The main conventions are that it is characterised by fast pacing, frequent action sequences and often a resourceful protagonist. The thriller genre is wide that there isn’t a specific setting for it. Thriller films are known for creating immense excitement, suspense and an exceedingly high level of anticipation and anxiety.
The main them for our thriller is that abduction for the subgenre. The antagonist’s face is never seen which creates an enigma and anticipation to see who this figure is. The antagonist is always kept so that dark light is on his face. We used a lot of slow zooms to close ups to show obviously what was going and to create mild tension. All of it is filmed outside in bad weather so the scenery is grey and bleak and we used a score that is slow to start with and speeds up as the thriller moves faster. We only put a score at the end because we wanted it to be dead silent at the beginning and straight into a loud phone ringing to try and create excitement.
The characters are all dressed in black because neither of the characters are good people and in a way are both antagonists’. The characters are all young because we were aiming our film at a young target audience and we thought this would appeal to younger audience. Our film could loosely be an action film because of the fast paced score and one of the key props was a gun.
The main forms and conventions of an opening sequence are to set the scene and to set out the story line. Also looking at many opening sequences they are used to make the main characters of the film stand out straight away and to show what role the play.
The forms and conventions of an opening sequence can be differentiated between classic and contemporary because Hitchcock a pioneer of the thriller genre used mainly men who had problems with their mothers, defenceless women and psychological sequences as his main convention, where as is modern day films like ‘28 days later’ use zombie’s or my opening sequence which used drugs and kidnapping as the main convention.
I would say my opening sequence is contemporary because we use drugs as are main convention. Drug use is very common among youth’s and we used drugs because the opening sequence was aimed at 16-24 age group. As the environment we live in changes so does the kind of films made because the point of a thriller is to seem realistic.
The two main films that influenced the making of the opening sequence were ‘Batman: The Dark Knight’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usIyEL7ut5A and ‘Harry Brown’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVOSfHFNlcI.%20 We got the idea of kidnapping from the Batman film because it was a very tense moment waiting to see who Batman chose to save. Also Harry Brown used hurting the person who hurt you as the main idea and watching that take place was exciting because the audience felt a type of justice seeing people punished. The ’28 Days Later’ opening sequence influenced the opening sequence because it used mystery characters and you wanted to find out who they were. Alfred Hitchcock’s use of interesting transactions and canted angles influenced our film as we tried to make some of our transitions much more interesting or exciting then the obvious choices.
I would say that my film is very identifiably British because all the characters have British accents and we used mini DV camcorders that are quite gritty where as a big Hollywood blockbuster is filmed on celluloid which give them a much sharper and high contrast look.
The film does comply with usual conventions because we created enigmas by using lighting to create a dark shadow on one of the characters face and used the score to create suspense towards the end of the film. The score could also make the film seem a bit action based as well as the fast pace of the whole film.
I would say that our film has challenged thriller conventions slightly because we used an all male cast and dressed them all in the same colour clothing because they were all in a way antagonists and also because of the urban setting and also because of our contemporary them of abduction.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The cast in the film are all male and all aged 16-17. All of the cast where white except for two characters who were both Asian, although you could not tell this in the film. The accent’s of the two main characters were London accents and the drug dealer we made sure he had a cockney accent to play on the stereotype that east Londoners aren’t the most trust worthy of people. You would assume that all the characters were heterosexual because there is no obvious sign that any of the characters where homosexual. Our main characters were white and usually there is at least one character who is black or another skin colour and they are known for being the characters that die first, this stereotype is often used in parody’s of thriller’s or horrors. We also used an all male cast because it didn’t seem right using a female because they wouldn’t of been that imposing as the male characters.
We didn’t purposely communicate a message through although if we were going to about Londoners we might have possibly casted an ethnic minority as the drug dealer. Incorporating a stereotype would have been a bit typical and we purposely chose not to do this.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I would say that are film is more of an independent film because it is low budget and this gives it a more realism style, we also used a cast of unknown actors because this also gave us another sense of realism.
Mainstream films tend to use more defined camera’s which give them a glossier style, they also have bigger budgets and well known a list stars.
Films can be distributed in many different areas such as the major cinema chains or in independent cinemas. Films festivals are also a good way to attract distributers. Video sharing websites and social networking is also another way to distribute. Putting up adverts on television is a popular way to advertise the film. Trailer websites such as apples is very popular among mainstream films.
