Evaluation of Thriller Task

Q1. When producing our opening to a thriller film, it was important, that we looked at other thriller films, to influence us on certain areas, when it came to our film.

First off, costume. As our thriller is based on a mystery genre, we had to make sure that the costume fitted this genre, and related to what theme we wanted to get across. When it came to costume, the ‘troubled’ protagonist, wears a simple grey t-shirt and jeans. This simple costume blends into the character and reflects the fact that the character has switched worlds, and has no knowledge of the one he is in. The costume shows this, as it is quite messy and tatted. We thought that it would be better to have something simpler, then a suit or a specific stereotypical costume as the current costume would work with the themes of our film and the whole ‘low-contrast, dull colours’ we were creating for it.

Our locations had to be urban, and it was quite an important decision to make. It had to match and create the effect of a world that was broken down, and had to be mysterious, yet a place the audience could relate to. We picked a car park, and several other areas around the school (such as stairs, an alleyway), etc, that was at our sixth form. The car park was decrepit and open spaced and this allowed us, to make some of our camera shots, very effective. By chance of filming on the day that we did, the weather was especially dull, and it had been raining, and that, tied into the dull location, made these areas we filmed, murky, and opaque, and so they fitted in with the colours, we wanted to create. Some of the images that we created were inspired by the fim ‘Blade Runner’, as in this film; the landscape is quite gritty and cloudy, and this is exactly what we created in our film piece.

One of our key scenes that we had made, were the flashbacks. Some of these scenes were filmed at a house, as we were creating the impression of the characters normal, usual, everyday happenings. We wanted to create another world, that was normal, but this was the world that the protagonist had been in, but was very blurred to him (as shown with the effects in the film). We tried to base our flashbacks around the flashbacks that we see in the film ‘Bourne Ultimatum’ as these flashbacks scenes are very different to the rest of the film and so set apart two worlds from each other, in this.

The soundtrack was a little difficult, as we couldn’t put any old song into our film. It couldn’t be copyrighted and it needed to properly fit in with the film. So ours was mostly made up of sound effects. These would stretch to the loading up of a gun, to the sudden change in music and pace during the flashback sequences. We also had tense music, which ran along the whole piece and gave the feel and emotion to the film. We wanted to base our soundtrack with the sounds we heard in ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ as our films genre is very similar to the genre in this film. The sounds in this film are faced pace and are very mysterious and ‘trippy’, and fit in with the themes of our film.

The camera angles are another part of the process that makes our film successful. Our camera shots are done according to certain actions in the piece. When it came to the protagonist getting to his feet and surveying the surroundings of where he is. We built this sequence up with a lot of extreme close ups and long shots. The extreme shots, pointing into his eye is to emphasis him waking up, and the long shots show him getting to his feet. We used most of the close up shots to make out some of the objects and places that signified certain things in the film. For example the close up of the gun when it is in the protagonist hand – this shows his understanding that he has the gun, and what he will do with it.

The overall plot to our film certainly relates to the tv drama ‘Smallville’ as we based our protagonist on him. We also based out film on again, ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’, and so tried to fuse together an Espionage genre with a mysterious, unusual, plot line.

Q2. Our film doesn’t have any ‘pick out’ stereotypes as there is no recognition of any typical femme fatal or a adrenaline driven officer, which are the typical characters, in a general thriller film.

In our film there is a gender bias as the film is dominated by a single male who is ‘young and troubled’ and is slightly confused of his whereabouts, so this is a fairly conventational representation of a stereotype. It does, however, fit the stereotype of a male dominated role, as there is no women in this film whatsoever and by default, the male is more dominant here.

Gender is only represented minimally in the use of a contemporary figure of males and the character us represented more through the plot, then the actual stereotype.

The only social class that the young boy represents, is a typical boy with a lot of confusion, and seeks this help through his understanding of the ‘other world’ through the flashbacks, that the audience see.

