Thriller Opening Evaluation - 1. In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

These are some of the main conventions used in Thriller films:

Most of these conventions are found in the majority of thrillers, and is what people expect when watching or making a thriller opening. This is why we tried to include as many of these as possible when making our opening, we almost tried to make it cliché to fit perfectly with the genre. As well as these expected conventions, we also used shots and angles you would expect in a thriller e.g. close ups of faces/weapons/clues, flashbacks and dark over the shoulder shots. This is all able to build up the mystery and tension as well as making the audience focus on one thing, such as an emotion, murder weapon or any other incident of importance that we need to emphasis, as well as using all of the expected conventions in a thriller.

We wanted our opening to be a noire style detective thriller set in the 50’s, so we all brought in any props that would look like they’re from that period after WW2, we used things like; an old radio, an old brief case and an old toy handgun, we thought this would help create the 50’s atmosphere in the house through mise-en-sene. We were also able to use a couple of old cars from the 1950’s that we parked outside the house. And the house itself is secluded on the edge of a small remote village, we thought this would be a perfect location for our opening to be set, as when we first heard about this house and how it was surrounded by forest, we thought how we might be able to get it to look similar to the Bates Motel were Hitchcock’s classic Psycho is set. However, with this convention we had some problems with complete isolation, as on one side of the house there is another house, so it was quite problematic as we couldn’t have an establishing shot of the house as planned, as we thought that it would be a good convention to include in our opening.
The non-diegetic sound we used was very conventional for the thriller genre. The sound effects came off the Mac’s, which sounded as if they were taken directly from Psycho. We also added a dramatic, conventional soundtrack over the opening credits, which we thought would work well and resemble a different thriller opening to ours such as Hannibal or Se7en. There isn’t much diegetic sound in the opening, as it’s very quiet and all you can really hear are footsteps, we thought this was very conventional for a thriller opening as this piece of editing can be spotted in other thrillers too (such as Se7en), but when the flashbacks start the old car’s engine kicks in with its heavy, deep growl, and a short but penetrating scream from the wife as her attack begins.

We have looked at a few other thrillers such as No Country for Old Men, Se7en and Shutter Island:

Se7en is a very conventional neo-noire styled thriller, especially in the opening credits as it sets the tone and pace for the rest of the film. Within the first few minutes it should hook the audience making them want to know and find out what will happen in the rest of the film.

In Se7en this is done by using a dark figure, in a barely lit room cutting out newspaper articles and highlighting text, this creates a hint of mystery making the audience wonder who this person is and what he has to do with these articles.

There is very little or no diegetic sound at all making it seem as if this figure is quietly planning or working, but there is a creepy and disturbing soundtrack which does a great job setting the mood for this character and his intentions. The opening credits is edited so there is a shot of the figure with the newspaper clippings and then it cuts straight to a name in white over black, and towards the end of the credits as the music quickens so does the time between each cut. This might be a representation of the actual story of this film, as it’s very mysterious and slow to start with but the further you get in the clearer and more disturbing it becomes. In terms of Mis-en-scene it looks quite cluttered and untidy suggesting this person may live alone or is lonely, there are also a lot of books and newspapers on the desk. This is a perfect example how Mis-en-scene can create a persona for a character or place. We tried to use this in our media product as the desk we had in the attic scene was cluttered and very unorganised, we tried to create this sense of disorganisation in our opening.

The opening should also include the names and roles of the main stars of the film e.g. Director, Editor, Actors etc. This will give the audience a sense of star quality within the film.

The creation of a narrative is also required in the first two minutes of the opening of a film, this can be done through:

• Camera shots – close ups, over the shoulder, reaction and establishing shots
• Editing – continuity, transitions, pace etc.
• Sound – Diegetic and Non-Diegetic
• Mis-en-scene – props, location and costumes

These are all used to help identify what type of film it is e.g. a thriller.

Not only is Se7en a very conventional thriller, it was also our biggest inspiration for our own opening. Although the stories are very different the location and editing is very similar, as we tried to make Se7en’s over the shoulder shot our own:

This shot shows the murderer/thief running away after he has killed the detectives’ wife in a struggle. This adds a sense of personal tension, as we wanted the audience to feel and connect with the detective.

