Question 5

Question 7

The preliminary task was set in order for us to be able to teach ourselves and get to know the equipment that we were going to start using,  we had to familiarise ourselves with the camera and tripod. Our task was to create a short sequence of someone walking into a room, sitting down and having a conversation with them then walk out. In this short sequence we had to use a mixture of the following shots; close up, mid shot, long shot, panning and an over the shoulder shot. There were three different people in my group. All three of us took a turn at filming so each of us wood master how to use the equipment. This was highly effective as we all learned so much through the experience; I was able to go off and start filming my own thriller sequence through the techniques we had been taught.

In the process of the preliminary task, I learnt that it would be like to film within a team. We all had to adjust the tripod so that we were comfortable with it I learnt that the people in the group were able to grasp the concepts a lot faster than me and then taught me how they had mastered it. Using Final Cut Pro X in our groups meant that we all had to decide how we wanted it to be edited. Knowing other people saw a different vision for our task was hard as we had to use a mixture of different filter until we could all agree. Although our decisions were made as a team we came up with something far better than what we could have done individually.

The preliminary task has shown me that it is best to work in a group where each person specialises in one area this way the process becomes complete a lot quicker; an example of this would be where Nojus is far more skilled at editing compared to me and Harry. I took the role of the camera man as I mastered all the different shots far quicker than the boys. Harry was the brains behind our narrative before he decided to leave our group. This enabled Nojus and I to come up with our own ideas. Both of us played in the acting roles and we both took on the rest of the job roles distributed equally I between us.

I also learnt how to use Final Cut Pro X, by learning this in the preliminary task it meant that I was able to apply my existing knowledge to editing our final sequence, this included already knowing how to import and export our clips from the SD card to the software. From the preliminary task I was able to edit my sequence until I felt it was the best that it would be, I was able to contrast and manipulate the lighting to fit the mood of the scene. 

Looking back over the preliminary task I have really seen how my technical abilities have developed and how much I have learnt throughout the process, adapting to people leaving our group and having to come up with a new spontaneous narrative to changing the sequence to fit the target audience. I have learnt how setting up the camera and tripod differently creates certain effects and these are the sort of skills I will carry all the way through life.

 

Question 6

Question 3

Question 4

A particular group of people who we have identified as the recipients for our thriller film. The purpose of having a target audience is mainly because it keeps younger viewers protected. Identifying your target audience means you can make the content of the film suitable for your target audience’s age group. Our target audience was teenagers aged 15 upwards. This is mainly because our narrative was quite sinister it would be too scary for young children to follow yet not scary enough to make it an 18. Another reason why we made the target audience 15 was because the characters in our film were of a similar age which means the audience ae able to relate to them and the situations that are taking place. There is little gory in our film yet there is a jump scene at the end of the film, this could frighten younger viewers as they may not understand that this is fake so in order to protect them we found it suitable that the age group selected was for children that would understand that this is all made up. The mise en scene is also relatable for our target audience as the girl is evidently wearing her school clothes and is walking home from school which is a typical scenario that our target audience finds their self in almost every day. This will make them emphasize with the victim as they can easily put themselves in her position. 

Question 2

Question 2: Characters

The only two characters in my opening sequence are the victim and the antagonist, the victim being played by an ordinary teenage girl.  I chose the victim to be a girl as this is conventional to the thriller genre further her age will appeal to our target audience who are also of a similar age, she is dressed in normal teenage clothes for example she Is wearing a short skirt with a white blouse, this means she does not stand out. The victim is portrayed with innocence which entices the audience and creates an emotional bond between the characters and the audience. The only other character in my film is the antagonist, whose identity is hidden for the first few seconds of the opening sequence; this will make the audience fear the unknown. The teenage girl follows the typical representation of victims in thriller films this is because she is oblivious to the stalking taking place. The fact that the victim is a teenager will enable the audience to feel an attachment to the events taking place, the similarities between the eves taking place and real life creates a relatable approach. This creates emotions for the audience to think how they would handle a situation like this, the fact that her age is similar creates a bigger relationship with our target audience. As the victim is female the audience will create a relationship with the audience, the female viewers will feel empathy towards her as they connect with her vulnerability and the male audience will feel sympathy towards her as they know that she is too weak to handle herself.

Our opening sequence starts in a basement setting where we are first introduced to the antagonist. He is portrayed as the antagonist to the audience as his identity is partially hidden. The dark clothes and sketchy manorisms suggests that he could be a killer. As the camera pans the room that the antagonist is sitting in the audience notice a wall where many pictures of the same girl are hanging. The antagonist is often represented stronger of the characters which makes them easily identifiable through their superiority. This representation of the antagonist leads the audience to question his mental state creating an enigma.

The other character is the teenage girl the audience are made aware of from the photos on the basement wall. The audience are unaware of the relationship between them. When the audience is introduced to the female victim she is unaware of the strange man watching her every move. This could be seen as stereotypical as the female victims are portrayed as dumb therefor not noticing his presence and falling right into his trap. The idea that the young girl is unaware is shown by her continuing her route home until she is dragged round the corner. The representation of both my characters follow the way both of the individuals would have been presented in a typical thriller film.

The applicable teenage victim walking home from school is routine that would enable the audience to create a relationship with this character as they an relate to the situation that she has been put in. The similarities between our opening sequence and daily life will make the audience relate to the opening sequence. Our victim is the same age as our target audience which creates more of a connection and causes the audience to question what they would do in a situation where they were being stalked on the way home. The use of a female victim also relates to the audience as female viewers will have an emotional connection with the victim as they will feel just as vulnerable if they were to imagine being there themselves. Boys will fill empathy for the girl as they know she is too weak to look after herself.

