Evaluation

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

A thriller has many narrative conventions such as:

Technical conventions:

 Mis-en-scene conventions:

Thriller Conventions

Thriller openings should hook the audience into watching the film and if that doesn't happen the atmosphere for the rest of the film will not be created. It has to create suspense and tension so that the audience are on the edge of their seats at all times, even during the beginning. It shouldn't give too much away from the rest of the movie yet hint at what is going to happen with brief introductions. This is what we tried to do, with just snippets in our thriller of the snake and the game being played, creating a sense of mystery and leaving the audience guessing what is going to happen.
Conventions

In “No Country for Old Men” the first scene is disjointed and the arrest scene occurs from nowhere, with no introduction, this is the same with “Shutter Island” where the boat comes out from the mist and in “Psycho” the shower scene is peaceful until the killer comes out of nowhere, these three thrillers all share the mystery and surprise element which is what we used in our thriller, when we introduce the thriller it is just a shot of the light coming into the room we were shooting and the noises don’t really start until the chalk is used and in shot.In “Shutter Island” especially, there is a vast amount of close ups used to create a sense of mystery and not seeing the whole picture which is what we tried to do with our thriller, only giving glimpses of the snake and the person, hiding the persons identity, it also gives off a claustrophobic feel and heightens the emotions. In “Shutter Island” there is a mix of diegetic sounds which are horns and shackles clanking, giving a disturbing scene and an uncomfortable atmosphere, yet “No Country for Old Men” also creates an uncomfortable atmosphere as there is no diegetic noise apart from a voice with a southern American accent, also setting the scene this makes the audience question what type of man he is, and it relates to the scene that is presented in front of them, derelict and tired. Apart from the talking it is silent and then after the talking no other noise is heard apart from the diegetic noise. In our thriller, we decided to use non diegetic and diegetic sounds. We used non diegetic sounds like chanting and breathing sounds to make the atmosphere uncomfortable, like someone is watching over the character and the sound of the chalk against the board which is diegetic.  The chanting also links our thriller to religion and the ceremony being performed is like a religious ceremony.

In “Psycho” when the attack happens, the editing between shots get quicker, the shots get shorter giving a sense of panic and disorientation. Even though our opening isn't an attack scene, we still use quick transitions between cuts and the scenes get shorter as the opening goes on, building the tension up and also building a sense of panic up in the audiences.  

In “Psycho” the props which are used are focused on, like the knife used, and the shower. These props are significant and this is why they’re focused on so much. The knife signifies a more revengeful and personal killing, as it is related to blood and torture, whilst the shower and water connote purity and innocence, and then the water running down the drain signifies the life being drained away. In our thriller we focused on the chalk and the candles. The chalk is what is used to draw with, and fits in with our theme, whilst the candles signify life and how easy it is to blow it out relating to how easy it is to kill someone, like blowing out a candle. The candle scene relates to the shower scene as they both connote life and the candle being blown out is like the water mixing with the blood, it makes it impure. 

This scene in " No Country for Old Men" shows time passing yet these are all different place, yet have the same theme so carry the story forward. The fact that these are different places makes it feel like a disjointed narrative because of the location change yet at the same time related as they're similar landscape shots. In our thriller we used the same type of technique where we put in shots of snakes in between the shots of the action, so it gave a disjointed feel yet as the story progressed the audience understand more about the narrative.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In our thriller we only have one character that is portrayed as the protagonist, with the cloak and the snake eyes at the end, relating the snake and the person together. We also made the protagonist a woman which is unusual for thrillers as conventionally it is men who are the protagonists. We are trying to represent that not only men can be killers or “evil”. Our idea of a killer is different to the usual thriller, as women are portrayed as victims, innocent and vulnerable, so to contradict other thrillers we thought the idea of a woman being a protagonist was a lot more original and women seem bitterer, so have more links to snakes and snakes can be vicious when provoked, which is what women are in our opinion. The cloak that Katie wore represents a sense of mystery we wanted to keep throughout the opening, showing that she's hiding something and can be dangerous. The main link to the snake we have through out the opening is in the ending part of the opening, which is where Katie looks up and she's got the contact lenses in. This idea was based around this scene of when the snake eyes are on the snake and then a person has them, the idea behind that is saying that the woman is like a snake. 

