Evaluation

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

Our linear plot initially developed into a thriller, and used a range of conventions common within the genre. The conventions that applied to our ideas were the 'stronger, more intelligent male protagonist', elements of 'stalking', 'obsession', 'mind games', and 'kidnapping'. We challenged the common order of events within a thriller by telling the film's narrative through the protagonist, though the rest of the film would actually be told through another main character. In doing this, the protagonist is given a sense of power and control from the very beginning. There are many sub-genres that can apply to the thriller genre, and we chose to create a psychological thriller which would allow us to bring the element of 'mind games' to the film. Our film uses the typical character conventions of the thriller genre, centralised around the 'psychotic individual' who happens to be the male protagonist, who finds himself involved in a 'twisted relationship' with one of his vulnerable female patients. We wanted to challenge the stereotype of the psychotic individual, and so decided to make our villain a doctor - something that isn't stereotypical or seen as 'the norm'.    

The first two screenshots show the similarity between our film and Dexter. In both, the identity of the dominant male protagonist is not revealed to make the character appear dangerous and mysterious. Our shot is a low angle shot intended to give the character a sense of superiority.

Using knives as props is a typical thriller convention. It helps to create the element of 'mind games' that a psychological thriller brings to the screen. It also brings an element of danger to the film.

    

The image on the left shows the 'kidnapping' element of our film, which is a typical theme of the thriller genre, and the image from 'Dexter' on the right shows a man preparing for a normal day even though something sinister will happen as the plot develops. Again, this is similar to our film (e.g. top left image).

Our film opens with the CU of a clock to establish the time frame of the film. Following this shot, is a variety of shots that show the male protagonist methodically preparing for a normal day at work. The fact that we didn't use an establishing shot and instead shot most of these scenes in CU means that the audience is not given a detailed insight into his life, as he is intended to remain mysterious. None of the shots reveal his identity either, which creates suspense and tension for the audience. An over-the-shoulder shot of the wall of photographs is the introduction of suspicion, because it is the first instance which reveals that there is something more sinister to this character. After this, the camera pans left to reveal the female character Sky who is being held captive in a basement. We panned into this shot to suggest her regaining consciousness because she has been drugged by the man, Gilbert. It also gives the shot a dream-like quality that reflects her state of mind. The CU of Gilbert cleaning knives reiterates the element of danger in the film, and creates suspense for the audience because by juxtaposing the shot of the girl and the knives, the audience assumes the knives are being prepared to harm the girl. The CU of the man's feet as he descends the stairs into the basement represents the male character as physically more superior than the girl via height difference, as well as intellectually. Then the following shots of Sky illustrate her vulnerability, particularly the LS of her under a spotlight. Finally, the MS of the male as a dark silhouette approaching the camera instils a sense of panic in the audience, which made it a very good cliff-hanger.

The male protagonist is concealed in dark shadows, or shot either from the neck down or from behind to keep his identity a mystery. We used lighting in this way to make the character appear more foreboding and threatening. Similarly, we used lighting to spotlight the female character, which made her appear isolated and gave the impression that she wouldn't be able to escape the male.

We thought it was important to include classical music in our opening sequence to illustrate the immaculate, medical-type obsession our male protagonist has with ordering everything in a certain way. The character was intended to have very old-fashioned interests, which is therefore why we chose to use Black Narcissus. The juxtaposition of danger and imminent threat, and relaxing classical music adds a disturbing element to the film which is exactly what we were aiming for. In the image below, we lined up the 'stalker' images Gilbert has of his female victim, so that they were all in line in an 'OCD' style-layout - an idea influenced from the film One Hour Photo during our research, also shown in the image below.

Our wall of stalker photographs

Wall of stalker photos in One Hour Photo

Our choice of locations included the TV Studio in College which provided the perfect setting for a basement due to the darkness of the room, and an electrical box that was already on the wall. It also had a range of pre-fitted lighting that made it much easier for us to light the set when we were shooting. Our second location was a house which contained small, confined spaces and yet provided us with excellent filming conditions. It also had a basement which allowed us to film the male protagonist descending the stairs. Both locations are stereotypically used in thrillers, though we adapted them to create a unique, original setting for our film. Typically, thrillers are set during the night when locations are dark and eerie in appearance. We challenged this convention by setting our film in the morning, which again made the film foreboding because it suggests a day of danger ahead.