Q3. The kind of media institutions that would distribute the product would be online websites like Youtube. Youtube is a site where you can upload videos for free, for people worldwide to watch it. This would be a good opportunity to take, as it is a free way of advertising your videos, and a good base to share your video with other people. You could also enter into any sort of short film competitions; these can be researched and found on the Internet. As well as this, we would be able to put them on certain social networking sites, to show the film to different audiences. Our film is challenging and original for the main fact that we do not have high special effects such as CGI, and we do not have a budget, of which to go by. We do not have a-list actors or big budget locations to use. All locations that were filmed were in reasonable distances of which we were able to get to. This would make us able to have it funded by mainstream film company’s (such as Warp Films) and it could be developed further. Thus certain cinema outlets could be possible, and as our thriller is a mystery/espionage genre it would be able to appear in an art house as it a complex/subversive Thriller.

Q4. Our target audience is 15-24 year old males, who enjoy a gripping story and faced paced action. The film is influenced by a few mainstream films, especially the film ‘Bourne Ultimatum’, which we based our flashbacks, characters and action, and general look on, we aimed to make the effects of the flashbacks, a lot like they are in this film and the plotline was inspired by the one in this film. We also based some of our other visual landscapes on ‘Blade Runner’, as our film has an espionage genre to it. This would appeal to this audience, because it has a mystery element to it and has action in it, which keeps the viewer, hooked, and doesn’t waste time with jumping into the plot when the opening of the thriller starts. It had to connect with the findings that we got from when we carried out our research into what age range, this particular audience likes. We came out with espionage/physiological thriller as the genre most people liked.

Most of the locations had to be quite gritty and dull and fit in with the films themes. It had to link into the plotline of mystery so we could have the full package of the espionage genre. 

  

Q5/6. When creating our opening of a thriller film, we used various media products, which made the making process of the film, a lot easier. These were:

A Digital Video Camera – This was used to film the entire opening and was the base around the recording of the scenes we created. The camera was easy to use and it was something to use to film the scenes with.

Adobe Premiere Elements – This was the editing software we used to edit our film, and was the base of putting the film together, putting in sounds, video, and effects (if necessary).

Dafont.com – When making the title sequence of the film, we needed a font that was both interesting and different, and not some average font that looked boring. This was the site we went to find a font we liked. There was a collection of fonts on the site that we could choose from.

Freesound.org – One of the important rules we had to follow when making our film was that we couldn’t use any copyrighted music and couldn’t insert any in. So we were given a collection of sites where we could get un-copyrighted sound effects to put into the thriller. This was one of the sites we used, and we found a range of sounds, going from flashback sounds to sounds of the rain.

Adobe After Effects – This was the software that only I used in our group as I wanted some realistic effects in our flashbacks, and Adobe Premiere Elements, only had basic, premade effects, that just weren’t going to work. This piece of software was a more advanced approach at creating a very good effect. Through tweaking various contracts, lighting and colours, I ended up making a really good, dark, flashback scenes, that had flickers and patches that made it look like it was in a film.

YouTube – This website is a video embedding site, where, when we’ve finished making our films, we can upload it onto the site for people to go and have a look at the finished product.

Blogspot – Connecting to the Media Studies course, this is where we upload our work. It is a multimedia page, where we put, pictures, videos and just general word documents onto for our teachers to see. This is where we will put our embedded version of our Thriller film.

With new technologies coming out every few years, the bar for creativity has risen significantly. You are able to have a lot more freedom on some of the media projects that people make, that were once made so simple through average media software. If we took Adobe Premiere and compared it to Adobe After Effects, If I were to make a movie with just Adobe Premiere it would be pretty basic, and would just be a movie with film, text and few bits of music in it. Without after effects, I wouldn’t have been able to put in high quality effects, which make the movie more ‘professional’ and actually look like a real movie. I also wouldn’t have been able to change the colours, contrasts, transitions and made the film, as a whole, a lot bolder. 

What I have learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product is that that are a wide range of available media products, that make movie making, a lot easier to do. Instead of using a basic movie making software, such as Windows Movie Maker, there are products that can take basic transitions, to as far as creating your own transition and making your film a hell lot more interesting. Also, as video-editing software has improved over the years, you are able to have so much more impact on how you make a film and what you are capable of doing with it. With advanced products you can edit your own sound and video making it a lot more interesting then just an average drag-video-onto-timeline, and stick an effect on it.