Question 1

   In what ways does your thriller use, challenge or develop forms of conventions of the real media products.

     The brief was to create a two minute opening to a thriller that includes all the credits, sounds and conventions of a typical thriller film. I had to ensure that my final product contained all the elements expected in a thriller. The narrative of our film was one we created within our group. The sequence followed the codes and conventions that would appeal to the target audience of the thriller we were producing. There was three memebers in our group a first. Nojus, Harry and myself. Harry left our group before we started the filming process. This left me and Nojus to distribute the different job roles. Or roles included the producer, editor, producer of photography and the director. The roles also included the actors. Our job roles were shared equally between both of us. We decided that t would be beneficial if we both picked the job roles we felt most confident in.
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     Typical conventions of the thriller genre usually include an antagonist and a victim. Typically the victim is played by a female and the identity of the antagonist is often unknown. Other conventions include iconography, such as knives and other murder weapons. Knifes are one of the most conventional murder weapons as seen in Scream and Halloween. Knives immediately create a huge amount of suspense as they are related to the image of death; this makes the audience feel sorry for the victims, thus creating a relationship between the audience and the characters within the film.

I took inspiration from other thriller to make my thriller seem more conventional to the thriller genre, one of the idea that I took from the film Halloween was the idea to make the antagonist a teenager, I was also inspired to do this by the film sinister. A child playing the antagonists is becoming more and more conventional to the thriller genre, also used in woman in black. From this comes the idea that the child has been possessed by the devil or an evil spirit and the audience begin to question their mental state.  Through my research I learnt that thrillers become a lot scarier when the identity of the antagonist is hidden. This I incorporated into my own thriller right at the beginning of our sequence when Nojus is walking down the stairs and the lighting is so dark the audience are unable to identify his face. Low key lighting like this and the music we enveloped with it made my opening sequence conventional to the thriller genre. Other convention such as quick pace is typical of the thriller genre, it is used to build Adrenalin within the audience, this build up is used to go with the image that will follow. By adding fast pace music alongside, the pace and excitement of the audience increases.

The title of my thriller is ‘Blacklist’ this tie in with the narrative of the story and follows the convention of the thriller genre. The definition of the lexis ‘Blacklist’ is when a person is put on a list of individuals which have been singled out as deserving some sort of punishment. The title of our film follows the narrative and explains why the victim has been chosen in my thriller. The title we chose revels a sinister element though just one word which incises the audience to watch the film.

Final Thriller Production

Rough Cut - Miss Georgoiu

Rough Cut

Within mine and Nojus group we made a rough cut of our thriller sequence. This was an important step to making our thriller as it is final draft of what our thriller should be like. This is including editing and sound effects. Our rough cut includes all the music and editing that we will include in the real final sequence.  The credits for our thriller are also included. The feedback we received from other students in the class and both our teachers were taken on board.

After we had produced our rough cut it was uploaded onto you tube. Where students in our class and from the year group were able to leave there criticism and comments below. Including what hey though would make our final sequence better. We though we aught to take action on their suggestions as they were part of our target audience. Getting feedback from our target audience rather than Nojus and I picking out the flaws in the piece is a better idea as we would both have been bias to the bits we had created. For example if i had worked hard on a particular frame and it did not look good, I would not want to take it out as i had worked so hard.

On our final sequence we allowed our target audience to leave their feedback, their comments included what went well and what we could of done better. These comments were really helpful as now we know specifically what we should have done better and how we will be able to improve it. The feedback our our video was mainly positive the comments said that  they liked the way we added a filter to make the whole sequence give more dramatic effect.  From these comments we gathered that we could make our sequence more enjoyable for the audience by adding in background music this would have made the sequence easier to follow. After looking our our film we realised that there was a lot of silence this can be filled in with at least once piece of music playing in the background. Choosing the right music would make our opening sequence more conventional to the thriller genre. We will have to make this change before we upload our final piece. By taking on this criticism we will be able to engage more with our target audience.

Our feedback also said that the second half of our film was not as good as the first half. Unfortunately we had no time to redo the whole our the second half so we will have to make little tweaks and hopefully that will make a difference. The second half of our opening sequence lacked the originality that we produced in the first minute, thus failing to create as much suspense as the audience are able to predict.

Although we had some critism we had positive feedback for the sound that we used. Our feedback said that the second half did not make the audience feel that much suspense. We should have used different angles and have used better cinematography like we did in the first half. Both me and Nojus agreed that the second half of our thriller was had to compare to the fist section after the opening title is shown the sequence ors downhill. In order to make our sequence more thrilling we must change bits of the second half.

The feedback that we received after uploading our rough cut to youtube suggested that we need to improve our second half of our opening sequence, this would then engage our target audience. Our group needs to go back and improve our second half as the first half is more conventional and engages our audience more so that they will be more inclined to watch the rest of our film. This feedback has shown to me that we can still improve our opening sequence. Another negative comment that we received was that we could of added music to the suspenseful parts and professionally fade the music in and out instead of the music cutting straight out.
The changes we will make to our thriller sequence is that we are going to add background music to the places where there is silence. An example of this would be where Nojus is following the victim and in order not to kill the mood of the sequence we just left the silence. Our target audience thought this was abad idea.


In conclusion, the feedback we were given allowed us to rectify any mistakes that we had not noticed. Or that deemed to be unconventional to the thriller genre. By taking on the comments from our target audience we are able to see what they expect to see in a thriller movie .