These are images of the TV Studio

These are images from the house

The Iconography of our film challenged the typical iconography used for thriller films. Instead of suggesting danger through use of red text or using text that usually depicts a film as scary; we opted for a typewriter font that hinted at the medical background of our male protagonist, and his obsession with being orderly, rather than the genre.

Font: Typewriter

Stereotypical red text for a thriller

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

We subverted the stereotype of the doctor by making him the protagonist, whereas a doctor would normally be someone to trust. Our protagonist is very smart and professional in appearance, to reflect his obsessive personality. It also gives him an aura of intelligence which makes him superior over his female captor Sky. We also represented this through low angle shots of Gilbert to reinstate his superiority.

Gilbert's costume is made up of a dark shirt,
dark tie, and dark trousers.

In the film Se7en, the character on the right who turns out
to be the bad character is dressed in dark clothing.

(Using dark costumes for bad characters is a typical convention of a thriller film, which is why we chose to do it).

Sky's costume is made up of a white vest,
black jeans, and black pumps.

We used the stereotypical image of a young person to create our female character Sky. She is a typical teenage girl, which is reflected through her costume. Even though her parents are absent in the film, they would be married, and typically caring and supportive. Sky's bedroom would also appear in the full film, and shed some light on her 'girly' personality. To draw on Sky's vulnerability, we filmed her in LS, and used make-up to give her a black eye. The fact that she has been drugged by Gilbert is highlighted by the fade out transitions between shots which creates a slow build up, and adds a dreamy quality to the film. Positioning Sky so that she appeared in a spotlight also made the expressionism of the character more isolated and helpless. The character's dialogue is also slightly drowned out by the music in the film, reiterating the idea that she really has no way out.
Our full film would have challenged the stereotypes of the Police, and their role in the law. The fact that the Police cannot help with the situation allows the character of Sky's brother, Ben to take control of the situation and prevent the ending of the film being too cliched.

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

Our chosen distributor was Soda Pictures, a UK based film distributor of independent films and world cinema. Soda is a well-known distributor, and has worked with many upcoming directors to create films such as 'Head-On by Faith' and 'After the Wedding'. The company has also represented a collection of films on DVD, from vintage to classic. Marketing of our film would include the release of posters, trailers and interviews on local television and radio stations, perhaps a cameo at the London Film Festival (who are involved with Soda Pictures), and a website which would provide trailers, downloads and a gallery.

Click to go to: Soda Pictures website

Distributors such as 20th Century Fox and Summit Entertainment would not have been suitable for our project because they are large-scale Distributing companies that specialise in Hollywood Blockbusters. Our project was intended to be a small independent film targeted at local, niche audiences, and therefore requires a smaller, more focused Distributor to represent our film successfully.
Using a smaller Distributor means that the budget is limited, and allows the film to focus on the characters and locations to create a realistic story. If we had chosen to create a Hollywood Blockbuster aimed at a mainstream audience, the film would have focused more on the events if the story, and the twists of the plot. Even though the budget would have been larger for a mainstream film, there is a chance the content of our film would have to be adapted to meet the interests of a mainstream audience. The main idea would be less original, and the authentic style of the film would be lost to the high budget of production.

Paramount Pictures

'The Lovely Bones' does not have the same genre, but does have a similar storyline to our film. Paramount Pictures were the company that distributed the film, and have distributed the re-release of 'Titanic' in 3D, and the latest 'Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol'. They also distributed the psychological thriller 'Vertigo' which is the same genre as our film. 'One Hour Photo' is also a psychological thriller like our film, and has a similar storyline. It too is an independent film that was distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, and aimed at a niche audience. Through our research into 'The Lovely Bones' and 'One Hour Photo', it is clear that the latter has the typically authentic feel of the independent film which is what we have aimed to capture in our project.