Another helpful advantage is how the user can choose the video format for your video. You can change and pick the video format you want your video to come out of, depending on which video player you have, so that you can have high resolution/high quality videos where you can watch without settling for an average windows media player format.

Q7. From comparing the preliminary task to the full product, there were a lot of differences and similarities, in different areas.

Firstly, and most obvious, both were filmed with a video camera, and made the experience really easy to do if you’ve never used one before. However, when editing both products, with the preliminary task, you didn’t have to edit so much, as you didn’t need to spend so much time putting effects and sound into it, as it was a basic task of video and titles. Where as the thriller, needed a lot of inserting, with sounds, effects, and titles, to make it a lot more interesting, as you were basing it on a genre and need to fit it.

When it came to technology, I used Adobe Premiere Elements for both tasks but I used After Effects for the thriller, as it had more advanced effects on it, and I needed that to make some of my scenes, a lot more interesting. Here, I was able to develop my media skills as I was given a tutorial onto how to make a good flashback, using after effects. I was able to discover certain points in the programme by changing certain contrasts or lifting up the colours. Even though I was given a tutorial, I was able to use this as a base for making a simple flashback, but I was able to use my own creativity to change it into a flashback that was mysterious and opaque and I was able to make it a lot more exciting for the audience. The prelim task didn’t need any effects whatsoever.

When planning both tasks, there was minimal planning when it came to the prelim task, as it was just a case of going out and filming it. But with the thriller, you need to plan a lot for it, as it was longer, and you needed to think about where you were going to film it, what location would work for your genre, what props you would need to use, what costumes needed to be right, and what was generally easy to do. Plans changed with the thriller, ad there would always be a complications with the locations, for example as it would be more difficult filming in a public place, then it would filming somewhere, where it is less deserted.

The challenge of the task had various aspects to it, the aims we were given were simple and could be completed but other things like weather etc, could get in the way and affect filming, putting you behind with it. There was a big difference in the freedom of the two tasks, we had a limited amount of time for both, but as the prelim had a set plot with what we had to do (somebody walking in, sitting down and having a conversation) and that was it. We had to put in a lot of research for the thriller task, as it was a case of planning what we were going to do, and how were going to do it, locations, filming, etc, whereas we needed none for the prelim task. We could pick our own genre for the thriller task (we picked a mystery/espionage genre for out thriller film) but we didn’t in the prelim as there were no genres, as it was set out what we need to do, and was a basic task of just filming it.

Target Film Target Audience Profile

When constructing our thriller film we had to consider our target audience, the target demographic we are aiming to appeal and to demonstrate who our target audience is. We have taken a still from the film’s opening and used it as a poster.

The still here from the opening, is the protagonist looking at himself in the mirror for the first time since he awoke from not knowing where he was. This shows the gritty and dark atmosphere of the film, which appeals to our target audience.

Our target audience is 15-24 year old males, who enjoy a gripping story and faced paced action. The film is influenced by mainstream films, especially the film ‘Bourne Ultimatum’, which when creating our flashbacks, we aimed to make the effects of the flashbacks, a lot like they are in this film. We also based some of our visual landscapes on ‘Blade Runner’. As our film has an espionage theme to it. We wanted it to have low-key lighting in it, and for it to be very gritty, as these fit in with the genre.

With it came to locations. Most of the scenes were filmed around the Hewitt School, as it was an easy location to get to (as we go there). One place in particular, was the car park. The spacing was quite small and so this gave a claustrophobic feel to the opening. Coincidently, the weather was very dull and it was raining on the day, so this made the scenes far duller when it came to lighting. It also adds a sense of psychological genre to it as the character as no idea where he is, and the audience doesn’t know either, this adds a mystery element to it.

We focused more on character then action, as the plot is focused on the character and the mystery of his whereabouts and how he reacts to the world he is in.

