Final thriller

This is the final cut of our thriller clip.

Thriller comparison - Miss Georgiou

I believe we have created a successful thriller for many reasons, we went against the conventions of a thriller film in some aspects however kept the key aspects that made other thriller films successful such as the use of a knife as the killing weapon and shock, surprise, and suspense. We gained a variety of audience through the use of realism and relatablity within our plot and the use of diverse characters, the use of a female main character also meant that there was opportunities for a wider audience and this essentially could have lead to our film making a good profit.

I believe our best element within our film is the unique plot and characterizations, unlike several of the other thriller clips we gave had several conversations about what the best narrative could be, and what would be best in terms of characters, unlike other clips which feature in forests and have monsters our clip was realistic and relied on the audience engaging themselves with the characters and the situations they are in. The use of a high angle when in the present tense of the "bride" showcases her weakness and makes it even more interesting as to how a "weak" female could be capable of killing so many people. The plot itself featuring around a wedding is very unconventional as weddings are usually happy places, we thus decided that we could use the contrapuntal atmosphere to our advantage and shock the audience.

Our film would be most comparable to the movie the Orphan for several reasons, firstly both films included a female main character and murderer, this was a strong talking point within both of these thrillers as it created an eerie and unexpected atmosphere within the audience, the film also used a knife several times as its killing weapon much alike to ours.

Audience feedback

Feedback is important for many reasons, without it we could not make the appropriate changes to our clip as we don't know what the public actually think about it, as we would all be bias towards our clip. As a result our clip will be better and as the audience are the ones who generate money we want our thriller film to be the best it can be. We received our feedback in the form of questionnaires, we gave a presentation and showed the rough cut of our clip, after this was shown they were asked questions and we took in each of these questionnaires, we received information on the strengths and weaknesses and we noted and adapted our clip accordingly. The feedback helped us massively and we intended on using it when coming to our final cut. Production companies use feedback in order to gain major profits as this is the essential reason as to why the companies exist, if they want a big audience and want to create a blockbuster film they must go through a long process of criticism in order to create a perfect product, much alike any other product.

We generally received the same criticisms and strengths from all groups, those being...

 Too boring: this came up several times, this was mostly due to the majority of the clip being dialogue and a lot less being action or danger, this would not excite or engage an audience at all and was our major issue within the clip. We dealt with this by cropping a large majority of the dialogue out through Final Cut Pro and also re-filming scenes to add more action in that would excite the audience and keep them entertained.

Too long: the clip was almost 4 minutes long, when it needed to be around 2 minutes maximum, this was an issue that links with it being too boring as it makes the viewing experience even worse for the audience. We shortened the clip massively for the final cut.

Media evaluation - Question 7

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

We were given the task of creating a short encounter between two people, the main purpose of this task was to familiarise ourselves with the camera and editing software, we learnt about several things that helped us within our thriller film, such as...

The tripod: This is one of the most important pieces of equipment when it comes to making a film look profession in terms of cinematography, we became comfortable with this and used it confidently in our actual clip. 

The panning shot: This is very effective as it can follow a specific character or showcase a background, with the tripod we were able to use this easily, it was very effective and was used within our thriller clip. Panning shots are used within films very frequently to introduce a setting.

The panning shot used within our clip.

Two person shot: The two person shot is important as it puts two people in shot range, this can be helpful with conversations and when making the point of focus only these two characters, we used it within our thriller film when me and Amber were having a conversation and later applied it within our thriller clip.

The two person shot in our preliminary clip.

The editing software: We used Final Cut Pro for the first time within the preliminary task, this helped us familiarize ourselves with the basics and would later come to help us when going on to the actual thriller clip, we learned how to crop the clip to make it shorter and only included relevant shots, we learned how to slow down clips or make them faster as particular shots went on for too long and we had to edit it.

Media evaluation - Question 6

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

We used several different types of technology to create our thriller, we used blogger regularly to make posts and discuss our thriller and plan certain aspects, and it helped a lot as we could refer to our blogs. We used  high definition JVC cameras camera and tripod to film our entire thriller, our tripod helped make our camera shots look stable and professional, we learned to use this in lessons and during the preliminary task. The editing software we used was Final Cut Pro X, at first we all found it hard to use however we watched several tutorials and read articles instructing us on how to do certain things, for example the credits we created, this was extremely helpful as it gave our thriller clip a more eerie feel and contributed to the overall tense atmosphere of the clip. We created a very realistic handheld camera with the mixture of editing and a shaky effect on the camera, this created a strong sense of urgency and realism and the audience could  engage themselves more in the scene as it felt real. 

