EVALUATION.

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

I feel personally and from consulting with other members in my group that i have learnt a lot from from my preliminary video to be able to prepare us for a final thriller "possessed". As the preliminary task was not part of our coursework we were given far less time to film it. I feel the less time that was given didn't allow us to do it as well as we could of. However the lack of skills, techniques and experience also led us to create a preliminary video of sub-standard.

Ways in which our Thriller was a better overall package in comparison to our preliminary exercise were many. Our preliminary video was made without an ident, which straight away gave out an impression of lack of professionalism. We created an ident for a company who made our Thriller named 'Fantasizing productions'. This gave our film a professional aura as you see idents in films created by big film manufacturers like 20th Century fox est. As well there being a difference between the preliminary exercise and the AS thriller movie throught the use of idents another positive difference was our use of titles at the start of the film which allow the viewer to know what the Thriller is called, who is starring in the production and who directed the production. This again compared to our Preliminary exercise, gave off a sense of professionalism. We had learnt how to create idents and feature titles before our preliminary exercise using the software 'Final cut express' , however in the weeks in between the Preliminary and Final Thriller we were able to enhance our skills in using the software and in doing so were able to create classier idents and feature titles.
Another aspect of where i feel we learnt from our preliminary task was in the aspect of sound quality. In our preliminary task there are many examples of where the diegetic sound is not continious or realistic. An example being in our preliminary task, where Harley immediately stops crying when the shot is panning away from her. This was poor sound continuity as it takes the realism out of the Thriller. However in our Thriller we have used a balance of Diegetic and Non- Diegetic sounds to great affect throughout which create a greater sense of realism to the viewers of the film. Also adds to the professionalism of the production.
The use of Mis-en- Scene i feel we enhanced in our film, in comparison to our preliminary exercise. As a group i feel after watching our preliminary exercise we realised that the mis-en scene wasn't obvious enough to attract the viewers attention. In our final thriller however the audience were able to acknowledge many stand out events that link into the theme of mis-en-scene used throughout the sequence. An example would be the setting of our thriller, in a dark, dingy room. The darkness and dirty atmosphere of the room would show the audience that the place were the character is found is not a nice place and therefore will be able to understand the characters anguish.

FINAL THRILLER



PRELIMINARY EXERCISE

Animatic Thriller Storyboard.

EVALUATION.

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

Throughout the Filming project that we undertook, we have used a variety of different technologies to enhance our project and too help us.

The following objects, materials, software's est. all helped us along the way.

Blogger

I used the website 'Blogspot.com' to keep a running online blog on how me and my groups progression in creating our thriller movie was going. On the blog i showed key steps in research of different thrillers that i may have took influences from and showed various forms of planning and testing that me and my group had to do before we shot our thriller. The blog allowed me to keep an online step by step guide on how i was learning about every aspect of the thriller genre est. Blogger allowed me too gain ideas through surveys est. on how my thriller could be improved and allowed me too display audience feedback.

Final cut express

This software found on the apple imac's allowed me too edit and enhance the thriller that i had filmed with my group. The software allowed us too insert idents into the start of our film and create smooth edits throughout the film. All together final cut express allowed us too make the film look more professional.





Mini DV Digital camcorder

As a group we used the video cameras to film all of the footage of our media thrillers. We used them connected to a tripod for stability (steady shot) or freehand for different shots. Once all the filming had been completed we used a lead to connect the camera to the apple imacs and import the film we had onto the final cut express software and begin the editing process.

Apple Imac

The imac was used for a variety of reasons. I used it at times to update my blog on what i had been up to involving the project. I used it to use the editing software 'Final cut express'. It was also used to use softwares such as 'Garageband', to create the music for the ident needed for the start of our thriller. Imac was also used to upload pictures from certain location of where we'd been filming.





Digital camera

The digital camera was used by myself and the group too take pictures of locations in which we were thinking about filming. It was also used to take pictures of our initial ideas such as our storyboard. The camera also helped when testing out ideas for scenes that we were going to have in our film. An example of this was taking the snapshots of the smoke being tested in the art department.





