Evaluation - Danielle Driscoll

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

Conventions of a thriller:

• Suspense 
• Enigma
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Victim
• Threat

Many of the conventions above were included in our Media Studies AS thriller production to establish our film within its genre. Since our production was an opening, we wanted to specify our audience straight away and isolate them by using enigma and suspense, as well as a victim for them to sympathise with.

In our film the threat is not clear straight away, but as the film continues it becomes apparent that Jasmine is the antagonist, and Jessica is the victim. The relation between the two is similar to that of Danny and Alice in 'The Disappearance of Alice Creed'.

Our production conveyed Jessica as a victim by using specific camera work and mise en scene.

This is an EXT LS that establishes where the film is taking place. It also creates enigma  as to where it is; in a garden? Will a child be involved due to the swing? What country is it? Why are we shown this first? Why not go straight to the action? This all raises questions, which is why we chose to show this at the beginning; it puts the spectators in a position where they might not like it, creating suspense and isolation. This shot is an example of restricted narration, because like the character, the audience is unaware of where she is and why. The location is dark and eerie and there are leaves on the ground suggesting it is late autumn, early winter. The combination of diegetic and non-diegetic sound creates parallel sounding, helping to enhance the mood and vision; the whistling wind complements to dreary atmosphere.

This high angle MLS of Jessica automatically raises enigma; who is she? Where is she? The same place we saw at the beginning? Why is she in a cage? Why is she tied up? Has she been kidnapped? This is another example of restricted narration as the audience know little or less than the character does. The high angle MLS also allows a sufficient amount of the background and props to been seen by the audience, which adds additional communication about the meaning. High angle was used to show power and demand through the antagonist. This shot shows a victim who is open to vulnerability as she is alone, we know this by the fact that she's tied up around the wrists and ankles with rope which is revealed through a slow tilt to create suspense; a key prop in thrillers which connotes hopelessness, isolation, fear - but also strength; all conventions of thrillers which impose the audience to sympathize with the character. We chose to clothe the girl in a grey jumper, put on by the antagonist (which we don't see happening, but perhaps if the film was to continue we may have seen it in a flashback) which shows they have planned the kidnap as they disposed her previous clothes to get rid of any evidence. The setting is in a cage connoting entrapment and torture and the natural low-key lighting is overlooked as dull and energy-less; this reflects on how the girl is feeling. The non-diegetic sound is the music; high pitched and eerie which helps create a sense of foreboding. The diegetic sound is the rustling of the girl as she starts to panic whilst regaining consciousness.

This canted POV, low angle MLS is of the victim as she starts to come round from the deep sleep once the pillow case has been pulled off. A canted shot was used to show disorientation from the victim as she doesn't know where she is and the low angle anchors the fact that she is weak and vulnerable in this situation. Ellipses has been used to condense the time of her sleeping straight to the next scene. The focus pulling reinforces this idea as it shows she is tired and the immediate contact with daylight hurts her eyes. This is something the audience can relate with as I'm sure everyone has experienced this when out in the sun. As the girl starts to focus, the audience will see that the 'kidnapper' is holding an electronic device, a mobile phone, which the antagonist then takes a photo of the victim, backed up by the foley of a shutter sound to emphasize the prop. Spectators will then ask, why did they take a photo? Will they send it to someone? Is this a two man job? Prior to this the audience sees the victim in the boot of a blue Nissan, revealing there has been a car journey - significant in thrillers. It could be arguable that the narration is both restricted and unrestricted as the girl was in a deep sleep and wouldn't know what has happened, even up to the point of the photo being taken. The diegetic sound of heavy breathing compliments the fear of the unknown, the victim is distressed - another element in thrillers. 

This LS of the antagonist shows them pulling down the garage shutter. Enigma is brought up as the audience don't know where this is. Why is the threat there? Why are the shutters being pulled down? Where is the girl? Is she still in the car? The villain is also framed to the right of the shot showing a lot of the shutter, this composition shows just how vast the garage is, making the audience feel lost. We decided to use a garage as a setting as it has strong connotations of entrapment, isolation, dead-end - making the audience feel all of these when watching it. The shot starts off completely black and the diegetic sound-bridge of the shutters is high pitched, putting the spectators in a place they don't particularly like as high frequencies trigger pain in the ear and sound similar to screaming. Along with this is the parallel non-diegetic sound that is a low, alarming gong, notifying the audience that something concerning is about to take place. We chose to put some titles here as it shows up nicely against the low-key lighted background, and we used a filter where individual letters fade away, connoting the victim's mental strength slowly disappearing as she doesn't know what's going to happen. At this particular point it is yet again arguable that the narrative is restricted and unrestricted and the audience don't know if the girl is in the garage or not, thus creating suspense and tension.       

