Individual Evaluation of Thriller Opening Sequence

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

Our thriller incorporates specific generic conventions of a crime thriller used in real media products such as films like Taken. We used camerawork techniques similar to Taken to create suspense and leaving the audience wanting to watch more. For example, zooming into close ups showing the emotion and fear on the characters face, blurring the vision of the characters point of view showing the audience that something was wrong with the character as she couldn’t see properly.
We also used camerawork styles making the audience worry about the character. The way we did this was through using handheld camerawork, this can be seen in the scene where the character has fallen and tries to get up slowly, this shows us the wobbly unclear vision of the character. We also used editing such as short shot durations, such as the scene when the character spots the male character and what he is doing, this adds tension to the scene and makes the audience wonder what is happening.
In usual crime thriller films such as The Dark Knight it is conventional to see an antagonist this was also the case in our film as the male character is the antagonist, we can recognise this with the mis en scene, as the male character dressed in dark clothes and is digging a hole with a shovel, straight away it suggests to the audience that he is the antagonist and is doing something bad.
Our thriller opening sequence develops conventions of a crime thriller also through mis en scene.  The setting of our film was in a mysterious looking forest but with dead twigs and swamps of mud all around this made the setting creepy and created realism. Therefore our film develops the conventions of a usual crime thriller.

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

In our opening sequence the young people are represented as the social group. Two young girls are shown walking down the street drunk. The male character then pulls up and the girls get in his car even though they don’t know him. This is represented in a stereotypical way as the girls are out drunk, partying and getting into a strangers car. This is what people think teenagers are likely to do. The male character challenges the stereotype as a usual young male wouldn’t usually be the abductor in a film, they would usually be an older character. The girls are shown as passive, as they get into a strangers car and are abducted, the male is dominant as he has abducted them. Our opening sequence link into our target audience as the characters are teenagers, which is likely to interest younger adult viewers, as this would be a usual situation in today’s society, leaving the audience wanting to watch more to see what happens. By researching our target group we found out that teenagers, like to get drunk, party, and socialize, scenes including these things are shown in our opening sequence, therefore this would attract our audience and make them want to watch.

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

Our film can be recognised as a mainstream film. There are other existing products in the same genre with similar story lines to our film such as Taken, therefore it could be produced by major Hollywood studio’s, such as 20^th century fox as they have produced films like ours before. Our film would be available to view on TV and internet, and offering opportunities for franchises and merchandise the same way other mainstream films would have such as clothing, mugs and pens etc.

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

Because of the narrative and the younger characters involved in our film, we believe it would mainly interest young adults and teenagers. We found this out by our primary and secondary research. We conducted a questionnaire which we handed out to people with questions such as age, gender and hobbies. By doing this we discovered that most people were around the age of 15-18 which helped us find out who our target audience would be and what type of age group we would research. For our secondary research we found out what youths 16+ were interested in and their hobbies etc, giving us a clear idea that our target audience from the age of 15+ but mainly young people.  I think that younger people would be more interested in our film than adults, as it’s a crime thriller with a situation similar to what commonly happens in other films, making them want to see what happens.

Other films such as Taken and Disturbia are similar to our film, as they both are about abduction with unexpected outcomes. Taken I think would be appealing to most ages and adults, as it shows disturbing situations and involves older characters. Disturbia I think would appeal to more of a younger audience like our film, as younger characters and teenagers are involved.

5.       How did you attract/address your audience?We attracted our audience by the choice of characters and the narrative that we created. Using younger characters and a scary situation that may involve younger people attracted this audience. Certain scenes in our film such as the two drunk girls walking down the street, and being asked to get into a random young mans car would interest a younger audience as they stereotypically enjoy being drunk and out and about on the streets. We wanted to use interesting camerawork in our sequence to entertain the audience and keep them interested such as a canted shot, when the girl is looking up from the floor, and unfocusing the camera when we see the girls vision from her point of view. We also used close-ups in scenes of the girl in the forest to show urgency and emotion. Other scenes may even scare our target audience as our storyline is realistic. Scenes such as when the girl is panicking in the forest and the male character comes from behind and grabs her could scare our audience. When we showed the vision from the characters point of view, this makes the audience feel as if they are in the characters shoes and are witnessing the male character suspiciously digging a hole. The vision from the characters point of view is blurred and unstable giving a proper effect of what she may be feeling like. We used generic conventions of a crime thriller in our sequence such as short shot duration to create suspense and tension, medium shots to show that the character cant move their arms, a close up of her hands to show she is tied up, and
a close up of the characters face to show urgency.

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

We were able to use the camera well as a group, focusing, unfocusing, zooming and blurring were easy to do on the camera and everybody had a go. Final cut express was new and fun to use, everyone in our group got to have a go and learn how to cut, edit and put in the soundtrack. Effects such as adjusting the brightness and lighting in certain scenes such as the close ups helped with the mis-en-scene to create realism, ensuring that the lighting and brightness was the same in all the right scenes. Garage band was fun to use also and was a useful programme for the sounds we needed to create our soundtrack, although it did take us a while to produce the soundtrack as we had to try and do it before filming our film. Once we had finished filming and editing, we reproduced our soundtrack as we felt it didn’t match, we added effects into certain scenes to make them more spine chilling and effective, such as fast paced sounds when we saw the hands of the character tied up and trying to break free. We finished our soundtrack and made sure it matched with everything happening on the screen, but we found that garage band was better for sound effects and noises which we did not need in our production. We found it a little tricky trying to fit the sounds in with images at the exact times but eventually were able to do so after a few adjustments and cutting. During the filming of our opening sequence we faced a few problems. The first time we filmed our film we got a lot recorded and somehow lost the footage as the camera overwrote our tape. This was one of our weaknesses with the camera equipment. Therefore we had to redo it, but faced another problem as our main male character was unavailable to do it. This was very stressful as he was perfect for the role and we had a lot of trouble trying to find another male character as well suited to the role, but finally found someone who also does media, who was able to do it and he did a good job.

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

I have learnt a lot during the progression of my preliminary task before making the final product. During the planning stage we did a lot of research of different genres of films and looked into those genres. We found out what is included in these genres and what type of storylines is usually produced. We researched crime thrillers and found out that most storylines are similar to each other such as Taken and Disturbia, as they both involve violence and abduction. This helped us come up with the storyline for our final opening sequence. From watching the different crime thriller trailers and studying other student opening sequences, this helped us a lot with what shot types we should be using, what kind of camerawork should be used and what sort of editing we should include to make the process smoother. By doing the questionnaire this made us have a clear understanding of the audience we were aiming to target and what kind of films they were interested in. After all having a go at using the equipment during the filming and editing process, we became quite confident in using it and look forward to using it again. We spent a lot of time and effort on making our film to the best of our ability. I feel that our final product fulfilled the task well, as we stuck to our planning, worked well as a group, did a lot of research and stuck to using the right camera shots and editing a usual crime thriller would use.