Youtube

Youtube was used as a great audience feedback tool and by creating an account it enabled our group to post our preliminary exercise onto the web and gain valued feedback on what people enjoyed and disliked about the exercise. Youtube also allowed me to access past students work, analyse and take inspiration from good parts of their thrillers. My finished thriller was also posted onto youtube to gain publicity and again collect valued audiences opinions.


Tripod

The tripod was an invaluable piece of equipment used throughout the construction of our thriller, as it enhanced our filming techniques to a higher level than if we were just using free-cam shots. By using the technique my teacher showed us, once we had connected the camera correctly to the top of the tripod, it then allowed us to adjust the height that we wanted to shoot from and twist the tripod to give us more acute and obtuse angles if we wanted.




Mobile phones

The use of  mobile phone technology helped us as a group in a practical sense as it allowed us to keep in contact with one another, and organise times to meet up when we wanted to start filming. With the high- tech mobile phones of today it allowed us also to take high resolution pictures for research into locations est.







Google

The google search engine allowed me to very quickly research anything to do with the course that i had to research. It allowed me too look up things such as thriller techniques, different types of thriller, popular thrillers est. It all helped towards modeling ideas for my thriller.







Survey monkey

I used the internet online survey website 'Surveymonkey.com' to create a thriller survey, which enabled me too find a target audience for who my thriller was aimed at. Once i  created my survey, i posted links onto social networks such as facebook and onto my blogger so that people could take my survey and i could gather an idea of what my target audience looked for most in a thriller.

EVALUATION.

5.) How did you attract/address your audience ?


After watching the film we as a group gained feedback from people who watched the film with us. The video above shows a few responses from interview we conducted.The film interviews where our way of deciphering what the audience appreciated and what they felt could be improved on the film overall. We asked two questions too two different members of our class. We asked: What they liked about the film possessed ? and what did they think could be improved about the film 'Possessed' ?


Our two minute sequence holds the audience's attention, as they want to see why this guy is being possessed. The audience are watching strange and nasty things occur to the character and they want to know what the connection with the girl is about. I think the thriller captivates the audiences attention as the use of diagetic and non diagetic sound parallel's the surroundings of where the thriller is being shot and the action that is going on. The atmosphere is then built as one of mystery that would entice the audience as it was fast paced and is adjacent to the editing.

We also attracted the audience attention by using simple yet affective filming techniques. We used a Maguffin as the film starts with the character waking in a dirty room with no recollection of how he got there. As well as this an unseen force is torturing the character and he doesn't know why. This shows another use of a Maguffin. The use of the Maguffin is that we know that the audience doesn't know why he is being tortured, but will want to find out as it is a perplexing plot.


The two minute sequence is left on a cliffhanger as the two characters are being followed by a tracking shot (this emphasis the stalking mentality of the film) across a field. The affect given is one of mystery, because we don't know who is watching them or what is going to happen next. The film therefore is left with lots of unanswered questions, which would mean the audience would want to carry on watching to see if the questions get answered later on. The audience would want to carry on watching our film as they are interested in the thriller genre and they want to see what type of thriller it turns out to be, whether it is a psychological thriller or a crime thriller est. After watching the initial two minute sequence, the audience would want to carry on watching the thriller as they would want to see how the women seen in the video clip is connected to the man being possessed.


The camera being used to spy on the two characters whilst walking along the field and holding hands was filmed using a black and white affect. The affect created by filming in black and white is that the footage is one from the past. The audience would then start to wonder how the past is connected to the predicament that the main character finds himself in. The still camera taking the of the couple hugging in secret would entice the audience to find out more about the person who is filming the couple. They would want to find out how he/she is connected to the couple and if he/she is the person possessing the man.

The use of the actor and actress being off of a young age attracts an audience of all different ages, as people of similar ages could put themselves in that position and people of an older generation could relate to their past.


Media productions have used young actors to connect with certain audiences in the past. Here are a few examples.

Skins

The inbetweeners.