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

Universal Pictures is a well known film institution. It is one of the 6 major film institutions around these days and was founded in 1912 and is still one of the biggest and longest film institutions still running. 8 smaller companies were merged to form universal pictures in 1912. The company was sold to General Electric in 2004 and now is in corporation with NBC, so not only does it own a sizeable collection of films but many TV shows too.

Universal Pictures have a good reputation with thriller films with films like
Drag Me to Hell The Strangers
The Last House on the Left
Stay Alive
Unborn
In my opinion this would be a very good institution to produce and distribute our thriller as it is a well known company with a good reputation, especially in thriller productions. It distributes to the right audiences with appropriate certificates and advertising past the watershed, and will make our thriller film successful, with careful advertising. There is also a benefit of working with an American institution as it can distribute to many different countries. Universal pictures also have a large net income of 2.26 billion dollars. This means that it can run up and coming films, also advertising will be quiet successful because the budget for filming and advertising will be large. Universal Pictures have made films from Despicable Me to Drag Me Too Hell, so they have a lot of experience with films of many genres. They also have many directors which can give opinions on things that would make the thriller better and so on.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

When we got a our brief we put out a questionnaire exploring the different things audiences would like:

The age ranges that we handed the questionnaire out to are mostly people our age, 14-17 year olds. This made it easier to empathise with our audience as they were the same age as us and liked the same things we did, which reflected in the following questions. It did have a limitation though as it is a limited audience and if we produced a movie it would be insuffiecent research as it doesn't explore many other audiences. 

Typical audience member- We expect people who like psychological thrillers to come watch our thriller. It may mostly be a female audience as it is unusual for a woman to be portrayed as a protagonist so women could be more attracted to the lead role being a stronger woman and not the typical vulnerable woman. We want people who are more attracted to an unconventional thriller to see " Snake Eyes" as it does have elements of unconventional thriller in it.

We also looked at the BBFC website to see the age boundaries as to what to include in our thriller. We chose to go for the age group 15 and over as it has all the criteria for a 15 and we don’t want the film to be restricted to a certain age group so a wider range of people are able to view our thriller.

On the BBFC website it says that in a 15 there can be; 

No discriminatory language- As the film can be viewewd by teenagers it may promote racism as teenagers are easily influenced.

Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse.

Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised

Suicides should not be dwelled on as for copying purposes and easily accessible items should not be glamourized

No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds

Violence can be strong as long as it is not sexual or sadistic

These are the criteria which can and cannot feature in thrillers for 15.

 We tried to keep withnin these limitations as we would like to distribute to as wide an audience as possible,  and most thrillers keep within these limitations of a 15 so they can distribute to as wide an audience as possible.

Even though this isn’t what we planned for our thriller opening, we needed to make sure that we were within the limits so we could put our thriller as a 15. The only part that we thought we would have a problem was the discriminatory language as our thriller is partly religious, so taking that into account we changed our plans of how the rest of the thriller would lead on.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

We posted our thriller to YouTube and Facebook and let people comment and like it. These comments show that the target audience like it and that they think it stands out from other thrillers that have been done before. In our thriller i think the thing that appealed most was the fact that it used some typical thriller conventions making it familiar with the genre yet it did have unconventional bits in it like the protagonist being a woman, the use of animals and the use of a game board, meaning that it would intrigue people more to watch it. The cloak that Katie wears is also a good point which will make people carry on watching the film as it suggests a mystery. 

We have also videod some peoples reactions to it and what they thought could be improved, the feedback we get is very good and shows that we were sucessful in attracting the audience we wanted.

