giving people certain roles, it helped the production roll smoothly.  We also had many people from outside our group to help us, such as actors.

It was essential that we worked well as a group. However we did experience a few step backs as, I couldn't be there for filming as I had other appointments. However we did overcome this step back and still worked well as a team. Overall, I felt like we were a very strong team, who listened to each other’s views and worked around them. I also felt like everyone appreciated feedback from one another and did not take it personally. Key to being such a well knit team is to relate our decisions back to the genre and the conventions associated with it. Therefore we used a typical thriller location, the woods, which kept within the conventions of a thriller. By adjusting to each other’s point of view, I felt like we made high quality decisions throughout the making of our thriller.

 The generic conventions of a thriller are, dark lighting, suspense filled soundtrack, unexpected sounds and a series of camera angles, to name a few. These are key element which you find in successful thrillers, and therefore are key to our own thriller. As individuals and as a group we researched thriller films in hope of inspiration and to further our knowledge on their impact. We found that in many thrillers, they use a quiet location such as woods or forests, such as cabin in the woods. Therefore as a group we decided to use the same location. If we had not of taken the following research we would of used other aspects such as low key lighting which is seen in Prom night, and a suspense filled soundtrack which is seen in The Conjuring. If we hadn’t of researched into these films we wouldn't have known how to use them to their full effect. Although we did use low key lighting throughout our thriller, we added this in while editing. We chose a setting and a story line which would appeal to a age range of 16 – 25, as we hoped the characters who be most relatable to them. . Our opening sequence defines the thriller genre as it obtains many micro elements of the genre throughout the duration of it, if we were to compare our thriller to another film it would be final destination in regards of this. 

FINAL THRILLER OPENING SCENE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jf67L6h1jY

Thriller comparison - Miss Georgiou

2)     Thriller comparison-

·     Do you think you have created a successful thriller sequence and why?

·     Which micro element, best shows your creativity and understanding of thriller conventions the most?

·     Compare your opening sequence to a successful thriller and explain how your thriller is conventional. Consider the narrative, representation of characters, sounds, editing, mise-en-scene

Audience Feedback - Miss Georgiou

Audience feedback is important to a production as a large group of people can pick up on small elements my group may of skipped or missed. We can also cover the points that we saw as drawbacks to our presentation. From audience feedback we are able to go back and re-evaluate the editing and making of our thriller film. We were also fortunate enough to show our thriller film to our target audience. By doing this we can evaluate the reaction of the audience and compare it to that of our intended outcome. We received our feedback via a feedback sheet from our audience. This included positives and drawbacks.

 

3 positive comments were:

 

Good use of iconography

Well edited 

Location was well suited

 

3 drawbacks were:

 

Could of used a better blade

Camera was shaky and needed stabilising

Enhance on screen sound

 

From these points we have been able to build and expand on the the good points and try and change or modify the bad points. Editing improvements can easily be made however actual filming errors can be very hard to modify.

Group Stroyboard - Miss Georgiou

The purpose of a group storyboard is the concept of our three combined ideas pieced into one final narrative. Another purpose is that when filming our final piece, we can use the storyboard to portray what we want to see in each frame. There will be a narrative, sounds, shots, locations, lighting, editing, characters and iconography. The story board also makes it a lot easier for us as we don't have to think on the spot as it is all planned out.

We took everyones idea and adapted them into one storyboard, by doing this we gained a range of ideas and techniques we didn't think about using before. We all had different mes - en - scene ideas as well as location and characters.

However when asking to look at my groups storyboards to look for inspiration, I found out that one of the members had not bothered to make one. This made us limited to ideas to incorporate into one storyboard. Although we did manage to produce a fair amount of detail to add into one.

My main idea was to put a twist on the fact that the girl is always the most vulnerable and tends to be killed off first, therefore we made it so the man did instead. I found it would give a twist in the scene and make the audience want to know what the girl is going to do next.