This subjective POV is a CU of the victims hands as she struggles to free herself from the rope. This induces the audience to feel isolated and anxious. The diegetic pulling and struggling helps to reinforce these feelings. The spectators are still taken along the path of a restricted narrative as this gets them involved with the action as they too are still questioning as to why this girl is tied up and captivated in a cage. The mediate cuts prior to this shot create pace, showing the girl is panicking; creating a rise in the audience's heartbeats, as they too are panicking whilst sitting on the edge of their seats.    

This eye level POV conveys the threat walking towards the victim in big, black, leather boots. These stereotypically relate to males and masculinity, and because of that, we chose the antagonist to be wearing boots because of that factor. They're also Dr. Martens boots, which have a history with skinheads and connote violence. We also included this shot as it shows detail to what sex they are; big feet, approximately 50cm walking length, stern footing - which all resemble to males. Of course now, the spectators are convinced the threat is male. We deliberately fooled the audience to believe the threat is male as stereotypically they are, and disguised the female antagonist by making the character wear a leather jacket and balaclava - typically associated with men. Particularly the balaclava which is tagged with terrorism and hidden identity. Prior to this shot the audience sees an EXT LS of a figure walking whilst the camera slowly pans to the left indicating where the subject is going and making the narrative unrestricted as we now know more than the victim, accompanied by parallel sound where the non-diegetic changes to a more sinister tone, alerting the audience that this character is a threat.

This MCU shows the victim being drugged by the threat as she starts to struggle and for the first time we hear her vocalize, which gets the audience to engage and sympathize for her. We decided to use a tissue with chemicals to make the victim go into a deep sleep as many thrillers seem to have this in them. Before this shot the audience sees the girl leaning up against the cage with a pillow case over her head and her hands still tied up. This could raise enigma as to why she doesn't try and run, but as we soon find out her feet of course are still tied up. But the need for the audience to shout 'GO, RUN!' shows they can relate to how she is feeling, and feel hopeless when she is drugged. We used a pillow case to cover the victims face as it heightens the fear of isolation and senses - she can't see, which creates tension and darkness. The slow eerie non-diegetic sound anchors the slow deep sleep the victim in going in to.

This high angle EXT LS establishes where the girl is, and from this we know she's in a mechanics garage, because of the ramps. tires and oil pumps - this all shows the victims isolation. This then raises enigma as we don't what will happen. Is she going to be tortured? Is she on her own? Will she escape? We chose to show this through CCTV as it shows she is being watched constantly, and there is no way to escape because of this. Whilst on CCTV, there is a jump cut to when the victim stands up and starts looking around. However, the CCTV was all done in post production which fools the audience into thinking it is real - this was done by adding a CCTV filter which includes faded lines and time. It was also recorded in night vision. The narration is unrestricted and objective as we now know more than her; she hasn't a clue that she's being watched by cameras. The diegetic sound of the CCTV turning on emphasises that fact that the girl is being watched. We chose to film this in night-mode as it makes it a little more spooky and questions whether it's day or night.

We decided to put the title of the film right at the end of the opening instead of the beginning as creates more of a suspended atmosphere. We used a filter to make the numbers show vertically on top of one another to reinforce the importance of the number and that each individual number means something in the film. The non-diegetic sound of the thunder roll empowers the entrance of the title and engages the audience as they have just discovered the antagonist is a woman, along with the eerie bells making the audience feel distant from the victim.

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

In our thriller we show only two characters Jessica (victim) and Jasmine (antagonist), but none the less they represent certain social groups; such as class, age and gender.

• Class

It is uncertain to pin point what class both characters are from, but because Jessica is going to be trained to be an assassin, her class would be educated. However, in the film we see her to be vulnerable due to the situation she is in. Jasmine would be upper-middle class; quite wealthy, as she is an assassin. Although, she doesn't come across as this because of the costume she is wearing - leather bike jacket, boots, balaclava.

