Our Final Thriller Opening

Here is our groups thriller opening 'Deceptive'

Evaluation Question 7

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

When I look back at our preliminary task it is clear to me that a lot of improvements and progress has been made due to being able to gain more experience when filming and editing, whilst also looking out for mistakes that we may have made in our preliminary task, and we want to avoid when producing our thriller opening.

When beginning to plan our thriller opening we did a lot more research into other films this time in comparison to our preliminary task, this is because we wanted to make sure that what we were choosing as our storyline would be engaging for our audience and they will be intrigued by what they are watching. I researched into the codes and conventions of a thriller e.g. and adapted them to our groups ideas of what we wanted to do and film. We came to the conclusion that our thriller would be about a girl who was recently kidnapped by an unknown person, she is now trying to move on with her life but is struggling with the fact that she is frequently getting flashbacks of that traumatic time. Now has to face her worst fears as the flashbacks get more intense and the return of her kidnapper is daunting over her. We chose this as our storyline as we felt it would be gripping for our audience as they try to figure out who the mystery villain is and what they want from 'Lydia'. When doing the storyboard this time around I made sure it was much more detailed, this is because I wanted my group to be able to understand in more detail the outline of our idea for our opening, so when it came filming it would be easier for us to know what we were doing and what we had to film next.

From the practise we gained from our preliminary task we were able to improve our filming and editing skills, especially when it came to specific shot types. In our preliminary task we were able to film and edit a successful Match on action shot however it was clear that improvements could be made e.g. the shakiness of the camera. We had the opportunity to make these improvements as we had included a Match on action shot at the beginning of our park scene. Before filming this we made sure that the lighting was bright and directly shining on 'Lydia's' face as she walking through the gate. We still made it three individual shots that made up the whole Match on action shot however this time we used a tripod which solved our issue of the camera being shaky in our preliminary shot. In addition to this we made sure we kept to the 180 degree rule and whenever we did change what side we were filming from we would make a clear transition from one side to the other, e.g. at the beginning of the opening we see a pan, into a track across the from one side of the room to another, into a montage of shots. This would allow us to be able to change the side that we wanted to film on without confusing the audience. During our filming time we also found that a lot of shots we either changed or added as we felt it would be the most effective option for our thriller opening. We sure we had a variety of shots, this included; long shots, close ups, extreme close ups, two person shots, view point shots, mid shots etc. This is something I found would be important for our thriller in order to draw the audience in and make it more unique. Moreover, whilst filming we made sure to look out for small yet silly mistakes that were made in our preliminary task, for example; making sure my hair was kept the same throughout as in a lot of the scenes I our preliminary task my hair is different to the previous shot.

To conclude I believe that our end result of our thriller opening was successful because we were able to use a variety of shots to keep our opening interesting for our audience. In addition our editing was effective because we made a variety of slow cuts and shots for less intense scenes, we also have a lot of fast cuts for our flashback scenes as they are more suspenseful and intense for the audience. 

Evaluation Question 6

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

During our production of our thriller opening we used a variety of technology in order to get the most effective opening as possible. Whilst producing our product we also were able to improve some aspects of our opening which helped it look more effective. Here are some of the technologies we had used;

Camera:

The camera we used to film our opening was my camera and it is Canon 1300D. I chose this camera over the school cameras because my camera had much higher quality, allowing us to get clear and crisp close up and extreme close ups of 'Lydia's' face and the props she was using, for example; her phone, her artwork etc. As it was higher quality it made the opening look more realistic and effective, the sound quality was also a high quality, meaning we were able to hear clearly what our characters were saying to each other, in order for the dialogue to make sense for the audience. In addition to this my camera is quite light for a DSLR this meant that it was portable, which made it easier to take it from location to location; The two different lenses, actual camera and leads all fit in my camera bag which was easy to carry around with me. Moreover, as it was my own camera I felt more comfortable using it as I knew how it worked and how to change the lenses. Throughout the filming of our opening I learnt that the use of different lenses made an effect on the quality of the shots, for example; when I filmed a shot in the park of 'Mia' walking towards ('Lydia') the camera I used the larger lens, this is because it was able to zoom in more onto 'Mia' as she is a further distance away. This was effective because it allowed the audience to have a better view of the 'mysterious dark figure' that is walking towards them (the camera).

