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. 

Opening Sceneration - Miss Miller

Opening Narrative

The film Eternal is a revenge driven thriller which follows a woman's story after being left at the altar on her wedding day. After being left by her fiancée, she isolates herself from the outside world, the audience views her deteriorating mental state. From the pain she has suffered she plots revenge on her ex-fiancée slowly killing everybody close to her.
 
The film opens with the woman in her room, sitting on her bed, she looks distraught and her makeup is ruined from tears. We decided to use a mid-level shot to get both her wedding dress and the surroundings in to introduce the negative atmosphere in the beginning. There is suddenly a flashback to a scene of both the bride-to-be and the bride's best friend getting ready for the wedding, with happy music in the background to exert this. This was filmed in the style of a handheld camera to create a sense of realism within the scene. The flashback ends and we are back in the present, the woman writes over the decorations with deathly messages such as R.I.P. We used close ups so that the audience could read the writing on the balloons. There is suddenly another flashback with the men getting prepared for the wedding, again in the style of a wedding video with handheld cameras, we are introduced to all the victims. The flashback ends and the bride-to-be gets out a photo-album, crossing off the faces of each person who attended the wedding. We used close ups and a POV camera angle so that the audience could see in the eyes of the killer. When she crosses off their faces there is a brief flashback that indicates that the person has been killed, we decided not to include any actual scenes of anybody getting killed as this would not look as good and we also wanted the audience to be able to come to their conclusion by themselves thus using kuleshov effect. The film cuts a few weeks in the future when the bride puts a circle around the ex-husband's face, the ex-husband is with the bride's best friend and it is evident that they are now a couple and he has run off with her, we used a two man mid-level shot for this scene to get both characters in. The ex-husband goes to the toilet, as he walks up the stairs there is a high angle to indicate that this person is inferior and a victim. As he opens the door to leave to his surprise he sees his ex-fiancée brandishing a knife, this is an over the shoulder shot and we can see both the victim and the killer in the shot.

There are several elements that could improve our thriller and make it become more conventional:
 
Less dialogue - I had the idea of removing some of the dialogue within our thriller as usually there is less dialogue and more things occurring on the screen as it draws the audience in and is not boring. Our thriller opening however has a majority of talking and is more boring than we would have wanted, thus we will replace the dialogue with eerie sounds or violence.
 
Credits - Our credits drastically need improvement as they are not conventional to a thriller film, we must make them less colourful and change the font to make them scarier. We will take inspiration from the credits of the movie Seven as I have previously stated in another post.

Irrelevance – We were informed that certain parts of our thriller were irrelevant and thus we must cut out some scenes within the opening as it only confuses the audience, and this is not what we wanted to do.

Filming Schedule - Miss Georgiou

Filming schedules are important within the production of a film as they organise the filming of every shot, the location of every shot and who will be in every shot. Below is my filming schedule for the parts in which I filmed with my group.

In terms of sticking to the filming schedule we were very strict and followed every step the schedule told us to, my schedule is not complete as I was not present for certain scenes. There were certain parts that could not be done due to complications such as instead of the 4 males in smart clothing we had 3 as one of the actors was absent. However generally we stuck to it as we agreed that any changes would only complicate the entire filming process and narrative.

Shot	Date & time	Location	Content /Action	Shot type & Duration	Costume/ hair/ make up	Iconography	Personnel	Equipment
1	5:30 (26/11/13)	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Lounge)	A wedding video of all the men getting ready (flashback)	Handheld camera (15 seconds)	4 males in suits or smart clothing	Newspaper, phone, ties	4Actors, Camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
2	5:45 (26/11/13)	Debden, Essex (Outside)	One of the husband's friend is being murdered (flashback)	Mid shot (8 seconds)	1 male and "bride" in ruined make up and wedding dress	Knife, phone	1 actor, 1 actress, 2 camera personnel	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
3	6:00 (26/11/13)	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Kitchen)	2 of the husband's friends are conversing without knowing the bride is behind them (flashback	2 man shot (30 seconds)	2 males and the "bride" in ruined make and a wedding dress	Knife, tea mugs	2 actors, 1 actress, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
4	6:15 (26/11/13)	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Garden)	The bride is revealed to be looking at the men through the window	Close up (5 seconds)	Bride, ruined make up	Knife	1 actress, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
5	6:30	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Lounge)	The husband and bridesmaid are sitting on the sofa	Panning shot (8 seconds)	Casual clothing	Tv remote	1 actor, 1 actress, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card

6	6:40	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Stairs)	The husband walks up the stairs	High angle shot (4 seconds)	Casual clothing	Nothing	1 actor, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
7	6:43	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Bathroom)	The husband washes his hands and leaves the bathroom	Mid shot (5 seconds)	Casual clothing	Nothing	1 actor, 2 camera people	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card
8	6:50	Debden, Essex (Amber's house - Bathroom)	The husband opens the bathroom door and the bride surprises him with a knife	Over the shoulder, mid shot (4 seconds)	Casual clothing, bride with wedding dress and make up	Knife	1 actor, 1 actress, 1 camera person	Digital camera, batteries, tripod,  / memory card

Risk Assessment - Miss Georgiou

There were several health and safety considerations taken within the production of our thriller opening scene. Health and safety are the regulations and procedures intended to prevent accident or injury in workplaces or public environments.

The first and most important regulation taken was the use of the prop the murderer used to kill her victims, the prop used to kill the victims was a very large kitchen knife, we used this prop as it is a household item and could be easily obtained by anybody. We were very aware of the risks that the knife held and were very cautious when handling it, as it could cause very serious injures if we were to act ignorantly when handling it. The only person to actually handle the knife was Lily who was the actress playing the role of the murderer, we made sure that the knife was kept low and she moved slowly when carrying it.

Another health and safety regulation taken was when filming on the roads or near the pavements, during certain flashback scenes. Cars can be extremely dangerous and we were very careful when filming on the roads, being hit by a car could cause very serious injury or even death and we discussed how we would eradicate the health risks before filming on the roads. We decided to film on an isolated road when it was later at night, this was as there would be a lack of traffic, this worked out very well as there were no cars that passed and we filmed with ease.

There were several other minor safety risks that we had to be aware of during the filming of our media project. The leads during filming were a trip hazard and a general safety issue, to prevent this we made sure no wire was on the floor or covered the wire with tape so nobody would trip and injure themselves. When handling the electrical equipment we made sure that there was no liquid near to prevent electric shock or breaking the equipment. The group member who's house we were filming in made sure there were no health risks or trip hazards within their home.