• Age

Jessica is meant to be in her mid twenties as she needs the mental and physical ability to become an assassin, although in the film she is portrayed to look 20-21 due to her costume which makes her look vulnerable. She's naive, pretty and innocent, and the way she reacts in her captive situation; heavy breathing and slight whining, suggests she is unable to cope when out of her depth.

Jasmine is also meant to be in her mid twenties, early thirties as she needs the mental and physical ability to an assassin and train her apprentice. Our thriller has very negative connotations of her being sinister as the audience would feel she's kidnapped this girl for no apparent reason to their knowledge. However, due to her costume, she looks a lot older in her mid thirties perhaps. 

• Gender 

Gender in our film plays a very important part as we decided to go against the stereotype of a male kidnapper. The mise en scene of the antagonist is all very masculine; leather jacket, big boots, balaclava, strong build, tall, threatening - which positions the audience to believe that she is a male. Although, they could have have been wearing just a balaclava and masculine clothes, but to make the audience feel threatened by the character, dressing them as they were was the best decision to portray them as sinister and dark. This all then later raises enigma when she picks up the phone as say's 'I've got her', as the spectators would hear a voice that sounds like a female. The way she walks has a very intended way about it; she knows what she's doing, everything is deliberate which can be associated with manliness.  She is in charge, dominant and independent.

Jessica's gender is also shown through areas of mise en scene; costume, facial expression, hair, make-up and body language. Her costume consists of a grey jumper, fluffy boots and grey, tight jeans which emphasizes her curves and reflects her femininity. She is very stereotypically feminine, she's a victim and weak, vulnerable, dependent and beautiful. Her facial expressions and body language show this vulnerability and weakness; the way she doesn't try and scream or cry for help, shakes and struggles as well as the look of fear on her face. Her hair and make-up reflect her beauty. However, if she was to be dressed more provocative and a lot more kick ass, the audience may not sympathize with her as much as they may feel she can stand on her own two feet and stick up for herself.       

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

I decided not to distribute the film via the cinema due to cost; it's a low budget UK thriller with new actors that no one would have heard of, and on average, one print costs around £1800. A saturation release would approximately have nine-hundred copies of the film, with around 5 reels per film. So, the grand total to exhibit the film would be £8 million.

Upon these facts, I feel as though making a deal with Apple and releasing the film on iTunes would be the best way around it based on these reasons:

• The target audience for my film are teenagers and young adults, particularly males but females too who are the mainstream of iTunes.
• The age of my target audience would suggest they are still in education and spend a lot of time studying on the PC listening to music, mainly downloaded from iTunes. Because of this, it would be the perfect opportunity to advertise the film when they go to the iTunes Store to purchase/download something.  
• Because it would be exclusive to Apple only, I would contact Orange as they too have a deal with Apple where as if you're an Orange customer, every Thursday you can receive/download a new film from iTunes on them. This would be perfect for students as they financially don't have the money to spend at the cinema or on DVD.
• The Orange mobile phone network is also a major UK and world brand with both a strong network and customer base in the UK. The Orange network has more base stations than any other UK mobile phone network and offers a comprehensive overseas service for customers.
• I would have the film released on iTunes on a Wednesday as it's a low budget film and if it has enough views in the UK it can always be released on iTunes worldwide. 
• If you download the film, it can easily be watched via television by connecting the PC to the TV and most households today have a widescreen plasma TV, making it feel cinematic. It can also be watched whilst on the go on an iPod, iPad or iPhone, meaning you can watch it as many times as you like wherever you are. 
• It's also more economic than watching it at the cinema or on DVD.

Spike Jonze, who's an American director, producer and actor, created a short sci-fi romance film called I'm Here, which was premiered on Facebook and Sally Potter, a British film director and screenwriter created a film RAGE, which was all filmed on an iPhone and is simultaneously available on mobile, online, digital screens and DVD. This all goes to show that you don't need to spend thousands of money to distribute a film in theatre.

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

The age guideline for this film would be 15 because as the film progresses, there will be accounts of violence and perhaps strong language and imitable behavior.

The audience would be teenagers and young adults who likes action, suspense and constant enigma being raised. Particularly, stereotypically, males as this kind of thriller would definitely address this demographic, due to the attractive women and the adrenaline packed action. However women too will enjoy it as it conveys this whole cultural 'girl power' - they are equally as strong mentally and physically to men.