I have also learnt how to use recording equipment like cameras and editing equipment like the Apple Macs. 

Technologies on Prezi

On the macs editing was the feature we used the most, like iMovie where you can cut all the shots together and edit them together. This was the main part of the making of the opening as before the clips weren’t very good as they were not steady and the lighting wasn't very good with many shots being too dark or too light, yet there is a stabilization part of iMovie which we used to get steadier shots and we used the contrast and lighting option on iMovie to make the dark stand our against the light and made the shots lighter and darker depending on which was needed to be done.. We put transitions( fade to black) in between each shot so that it flowed together and looked more professional so that each scene wasn't jumping from one clip to anther.and also put on a harsh light effect on each clip so that it had more contrast and so that the snake clips looked scarier. We also put a vignette effect on the snake clips so that it cut off the carpet that can be seen. We used the macs to put music onto our video, which was taken off un-copyrighted websites, this music was looped and edited so that it fitted in our thriller, which is based on a religious story line so the chants and breathing that we got of the website gave the opening a taste of the fact it is religious and gave a rhythm to it. The only problem we overcame was the coldness on the day of filming as it was hard to do much with cold hands and also working with animals was very hard as you can’t tell them what to do so our shots had to follow the snake not the snake following us.

Blogger-with blogger it lets me post what I have done and organize my media all together. It is also better than the normal format of just paper as it fits in with what media is, using media sources and programmes. It is also easy to use and post up for people to view.

YouTube and Facebook- YouTube and Facebook lets me exhibit my media  and allows people to view and express their opinions on it. It also gives me the target audience research I need as many people post up which films they like on Facebook.

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

In our preliminary task we were just getting used to all the equipment and tried to make it as entertaining as possible, we planned a lot more for this filming then we did for  the prelim as we had scripts and story boards for our thriller yet none for our prelim. I have learnt much more from the editing of it too with our music in the prelim not fitting exact and in the thriller actually composing the music piece ourselves, we also didn’t use transitions and effects to their full potential on our prelim with tacky editing when Alice licks her lips and we have slowed it down on the macs by converting it to a file which you can edit the speed of on iMovie, which is what we did in this instance. The concept of the whole piece was a good, different piece and we tried to do the same when doing our thriller. Skills which have developed are the 180 degree rule as when shooting the prelim we did not stick to it, and match on action wasn't perfect, like when Alice and Robbie go through the door and when the coffee is being made, with the sound also being off. I think we used continuity and shot reverse shot well as well with sections where they're having the stare off being successful in both of these areas. When we did the prelim we didn’t do much planning for it yet for our thriller we used story boards and scripts so we knew what was happening on the day we were filming, meaning that we were much more organized and knew what was happening and what shots would need to be filmed for it to make sense instead of just filming anything and then putting it all together and breaking all the rules.
 We tried to draw the 180 degree rule line in our story boards so we knew where we could film without breaking the rules. In our thriller I think the theme is original so it makes it stand out more. I also think that the match on action for most of the shots is near enough perfect. The problem was getting close ups of candles and dice as we didn’t use the tripod so some shots are very shaky even with stabilization.
When we tried rolling numbers we realised that we couldn’t roll two exact numbers on both dice at the same time, so that was a problem for when it came to the last scene which was snake eyes on the dice. To create tension we used a lot of close ups so that it showed hardly any background so it makes the audience focus on what is in view, which might also make them feel uncomfortable as there’s nothing apart from that on the screen we also used close ups to  give a sense of mystery. We used fade to black as a common transition as it makes the scenes look slicker with a transition as the shots are quite dark anyway so it doesn't make it look tacky either. It also fits in with our snake shots as we lengthened the length of the transitions so it gives a good base for the snake shots.