We also looked at another thriller to help us with our soundtrack through the opening credits, we thought the music from the opening of the thriller; Hannibal was very dramatic and quite unusual for a thriller, as it’s slow but also very tense, this will help with the slow build-up of our opening and as the pace quickens too. We used a similar soundtrack to Hann Zimmer’s, Virtue, used in Hannibal:
Hann Zimmer, Virtue:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWzelYim1G4&feature=related

Shutter Island also inspired us in some ways for our thriller, as the main character, Teddy Williams (played by Leonardo Dicaprio), realises that he has lost his wife towards the end of the film and this sudden sense of distraught and terror was portrayed really well and we also wanted to try to show this through our Detective’s lust for revenge against the Thief.

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

The detective, our main character, is dressed as a conventional 50’ detective. We wanted the audience to know who this man is and what he does, so the story becomes obvious to them.



This is who we wanted our main character to look like, a stereotypical 50’s detective. And as you can see in the still above, we have darkened the side of his face, adding drama as well as mystery.

This car looks like it’s from the 50’s, so its keeping in with the noire style theme. It also looks as if it would be quite expensive in that period, suggesting the owner is financially stable. And you also don’t find out who the owner is straight away creating a slither of mystery in that short space of time.

We also leave the audience to figure out who this woman is, but again, help them, using stereotypical conventions. She is a typical housewife from the 1950’s, we tried to show this by dressing her in a summer dress and cardigan which we thought would fit the fashion in that time period well. We have dressed her as feminine as possible, this will help add a sense of vulnerability to her. You can see part of the house from this shot, and it looks as if this couple live in a well looked after house, which is telling us more about these characters. We wanted them to look like a young couple living in the sub-burbs, close to where the main character works, whilst still living in an isolated area.

Again, we dressed the murderer very stereotypically, as he’s wearing a black woolly hat, a brown heavy jacket and just generally looks dirty. We thought this would make him look more like a villain, poor, desperate, and it would be better than if he just looked normal. The trees in the background show that behind the house there is nowhere to run, so the audience might be able to predict the outcome from this situation. In previous shots we can see the characters in the comfort of a well looked after house, perhaps showing a sense of safety but when the Thief (the villain) comes into shot properly it is outside in the cold surrounded by trees and the harsh environment. This shows that the characters are not in a comfortable, safe environment anymore and anything can happen.
Our whole opening, including the flashbacks, are in black and white, as we wanted our opening to look like the start of a detective, noire style thriller.

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

I think Columbia Pictures would be the most suitable as it has been involved in the distribution of a number of successful films from a wide range of genres such as; The Karate Kid, Ghostbusters,

Men in Black, Black hawk down, and Spider Man as well as many more.

They are also especially know for being involved in the distribution of a large number of famous Noir classics such as; Pushover, Nightfall and Human Desire. By making a larger number of films from a variety of genres, Columbia Pictures will have gained good experience and will know what the audience will want. Also from working with a number of different directors, some of those who have worked on other thrillers, they may be able to give some input into methods that would make our thriller product better and will have knowledge on the best ways to distribute it as they will know where and who to target.

Columbia Pictures has been going since 1919 and is a very well know media institution, also through running for so long and being part of Sony Pictures it is trusted and so will have a lot of useful connections. They also have a very large income, with revenue of $7.2 billion in 2010 so they will have enough money to fund new and upcoming films, and see them all the way until their release date and further. Also through having this money they will be able to afford to publicise the films in order to get them a lot more known to the public and the films target audience.

Columbia Pictures is one of America's oldest media institutions and is based in Culver City, California (next door to Hollywood); by being based here they will have a lot of useful resources at hand, and will have a wide variety of places near that could be used to make the film. Hollywood is very dominant in the film world and so will mean our film can get global distribution. Columbia Pictures is also a company known and trusted worldwide so will allow our film to have a lot of publicity all over the globe.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

To identify the audience for our thriller opening we looked on the BBFC website to determine what was allowed to be put into the thriller so that we could determine what age group it would be suitable for. We also looked at other thrillers to see who they had targeted as their audience:

• Shutter Island – 15
• Seven – 18
• Hannibal – 18

All films above include explicit gore and offensive language, that’s why they have such high age ratings. We also sent out a questionnaire with questions relating to different aspects of a thriller movie we asked what age they were to help determine what age group to aim our thriller at and we also asked what people look for in a thriller to help us determine what type of thriller our opening would be for e.g. action, mystery, religious etc. We found that the majority thought a thriller should be rated a 15, as it can be watched by larger amount of age groups without delving too much near children, as the topic may not be suitable for them. We also found what people expect and want to see in a thriller production;

This helped us a lot, as we then had an idea on what people want and also what makes a successful Thriller, according to the public/audience. Our typical audience member is in their late teens or a young adult, they also watch thriller films in cinemas with friends. We found that one of the most popular thrillers from our results was the hit thriller Taken. This was popular because it had hints of action, crime and mystery, these all help to make an entertaining thriller, according to the audience.

