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

Pre Production
During the pre production of creating our thriller film, we were able to use technologies to help our group construct a plan for what our film was going to be about and how we could potentially carry out the task of filming the planned thriller. One example of this was Youtube.com. Youtube allowed us to view different examples of media products such as Kill Bill, Se7en and The Disappearance of Alice Creed which were influential in the way that we planned and eventually constructed out thriller piece. It also gave us the ability to research different tutorials and lessons on Youtube about different techniques for filming and sometimes even including ways that we could create our own thriller pieces based off of the work of directors who have made similar films and used intelligent and interesting techniques.




Another technology that was very helpful in the pre production process was Blogspot.com. Our school, City of Norwich School/CNS has its own blogspot page. On this page are numerous helpful videos and documents on not only how to use blogspot but also tips and ideas based off of the topics that we are studying, making the CNS blogspot page a very resourceful technology. Also, having our own individual blogspot pages as students was very beneficial too. We are able to convey our own work and ideas which our teachers can check and give tips on what ideas are good or what could be improved upon. Also as individual students, we are able to check each others blogspot pages which allows us to share and generate new ideas from outside of the classroom. We can also use it to research work from older and previous media students who may have done exceptionally well, which allows me and the other students to create and forward our own and new ideas based on the topics we are studying.

Production
During production, we are very fortunate to have modern technologies for us to film with. We used a Canon Legria HFR406 video camera, with HD recording quality and 32x optical zoom to film our thriller piece. However filming the same film 50 years ago would have been a completely different. We would not have the accessibility and portability of a digital camera 50 years ago, and we wouldn't have the convenience of storing all our footage on an SD card which we could plug into a computer and save onto the computer. Instead we would have had to have rolls of film, and make sure that we filmed each shot perfectly as buying numerous rolls of film would be very expensive. We would also have to go through the difficulty and risk of processing the film rolls, and if there was a problem with one of the shots in the film or the film roll did not process properly, we would have had to reshoot the entire film. However, with any shots we thought we could improve in our thriller piece, we could have reshot then and there with far less hassle and trouble.

We also used the improved technology of tripods to help in our filming. Filming any shot with any camera free hand is very risky as it is almost certain to show the slight shaking of the person holding the camera which largely reduces the quality of the shot unless if the shot is purposefully shaken to add the effect of chaos. So for majority, or if not, all the shots that we filmed were shot with the camera attached to the top of the tripod. This allowed us to shoot the shots we wanted without worrying about the risk of the camera shaking. Tripods, like modern cameras, have also developed since perhaps 50 years ago. The tripod that we used was able to fold in on itself making it smaller and more portable and the legs are able to unclip from inside each other meaning that we can increase or decrease the length of the legs of the tripod. By decreasing the leg length and folding the tripod in on itself, as shown in the image on the left, it allows the tripod to become far more accessible and portable so filming can take place in more locations in which maybe a tripod from 50 years ago which may not fold in on itself on has the ability to increase or decrease its leg length would not be able to reach sheerly because carrying it or getting it to the location would be too difficult. The changes in modern day filming equipment means that almost anyone can create a film since the equipment is so advanced comparing to what it used to be.

Post Production

Once we had got all the footage we needed on the SD card that we used for filming, we saved our footage onto a designated computer at our school and used an editing programme called Premiere Pro on the computer, shown on the left. By using Premiere Pro we were able to cut out parts of shots that may not have been needed or we could correct any errors in the angling of the camera from filming by adjusting the angle of the shot. We were also able to add title cards, text, text transtions and non-diegetic soundtracks to our piece to create a more professional sound and look to our film. Since we did not have the trouble of waiting for film to process and we could add in texts and soundtracks easily over the top of the shots instead of placed in or after them like they might have been perhaps 50 years ago. All of the editing techniques and benefits from it, I learnt during the process of editing and during the classroom during the same time period, showing that how new technologies have helped me to understand filming and to be able to film and edit confidently. 

Another form of technology that I have learnt about is a website called freesound.com. This website allows you to download backing soundtracks which you can use for your films or own home made videos. I used freesound.com to download the heartbeat soundtrack and the rising pitch music soundtrack which was then used in our thriller piece itself. Finding this new technology made adding a soundtrack to our film very easy and we could simply add the downloaded file into our film on Premiere Pro instead of having to go through similar troubles of adding  non-diegetic soundtracks in filming 50 years ago. The technology also helped in creating the connotations and the conventions of our subgenre as the music we downloaded was full of suspense and tension.