Editing Software:

After filming our thriller opening we moved onto editing it, for this we used two software's which were IMovie and Final Cut Pro. IMovie was successful because we were able to insert clips, cut them and put them together to make them flow well. In addition to this IMovie also enabled us to insert our titles with a choice of different fonts and sizes, allowing a flexible choice for us. Moreover, IMovie also has a variety of different transitions where we were able to use a fade to black transition several times in order to go from scene to scene or location to location, we also used it to have a smooth transition between the final scene and the showing of the films title 'Deceptive'. Another way we used IMovie when editing our opening was to out our soundtracks to the opening, the soundtracks not only helped pull the whole opening together but they also add suspense, especially in the areas we feel are the most critical, and created a ominous feeling throughout. However when it came to editing the flashback we used Final Cut Pro as we wanted to fast cuts, flash and shaky effects. This is why Oliva edited the first flashback as home as Fast Cut Pro allowed us to achieve this and have the tension at its most critical. We all contributed to this part in order to get an clear idea of what we wanted and then we added a green effect over the top in order for it to be obvious it was a flashback.

YouTube:

Throughout our project YouTube has been helpful for us not only for uploading our products (preliminary and our thriller opening) but also for doing research. When our project began I did some research on YouTube where I watched previous AS Media thriller openings to give me inspiration for our own opening. Some ideas it gave me included unique shots and angles we could use in our project. In addition I also did research on different soundtracks that we could use for our opening through YouTube, there are many different movie soundtracks that I had the opportunity to listen to until we found the most effective ones; Gone Girl and The 5th Wave. 

Blogger:

Blogger has been a success in showing our groups plans, progress and final outcomes of our project. I was able to present my research, filming progress, editing progress, final outcomes etc. Moreover, I have used other medias to present my work and then uploaded them to blogger, for example; Prezi. This enabled me to present my work in a completely different way to just blogger.

Evaluation Question 5

'How did you attract/address your audience?'

As a group we made sure that we had a variety of different ways we could attract the audience in order to get the most success possible from our work. One of these ways was to make a questionnaire for our audience to answer where we were able to gather a variety of data in order to not only please our audience but to get more excitement out of the opening.

Evaluation Question 4

'Who would be the audience for your media product?'

Before we produced our product, as a group we discussed and considered what age and gender our 'Deceptive' will be targeting. In addition to this before we made a decision we made a questionnaire which we shared on Facebook, and one of the questions was 'How old are you?' and more people picked the option of 16-30. With the addition of independent research I found out that making the age rating of our opening a 16 was the most appropriate age. This is because they are more likely to enjoy a thriller film as a thriller is usually quite intense and gripping which would please someone of that age and/or older. Moreover, due to the bloody and violent scenes that can be seen in the opening and possibly throughout the rest of the film it makes sense to make it an older age rather than it being a 12. Next, we discussed what type of audience we are targeting in terms of Gender (through our opening/film). Another question we asked in our questionnaire was 'What is your gender' and more than half said female, this revealed to us that the Gender that our opening will be most likely targeting is a female audience. This is also because our opening (so far) is an all female cast, meaning they will relate to the characters more than the males. Overall, I believe that targeting a younger audience is an effective choice for our group and the success of our opening because the younger generation are more connected to social media, meaning we could promote our film on sites like Twitter and Facebook whilst also selling our film on popular sites and companies like Netflix.