We decided to classify this film as suitable for 15 years or over, as it seemed to be the most suitable for the opening, in this type of film classification:

• Drug taking is allowed to be shown although it cannot in anyway promote drug.
• Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic.
• Dangerous behaviour shown should not dwell on detail.
• Nudity is allowed.
• Violence can be quite strong.

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

We posted our finished product on a couple of different public sites, such as Facebook and YouTube as a way to get feedback from our audience. Most of the feedback was positive, saying it was well put together, worked well, that the continuity was good and that it was very realistic and effective. Some commented that the music worked really well although it would be better if only the non-diegetic music played, rather than it playing as well as some diegetic sound. We also sent out questionnaires to find out what the audience wanted and expected from a thriller opening:

http://jamesmontgomeryfoundationproduction.blogspot.com/2012/02/thrille-genre-questonaire.html

We also found from our questionnaires that crime, psychological and mystery thrillers are some of the most popular and so the thriller ideas that we have thought of are based around these three thriller sub genres. We also found from our results that more people preferred having just one main character and that they preferred old fashioned thrillers compared to newer thrillers and so our ideas have taken into account these two results, by not having too many characters.

As you can see we only have one main character that appears in the majority of the shots.

We also showed people our storyboards before filming to see what we could change and what the audience wanted in a thriller opening:

http://jamesmontgomeryfoundationproduction.blogspot.com/2012/02/storyboards.html

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

Some of the different technologies that I used when planning and making my media product were:

·         Blogger - To post information and research into the thriller genre and different thriller openings, and to post planning for out thriller opening. This helped in the organisation of our thriller as we could put all of the research together, it also helped with the planning as we could go back and look at all the research that we had done.

·         Search Engines- Such as Google, and YouTube to research into the thriller genre, from this we could view other thriller openings which helped us to find which conventions worked and which didn’t.

·         YouTube and Facebook- After publishing our thriller on YouTube and Facebook we learnt from our target audience what worked well and what didn’t in our thriller, we got useful feedback and constructive criticisms that helped us in our evaluations.

·         Video camera and Digital camera- To shoot our thriller opening and to take images of the setting of our opening, and images relating to the setting to cut into our thriller opening. From using this we learnt how to get effective shots for our thriller, what worked in the mise-en-scene and what didn’t.

·         iMovie- To edit the opening, from using this we learnt how to add transitions, and edit the thriller to make sure that it worked and looked effective.

• iDVD- To add the finishing features to the thriller opening such as a title screen.

During shooting I’ve learnt how to create effective shots through the placement of the camera and I have also learnt how to get steady shots through trial and error whilst shooting. Also during shooting I learnt that using the objects in the shot to frame the shot worked well, such as some of the trees surrounding the house. I also learnt how to set up a shot so that all could be seen and so that the lighting would not be a problems in the shot, I found getting the write light quite difficult making sure that the sunlight wasn't blocking anything in the shot and making sure that the inside shots has enough light so that everything could be seen.

I have learnt and developed a lot of editing skills during the making of this piece; I have improved the continuity of the piece through cutting the clips at the right time, I have also improved in my choice of transitions between each clip making sure I use them at an appropriate place and time, and making sure that they are suitable for that part of the opening and that they don’t look out of place. I also learnt about using fade to black shots rather than leaving them as jump cuts as a way of making the two shots continuity between each other much better. I also, during the editing of this production, learnt how to change the contrast to fix some of the lighting in the shots, in one shot where the main character is getting out of the car, we had to change the contrast so that his head does not blend in with the background of the shot. I also during editing learnt how to add different effect to create a different emotion to the shot, in the flashback we added a blurred effect and made it lighter to try to create the feel of it being like a dream.

I have, through using the Apple Macs, learnt how to import and loop music in Garage Band, piece and edit it so that it still sounds like one continuous piece of sound.