I think looking back at our preliminary task we have improved a lot in the variety of shots we have used to the editing we have chosen to do. We also used the equipment better with actually making our own music. Another thing that was done better the second time was that we knew we had to plan to get it right, and in the end the thriller came out better than the preliminary task whilst still keeping that originality we had in our prelim.

This is our thriller

Shoot and editing

Over all the shooting went well but when we got to our location we found out that there wasn't as much light coming in through the small window and that the floor wasn't concrete so we couldn't write on it, so we got a piece of wood and hid it under the mud, it looked exactly like the floor so that was the first problem. We lit more candles so that the extra lighting didn't look artificial, and it worked the lighting looked natural.

                                       This is the room we filmed in(flash on the camera makes it look lighter)

                                                       These shots are from the day
We also realised that we couldn't shoot the snake eyes scene with the contacts in, in that location as our hands were mucky and it'll be dangerous to put contacts in your eyes with dirty hands so we went back to my house and filmed the scene there, yet getting the same light was difficult as my house has more light then the location did as we had candles set up so we found the darkest room and lit a candle so that it looked like the candle in the barn was reflecting on the actors face. The hardest part was definitely putting the contact lenses in as none of us had done it before but we got there in the end.

Editing


During editing we had to choose the best clips from all of the shoots because we had a lot of snake shots and a lot of different shots from the location. We decided to darken most of the snake shots so that they looked more natural and so that no background could be seen. We also darkened and added contrast to some shots. the main problem we realised was the shaking on some of the shots from the location, we stabilized each shot as much as possible yet there was still shakiness.

Snakes

Reptile Mania in whittlesey is where we got our shots of snakes from, at first we got shots of a smaller snake, yet after a while we noticed we needed something bigger and scarier so we asked if we could get the python out. the python was 8 foot long and we got perfect shots of its body and face, with its tongue flickering and it moving.

The problem with working with animals is that you can't tell them what to do, so it was difficult following the motion of them and making it look natural. The smaller snakes were moving too fast to get good shots or would change direction or go out of the shot completely. The bigger snake was easier to work with because it wouldn't change direction and was quiet interested in our equipment, so we got some good close up pictures of the snake.

Props

 These are the props we will use are candles, chalk and the actor will be wearing a cloak to give it a sense of mystery. For our titles we decided it would be good to do them in chalk as it fits in with the whole theme, and the candle light will make good lighting for our thriller.

we chose this place as it has a sense of creepiness that we wanted in our thriller. It also has plenty of space to film in and different sections which could be used. It is abandoned and over grown so it has the perfect feel to it and no permission will be needed to film in there.

Story Board

This is our story board for our thriller opening.

As there is no speech in our thriller opening we didn't do a script for it.

No Country For Old Men analysis

No country for old men begins with an opening sequence of vast landscapes, just straight on, establishing long shots. The landscapes are just plain and desert looking , with isolation the first thing coming to mind as you cannot see anything or anyone else then these vast landscapes. The place where these shots are based are somewhere like Texas in America. The land looks exhausted and the voice that is the only sound that is heard, is reflecting this. The person speaking over the top is speaking in a monotone american voice, talking about another man, this makes the audience question who the person is speaking about and who they are giving a sense of mystery to the start, yet in a different way to typical thrillers. The shots show time passing, yet everything stays the same and it all just connotates no life and despair to the audience. It also shows the audience the scale of where this movie is taking place, which is yet again giving off a sense of isolation.

Shot two. This is a long shot of the man being led to the police car by the policeman. This shot confuses the audience as from the vast landscapes it just pans onto this shot. It is a shot from behind and uses the rule of thirds as the man and policeman are the along the centre of one line and the vast spaces and road is the centre of the other line. This makes the audience focus on the mysterious man being escorted to the police car and the emptiness to their side. The outfit the police man is wearing looks like a sheriffs outfit and the car looks old, therefore giving clues that maybe this was set quiet a while ago. The amount of shadows present give off a sense of mystery as we also cannot tell who the man is, as he's blacked out.