Another website and new technology that we used was dafont.com, which allowed us to search for different fonts that we could use in our film based off of the genre of film that we were creating. This was incredibly helpful as we did not have to search through endless lists of different fonts in alphabetical order to find the right font that would suit the genre and subgenre of our film. The website also allowed us to compare numerous fonts that would all suit the genre of our film so we could decide which one we thought was the most effective. 

I have learnt a lot of things from new and modern technologies which are based around the purpose of film making but to summarise it generally, the new technologies that I have listed above allowed me and the people I was working with to create a very well constructed and professional looking film which would most likely not be the case if I had made the same film before I started my Media A-level.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

One way that we thought would be a successful way to entice and attract audiences to watch our film was through the increasing tension and build of disorientation as the film continues. Typically, as the film goes on you would suspect less questions and more answers, however in our piece it is not the same. As the film continues, more questions are left unanswered such as: What was in the duffel bag? What is the purpose of the pictures on the wall? What is the non-diegetic music and heartbeat track building to? Who is this character? What are his motives? The increasing amount of questions that are left unanswered and allowing the audience to speculate the answers themselves makes the sudden and abrupt ending to the opening enforces the convention of thrill and fear that is generated through not only thriller films but crime thriller films as well.

The way that we attempted to make the audience identify with the main character is through the casting of a young adult so that the audience are able to position themselves in the characters position and consider how they might act and react to being in the similar situations that the character has been put into. On the contrary to this thought, the audience would have difficulty identifying with the character from the obvious presence of psychological issues being a major factor in the way he acts and the way he thinks. The majority of people do not have to deal and cope with any major psychological issues, therefore they would find it very hard to really see and feel how the character in our thriller feels about his problems and also very hard to relate to. However, if this is the case this could entice viewers to carry on watching as since they do not know how someone in the characters position may act, this becomes very intriguing to the audience making for a better film.

However, identifying is not the same as positioning. Since we know so little  about who the character is, what he is doing and why he is doing what he is doing, we find that in no real way we are actually positioned with him and set to like this character. On the other hand, does he do anything to make us as an audience dislike him? No, he doesn't. So the audience is placed in a mutual respect of the character due to the lack of information given about his character. However, since we see the character clearly struggling with the psychological issues that are daunting him, we do feel a slight sense of sympathy towards the character because of the clear pain and turmoil that he is in; features which are very common in thriller films for possible characters which are one of the "good guys". Despite this it is still very hard for the audience to fully position themselves with the audience due to the sincere lack of information given about the character.

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

There are 6 main film distributors across the world that dominate cinema viewings, due to their wealth and power. These 6 companies are called, as a group, The Big 6. As individual firms, they consist of 6 different companies, being:

• Paramount 
• Warner Brothers Studios
• Walt Disney 
• Twentieth Century Fox 
• Columbus
• Universal

These 6 firms specialise in distributing blockbuster and world release films that contain lots of talented A-list actors and actresses, talented film and editing crews so that they can generate a lot of money from viewings. The genre of the film also comes into account for The Big 6, as different genres are more or less likely to generate more money. For example, an action blockbuster movie is more likely to generate more money than a romantic arthouse movie as more people are likely to pay to see the action blockbuster movie. Its is possible that one of The Big 6 would distribute the thriller film that we made, as despite not having any A-list actors and/or actresses in it the genre is suited to generate more money from viewings as it is a thriller film. Therefore people are more likely to pay to see our thriller film as they want the thrill and experience that comes from watching a thriller film.

However, I believe that a Big 6 distributor firm would not be best suited for distributing our film due to the lack of popularity in renounce in the actors used in the film and the crew behind creating the film was not a world class crew meaning it is less likely to succeed as a blockbuster film, and the lack of a budget.
Therefore I think a studio such as Vertigo would be more suited towards distributing our film.  Vertigo is a small UK based distributor that outsources small films based in the UK that are produced on a lower budget. The film Outlaw was also distributed by Vertigo and it offers the same connotations of disorientation, enigma and somewhat corruption that our own thriller piece offers as well. Outlaw is also set in Britain and was produced in Britain, again showing similarities between our own thriller and Outlaw.
Another distributor film that could potentially distribute our film is CinemaNX. CinemaNX was the distribution firm that outsourced The Disappearance of Alice Creed, a film that is very similar to our own in the way that it connotes evil and illusion and the target audience that is identified. Also since we took influence in creating our film based off of The Disappearance of Alice Creed, using the same distributor would make sense.