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

I think that I have improved a lot since my preliminary task compared to my thriller opening, especially as I used a range of different shots, editing and techniques. I have also developed a lot in my editing skills, as I have made sure not to over-do it with editing, such as adding too many sound effect or transitions when they are not needed so that it still looks realistic, but editing the product enough so that it looks finished to a good standard. We also created plans, storyboards and shot lists for our thriller opening as we found that it helped us a lot in the organisation of both of the products.

We also created a presentation before filming, on what we wanted to include and some potential ideas for our opening. We thought about who will play each role (e.g. Detective, wife etc.), what costumes the actors will wear and where we will film (Location).We didn’t do this in the preliminary, which is why it wasn’t dramatic or tense enough, so we thought that it may help if we plan more for our main production:

This planning acted as a base for our main production, during the filming we changed certain aspects such as the props used, and some of the ideas for shots and when we got to our location we found better shots that could be used for a much more dramatic feel:

As we didn’t originally plan to use this shot, but we thought it would look much better than just face on (which is what we had planned). I thought from this angle it added mystery and tension as the phone rang, as you can’t see his face.
 

During the filming we also decided to add still images into our product, such as close ups on newspaper articles, photos of the cast and the area surrounding the house.

I feel the filming of our opening went well because the location was perfect for what we wanted, which was an old looking house on the outskirts of a village/town, and this worked really well to fit in with the story.  There were also certain parts of the house we had not planned to film in, such as the garden, as we had planned to do the ‘gun scene’ in the corridor or living room but the layout of the house made it too difficult and interfered with the 180 degree rule. But I think this shot probably would have looked better than the planned one anyway. The continuity and match on action also flowed very well as in our preliminary we were very careful about these two concepts, so in our thriller opening we were “experts” in the field of continuity, this helped the opening look more professional and it also makes the editor look good too (which was me).

I think this shot of the car turning off its front lights, looks really good as it shows the audience that a person has just arrived at a location without showing the car actually moving

I also think this shot works well too; as it shows the identity of the killer as in the earlier shots of him his identity is concealed.

Some of the problems we came across when filming were:

·         Authentic Props – Some props in the house didn’t look authentic to that period in which the film was set, as we had to cover up a built in digital clock above the stove with a table cloth. We also ended up re-arranging the whole layout of the attic, so there would be better continuity and so the character didn’t have to stumble across dozens of cardboard boxes whilst walking from one end to the other.

·         Battery Life – We found out the hard way that the camera didn’t have a very long battery life, so half way through we had to recharge it and find something to do in the meantime. This didn’t affect us massively as we still got all the footage we had set out to get; it was just more annoying than anything.

·         Acting – Certain members of the group couldn’t act very well, so we had to figure out a way to show the audience what the character was doing without showing them the actor.

·         Forgotten shots – On the day of filming, we had planned to do certain shots but ended up forgetting to do them. As we had planned, that the thief would steal something and kill the wife accidently in the process rather than just going straight to her and killing her. But I don’t think this affected the opening that much as we wanted to portray that the detective wanted revenge and I feel we still managed that without the forgotten shot. We could have overcame this by making and bringing shooting scripts with us rather than just having them uploaded to our Blogs, we may have remembered the shot I we made a script.

Over all I think that the filming went really well and we got a wide variety of shots. The location worked really well for us and our group worked really well together each putting in our own opinions in how we thought each shot could be improved. I have learnt that to produce a short film it takes a lot more work than I first thought and a lot more planning and time. If I were to redo this product I would make sure that I was much more organized in my planning by making note of all the shots we needed and checking them off one by one as we filmed, this would help us a lot as we wouldn’t of forgot any shots. I would also try to get a range of different shots for each scene as when we came to edit our production we found that we did not have enough of a variety of shots to put into the final product as some didn’t look good enough to be in the final product.

I thought that the members of my group and I worked well together, we discussed each decision and came to a joint conclusion, we also all worked on every part of the filming and editing not have set roles so that both could put out own ideas into the final product.

I feel that looking back at our preliminary task we have improved our skills a great deal, in the way that we frame the shots and the mise-en-scene that we created for each of the shots. For this production we put a lot more thought into the smaller details, such as what was in the background of each shot, making sure that nothing looked out of place, this is something that we didn't consider too much during the making of our preliminary task.