We found several shots difficult, the hardest was the over the shoulder shot in the mirror as it had to be perfectly placed so the camera could not be seen but still looked good, this shot gave the audience an essential point of view of the victim and after many attempts during the first day of shooting we had to re-film this after our rough cut as we did not like how it initially looked.

The over the shoulder angle.

Another shot we found hard to film was the shot of the "bride" outside the window, this was hard for two reasons, firstly the lighting was a major issue and ruined the shocking effect we wanted to implement within this scene as the "bride's" make up in this scene is very disturbing and combined with the use of a jump cut could scare the audience, we tackled this however through the use of lighting from torches and were able to put it in our clip. However the shot did not make the final cut due to it being unnecessary.

The lighting used makes the "bride"
the main point of focus.

             

Media evaluation - Question 5

Question 5 – How did you address your audience?





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvJQTYToGzU&feature=youtu.be





Research is incredibly important and this is why we extensively investigated and explored what would make a completely successful thriller film. We collected an array of primary and secondary data through the use of questionnaires, searching online and reading articles about the movie industry. Within our primary research we found that over 80% of those asked would rather have a less typical antagonist than a traditional one such as a monster, this influenced us and resulted in the creation of a female killer, which would be both unexpected and interesting. We also found that 65% wanted the film to be 15+ which further backs up the previous points made about the popularity of this age certificate. We found that 55% would be interested in a sequel for a movie and thus we decided to implement a cliff-hanger at the end of the clip to set ourselves up for further films. When reading articles about successful films we read that people preferred narratives and characters they could relate to rather than an unrealistic plot, this helped us decide that we would create something that an audience would understand which would help them form relationships with the character and be more engaged  with the narrative and subsequently would lead to better viewing, we also studied the top grossing movies and found that these successful thrillers used a lot less blood and gore and tended to use other methods to create tension, this helped us decide that we would use not violence within our thriller clip and would rely on other methods to create suspense, such as the use of low key lighting, shocks through jump cuts and an eerie feel created by the editing and credits. 

Media evaluation - Question 4

Question 4 – Who would be the audience for your media product?


www.youtube.com/watch?v=A80P5m3dMPY




Deciding a target audience is extremely important for several reasons, once an audience is identified the production company and director knows just how they should create and produce the film so it will appeal directly to that audience. The production company know how they can advertise the film, with a younger audience advertising through social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter or tie ins with other companies such as the Inbetweeners movie and pot noodle affiliation would be more successful than with an older audience as younger people use these websites significantly more than older people, with an older audience the use of advertising through newspapers or traditional movie trailers would be better as elderly people generally read the newspaper more and watch more TV the audience specific advertising would lead to getting a bigger audience and potentially creating a blockbuster film which would result in huge profits, which is what all production companies aim for. We decided to make our film a 15+ for many reasons, firstly this opened up the possibility of making teenagers our main demographic in terms of profits, if the film was intentionally released on the day teenagers broke up for school it is guaranteed our film would get high profits as a large majority of teenagers enjoy watching movies, we decided against making our film 12A as this meant our film could be more mature and serious. We interviewed several people of a wide age range in order to find out both what they would be interested to see within a thriller film and what they liked and disliked about the ideas within our own thriller film and adjusted the film in terms of narratives and features accordingly. We found several things that helped better ourselves in terms of the audience, firstly we found that 15 was the most popular age rating, we also found that lighting and sound was considered to be more important than special effects when it came to creating tension, we found that they would be interested in a setting that was unexpected and they said that the film would be more interesting if it had less dialogue and more action. We quickly adapted to these ideas and I believe our final product will interest an audience in many ways, firstly the use of a female main character is one that has rarely been touched upon within the thriller genre and could be exciting for the audience, secondly our film relies heavily on a wide range of camera techniques such as the use of a handheld effect to create urgency and the use of extreme close ups to create emotion will give the film a more realistic feel that will set our film apart from others, the use of an eerie soundtrack mixed with contrapuntal sound will create a tense atmosphere. Overall the audience will enjoy our unique film and if marketed correctly could be very successful. 

