Audience Feedback

We collected feedback on our task from the students of the other classes. This is a summery of the main strengths and weaknesses of our thriller opening sequence.
Starting with the weaknesses, there were many things people liked about our sequence. The definite favourite is the car scene and how we shot it with the go pro cameras. People think that those angles are something special and differ from what others used.

Another often said strength is our good choice of actors. Obviously boys mentioned our “hot” actress Paula, which was exactly what we wanted to target with using her. Also the girls liked her and we succeeded in what we planned, because she has a powerful role of a woman and a nice appearance which girls look up to. The slow emotion hair flick added to our positive views on the actress because she made them look so good. People loved her slow emotion scenes and thought they showed her dangerous appearance and her sexiness very well.

In terms of camera use and editing the students thought of our different camera shots really well and thought we edited them together quite good. They mentioned that we edited the transitions well and they build the tension really well so everyone wanted to know how it is going to continue.

The other students were also supposed to mention our weaknesses. The weakness most people mentioned is that they got confused with the ending. They send that they weren’t sure if there was a gun shot in the end and that it didn’t come across that well. Some boys added that they would want to have more action. The problem why they got confused is that there is the door sound, which could also be a too quiet gun shot and if it was a gun sound the rest wouldn’t make any sense, but it isn’t.

My evolution from the preliminary task to my main task

For the preliminary task we already had our storyboard and plot. We didn’t have to set up the location and costumes. The lighting was also unimportant. We didn’t have to look for good actors, we chose two people who were available. There was no need for props and sound effects. For our thriller we had to draw a storyboard, invent a plot look for really good actors that would suit each role find the props (i.e. the sniper, the guns, a car…). We wanted the room to look like a hotel room; this was difficult as we had to film in a boarding house. We chose Cornhill because it is the boarding house that looks most like a Hotel. We wanted our character to look very sophisticated we needed her to be wearing beautiful cloths so we all had to look for what would be the best outfit for her. The lighting in the room we set our main task was not right so we had to add a light with a blue film on it to make the lighting colder.

The storyboarding process was very long as our idea kept on changing so we did many different storyboards before finding the right one. Storyboarding was very interesting as it made me think in a different way then usually as instead of thinking about words I was thinking about images. It was rely hard to think in a structured way while doing this. This was different form the preliminary task as for that we already had a storyboard so we didn’t have to worry about it. Also in the preliminary task the story was entirely based on dialogue where as for the main task we chose to have none. This made it more difficult as the story line relied entirely on visual signifiers rather then words to tell the story.

It was much more fun to film our thriller then the preliminary task as we could choose exactly what shots we wanted to use as opposed to the preliminary task where the shots had already been decided for us. We chose to do many close-ups of her setting up the gun and of her face and the sniper together to show that she knew what she was doing. We also chose to do so hand held shots as that gave us more liberty with the camera than if we had used a tripod throughout. We also go to use go-pros to film the car, this gave us amazing shots of the car driving, we could not have done them using a camera as it would have been too dangerous as the person filming would have had to hang out of a window while the car was driving. We also filmed parts of our thriller in slow motion. We used it because it made Paula look more attractive and gave the thriller a more personal style that makes it stand out from other thrillers. We did not know how to do this when we filmed our preliminary task. The use of slow motion is an important part of our main task. We also used an eye-line match in our thriller to signify that she is aiming to shoot the man walking outside the car. It was very hard to film in the room because half of the room did not look like a Hotel room so we had to make sure that that half of the room was never seen on camera. This was similar to the preliminary task as we had to pay close attention to respect the 180° rule as it was a dialogue.

The sound in the preliminary task was much easer then in the thriller as it only involved the sound recorded during the filming. For the thriller we had to add loads of sound during editing this was very tedious. We had to find the right sound for the car driving, as there wasn’t always a sound recorded in the go-pro shots. We had to go through all the go-pro shots to find the sound to see if it matched the car driving sequences we choose. We also had to find the right sound for the sniper. There weren’t any slow motion sniper coking sounds on soundtrack pro so we had to elongate many different handgun-coking sounds and edit them together. This took about a day to do properly. We also had to create music to go with the action. We did this using apps on an I-pad and music found and soundtrack pro.

While editing the preliminary task I knew nothing about how to use final cut pro and, being as I am not very good with computers I found it really challenging to edit it. However I spent so much time editing the thriller that little by little I got used to using it and editing became really easy.  I edited the sound for the sniper which took a lot of time but was very satisfying when it was over. I also edited the shots with Simon in it towards the end finding the right moments to add his shots in. We had to add titles in the opening sequence. We chose the font for the titles because we wanted them to look sophisticated but at the same time simple. We chose a strong beat for the first part of the film to speed up the action. When the gun comes up we added a heart beat like sound and eerie music to make suspense rise. This seemed very difficult at first as we never knew where to place them and we had to use two different sizes for most of them. This too became easier and easier as we continued editing.