Our film is more independent film style so film festivals and video sharing websites would be the best way to exhibit our film. This would benefit us because it would be cheap a way of people getting to knowing our film work.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our film is a thriller and has a cast of teenagers and so is aimed at 16-24 year olds. Our film is a 15 by BBFC standards because it would most likely attract this sort of audience. It also isn’t too much of a wet horror, there is no blood or gore or swearing in our film. Thriller’s are usually more psychological and tend not to have so much violence where as horrors do. We didn’t have any problems with BBFC; our main concern was not to make it a horror. I think we did create a product suitable for our initial audience.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
The main way we attracted our target audience was by using a young cast. Thrillers are often rated a 15 by the BBFC so it’s the kind of film our target audience are used to seeing. We also used drugs as a way of attracting a young audience because it is a growing stereotype of teenagers to use drugs.
We used a gun to keep the film interesting because gun crime is a big problem in London and with it being a young cast we decided a gun would be appropriate.
We used YouTube to get audience feedback and it was all good also audience feedback among 10 sixteen year olds decided what our film should be called.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The technology helped us a lot with making finishing the film. We used I-movie as our editing software, mini DV camcorders, the internet for thing like BlogSpot were we posted our research for our film, and YouTube to look up clips of other media coursework and opening sequence.
The new media technology such as the internet influenced our production because we had to use copyright free music and sound effects, audience feedback from YouTube and distribution on YouTube.
Using non-linear software was a bit of a learning curve. It helped our film greatly because I-movie is very easy to use because it breaks up the clips and you can move them around. This is good because you don’t have to film in an order. It allowed us to develop our ideas because we could easily change around our different scenes.
We moved a few bits of the film around and the film took shape rather well in the editing process. The final edit is similar to the story board but quite different because we had to cut a character out because we were let down by our actors and we thought we could improve bits by changing dialogue and putting a score just at the end.
Our limitations were that we didn’t have external microphones so diegetic sound was very loud in some parts, so loud you couldn’t hear the dialogue. For this reason there wasn’t much dialogue in other films because a thriller convention is to use score and silence to create tension. We had a fair bit of dialogue so we used the microphone on the apple Mac’s to record voiceovers and diegetic sound so that you could hear the dialogue and it seemed realistic.
Lighting wasn’t too much of a problem and in fact helped us because we used the sun to cast a shadow on the main characters face so it created an enigma.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
We used the preliminary task to help us get used to using the cameras and software, we also joked around a bit doing the preliminary task. The coursework we were serious about because we wanted to get it right, the first draft was poor but the final draft was a lot better. The preliminary task wasn’t that hard and it ran smoothly, the only problem we had was getting used to the 180 degree rule. We had more time with our coursework which allowed us to develop and re-shoot our idea where-as we had not as much time for the preliminary task. We also had to follow one certain idea for our preliminary where as we could choose our own for the coursework.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The technology helped us a lot with making finishing the film. We used I-movie as our editing software, mini DV camcorders, the internet for thing like BlogSpot were we posted our research for our film, and YouTube to look up clips of other media coursework and opening sequence.
The new media technology such as the internet influenced our production because we had to use copyright free music and sound effects, audience feedback from YouTube and distribution on YouTube.
Using non-linear software was a bit of a learning curve. It helped our film greatly because I-movie is very easy to use because it breaks up the clips and you can move them around. This is good because you don’t have to film in an order. It allowed us to develop our ideas because we could easily change around our different scenes.
We moved a few bits of the film around and the film took shape rather well in the editing process. The final edit is similar to the story board but quite different because we had to cut a character out because we were let down by our actors and we thought we could improve bits by changing dialogue and putting a score just at the end.
Our limitations were that we didn’t have external microphones so diegetic sound was very loud in some parts, so loud you couldn’t hear the dialogue. For this reason there wasn’t much dialogue in other films because a thriller convention is to use score and silence to create tension. We had a fair bit of dialogue so we used the microphone on the apple Mac’s to record voiceovers and diegetic sound so that you could hear the dialogue and it seemed realistic.
Lighting wasn’t too much of a problem and in fact helped us because we used the sun to cast a shadow on the main characters face so it created an enigma.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
We used the preliminary task to help us get used to using the cameras and software, we also joked around a bit doing the preliminary task. The coursework we were serious about because we wanted to get it right, the first draft was poor but the final draft was a lot better. The preliminary task wasn’t that hard and it ran smoothly, the only problem we had was getting used to the 180 degree rule. We had more time with our coursework which allowed us to develop and re-shoot our idea where-as we had not as much time for the preliminary task. We also had to follow one certain idea for our preliminary where as we could choose our own for the coursework.