Shot 3. This is a medium shot just above eye level. We can see the shadowed figure in the back of the police car, the fact that he's shadowed could be connotating the sense of evil or danger, whilst when the "sheriff" gets in the car he's lit up. so a sense of good and evil are present. Not only does the shadowing of the criminal give a sense of evil but also a sense of mystery and suspense as the audience are waiting to find out who this man is. Yet again there is no story, leaving the audience confused, or any sound except the diegetic sound that's already present.

Shot 4. Shot four is a close up of the detective speaking on the phone which zooms out to show what will happen. At this stage the audience finds out a little more of the story, of how the criminal has a weapon and this is backed up when the criminal attacks the sheriff. The full focus is on the sheriff whilst the criminal is out of focus, yet again hiding the identity of the criminal, leaving the audience in suspense. The fact that the attack is unexpected makes the audience uneasy, and how the killer sneaks up on the sheriff whilst he's oblivious, yet the audience can see what is going to happen, giving the sheriff a sense of naivety and vulnerability.

Shot 5. This shot is a birds eye view long shot of the killing taking place. Yet again the sense of good and evil are present with the killer shadowed, and the sheriff lit up. The main focus of this shot is to show the struggle that happens and the calm and concentration in the killers face and body, like he's determined not to let the sheriff live, the saying " like a lamb to the slaughter" come to mind when looking at this scene as everything was so unexpected. There is no noise except the sheriffs shoes against the floor, really adding to the sense of the struggle.

Rationale and proposal

The idea we chose for our final piece is mostly idea 1 with a little bit of idea 2 in it. As idea 1 was the most original and in our audience research people did say they wanted something different with the protagonist being a female and so on. As idea 2 has been done before and mostly has been successful we thought we would use elements like the candle light and hymns in our final piece as it creates tension and carries the whole opening on. The whole mis-en-scene of the opening sequence will mostly be quiet dark as we wanted to use one or two thriller conventions and this and confined spaces ,worked best as we will use  a dark small room where the only lights will be either lights from windows yet it has to be dark enough to light our candles and give off the mysterious effect that thrillers should do. We will use mainly close-ups to build tension and suspense as the audience will not see everything, just bits of the board game and hardly any of the person. At the end of the opening sequence it will be a cliff hanger with in our questionnaire most people said they preferred cliff hangers, our last shot would be the persons eyes and when we would go onto a shot of the snake and then the title of the movie, this should leave the audience in suspense as there will be moments of darkness before the snake and after the eyes, and as there's nothing to tell who the person is or any introduction of them it should leave people wanting to find out what happens next, who the person was and why there was a game being played.

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire that I made to see what audiences think about the thriller genre and film industry.

Analysis of results of questionnaire

       Do you prefer cliff hangers or resolved endings? Why?

 Most people said they preferred cliff hangers as it leaves you with a sense of depth and tension" 

"Gives you freedom to make up your own mind about what happens"

"Creates tension right to the end" 

      Would you prefer a female or male protagonist? Why?

       Different genders had different answers majority of boys said that they would like the protagonist to be the man as "they can empathise better with them"

      Most girls said that they would like the woman to be the protagonist as "its uncommon, for them to be the main character and are usually the victim"

<    What are your expectations when watching a thriller?

       Tension

       Suspense

       Hidden messages so the audience can figure things out themselves

      Experiences in real life

        

      Overall the results we got are expected as, as a group that is our answers and compared to our pitch these results are useful as we know that the suspense we want to create will be wanted by  the audience and will leave them guessing.

Reaction to pitch

The reaction that we got to the pitch was that all the ideas were good, it was just the locations that we would be able to use to make it all look authentic and not trashy. The idea that gave the biggest reaction to was the snake idea because it is so original the only problem would be how we would do it and where are we going to find the clips of snakes, which is the main thing we need to think about if we do, do this idea. Idea 2 was thought to be the most unoriginal and less thought out then the other two, people said it would be " similar to work that has already been done".