Both of these programs were huge hits among the age group of the characters played in the episodes. Both programs used places that the age group could relate to. Both shows used a school/college environment in which to film a lot of the episodes (school/college being a prime area that teenagers are most of the day)



The fact that we are all teenagers in our group helped too plan certain locations that we believe would be scary for the teenage age group. We believed the use of a park could be scary as teenagers hang around in parks a lot of the time. We filmed the stalking extract from our thriller in the park too add to the scare factor as the teenagers watching the film would start to think that they could be kidnapped in a place exactly like that. The realism affect comes into play as now the audience couldn't dismiss the thriller by saying things like "arr its okay it'll never happen to me"

The park we filmed the black and white stalking extract. As a teenager they can relate to an area like this.

EVALUATION.

4.) who would be the audience for your media product ?

Using survey monkey i created a survey with questions about what people enjoyed about a thriller movie, how many times a week do they watch a thriller movie est. I asked an array of people to do the survey and i gained the results from it.
The audience for my thriller is aimed at people of a similar age to mine (16 years old) however i feel that people off an older age would enjoy the film as well. I know teenagers around my age are the main audience for my thriller, because when i was conducting my survey, they were the main age group that took part.

                                 My thriller 'Possessed' is a thriller centred around the genre of 'Horror'. We took the decision to make our thriller a Horror thriller after seeing that over 50% of our audience who took our survey, enjoyed that genre of thriller the most.

This is my thriller Wordle, created on 'Wordle.net'. The words on this wordle are all words used by the audience who took my survey. These words explain what they are looking for in a thriller. From seeing this me and my group decided to use examples of these words in our thriller 'Possessed'

Relating back to our target audience (teenage age group around 16 years old.) I feel that the teenage age group would enjoy watching our thriller as the aforementioned areas that we have filmed relate to their day to day lives. As well as this i believe the fact that a high percentage of teenagers watch thriller films regularly, they will appreciate the thriller more. 

EVALUATION.

3.) what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why ?


After a variety of different research, I have found a variety of different film companies and institutions that could, in theory manage and distribute our film. I have researched into companies that excel in the distribution of psychological thrillers and that in their past have had success in endorsing that type of film. As well as this, companies that I researched distribute a wide variety of films.

I feel after researching many different film distribution companies such as 20th century fox est. I feel that the UK based television film channel, ‘Film four’ would be best suited for our film as they have a strong reputation in the film world and the channel has special bi-weekly events which show different genre of films by the week. An example will be comedy week one week and then thriller week the next. As our film is a thriller this prestigiously well known company film four would boost the marketing of our product as many of film fours audience would witness our thriller.
Watching the film on film four would allow audiences to be able to compare our new thriller ‘Possessed’ to old classic thrillers such as ‘Psycho’ and ‘The Exorcist’.
In relation to the Exorcist it would be good to show our film ‘Possessed’ on the same channel (film four) as the Exorcist as we took influences from the iconic thriller that its and used it in our own thriller.

Evaluation.

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


Our thriller portrays gender, threw the use of the two characters (the man and woman). 

The male character is highlighted more in the film. He is portrayed in a more negative manor than the woman character, as he is being possessed. This could be deemed as sexist stereotyping as the male is being portrayed as a less stable individual than the woman. A popular thriller where this stereotype is used is in 'The Shining' were the character played by Jack Nicholson named 'Jack Torrence'  becomes influenced by the supernatural presence in the haunted hotel; he descends into madness and attempts to kill his wife and son. Similarly in our thriller it is the male lead who becomes possessed. The age of the characters are 16 year olds and they are both ethnically 'White British'. Sid, does the scene in an isolated and deserted room. he is also wearing normal clothes, but we use props to show his character in a different light. The ethnicity of the characters do not really play a part in the reasoning for the actions taken in the film. The sexuality of the Man and woman played in the Thriller are a straight couple, which leads to the reasoning behind the man being possessed (he is possessed threw jealousy of another man, because of his relationship with the woman)
Class doesn't particularly play a factor in our thriller.

Evaluation.

1.) In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convention of real media products ?