Question 2: How does your thriller film opening represent particular social groups?

In our thriller opening we focus on a male detective as our main and only social group, who is presumed to be in the age of 40 to 50 years old.  We took a lot of inspiration and influence from the movie Se7en and so based our character very similarly to Detective Somerset: a male detective presumed to be in his older ages as he is retiring at the end of the film. Since we took a lot of influence from Se7en itself, we followed this again with the way we represented the social class we were focusing on which was primarily mise-en-scene. The suit costume is the common factor of similarity between the detective in our own piece and detective Somerset in Se7en.

Detective Somerset

The suits themselves show the audience the representation of power and authority but not a corrupt and unjust possession of power that a suit may sometimes connote.

Detective "Furnace"

• As for the gender differences in our own piece, we did not include any women characters in the opening illustrating their marginalisation as a gender. This marginalisation of woman could connote that women are inferior to men and that women should not partake in detective roles as it can be dangerous and tough work which should be left to do by the men. However, both the detectives in Se7en and our own piece lack a female support in their lives, and the detective in our own piece has a psychological breakdown for reasons unknown. But it could be his loneliness. Detective Somerset doesn't have a breakdown but he does have a clear abundance of loneliness and singularity. Therefore it could be that the lack of women in our opening and in Se7en doesn't show a weakness in women but more the power that they have and how they contribute to the world.

Question 4: Who would be the target audience for your thriller task?

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

Thriller final cut

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

Treatment

We planned to use the concept of a rogue detective who has lost his wife who has either disappeared or died. Either way, the detective has taken matters into his own hands and plans to take revenge on whoever or whatever took his wife away from him. In our coursework thriller opening piece, we would have the detective returning home with a duffel bag in his hand. What is inside the bag remains unknown throughout the piece, but it would likely be information or weapons of some description. Once he is home, he enters a study were he has pinned news articles and pictures linking to his wife's disappearance or murder. He becomes infuriated by the reminder of his lost wife and tears down the wall of information and swipes all the items on his desk onto the floor in a fury. Before going to the bathroom, he pegs his suit jacket to a coat hook. He then goes to the bathroom where he takes out a capsule containing pills or medication and takes them as he looks at himself in the mirror above the sink. He may wash his face to try and clear himself of the grief. At this point, he decides to get some air. He picks up his jacket from the hook he placed it on and leaves the house. After a while of walking, he finds himself in a dark and dismal alleyway. There is another person at the other end of the alleyway walking towards him. As a single streetlight lights the alleyway, the detective comes to the realisation that when the other man comes into the light of the streetlight that he is the man who killed or abducted his wife. He knows this because he saw the same man's picture on his wall before he tore it down off the wall. The detective then proceeds to either interrogate the man or kill him depending on the decision that is made based on how it might affect the plot. In either outcome, the detective kills the man. The final shot is of the detective walking away with a bloody knife or set of keys in his hand, with the dead man's hand lying completely still on the floor.
We took a lot of influence from the movie Se7en, with the idea of a detective who is different from the others and likes to do things his own way. Also including the disorientation and somewhat fearful factor that Kevin Spacey's character brings into the fold of the film, with the bloody knife or keys set and the pills that the detective takes illustrates his instability and rogue nature. However, we thought it would be effective to take influence from more typical film noir pieces such as The Third Man with the way that we use scenery to create tension and an increased fear factor.

Characters, Costume and Props

We decided as a group that our piece should be focused on one main character and to fully focus on him and how mysterious and enigmatic they may or may not be. We thought that having the character be a rogue detective would add a lot of enigma and disorientation to the piece. We decided to do this by taking much influence from the movie Se7en, almost mirroring Detective Somerset as a character in our own piece. We also considered and decided to have another character in our piece who never makes a physical appearance in flesh but in a photograph. This being the main character's wife who is either missing/presumed dead or is in fact dead. We thought that by having this character not in the opening itself, it adds more to the connotation of disorientation because the character feels broken about the loss of his loved one. This then becomes his "fueler" as his motive remains unclear throughout the piece but he is searching for revenge for whoever or whatever made his life so unfair for him. We considered having a thug that the detective murders in the piece, however including said thug and murder would depend on how long the piece lasted with the rest of the piece filmed and edited.