Pitch

 This was our first and strongest idea, where the idea is based on board games and peoples lives at stake through the chance of luck. We also liked the idea of snakes incorporated as we were thinking about the last shot where it would be snake eyes on the dice and the snake and dice would be over layed.

 we wanted to be as realistic as possible so wanted to use contact lenses and real snakes.

 Idea 2 was inspired by the Da Vinci code, where it is all very mysterious and creates tension simply.

 We focused on the light that fire and candles would create with shadows. Our costume inspiration was taken from the da vinci code.

 With idea 3 we decided to play on peoples fears, mostly childhood fears. It would be very creepy and uneasy for the audience, which is what this type of thriller would be based on.

We wanted to give off a creepy atmosphere and play on peoples phobias and these are mostly pictures of fears but also the location that would be used.

Film Institutions

Universal pictures is a well known film institution. It is one of the 6 major film institutions around these days and was founded in 1912 and is still one of the biggest and longest film institutions still running. 8 smaller companies were merged to form universal pictures. The company was sold to General Electric in 2004 and now is in corporation with NBC,  so not only does it own a sizeable collection of films but many TV shows too.

Universal pictures have a good reputation with thriller films with films like :

• Drag me to hell
• The strangers
• The last house on the left
• Stay alive
• unborn

In my opinion this would be a very good institution to produce and distribute our thriller as it is a well known company with a good reputation, especially in thriller productions. It distributes to the right audiences and will make our thriller film successful, with careful advertising .  

Mis-en-scene in thrillers

In the thriller genre there is common mis-en-scene within films, like a common weapon and settings and lighting.
Even though there are common elements they give off the same message to the audience.

Knife
Knives show pain, death, blood and brutality. It is commonly used to engage the viewers attention as it gives off the sign that someone is going to get killed. Knives can also be used to show what type of attack it was as knives usually give off a sign that the killing was personal or just torturous and prolonged.


Shadows


Shadows are also commonly used to give the thriller that sense of mystery and enigma. The killer is usually the shadowed person whilst the victim is usually watched by these shadows. it creates suspense as the shadow is a mystery to the audience watching and usually the victim doesn't realise that these "shadows" are watching them or following them. Shadows may give clues to the killer yet the audience have to work it out for them selves leaving them asking questions.

Detectives
More than often thrillers have a element of the justice system in the, and more than often this element is a detective, and we follow the same footsteps they do. It's a good feature as the audience finds out more as they find out more, the viewer will be basically thinking like the detective and solving the same clues as the detectives are. it makes the audience more empathetic with the film, and maybe sometimes the detectives themselves as often the detectives are caught up in a mess outside the investigation.









Running water

Even though it isn't a major part of the story line or plot running water does have a significance. It is a symbol of death or of life being drained away, it is also associated with blood and suggesting that the characters are in danger. Like in the thriller Psycho.

Location- There is three most commonly used locations in thrillers.

Cities
Cities are often a location for a thriller because it gives it a sense of reality, and brings it home. Cities are often used in psychological thrillers to make you have that fear and bring the drama alive.

Confined Spaces 
In majority of thrillers there will be a scene where the victim or "hero"(detective) is in a confined space giving a sense of no running from the situation. It makes the audience uneasy too because they know that there might be no escape. In Psycho the confined space is ironically the shower where the victim is killed. The shower scene also gives a sense of naivety as in confined spaces you usually cannot see what is going to happen as the victim cant see the killer. Confined spaces can also confuse people as you cannot see what is happening outside or if you can you cannot escape.

Woods/Isolated Places
Stereotypical thrillers use isolated places and woods to create tension and really give a sense of being alone and in danger. The use of these spaces also gives a sense of confusion and being lost. It makes the victim look vulnerable and if they did need help they wouldn't be able to find it as they're in the middle of no where.