I would point out that anyone from the older generation would probably not be interested in this film and may find it inappropriate as it shows infliction of pain and they may not understand the whole modernized culture of today's society.  

I was originally going to put 12A as the guideline for the film as it has similar aspects to the newly released The Hunger Games, but due to the recent criticism it's had I decided to change it to 15.

Other action thrillers this demographic would be interested in:

• Trapped
When their daughter is kidnapped by experienced nappers, the Jennings' turn the tables on this seemingly foolproof plan.

• The Disappearance of Alice Creed
Two men fortify a nondescript British apartment so it can serve as a prison, and then kidnap a woman and tie her to a bed. Before there's even time to react, we're plunged into a very nasty situation, but not a simple one.

• The Entitled
A young man, broke and jobless, abducts three rich college kids to try and get money from their fathers.

• Cellular
A young man receives an emergency phone call on his cell phone from an older woman. The catch? The woman claims to have been kidnapped; and the kidnappers have targeted her husband and child next.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Since our demographic is male we felt that a victimized, beautiful young woman would create sympathy and an attraction from them. Males like the idea of being a hero in such a situation which helps the thriller be of interest to them. The shots we used increased her vulnerability to create this sympathy and attraction, for example POV and CU.

Even though the beginning of our product is quite measured and slow the suspense makes up for this, and this high tension is liked among our audience. The fast pace of our cage scene is also interesting for a younger demographic; fast moving with enigma.

I showed our thriller opening to a few people around college, Facebook and at home, and this is what they said: 

"An excellent film, if you saw it on T.V. you wouldn't think it was done by AS students" - Kelvin Morris

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

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

Since our preliminary task I have progressed in my development of technology skills, the use of camerawork, mise en scene, and my ability in continuity editing.

I've learnt how to smoothly focus pull on a camera manually to show disorientation in a character and to create tension and enigma for the audience as they await to see what is to be revealed. This focus pull particular was brilliant in this shot as it shows the girl regaining consciousness.   

In our preliminary we used short takes and quick cuts in editing to build up pace and show Rebecca was late for her interview. In editing I feel as though I've learnt how to perfect this by using quick cuts in this scene to show the victim is panicking and to make the audience's adrenaline race as they start to sympathize for her. By doing this, I've been able to sharpen my match on action technique and improve long takes to to create mood and atmosphere. 

In this shot we used GarageBand to put non-diegetic sound on as the audience sees the antagonist for the first time. Since our preliminary task, I've become more confident in using GarageBand, as I hadn't really used it before making our thriller opening and in the preliminary, a querky, fast paced soundtrack was downloaded from YouTube, but because of copyright, music had to be created via GarageBand for the thriller, which took a while to piece together as it had to be parallel to a particular mood, and used more sparingly with varied volume to enhance the mood.

I found adding titles to our film reasonably difficult as there wasn't a particularly dark area to put them, and when there was, there was something important happening. During our preliminary, we didn't add any titles up until the end of the film making it easier to do. So, I've definitely learnt how to put titles in the right place. We also added non-diegetic sound as they appeared to give them more importance and to boost the tension.   

During this shot we used a foley to enhance the sound of the lock, making the audience feel uneasy by it and on edge as they know where the antagonist is going. In our preliminary, we didn't use any foleys. Therefore it's definitely helped my understanding in recreating sounds, which again is an improvement from the preliminary.  

I've learnt how to construct a character by using aspects of mise on scene, sound , editing and specific camerawork. In this shot the antagonist is presented through a canted shot, reflecting their mental and physical status. This is also a POV shot from the victim showing they are weak and vulnerable as she is looking up. The villain is holding a pillow case, which in thrillers are associated with suffocation, making the audience feel isolated like the young girl. In our preliminary we used certain features of a teacher to make the audience believe it is real; for instance, the setting was in a room surround by educational papers, timetable and a computer. We also used specific lexis like 'young children' and 'teachers 'assistant', to help reinforce this idea.

In this shot we decided to add another foley of the victim heavily breathing as we couldn't find any on GarageBand that were good enough to use. Because our characters were simple and didn't need to be manipulated in any way in our preliminary, I wasn't able to explore GarageBand or foleys enough.