The key conventions of the thriller genre are to do with sound and editing. The way the film uses quick cuts and camera angles keeps the audience entranced in the story line of the thriller. Music is another key convention as it is used to build up tension. The way lighting is used to create a shadow for example, is a key convention as the tension built up is key towards the success in the audience's eyes of the thriller.
In my thriller we used a variety of conventions to try and keep the thriller thrilling. We used a number of quick cuts followed by different camera angles, to try and keep the audience enticed. We used a P.O.V (point of view) shot a few times throughout as the thriller is about a boy being possessed, and there are shots of him looking at objects est. We also used a mid-point shot aiming at the boy when watching him be possessed as we thought it was the clearest shot to see him being possessed. We used a rhythmic musical beat throughout the thriller to keep the audience on tenterhooks.
We took a slight amount of influence from the legendary thriller released in 1973 (The Exorcist) as we felt it was the most well known and well executed example of a thriller, which involves the main character being possessed by an unseen demon like figure.

Exorcist (1973), our comparison to a real film.

Possessed (2011) our AS level media thriller film.

Our thriller is different to most other Thriller's as most films have a variety of different actors in. Our thriller has only one actor in it ( the man being possessed), we see brief footage of a woman walking with the man, but there is no dialogue used. Our thriller is also different to most, as their is no scene of confrontation between a set of people, instead there is a confrontation between a man and his sanity. The genre of our thriller is a "Psychological Thriller".

MY THRILLER. (POSSESSED)

This is the finished product of our AS media film in the genre of a thriller.

Promotion.

    A poster to promote our thriller:

This poster was created by our group using the software, Microsoft publisher.  The slogan "Revenge. Like you've never seen it before" is in a scary type of font to express to the viewer that the movie they are going to watch is a horror. The red font on the writing is eye catching and also the colour of blood so is scary and bold.

Finished Editing.

Today we completed all of our editing. we used techniques such as dissolve, fade out and many cuts. This enhanced the professionalism of our film, and made it better. We added titles at the start, which told the audience who the people starring in the film were and who directed the film.

Editing in process.

Whilst we were editing, we discovered that we had to attach some background sound onto the film to deal with continuity. We matched the pace of the music to the clips we had configured. We edited some clips so they were parallel with sections of the music.
.

Finished filming completely./onto editing.

With 4 days to go, we have completed every aspect of our thriller filming. It gives us time now to assemble every bit of film off the camera and edit it to a professional standard. We hit a slight blip when we realised today, that a part of our film had been recorded over, however we went to our location and re filmed the small part, so all is okay. The part we had to re film was the part were i have to throw up, due to the fact that i am being possessed in the thriller.
Now we come to the editing part, we have uploaded everything onto the software 'final cut express' and we are trawling threw all our film and fitting everything together to a fluid piece of film.

Thriller conventions

Voice over corrections.

In todays lesson we decided that the scream in the thriller is not scary. Therefore we have decided instead of filming the scene again, i am going to do a voice recording off a scary scream and edit it into the thriller.

Moby Gratis; Music found !!

Today we searched threw a huge amount of tracks on 'Moby Gratis.com' and we found a music track which we as a group feels goes perfectly with the mood of our thriller. The track is called 'hope is gone' off an album called 'wait for me'. The song sounds like a women singing, which fits in with the idea of the person being possessed in our thriller. 'Wait for me' is an improvement on the track before, as the track before sounded to upbeat as it was a light drumming sound

Preparing for filming.

 This is 5 minutes prior to the filming of our thriller opening, as you can see Tyra is applying the red makeup to my face to produce the aura of my eyes bleeding. We created the affect using acrylic red paint, watered down.

25/01/11- Todays lesson.

In todays lesson we discovered a slight blip involving the location of where we will be filming our thriller. We wanted to film in an abandoned corridor, however due to there being dangerous chemicals down there we may be forced to film further down, behind the stage in the main hall. We feel this won't make much difference to our film as the area behind the stage is also quite creepy.

Moby Gratis reply e-mail.

Above is the reply given by Moby Gratis, the reply states that they have accepted our request to use there non- copyright music in our thriller.

Music for my ident.

To accompany the ident to our thriller opening we used the software 'Livetype'. It allowed us too make a short 3 second piece of music which would fit well with the theme of the thriller and the ident itself.