Advertising through pot noodles
could attract audiences.

Advertising through newspapers
could attract elderly views.

Media evaluation - Question 3

Media evaluation - Question 2

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

Our film only had 2 main characters but featured many others whom appeared frequently, the first being the “bride,” (Lily Badcock) a woman who is left at the altar and betrayed by both her ex-fiancee and her best friend; she seeks revenge and plots to murder both of them and everyone associated with them.
 We believed that the character was a relatable one; several of the emotions she is feeling are extremely common, such as heartbreak, betrayal and anger, we created the character as she was an accurate representation as to what an ordinary person was capable of when pushed. We further decided to create a relationship with the character and the audience and in a sense create an anti-hero, we used make up and facial expressions to showcase the feelings of the bride, the audience may feel some of the pain and begin to sympathise with the "bride." People being ditched at the alter is also not a rare occurrence and also adds a sense of realism and the audience once again will be able to relate with the plot and characterisation within the thriller rather than having an unrealistic plot that the audience may not understand or enjoy as much. The character is also young which can also make the film  more relatable as the majority of our viewers will be aged 15-21 and thus the character is better fitted if aged similar to them as they have more in common, several other thrillers use young characters such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Scream, these characters also have characteristics such as naivety and make bad decisions which can help the plot as it brings openings for more danger. We also had a strong belief that a female main character would massively improve our chances of gaining a female audience, as it has rarely been done before within the thriller genre and creates the chance for a unique main character, it has proven successful within films such as Lara Croft with several sequels and other forms of marketing created due to the primary success. 

Our character is introduced
as sad, depressed and heartbroken.

Lara Croft was a major hit, note the
over sexuality of the poster and her
 outfit in order to attract male viewers.

A young cast is used in the movie Prom Night
 as it appeals to the audience and
 as they are relevant and sociable.

Being jilted at the alter is common
within romantic films however the
true emotions such as anger are
 never dealt with in these films.

Our second character was the “husband,” (Jazz Chrystie) an unfaithful and selfish man who runs away with her bride-to-be’s best friend, we also believed that this was a realistic character as there are several unfaithful men in relationships in modern times. Male victims are not necessarily rare however a main character such as the "husband" being a victim along with only other male victims is very unusual and could be a talking point within our movie. The "husband" is also very young and as a result the audience may relate to this character, they may also enjoy the character's personality in some aspects or find him funny and character the audience will form a relationship with. I believe that gender is represented both conventionally and unconventionally, the man cheating on his girlfriend would be deemed as stereotypical and the girl being left hurt by her boyfriend also orthodox however the female being the killer is a very rare occurrence and is thus we believed we would be a more unusual and exciting thriller than the others. 

Cheating husbands is an issue
within real life and thus the audience
can relate with this within our thriller.

The second main character is introduced
as a stereotypical male character.

Other characters that featured was the best friend of the “bride” (Amber Johnson) a sly woman who persuades the “husband” to leave his girlfriend in favour of her, she is also a character is relatable, a jealous woman who attempts to ruin another’s happiness, and all the friends of the “husband.” I believe the characters appeal to the audience as they are unique and diverse and thus this will make our clip and our characters stick out. Our characters are also realistic and represent a majority of the younger generation, as a result allowing the audience to form relationships with these characters. 

We exerted several representations within our clip as the audience relate to these characters, the use of the white wedding dress within our thriller film creates the representation of a           

Media evaluation - Question 1

My group consisted of 3 members, myself, Lily Badcock and Amber Johnson, we worked well and after several discussions came up with the idea of creating a revenge thriller that followed a woman left at the altar on her on her wedding day. Our group worked very well together with rarely any arguments or disputes, each member worked well in their respective role within the production of our thriller clip. Lily was the director, she created the storyboard and had a very specific idea as to how each shot would take place in every aspect, and she essentially gave the guidelines in terms of camera angles, camera shots and positioning. Amber was the editor, we decided that she was the best out of the three of us during the preliminary task and duly so, she improved our clip majorly and we were mainly impressed by the credits she created. I was the producer, I felt as though I adequately organised the group and provided the group with several props that we used such as wedding flowers and the wedding dress. Overall I feel as though we created a unique and interesting thriller clip however I believe it could have been slightly more entertaining through the use of less dialogue and more action.  