Preliminary task

Thriller

My thriller

How I attracted/adressed my audience

How Did You Attract

Who would be the target audience for my media product

The age for my target audience would be 15 to 24 year olds. They would be attracted to my film because it’s a thriller and young people enjoy thrillers. Young men enjoy seeing films staring an attractive actress and that have a lot of action like Salt, the girl with the dragon tattoo and Hanna this is why they would go and see my thriller. Young women would go and see it because the protagonist is a very strong woman and they can see themselves in her or admire her strength and courage,she would act as a role model for them. Men also like to go and see a film with their girlfriend and this thriller being aimed at a mainstream audience would allow them to go and see a film that they will both enjoy. I believe their would be a secondary audience for my film of over 25's who still enjoy going out for a date or night out and would enjoy watching my film. Because the narrative deals in universal themes that would attract a global audience I definitely feel that if people saw my film advertised and read the reviews they would want to see it. Precisely because it is a genre piece that deals in action with a strong female lead much like Salt and Hana two other films that have been hits in recent years. If our film achieved good reviews and we developed a strong teaser trailer I definitely feel we wopuld find a wider audience through online marketing. This is the kind of new media technology that our target audience frequently uses so marketing online using youtube, facebook etc would certainly help us find an audience.

An example of someone who will watch my thriller is Tom. He is a teenaged boy enjoys watching thrillers with lots of explosions and girls. He also likes playing videogames and going out with his friends. He is currently studying for his A-levels and plans to go on to university to study business. Some of his favourite films are Salt, Hanna, The girl with the dragon tattoo…

What institution might distribute my media product

Fox searchlight would produce and distribute my film because it fits in with their ethos of making low (by Hollywood standard) budget thrillers.It has an interesting plot, action and beautiful camera shots. It makes thrillers and it is also interested in low budget films and first time directors. Fox searchlight has produced The Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky he had previously made independent films such as requiem for a dream and pii. It would make money at the box office asit is aimed at a mainstream audience so it will attract a large audience and so many people will want to go and see it. Fox searchlight is owned by the conglomerate 20^th century Fox it is their independent arm designed to make commercially viable independent films because they are owned by a conglomerate it is easer to distribute the films and get them to their audience. Although I wouldn’t imagine our film would be a success on the same scale as a high concept film by having an attractive female actress in it the commercially viable plot and action sequences I definitely feel that Fox searchlight could help it find it’s audience. Fox searchlight has also recently produced a film called Shame by second time director Steve Mc Queen. It talks about a sexually deviant person. Although the subject is unpleasant Fox searchlight has managed to find it a larger audience then a British film company would have. This is why I think Fox searchlight would be the perfect producer for my thriller.

How my product represents particular social groups

We have chosen to represent men, women and policemen. We decided to break the stereotype of the ‘dumb blond’ by putting Paula in a position of power. However we didn’t want her to look ugly, as it would not attract a large audience so we chose to have her wearing a sexy and classy outfit and filmed her in slow motion. This goes against the stereotype that powerful women are butch. This conforms to the general conventions as it is expected to see women represented in an attractive way in a film. There are other thrillers that use strong female characters such as Salt, Hanna, The girl with the dragon Tattoo.  However, unlike our thriller the girl with the dragon tattoo chose to have a not so attractive female actress. Our main character is inspired from Angelina Jolie in Salt or in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. She is aiming to shoot a man that has arrived in a Land Rover and is wearing a suit. This implies that he is from upper class. The fact that she is about to shoot him goes against the stereotype that men from a wealthy background are more powerful then women. We chose to have a policeman entering in the room and stopping her from shooting him. This is a stereotypical representation of policemen as it shows them as interfering in crime. However, he is represented in an unorganised way as the lighting where warmer then the one you see Paula in. This shows that she is professional and organised and that he is unprofessional and unorganised. This puts her in a situation of power over him that goes against the stenotype.

I chose to represent men as being week so that the lead female character in comparison seems to be stronger. That creates a reverse binary opposition to the normal one of men being in position of power. This is an uncommon representation of gender as in most media products men are never represented as being weak so it subverts the stereotype.

Women in power tend to be represented in a negative light as generally people consider that women should stay at home with there children. We chose to show our lead actress in a positive light because we wanted to subvert this sexist dominant ideology.

Thrillers similar to mine:

I chose to represent men as being week so that the lead female character in comparison seems to be stronger. That creates a reverse binary opposition to the normal one of men being in position of power. This is an uncommon representation of gender as in most media products men are never represented as being weak so it subverts the stereotype.

Women in power tend to be represented in a negative light as generally people consider that women should stay at home with there children. We chose to show our lead actress in a positive light because we wanted to subvert this sexist dominant ideology.

A good example of successful women with good jobs represented negatively if they don’t have a man with them is the girls from Sex and the city as their life is always incomplete if they don’t have a man in it and are constantly looking for one.