This is another good example of match on action being used in continuity editing. In this scene we used different camera shots and angles to explore what moods and feeling they create for the audience. When filming our preliminary, we were still learning different shots and angles and were new to this idea of match on action and the 180 degree rule, but we managed to pull it all of in our opening and my understanding in the 180 degree rule has improved vastly.

In our thriller opening we got to explore mise en scene and the effects different lighting has on a subject. In this shot the antagonist is receiving a phone call from an unknown caller. The lighting on the character emphasis the sinister atmosphere they withhold as they are surround by black and are only lit up by the TV. We were unable to explore lighting in our preliminary as our characters didn't have a huge role to play around with in terms of lighting. 

Rosies Evaluation

Evaluation

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

Top left: Using focus pulling. This typically used in a thriller film as at first you are unable to make out what the subject is doing which creates suspense and also enigma. The audience may be asking at this point, “Who is she?” “What is she doing inside a cage?”. We didn’t use any extra lighting in this scene as the natural light was perfect. We used added non dietetic sound as again it created suspense and tension.

This focus pulling technique we created on the camera rather then in the editing suit. It was more difficalt doing it on the camera but we tried kept trying as this is the effect we really wanted for this scene so we didn’t give up.

Here is an few examples of focus pulling: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNKpjrxINos

Top Middle: This is where we used a tilt downwards on the female subject. We did this to show the audience that her feet and hands were tied up. this is to create enigma and suspense which is the main techniques needed in a thriller film.

Top Right: we showed the antagonist walking down the field. This looks like stereotypically a male protagonist (scary and big)  dressed in un feminine clothes so show dominance towards the other character and to make him look more confident whereas the other character is small and female. We showed it in the middle of a field as it looks as if no ones around which is what we wanted to portray and this creates enigma as people will be asking “what are they doing in a field what looks like the middle of nowhere?”

Middle Left: Again we used focus pulling here and a point of view shot. This is to show she is maybe drugged and keeps passing in and out hence the focus pulling on the other subject walking towads her. This scene is now obvious that the girl is inside a cage, this creates further enigma for the audience. We did the focus pulling though editing on final cut whereas the other focus pulling shot was done on the HD camera.

Middle Center: This is the dragging shot where we had to re film a few times as we changed our minds. Again the lighting was natural lighting was perfect so we didn’t have to use any lighting. This is a typical scene for a thriller, a poor innocent girl gets drugged and dragged somewhere so when she wakes up she has no idea where she is. This creates suspense and enigma as the audience will be asking about where she is going and why. We have used a high angle so we are only able to see the feet of the characters. We have done this to again create enigma and so we are unable to see the face of the villen to keep everyone is suspense.

Middle Right: This is a point of view shot in the boot of a car. It shows the subjects point of view as they are lying in the boot. Again we used depth of field (focus pulling) to create the drugged effect. She does not know where she is and she keeps passing out. You are also unable to see the protagonists eyes or face as they are wearing a balaclava, this creates enigma as you are cant see the subject properly. We also used a canted shot as the girl is lying in the back of the car boot. this is suppose to symbolize she is weak and is unable to put her head up straight. We also used a foly a this point to make the sound of the camera louder and to make it more obvious that she is taking a photograph.

Bottom left: This is an example of where we did off screen sound. You cant see anything but you are able to hear a heavy garage door closing. This creates suspense and you may not be able to work out what the sound it to begin with but as the scene goes on it turns into on screen sound which then you are able to see. By having off screen sound it creates enigma for the audience. This is also dietetic sound as you can hear what both characters are hearing.


 Another example of this would be if you heard a gun shot but you do not see anyone getting shot, this creates enigma as you are unable to establish who got shot.

Bottom Middle:   Camera. We wanted to shoot at different angles in our short film so we decided to do this shot like this. This included the two characters in the same scene we focused in on the stereotypical victim and the backshot of the antagonist is slightly blurred. This is again to create suspense are you are unable to see the location and second subject clearly. This creates enigma.

Bottom Right: This is where we did our CCTV shot. We shot this like a normal scene and then changed it on final cut pro to make it look like CCTV. We actually shot it in night vision as it created this green color. This was very effective and they use this in thrillers to show a protagonist watching the victim in a cctv camera. We shot this as a high angle so it gives the illusion of the camera looking down and observing. Here there was a lack of sound. This is as we wanted to audience to only focus in on the girl and nothing else to create enigma.