Moreover, I believe that our opening/film 'Deceptive' will attract a lot of attention and success because there are similar movies in the industry that are very popular and appeal to a wider audience, one example would be Gone Girl which was a very successful and thrilling film. One aspect of this film that we do have in common is target audience (Gone Girl is an 18), meaning anyone who enjoyed watching Gone Girl might like watching our film, as we both have similar aspects. This would include both having psychological characteristics which are key and very effective in getting the audience drawn into a film, as it allows them to see different sides to people in comparison to other characters. It is clear that some way both films contain a character that has affected psychologically, in Gone Girl Amy is clearly affected mentally possibly by her husband or her daily life as she does some unforgivable and awful things that no sane person would do. Also in our opening to our film 'Deceptive' it is clear 'Lydia' has been traumatized by her passed (when she was kidnapped) due to her frequent flashbacks. Even though both characters have been affected and reacted differently to one another it is clear both have obvious mental issues which is a main characteristic of a psychological thriller. In addition, what they also have in common is the use of mystery, which leaves the audience trying to figure out a scenario that might be happening during the film or trying to figure out a particular character, whether its who they are or what there planning. Finally to add, another comparison I have made about these two films would be our film 'Deceptive' is based on a girl who in her past was kidnapped, while in 'Gone Girl' the film is based around a women who has supposedly been kidnapped, meaning audience would be drawn to this type of film. I believe after seeing these comparisons our audience will be drawn to our film meaning our success rate will go up as it has similar quality's that other successful films have.  

Evaluation Question 3

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

When thinking about which media institution might distribute our media product I did some independent research and found the company 'Warner Brothers Entertainment' and 'The Village Roadshow Pictures'. Here are the results of my research and my opinions on why I chose this institution to distribute my media product;

Evaluation Question 2

'How does your media product represent particular social groups?'

 

It is clear throughout our media product that certain social groups are represented, some examples of these social groups would be Gender, Age, Class etc. Here I am going to explain each social group and how we applied them in our opening.

Gender:
Throughout our opening Gender is represented in a way that is sometimes but not always shown in a thriller opening or a thriller as a whole. What I mean by this is a our opening is an all female opening with . Even though it is only a short opening we are able to see two girls with leading roles in a movie without there being a male actor being seen yet. Although there are many films including thrillers where women have leading roles for example; The Hunger Game. It is uncommon you see a opening where there are two leading females without a male role to be seen yet. Despite of this we know that all the main female actors in our film where the main characters of the film because they were the first three 'cast names' we saw in the titles. In addition, the male actors names do come after the female actors names which means they are important for this movies dialogue but for this particular film the females have the main roles. From this I can say that Gender could be represented as the women having the power and leading the roles throughout the film. However, this could be contradicted due to the storyline of the opening. The story is about a girl called 'Lydia' who is getting flashbacks from the time she was kidnapped by an unknown dark dressed figure. Also, during the openings storyline 'Lydia' sees a dark dressed figure walking towards her, she panics and falls to the ground. This could be seen as a stereotypical reaction of a women/girl in a film, she is seen as very vulnerable, can have her power and control ripped away from her instantly and cannot protect herself. This is a stereotypical representation of women. Despite of this after 'Lydia' realises the figure dressed in black is not a threat but her best friend 'Mia' we see her best friend comfort and try to help 'Lydia', this represents a powerful characters who is a girl and is trying to help her friend and empower her. So the representation of women in our opening is that yes there are some girls and/or women that are vulnerable and live up to the stereotypes of women, but there will always be some that will be powerful enough to stand up to those stereotypes, whilst at the same time possibly try to empower and help other women at the same time.

Age:
In our opening Age can be represented through the idea of the stereotype that 85% to 90% of the time someone is kidnapped or missing it is a child this is because they are less likely to defend themselves from their attacker. Meaning the age of 'Lydia' in our opening (which is 16) meets these statistics. We chose someone of this age to play the part of the victim (which was me and I am 16) meant that we meet these statistics in order to get not only the message across about child kidnappings but also the message on how vulnerable and effected they are even after what has happened. In addition to this our target audience is mainly aimed at teenagers, meaning they will most likely relate to our characters 'Lydia' and 'Mia' and feel sympathy for them (if they were in 'Lydia's' position).

Class:
Another social group that is represented in our opening would be Class. It is clear from the beginning of our opening and from 'Lydia's' bedroom because it looks very modern and bright, which tells the audience she is most likely middle class. You can also identify this from her choice in clothing as they also seem very modern and her phone also indicates she is most likely middle class as it is a very modern phone (an IPhone).