In what way does my Mediaproduct, develop or challengeforms and conventions of realmedia product?

Task 1

Editing my thriller

When we first started editing we went through all the shots to choose the ones where the acting was best and the angle of the shot was nicest. We also had to go through all the go-pros shots to choose the right sequences. We then marked them as good shot alternative shot or bad shot.

We used crosscutting between Paula setting-up the gun and Ted driving his car to show that these two things are happening simultaneously and to signify to the audience that she is going to try and shoot him. We then used en eye-line match from Paula to Ted to confirm to the audience that she will shoot him. We also did crosscutting between Paula and Simon to signify to the audience that he will stop her from shooting Ted.

It was very difficult to find the right pace because we had many of our sequences were filmed in slow motion. The problem was we wanted our opening sequence not to be to slow so we had to gradually speed-up the pace after the slow motion sequence. We had to re-edit so many of our shots with Simon to make them the right length and place them at the right moment and make them the right length to speed-up the pace after the slow motion shots and to signify that something is going to happen.

We wanted Paula to be the hero of our thriller this is why she is the one with the most camera time. To give her more power we play a foreboding music when she pulls out the sniper. We used Simon as her opponent. They are binary opposites as they look and act in completely different ways. Paula’s sequences are slow and long where as Simon’s sequences are shorter, this presents Paula as a calm and precise character in contrast with Simon who appears to be more chaotic.

Finding the right sounds was extremely long and tedious. I am a perfectionist and having spent so much time working on this opening sequence I wanted the sounds to be as close to perfection as possible. We had trouble finding the right sound for the car driving past, as there wasn’t sound on all of the go-pro shots of the car so we had to go through many different go-pro shots of the car to find the right sound. We also wanted to use music to create rising tension so Diana created a beat on her I-Pad and we then added other sounds from, soundtrack pro, to give it different tones to make it sound more scary and foreboding so that it fit better with the thriller genre.

Using final cut pro was, at first, challenging, however little by little it became easer. The things that at first took ages (e.g. Cutting a scene at the right moment) became almost mechanical. However certain things remained very tedious, it was always rely difficult to place one shot after an other it a way that didn’t make the editing very visible, this was particularly difficult in the first sequence when cutting from the car to Paula walking into the room because the lighting is very different from one sequence to the other. It was also rely difficult to edit the go-pro shots together because the roads had to look more or less similar in each shot.

If I had a chance to go over the thriller and change it I wouldn’t because I’ve already spent so much time working on it that even the idea to have to work on it again would make me go crazy. Also I’m really happy with how it turned out so I rely wouldn’t change anything. There were moments that were very difficult to edit and find sound for. An example of a really hard sound to create is the sound of her coking the sniper; there were no sounds that matched the coking of the sniper so we had to create a new sound by extending loads of handgun coking sounds (found in soundtrack pro) and then editing them together to create the perfect sound. I didn’t find that there were any particular moments that were very difficult to edit.

I loved editing, it is so satisfying to see the opening sequence finished after all that time I spent editing it! There were moments when I just wanted to burst in tears by frustration in front of the computer because I just couldn’t find the perfect cut or sound, but over all I must say that I did enjoy editing.

We were an excellent team, we all got along and worked rely well together. I did a lot of the editing my self but I must say that there rely wasn’t one person who edited more then an other because we almost always edited all together so that we were sure that we all agreed with the decisions made by the others. There some times were moments where we disagreed about something, for example we originally only wanted two go-pro shots at the beginning of the clip, however some of us wanted more go pro shots at the beginning so we tried adding more. It turned out rely nice so we decided to keep them.

It was very different from editing my preliminary task because this time we had to make our choices of when to put each sequence. It was also much harder because in the preliminary task we didn’t have to add extra sound so it was much less complicate to edit. We had to cerate music for our thriller and make sure that the beat matched the pace of the opening sequence. However the result was much more satisfying because this time we knew much more about how to film and edit our shots. We also had much more freedom in choosing how to film and edit them.

Trough this experience in film making I have learnt how long it takes to edit and how difficult it is to find the right sounds. I also learnt how to use sound successfully to create meaning. I’ve never been rely good with computers so it was very challenging at first to use final cut pro but it soon became rely easy to use it. What at first I found really challenging was cutting thee shots at the right length but that became much more simple after a short amount of time spent on it. However the most challenging thing by far was the sound editing. Sound is what makes the difference between a good and a badly edited sequence and it is extremely difficult to find the perfect sounds. I learned how to play around with sounds to make them fit with the action. It wasn’t very hard to make my film appeal to my target audience and to fit in with the genre. It had several guns in it that is a key element in the thriller genre, it also had an attractive actress in it that attracts the target audience to thrillers: men aged 16 to 25. However adding music to it helped create more suspense and adds an up beat feel to it that fits in with the genre.