The Main Conventions of a Thriller film is that in the opening it asks more questions than it answers (enigma) I think our film does this. Why is the girl in the cage? Who is she? Who is the person dragging her though the leaves? Where is she going?

At the Beginning of some thriller films, they do not reveal the identity of a character this it what we did. an example of this would be the dark night.
As you can see their faces are covered so you are unable to see the identity of these people. that’s what we did in our film to create enigma.

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

Our Protaginist Character (Jaz Bendell):

The protagonist character is wearing dark colours and you can’t see the face of the subject as they are wearing a balaclava. At this point we are unable to tell weather this person in male or female but the way the character is dressed the audience automatically presume it is a male character which would be stereotypical, but later on we realise it is actually a female character. This may shock the audience as though the first few minutes they believe it is a man. We chose to do this to change the stereotypes around and maybe attract more females to watch it as its not stereotypical to have a woman character as a protagonist.
If we automatically presumed that the villain was a female character and say the victim was male then then I think that the audience would view the film differently. The male audience may not have wanted to watch the film as if we made the villain look male they may get into the film and watch more. By making the character look male it makes the person seem more intimidating towards the Female Character.

We used a girl as the victim as we thought it would be a more realistic way to do it as stereotypically the female is always the victim. Our opening represents the female gender in a helpless and stereotypical way. As the female gender is stereotypically the helpless and nonviolent. If we were making the whole film we decided we would make the female character change stereotypically as she is going to be trained to be an assassin.

We automatically assume the female is from a lower class as the clothing she is wearing is not posh. She has mud on her face which again represents her social class.

We decided to have a low angle when the subject puts a case over the victims head. This is to show the villain has power over the girl as the character is higher up and has more dominance over her.

 In a thriller, the stereotype would be that the female victim is a female that is weak and variable. An example of this in a real thriller film is "The Disappearance of Alice Creed" this is a thriller where a girl gets kidnapped, a bit like our film. but in this case there is stereotypically male villeins and a female victim.

The Disappearance Of Alice Creed Tailor.

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

i believe that making a deal with apple and releasing our film on iTunes would be the best idea for our UK thriller rather than releasing it in the cinema. As a cinema release is quite expensive and costs around £1800 pounds per film, and a saturation release would have 900 copies of their film so if you add that all up, it would work out very expensive.
By making a deal with apple i think would be the way forward.

Spike Jonze, who is an American director created a short romance film called I'm Here, which was premiered on Facebook and Sally Potter, a British film director created a film called Rage, which was all filmed on an iPhone and is available on mobile, online, digital screens and DVD. This goes to show you do not need to spend loads of money on distributing a film

The reasons with going with apple are:

1. We are mostly attracting the older teenage audience, and most people this age use iTunes quite frequently so this way we can attract this audience. The main audience we presume will still in education which means they are on the computer most of the time studying and listening to music probably off iTunes. So we thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to advertise and sell our film with Apple.

2. By doing a deal with apple, you are able to watch movies on any apple device, whether that is an iPhone, i pad or an iPod. This is good as it means you are able to watch a film where ever you are, which is perfect for what we want. You can also connect your computer and your t.v together so you can watch the movie on your television too.

3. I would also try and get a deal with Orange too, as on a Thursday you are able to download and watch a film of iTunes on them. so with this the students do not have to spend loads of money on it.

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


We think our film would be suitable for 15 year old teenagers amd above. so we would classify our movie as a 15, which means children under 15 cant see it. Our main target audience i think would be 15-30 but obviously older people are welcome to watch it and enjoy it but i think that the language and themes would be quite modern if we were to continue with the film. I think this film is probably more suitable for the older teens.
we rated the film a 15 as if we were making a whole film the girl would be being trained to be an assassin. I think by this storyline that there would be violence and maybe some strong language, which would be unsuitable for younger ages.

I think that mainly girls and women would watch our film as the roles are not stereotypical, for example the villian character is a women. This may come to a suprise for some female viewers and they may want to continue watching.
I think that most viewers watching our film would have also watched:

Cat woman...


I think they may have watched this as the villian is also female, and i think women get more drawn to these films as they are not stereotypically correct.