Script.

Our characters in the thriller are going to be:


Sid (boy)
He cheated on his girlfriend, she found out and then now wants him to suffer. 


Sam (voice over and antagonist)
Will be the voice inside sids head. 


Harley (girl)
angry cause her boyfriend cheated on her

Title of film.

The title of our film is called "Possessed". We feel this name is good as it fits i with the theme of our film.

Stage Directions.

Stage Directions

1. Production name 
2. Black out
3. Sense 1 - taste
4. Black out 
5. Written by
6. Black out 
7. Sense 1 - smell
8. Starring
9. Black out 
10. Sense 3 - see 
11. Made by 
12. Black out 
13. Sense 4 - touch 
14. Black out 
15. Sense 5 - hear 
16. Fuzzy screen 
17. Normal view 
18. How it all started...
19. Title 

 These directions are in order of what our film opening will be in.film we be 

new locations.

Old corridor

Abandoned bathroom.

Abandoned bathroom.

Behind the stage.

Car park.

These 5 locations are other places we will be filming the aspects 

of the thriller. They all hold attributes to make our thriller "Thrilling"

Format of the Titles.

As our titles appear on the screen, this will be the order that they appear on the screen.

The title is at the end of the 2 minute sequence as we feel it will to explain to the audience, what the 2 minute sequence was about.

Fantasizing production 

Written by... Tyra Huggins, Sam Conway and Harley Mason and Sid Taylor

Starring...Sid Taylor and Harley Mason, with the voice over of Sam Conway 

Made by... Harley Mason, Sid Taylor, Sam Conway and Tyra Huggins

Music approved by MOBY GRATIS 

Title: Possessed

Photoshop.

We used the software Photoshop to create an effect to enhance the image to make fit more into the theme of our thriller.

This is the image we have altered on photoshop. We have added the circle effect so it gives of the impression that the couple are being spied upon. I feel the image has come out really well, and the impression we wanted the image to have has worked and looks realistic.

Filming.

In thursdays lesson we spent it filming the opening to our thriller in the location we had discovered (behind the main hall and the abandoned toilets) we filmed the part of the thriller which involved touching. The picture setting a light was our affect. We discovered however that the location was too dark for the film to be visible clearly. This is Ok however as we can now use our back up location, in areas such as behind the stage in the main hall and the cupboard in the art department.

Location.

These three pictures are off the location that our thriller is too be filmed in. We have chose this area as it is dark and secluded which will set a tone of mystery needed in our thriller

ident for production company.

This short video is the ident for our thriller. It lasts approximately 2 seconds. It says 'Fantasizing Productions' in different writing as this is the name of our production company. The word 'fantasizing' is in red and blue cracked writing and the word 'productions' is in blue and white writing. The background of our ident is red and black. The writing shakes to show a scary effect.

List of Characters.

List of Characters

Sid- Playing: Sid
Sid is the protagonist in the thriller. He has been taken hostage as he has had a love affair with Sam's girlfriend Harley. Sid is a confused and scared character as he has awoken in a strange place.


Sam- Playing:Sam
Sam is the antagonist in the thriller. He is a psycho who has taken Sid hostage for having an affair with his girlfriend. Sam will be dressed in black.


Harley- Playing:Harley ( The girlfriend)
Harley is not featured in the film a lot. She was Sam's girlfriend but has had a love affair with Sid.


All of these characters have given consent to be in the thriller.

Name for production company.

The name for our production title is 'Fantasizing productions', this name i think is quite catchy but quite easy to remember. We designed it in the software 'Livetype'

Mood Board

Testing part 2.

These are seven pictures taken in last thursdays lesson. The seven pictures are too show effects that me and my group created as a test for an effect we want to use in our thriller opening. We used powder paint  (blue and green) and a hairdryer to create the effect. We sprinkled a bit of each colour powder paint on a table and positioned the hairdryer behind it and turned it on. The effect we created as shown above was an array of blue and green smoke which is what we hoped for. We believe that the smoke will create an affect of mystery when we come to create our Thriller. The idea of the test was too see if the affect was too fit into the ideas we had for our thriller and it did.