Another key idea we wanted to portray was the low key lighting and background noise. Starting on low key lighting, I feel this is used to keep the audience guessing to what is going on in the scene. The less they see the better as it helps keep up that element of surprise. This is  why many thrillers are set at night as visibility is reduced. Secondly, we found background noise key. Natural noises such as leaves or birds can easily send people into a false sense of security as the audience can relate to those noises and almost feel at home with them. 

To conclude, I feel we all icorparated our ideas well into one storyboard and we are now all clear on what our narrative is and how we will conduct each frame. 

Opening secretion - Miss Georgiou

The scene starts with me and Noah walking through the woods chatting about school work. Noah indicates that he needs to talk to me about something important, therefore we go for a walk in the woods and come across an abandoned building to sit in. As we are walking, we decided to use a number of high angles and straight cuts. There is a dark gradient placed over the scene as we walk through the woods. Throughout the first shots a light piano music is played to build suspense. As we continue to walk through the woods, the camera switches to a handheld shot used in the sense of a point of view angle and shows the camera moving down from a tree to the floor and the stalked hides in the leaves. At this point Noah turn around to see if anything is there, as he is cautious that he could be being followed. The audience start really feeling that they are in the stalkers shoes at this point.

With the music still playing,  a mid shot of Noah and I shows us walking into the building. The music lowers and the room is covered in candles. Noah states "so we can finally have that chat now" and suddenly there is a bang on the window. Noah go outside to check while the camera follows him. We tried to use a good use of low key light is used here and blurs and fades are used to try and keep continuity as Noah leaves. 

Next Noah walks into an open forest and asks "is anyone there?" The camera angle then cleverly changes to a point of view shot of the stalker who we see hiding as Noah walks. The stalker follows me walking behind me using a point of view shot and not changing the angles to keep it current and real. We can see a blade of screen as the stalker walks and we decided to do this for quite a while to build up tension among the audience. He then runs up to Noah and just as he strikes a flash comes across the screen and the camera cuts back to me.

I then continue to follow the same path that Noah did and we keep the light, noise, angles and shots the same as when Noah walked out to show the similarity of movement to keep the audience engaged. I am now in the forest and a canted angle is used while she shouts "Noah" continuously, showing my worry and concern. I suddenly stop and a panning shot is used as the camera moves around her so the audience can see what she sees. Hopefully at this point the audience are shocked to see Noah dead over a tree with blood dripping off me. 

There is then a jump cut to the front of me and the music suddenly builds and becomes a lot more sharper.  The stalker is seen rushing up behind her and just as he strikes once again the music and film cuts suddenly. Hopefully this cliff hanger will leave the audience in a great deal of suspense.

Rough cut - Miss Miller

Within film making, a rough cut shows the first stage in which the film begins to resemble its final product. It still needs to undergo many changes before being released. It is always important to consider looking through audience feedback as, it gives you a chance to see if the work is credible. Audience feedback is key as it allows the editor/director/producer to see what part of the film, needs further work and possible adaptation. 

Our main way of receiving feedback, was after we presented our rough cut to the class. My peers produced very helpful and insightful comments, which is going to allow us to change and improve our thriller opening scene. We were given feedback after doing a presentation to the whole class which allowed us to receive a massive range of feedback. The group provided both negative and positive feedback.

Heather explained to us how the camera is too shaky in one part of our thriller, therefore we had to come up with a  solution to improve it. Therefore we asked our Media teacher for advise,  she suggested that we cut the part up and incorporate different effects over the top. 

On the other hand George liked the fact that we had a dull wash over the whole of the opening scene, although it was filmed in the day it made the thriller look as if its night. He said it was very effective and made the thriller more intense.

Although we did have another negative point said about our opening scene. The titles over the opening scene are out of time which takes your eye off the scene and distracts the audience. Its key that we make sure we change and improve on this as soon as possible. 

Overall the feedback was quite good, the viewer seem to enjoy it and felt a bit scared but most of all wanted to see what the film was about. This is what a opening scene is supposed to do, I am very happy that we are near to achieving this.