Click to go to: Paramount Pictures website
Click to go to: 20th Century Fox website

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

The target audience for our project is young adults and teenagers, both male and female. After researching our audience, we found that both male and female students enjoy watching a range of different film genres such as Action, Thriller/Suspense, Horror, Comedy, Crime and Gangster, Romance, and Adventure. The audience we received feedback from was made up of students, and people who were employed, and ranged from ages 13 to 71. Their media consumption entailed watching films at the cinema, at home on DVD, watching and downloading them online, or via games consoles. We chose our particular target audience with a certificate of 15 in mind for our end product.

Click to go to: Questionnaire results and analysis of results

In order to research into our target audience, we created a questionnaire. After posting the link to the questionnaire on Facebook, where we could easily access our audience, we received feedback via a spreadsheet. This allowed us to easily compare our results.

This is the audience research questionnaire we created

After analysing our results and understanding the feedback that we received from our research, we created a treatment for our film. This drew on the strong points we received in the results from our questionnaire, and also drew on the interests of our target audience. This meant that it was more likely we would end up creating a film that our target audience would like.

Click to go to: Treatment 1 (Full film)
Click to go to: Treatment 2 (First 2 minutes)

Some of the feedback we received from our questionnaire is that our film should have a lot of twists and unexpected events to create suspense. They also preferred to watch thrillers that have a realistic quality to them, and that have an interesting plot to keep the audience gripped.

After receiving our questionnaire feedback, we did some research using the British Board of Film Classification website (BBFC) and decided that our film would be certified a 15 because of violence, strong language, concept horror, imitable behaviour. Our film does not promote violence or obsession, though in order for us to involve this storyline in our plot, we had to give our film a certificate of at least a 15.

Click to go to: BBFC Website


5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I think that we have successfully reached our target audience by using medium like Facebook to target our audience through a research questionnaire. The majority of the feedback we received was from our target audience of teenagers and young adults which therefore showed that our research had been successful and that we had managed to target our preferred audience.

During planning, we developed the idea of a young female character of the same age as the audience with whom they would be more likely to connect. We found that most young people like watching thriller films, and used the typical conventions of a thriller by centralising the plot around a kidnapping scenario, depicting the threatening atmosphere through lighting, and using props such as knives, to ensure that we grasped the concepts of the genre which appealed most to our target audience.

Feedback quotes like "I like the dark, mysterious feel of the film" and "The music creates tension because it's not what you expect to hear" suggest that the conventions we used for our thriller film did in fact appeal to our target audience. According to some of the feedback we received - for example: "The film looks very technical and professional" and "the different shots are organised really well so that the audience know what's happening all the time", we successfully managed to capture the technical aspect of filming as well as providing a good narrative. Quite a few people commented on the theme of time in our film, and said that they liked the use of the alarm clock because it suggested that time was running out for the female character.

Click to go to: Audience Feedback

The less successful aspects of our film were that due to the fact that we set our film in the early morning, some people felt that they did not find the film quite as scary as they would have hoped. Some people also felt that the dialogue and music should not have been overlapped because it is important to hear what a character has to say. A few members of our audience also suggested that the very last shot of Gilbert walking toward the camera would have looked more effective if the shot had been slightly blurred, and if the camera had been angled because the shot was from Sky's perspective. They reasoned that this would have given the film a mysterious and intriguing cliff-hanger to make the audience want to see the rest of the film.

I think that our work could be improved if we took into consideration our audience feedback and altered parts of our film to meet those comments. They are valid points, and would improve the audience interest in our film. I think that if we could improve anything else, I would suggest that more shots could be used throughout our film to suggest danger and panic, which would be visually interesting for the audience.