Since our character is a rogue detective, we thought it would only be fitting if the costume he wore was a suit and tie. However we would try to make the suit look slightly rugged and informal by perhaps having the tie slightly loose or his shirt untucked to reinforce the connotation that the detective is broken and not "to the book" as he may should be. If the thug was to be included in the piece, we would expect them to wear informal and scruffy clothing which illustrates their difference and contrast to the detective.

Finally we would focus on 4 main props: the detective's house keys, his duffel bag, his locket and his pills. The house keys would not only be a metaphor for unlocking his house and his heart because the memories of his wife are in their, but he would use his keys to kill the thug. The duffel bag would remain a McGuffin, so the audience would never find out what is inside but it is still a vital part of the plot. The locket would contain a picture of his wife, giving the audience some backstory but still not enough to fully inform them on the detective's past and the pills would remain unclear as to their purpose again to reinforce the connotation of disorientation.

Storyboard

Thriller Rough Cut

Fonts analysis

In various different thriller films which are linked to our own coursework film opening pieces through the genre, we see a variation of different fonts and texts which are used to create different affects in each individual piece. An example of this is the text and font used in the opening of the thriller film 'Se7en'.

(Example of Se7en font)

We see that the font allows the text to become jagged and slightly etched away in different places, constructing the connotations that the film or the characters in the piece may not be whole or complete in different places. What we also see is that the text is a bright white contrasting the dark background. The use of the contrasting colours could potentially construct the connotation that whatever 'Se7en' represents is a source of goodness and hope amongst despair and evil. We later see this in the movie as Detective Somerset appears as a gentle and kind man with the people he is working with appearing somewhat hopeless and slightly irritated by Somerset's enthusiasm to be a caring person. Another aspect of the font that is used in 'Se7en' is that in the background we can see that the same text has been projected a second time of the title text. Linking back to the connotation of good surround by evil, it could be that there is another source of good and hope in the film but it is not as strong as the main source of goodness. Linking to the films characters, we could assume that the title texts link to Somerset being the main source of goodness and Mills being the second but not as strong source of goodness following Somerset.

Another example that links to our own coursework piece is The Third Man.

(Example of The Third Man font)

We see that the text that is used in The Third Man is very different to the text and font used in Se7en. The font used in The Third Man is very focused and pinpointed constructing the connotation that the piece is going to fairly basic an predictable. However, the film in this case is the opposite of the connotation that the font creates, therefore we can see that the font was used purposefully to create a sense of disorientation for the viewer as the piece is not what they expected based off of the font of the title card. Also we can link that since the font is very angular and straight keeping the font very neat, particularly so with the font having a constant invisible line that the font sits on. This links back to the ideology of German Expressionism, with a lot of aspects of film being straight, pinpointed lines which constructs the feeling and sense of entrapment in the film for not only the viewer but for the characters. Again, the sense of entrapment creating disorientation for the viewer as typically neat and focused aspects of film and general life do not tend to lead to the feeling of entrapment.

Locations Sheet

Pitch Paragraphs - Coursework Thriller Opening

• P1 - Extreme close up of the key in the door (to his house) and (guys name) walks up the stairs. Goes into room with a wall which pitcures of suspects (mostly crossed off with red marker), newspaper cuttings/articles, maps etc with pins and string linking them. Whilst walking towards the wall he picks up a pen (red marker) and crosses off the last face. Looks at the wall and leaves to enter the bathroom, which has a cuboard (with a mirror on it) and opens it. He picks out some pills/medication and closes the cuboard. Then takes the pills with a glass of water. Stares into mirror/washes face. Gets angry and wipes desk clear/pulls down the wall. Walks down the stairs and leaves the house, when slams door shut, black screen fades to the shot of the outside. Walking down an alleyway with the locket in his hands/looking at it. He, whilst walking down an alleyway is bumped into by another man, and drops the locket. As the locket hits the floor it opens and the audience see the photo inside it for the first time (the mans wife). Shot reverse shot of the locket and the two characters faces. Main character flips and kills the other man. Camera follows the man down as he falls to the floor, and final shot becomes an over the shoulder from behind the man on the floor, with the main character walking away. Fades to black and Title is shown.
• P2 - Taking influence from Se7en, we are using a duffel bag as our McGuffin by having it placed on the floor (closed) with blood seeping through onto the floor. We are seeking to establish the character of Detective (???), a man who lost his wife to a kidnapping and murder and his unborn baby in the process. And so vows to find his wifes murderer and bring them to justice by any means.

Prezi - Moodboard