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

There are several conventions that altogether make a thriller film what it is; many of these aspects were a result of arguably the most important man within the thriller genre, Alfred Hitchcock, some of the things that he used within his thriller films that are still used are the use of an attractive female victim usually blonde, which originated from his own personal experience of his mother who was blonde being the victim of physical abuse by his father, this is a convention that has featured in many films as it both appeals to the male viewers and thus generates a bigger profit as it gets bigger audiences. Our noticeable and controversial decision within our thriller clip was to make our killer female, we all agreed that this would be a talking point as it would not expected at all by the audience, we agreed that using a female character would even further increase the male viewership, go against the norms of cinematography and to also get a higher female viewership as females watch a significantly lower amount of thrillers than males. The only film we had seen this in is the film we compared ourselves to, The Orphan, this film also had a female killer and was very successful as it had a shock factor as nobody thought an innocent looking female would kill people. Our opening thriller is much alike to several others, it introduced the main character and made the audience aware of the plot, they could tell that the main character was left and seeks revenge. 

The victim of Alfred Hitchcock's
Psycho is blonde and female.

The strong use of tension and suspense without the use of strong violence or gore, this is mainly due to the censorship regulations during the 1900’s, nudity and things such as blood were not allowed to be on screen and thus directors had to find a way to keep the audience enticed using things such as lighting and music, we then subsequently decided to use no blood or gore within our thriller and use the Koleshov effect to engage and challenge the audience into creating their own assumptions, for example within one scene in our thriller clip the two friends of Hayden talk about his ex-fiancee, then walk away, the "bride" is seen in the background and then it skips to her crossing both of their faces out, this will create more tension than actually seeing the murders as due to a lack of funding and equipment we believed it would not look authentic and thus would look tacky. The use of low key lighting is also very important as it helped us put more attention on the wedding dress and the killing weapon which are both motifs within the clip, the tattered wedding dress combined with the messy make-up can give a visual representation of the "bride's" emotional distress, we used light sources such as street lights and torches to make the "bride" the point of interest, this is very stereotypical as several thriller films make the main character the main point of interest through the use of lighting to draw the attention away from other things.

The audience's attention is on both the
killer and the knife through the use
of lighting.

The use of a knife as a weapon was also included within our thriller and is a very common within thrillers, the knife strikes fear into the audience’s eyes and is easily the most used weapon within thrillers. We were made very aware of the several films within the thriller genre that used knives within lessons such as Halloween and Psycho, so we agreed that a knife would be the best weapon to use for our main character as it can create a sense of anticipation which goes along with the theme of the thriller clip. Other weapons were considered such as a hammer or a gun however we believed a knife was the most sinister as it is a everyday item found in a kitchen that holds so much threat and also has the capabilities to kill easily.

The knife strikes fear within the audience
as they can expect death.

Another convention used within our thriller clip is the use of cinematography, we used several methods that would feature in a high majority of thriller films, such as the use of close ups, we used an extreme close up is used within our clip. Extreme close ups  are used to put a strong focus on a particular object or aspect, within our clip it puts focus on the bride's (Lily Badcock's) eyes, which has ruined make up as she has been crying.        

    

Rough Cut - Miss Miller

A rough cut is the first cut of the film with minimal editing, it is important to consider as it allows the group to improve their work through the feedback of the audience and also for ourselves to re-evaluate our work and see if there are any problems within our thriller clip that we may have missed. The rough cut is also important as the clip begins to resemble the final product and thus our group can begin to decide what parts of the clip should be taken out and what parts need editing and other aspects included. It is important to consider audience feedback as the audience are the people who generate the money by watching the thriller, for a film to become a blockbuster it relies on getting audiences to watch their movie and generating box office. We got our feedback via several different methods, after showcasing our rough cut and giving a presentation we received feedback through a questionnaire and also had comments on YouTube that we both used to improve our thriller. Overall we received positive feedback, we were complimented on our unique storyline and the diverse use of characters, especially the use of female killer. However we were also told that the clip was slightly boring and that there was too much dialogue, and that it meant that there was less tension created. The feedback we got will help us finalise our thriller as we will aim to shorten several scenes that had too much dialogue and will aim to add more tense scenes as this will draw the audience to be interested in our thriller. We will edit out particular scenes such as the scene when actors Cassius and Gurbir talk about Hayden leaving his fiancee as it is unnecessary and takes up too much time, we will do this using Final Cut Pro X.