5. How did you attract/adress your audience?

I think that our audience would like our film as one of our characters is not sterotypical. The audence is led to believe she is a man before she relieves her voice which instantly you are able to tell she is a woman. People would love our film as it creates LOTS of enigma. For example, 'who is that girl? what is she doing in a cage in the middle of nowhere?' and questions like 'why is she being dragged to a big garage? why is there a person taking a picture of the girl?' we wanted to make the audience ask questions to begin with, but as the story unfolds you are able to tell who is who and what is going on.

I showed the film to lots of people and here's what one of them said:

 

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

 Camera and Lighting

Before this project i hadn't used an HD camera before, i had used a normal camera but not a HD camera. At first i was a bit weary of using all the buttons, but when started using it i found it really fun. the qaulity of the camera was amazing and it picked up every detail.

This inst the exact camera we used, but it is similar.

The Lights we used were very easy to use. we didn't use much lighting as the natural light was perfect for what we wanted. the only time it was necessary for lighting was when we filmed inside the garage, even then we only used one of the lights as the lighting was already low key in the garage which is what we wanted.


Editing
To edit our movie together we used final cut pro, which i found hard to use at first, but it was great for adding cool effects such as our CCTV scene we had. We also added our titles on final cut too, we wanted them to be simple and plain to contrast with what we see on the screen.

Sound
To add in any sounds we wanted to use, includin diogetic and non diogetic sounds we used garage band. I personally loved this, as we were able to find lots of diogetic sounds such as car boots closing to add into our film to make the movie seem more realistic. There were so many to choose from!

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

Looking back at the prelim task i think i have progressed and learnt alot more about the Camera, Lighting, and The Editing Process.

Top Left: i learnt how to do a smooth focus pull using the camera which i didn't know you could do, i thought you had to do i in final cut (which you can do as well.) we did this to show the audience that she is going in and out of conceousness and doesn't know where she is. i did this to create enigma for the audience.


Top Middle: in our prelim task, we used shorter takes to create a fast pase, to show the woman being late for her interview. We used that technique and put it into our thriller opening. we did this to create tension and enigma where is she? why is she there?


Top Right: We used non diegetic sound throughout our thriller opening, this is to create tension. since our prelim our whole group as been more confident in using garage band and we know how to find and add diegetic or non diegetic sound onto our film.


Middle Left: I have learnt and become more confident in adding titles and actors names onto our film using final cut pro.  I have learnt to only add these in dark places to make them show up. some parts of our film we wanted to put them, but we were unable to as the lighting was not correct so we changed it onto her hair as her hair is quite dark so you are able to read what it says.


Middle Center: Here we used a foly for a lock. We were able to record our own foly on a sound recorder and then upload it onto garage band and then add it to our film. This was a new thing to me as we didnt do it in our prelim task. But i became more confident in it when we started doing it over and over again with different sounds.


Middle Right: Here we did a point of view shot, where i sat in the boot of the car and filmed and the point of view of the girl. In this shot we were able to create the character through Mise En Scene (costume) i also did a canted shot as it showed the victim to be weak and unable to do anything. I've learnt how to construct a character by using aspects of mise on scene, sound , editing and specific camerawork. In this shot the villain is shown through a canted shot, reflecting their mental and physical status.  The villain is holding a pillow case, which in thrillers are associated with suffocation, making the audience feel isolated like the young girl. In our preliminary we used certain features of a teacher to make the audience believe it is real; for instance, the setting was in a room surround by educational papers, timetable and a computer.


Bottom Left: Here, again we used folys of heavy breathing and a car boot closing. We again did this ourselves using a sound recorder rather than finding one one garage band. We did this as it enhances the sound to make it seem more tense.


Bottom Middle: Here is a good example of a match on action. We defiantly perfected this from our prelim task as in that we had a few issues where the actor was not walking the same spread ect. but this time we knew exactly what we wanted and how we were going to film it. i think since our prelim we have definitely become confident with producing match on actions.


Bottom Right: This is where we discovered we could play around with the lighting, as it was a pitch black room, we decided to make the subjects face only be lit up by the screen. this made things more sinister as you are unable to make out the persons face properly. We were unable to play around with lighting in our prelim as our characters didnt have a huge role. And we shot in rooms which were already filled with light, so it was difficult.


I feel i have learnt alot from our prelim and thriller task. I have now become confident in using the HD camera, the lights, final cut pro and garageband this is a step forward as before i started studying media i wasnt confident in using any of this equipment but now i am.