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

Final Cut Express

Using Final Cut Express to edit our film meant that it would have a realistic yet professional quality, and allowed us to develop our editing experience. We were able to add fade in/fade out transitions in between shots to create a dreamy quality to the film, as well as to create suspense. We were able to make precise cuts between shots, and find an accurate balance when overlapping our music and dialogue so that it seemed almost as if the music was drowning the female character out. Final Cut was also a suitable program for us to use because it allows users to upload all possible shots to the library, so that you can compare shots easily and choose the best one.

Google Documents - New Form

Digital Video Camera

We chose to use a digital camera to film our project because we already had some experience in using one, and wanted to develop our knowledge. It meant that our footage was of a high quality, and made it easy to transfer our videos onto the computer for editing via USB. During production, we were also able to use Google Documents when creating our Audience Research Questionnaire. It was an appropriate way to create our questionnaire because it meant that by doing it electronically, we were able to post the link on Facebook without having to hand out paper-based copies to our target audience. It also meant that any feedback we received would be stored collectively in Google Documents as a spreadsheet, which would allow for easy comparison. I had used the program before and found it very useful which is why I decided to use it. I an experienced user of Facebook, and therefore found that posting the link was very easy. There was a fast response to our Questionnaire, which meant that the audience also found it easy to use.

When researching similar films and title sequences, we used YouTube to embed videos into our Blog. These videos complement our research, and broaden the medium in which our research can be viewed. It is also much easier for people to physically view the scenes and trailers that influenced the development of our project. However, the video I posted from season 3 of the Vampires Diaries titled 'Similar scene to our opening sequence' did not provide an embed code, and therefore can only be accessed via link.

We used Script Buddy to create our script, which allowed us to create a professional-looking document with all the correct features such as 'scene heading', 'action', 'character', 'dialogue', 'parenthetical', 'transition', 'shot' and 'text'. Using Script Buddy meant that we were given an opportunity to practise writing a script, and I felt that this was very beneficial. We did not encounter any problems with Script Buddy. During production, we did a lot of paper-based planning when brainstorming ideas for our storyline, which therefore meant that we had to scan those documents in, to add them to our blog.

Using Blogger throughout our project has meant that my experience of using the program has developed quite a lot. I have experienced a few problems with the program such as not being able to order posts chronologically unless the date and time is manually changed on all individual posts. Besides that, I haven't found Blogger problematic at all.

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

The production process for our preliminary task was much simpler and included allocating roles to members of the group (e.g. Director, Editor...), brainstorming and selecting a scenario for the conversation, finding an appropriate location, filling in all required paperwork documents, drafting a script, and creating a storyboard. Production for our final project included allocating roles to members of the group, brainstorming and selecting an idea for the plot, researching genre, similar genres, certificates, distributors, music, target audience, analysing title sequences, and more. The depth of research and production meant that we had a chance to understand how much work and time goes into Production, and meant that the end product was of a much higher, professional standard.

Example of match on action

Example of 180 degree rule

Requirements for the preliminary task were also much easier, including: a 60 second film with titles, obeying the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot. There had to be 2 characters - one had to open a door, cross the room and sit opposite another character with whom they exchanged some dialogue. The requirements for our final project were: the 2 minute opening sequence of a new fiction film, obeying the 180 degree rule, match on action, shot/reverse shot and titles. The final project involved a lot more independence and freedom, providing us with an opportunity to be creative. I feel that we met the requirements for both tasks very well.

Watch the videos above for examples of obeying match-on-action and the 180 degree rule.
I have improved in many areas of production, including camera work, research, time management, organising work on a Blog, using new technologies that I perhaps hadn't used before (e.g. Script Buddy). I feel that I now have a better knowledge of how different medium work, and how to develop initial ideas through in-depth research. I think that I have improved my place in the group by taking a more central role as Director, which involved making a lot of decisions and taking charge when shooting, whereas during the preliminary task, I took on the role of Editor, and was therefore much more involved in post-production.
During our final project, we have not done a lot of things differently, though we have managed our time much more efficiently to make sure that we finished filming early on to allow for a lot more time in post-production. In doing this, we have a more professional-looking product that meets all the requirements of the task, and effectively uses all the research we completed during pre-production.