Blackpool Opening Scene

In the opening sequence of the television drama, the audience is shown a close up and a long shot of the white stretch limo. The limo represents masculinity and the working class, and it comes across as quite tacky.  The words ‘Blackpool’ slides across the screen in big gleaming lights as diegetic music of Elvis play during the sequence. There is a tracking shot of the big house that the protagonist lives in as the limo pulls into the driveway. We are then shown the protagonist getting ready and dancing and singing in front of the mirror. He is coming his hair; he’s a sharp dresser, wearing a white suit and tie. His appearance is very ‘Elvis inspired’, especially his hair and sideburns. He seems conceived. There is an over the shoulder shot of him as he pampers himself and looks into the mirror. The camera switches to an extreme close up of the man hand as he puts on aftershave. This makes him seem vain, yet confident. There is another close up shot if him doing up his tie as he gets ready.

The camera again switches to a women character and pans around her. She is sitting on the edge of her bed, and who as well is getting ready. She too is singing along to the track. She is the wife of the protagonist. She is wearing a low top and high heels and gives the impression that she is used as a sex object.

Afterwards, there is a bird’s eye view shot of the daughter as she lies on her bed. She is talking on the phone and painting her nails (multi taking). As she sings along to the track, she looks like the image of her mother, especially in what she is wearing and how her image is. The camera zooms in to her face. Then, the camera cuts back to the father and there’s a close up shot of him putting a watch on and sliding rings on his fingers. These items suggest that the protagonist wears tacky jewellery. The camera moves back to the protagonist and moves towards the mirror, where you can see the wife in the background too. Most of the lighting is providing by lights in the house, and is very ambient. The camera switches back and forth to the wife and husband getting ready and both miming the words to the Elvis song.

The camera then switches to a low angle pan shot of the young boy who is the son. He is standing outside of the house on the balcony, lighting a cigarette. The lighting is very non-ambient, as it is late and dark outside. He is wearing basic clothes and they’re not very formal, comparing to the rest of the family. This shows him as an outcast and a rebel of the family, but also that he is not fitting in. He is also miming the words to the song that is still playing.

The male and woman protagonist and the daughter then come out of the rooms ands head downstairs, while dancing, the boy the follows on as he is beckoned by his sister. By what he is wearing, he looks out of place with the rest of his family. There are various close ups here, as we see one up close at the male protagonist as he is singing and one of all of their feet as they walk down the stairs.

The camera cuts outside as the family walk downstairs, outside. We can see high/side angle shots showing the family as a group. The camera zooms out as they get into the white stretch limo. From here, there are lots of low angle shots of buildings and sights in Blackpool, and the audience is shown what type of place it is. The family are drinking champagne in the limo and there are lots of close up shots of each of the characters faces. There’s a tracking shot of the limo as it travels down the road and also the characters, as they look out of the window. The camera zooms away on the road of which the limo is travelling. The limo eventually stops outside a building, which is a casino. As they enter it, there are lots of protestors outside, and the camera closes up on some of these signs after the family pose for pictures. The protestors are obviously unhappy with the fact that the casino is opening up. There’s a close up of an old man who’s holding up a sign. He has quite a menacing look on his face. The old man protestor is wearing a dark suit and he’s an antithesis. This seems like he could be the protagonists enemy but also shows he’s a moral figure. The editing here is very quick and swift.

As the family enters the casino, they are still singing the words to the elvis song. They are greeted by applauses by fans and spectators. The male protagonist and the family, stand on a balcony as the he gives a speech of the opening of the casino. The camera switches back and forth from him talking, and high angle shots of the admirers and people watching. The lighting here, reflects the view of gambling. It’s bright and breezy when the thought of gambling is good. And it shows the darker side to gambling through dark contrasts of light.

Throughout the speech, the camera cuts to the family in response to what he says, the daughter looks at the father with a smile on her face, which suggests that she looks up to him. The wife however doesn’t look too pleased sometimes as she is seen looking unsatisfied and at one time embarrassed when the male protagonist says some foul-mouthed words.