The aim of this project was to create the opening to a thriller movie, which would create both suspense and fear for it’s audience
In what way does your product use, develop and challenge existing media products?
What are genre conentions?
Conventions are the accepted norms that we would expect to see in an opening. These conventions are used to construct narrative theories
These conventions are used to construct narrative theories and one of the particular narrative theories that we tried to use in our opening was Roland Barthes narrative codes, particularly his theories on enigma codes.
we create an enigma code when our antagonist, Lucifer, watches the protagonist, Lily, walk passed his office, which creates an enigma code because we question why he is watching her.
We also finish our opening with an enigma code because when Lucifer is standing outside her house we don’t know what he is going to do to Lily.
Our opening has also challenged certain conventions, particularly Vladimir Propp’s theories on character types, as our opening only has two types on character’s, ‘The Princess’ and ‘The Villain’, not the eight that Propp suggests are in thriller movies.
The fact that our opening does have these two characters does however relate to Clause Levi-Strauss theory on narrative structures in terms of binary opposites because we have portrayed good and evil in our opening. The use of this convention has made our thriller a hybrid because not only is a psychosomatic thriller, because the protagonist and antagonist are suffering psychotic effects of the trauma, but because there is a moral confrontation in the opening since our opening shows the clash between good and evil.
One media convention that we have challeneged is Todorov's theory of equilibrium, which we beieve makes our product different to other media products.
The theory of equilbrium
A film starts with a theory of equilibrium
the equilbrium is distrupted
A period of disruption follows
equilibrium is restored.
This was influenced by the movie ‘Seven’, because from the very beginning it is clear that something is not right and from research we found that this was a popular opening with our target audience.
What social groups are represented in your product?
The social groups that are represented in our opening are young men and women. This also links with our target audience because our film is aimed at young men and women.
Lily's character is similar to the character of Dawn in the office. They have the same jobs, they wear similar clothing and they both women that come across as being vulnerable.
Gender roles are presented in a fairly stereotypicalwith the man being dominant, whilst the woman is in a vulnerable position. The Stereotypical suggests that the man will use his physical power to take charge of the woman.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A company such as Coffee Films would be a production company that would possibly produce a film like ours because it is a small independent British film company, which produces a variety of films from all different genres, including thrillers. A company like this would release films which are aimed at a niche market rather then a major Hollywood production company, which would be more likely to distribute films aimed at the mass market.
Who would be the media audience for your product?
Our film is aimed at both young male and females as this is the same age as the characters in the movie. Our target audience has changed since we started shooting the opening because we realised that an older audience would understand the themes that are addressed in our opening more then a younger audience would have. An older audience will possibly be able to identify more with the love aspect in our opening and they would be able to associate with the environment of working in an office environment more then a teenager could. The older audience will appreciate the more mature plot and will be able to identify with our characters more, particularly Lily, and they will understand the actions of the characters. The film appeals to both men and women because men will enjoy the action side of the movie, we found that with our questionnaire that men liked this element of movies, whilst women will also enjoy the film as they would be interested by the love aspect in the opening.
How do you attract/address your audience?
In terms of advertising a product it is crucial to produce a film poster, which makes it clear the sort of movie your film is going to be. On our poster we have kept the colour scheme fairly plain a simple but have chosen to have the image of Lucifer’s eye on the cover, which is in keeping with the eye’s, which are a reoccurring theme throughout our opening. On the poster we have also included the name of the production company, a quote from a critic and notes on who played which role in the film, which we believe has given the poster an authentic feel, as these are the features that you see on many film posters.
With the growing use of social networking sites, we could also use them to promote the movie. Page’s set up on face book, bebo and twitter would all be a way that we could create a following amongst the age group that our product is aimed at as they are the ones that are most likely to use these sights, along with teenagers.
Other then social networking sites, the internet could be used to create awareness for the film through trailers beingplayed in pop ups or on popular movie sites, such as Imdb. tHE INTERNET COULD ALSO BE USED TO SHOW EXCLUSIVE CLIPS OR INTERVIEWS WITH CAST MEMEBERS. bY FOCUSING THE ADVERTISING ON THE INTERNET YOU ARE AIMING THE PRODUCT AT OUR SPECIFIC AGE GROUP, AS THEY ARE THE MOST LIKELY TO USE THE INTERNET TO LOOK FOR NEW FILM RELASES.
Aside from advertising it is important that the audience are addressed in the film, which is where camera positions become important.
We have tried to do this through point of view shots.Particular instances where we have done this is when the antagonist is watching the protagonist walking past his office and when he spots her walking out of the car park. By doing this we are putting the audience in his position and on many occasions we are only allowing them to witness what the antagonist is seeing. These shots also build tension as they make it clear he is following her home.
eXAMPLES OF OTHER SHOTS WE USED TO ADDRESS THE AUDEIENCE WAS SHOTS WHICH WERE TAKEN FROM A HIGH LEVEL AND SHOTS WHERE THE CHARCTER IS AWARE OF SOMETHING THAT IS GOING ON THAT OTHER CHARCTERS IN THE SCENE ARE NOT AWARE OF, FOR EXAMPLE WHEN lUCIFER IS WATCHING lILY cROSS THE ROAD AND WHEN HE IS WAITING FOR HER OUTSIDE HER HOUSE.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
The Strengths and weaknesses of using a hand held camera:
Strengths:
useful when trying to make it look like the audience are in the position of the stalker.
Easier when filming in smaller spaces.
Because it was light weigth it made it easier to carry.
Helped us create effective camer shots
Weaknesses:mainly because we didn’t have a tripod we found that many of the shots ended up shaky and therefore of poor quality, which resulted in many re-shoots.
oTHER PIECES OF TECHNOLOGY THAT WE HAVE USED TO PRODUCE OUR OPENING INCLUDE gARAGE BAND AND fINAL CUT
fINAL CUT: I think that as a group that we learnt a lot about editing the film together in Final Cut Express. We have learnt how to use different effects to achieve a certain look in our opening, mainly when we were able to edit the shot of the antagonists eyes over the shot of him standing outside the protagonist’s house. This created a more dramatic feel to the scene as the audience realise that he is constantly watching her and doesn’t take his eyes off of her. Effects such as cross dissolve were also helpful as they also made it seem as though there was a passing of time between one shot and another, this was particularly useful when the protagonist is standing at the top of ally and then in the next shot he is standing outside her house.
gARAGE BAND: We also used Garage band to help us make our soundtrack and we found that it was an easy programme to use and it helped us achieve the sort of soundtrack we wanted. Originally we thought that we would go for a more classical style of music for our soundtrack so we took inspiration from the music used in The Godfather although as we worked on our film and then worked with the different tools that were available to us on Garage band, we changed our mind about the style of music we wanted to use in our opening. We found a clip from ‘Film’, which was a silent movie made in the 1960s, and we decided that the music used in this film would suit our opening better.
Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In comparison to the preliminary task I think that our planning skill did improve, however I still think that we could have done better in this area, as many of our original ideas changed because they had not been thought through enough in the planning stage. We did however create more detailed storyboards and thought more about our location then we did in our preliminary task. Here are examples of our original storyboards.
We were also allocated our own roles, which I think both helped and hindered our filming because it meant we were more organised because we all had our roles, however it made it difficult because if one of us was not there for filming then it made it very difficult to shoot.
Evaluation
the princess
the villan
