Obviously the most important characteristic of thriller films is suspense and tension. We included this in our film by choosing a dark setting in the woods and using a smoke machine to create an eerie and gloomy atmosphere. The plot of the film being the burial also helped to develop this kind of tense feeling. We also encouraged our actress to act as if she was frightened so that the audience can relate to her and feel like they are part of the film.
Another feature of thriller films is to leave the audience with unanswered questions and to withhold crucial information. We tried to achieve that by adding the last scene where the audience doesn’t know who and where she is and who she is speaking to therefore leaving it on a cliff hanger.
We chose our characters and costumes in a way to represent the typical 1950’s American gangster image. The long coats and hats are stereotypical for the thriller genre even if they are not used very often in modern thrillers.
Our music both challenges and develops the thriller genre. In a normal thriller you would expect a very scary and frightening soundtrack. The music we chose contrasts what is going on in the scene. It’s a very emotional and almost sad soundtrack that suggests that something tragically happened. Therefore it develops the idea of bad things happening in thriller film to an extent that it makes the audience wonder what has happened before.
How does our media product represent particular social groups?
Our Media project shows a view of society back in the 1950’s. It represents the men as being the overpowering bad guy and the women as the more vulnerable, helpless social group. Our film represents this because the two people doing the burial are men and by burying a dead person it gives the audience the feeling that the two men have power and are in control. The female in our film however is scared and vulnerable. By running and hiding it gives the audience the sense that the two men are controlling her in some way.
Another social group our film represents is criminals. There are still many of these around in today’s society. The burial represents what criminal activity goes on in the world and how they act and dress.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The easiest way to distribute our film will be the internet using video websites like YouTube, MySpace, Veoh, iFilm, Dailymotion, Sevenload, Metacafe, SumoTV and Blip TV. This would enable us to reach a great audience from all over the world. The audience who watch this film are able to comment and rate it. This will give us a useful feedback to our film and ideas of how to improve it. If we achieve a good amount of views and a fairly positive feedback then we could consider sending it in to a British film company like DNA films or Film 4. DNA films is a big company which is known from films like ‘28 days later (2002)’, ‘Love Actually (2003)’and ‘The Last King of Scotland’. Film 4 is the production company of the TV channel 4. Famous films by this company are ‘Shaun of the Dead’ (2004) and ‘slumdog millionaire’ (2009).
To get further support we could apply to the UK film for funding as they fund small film projects and short films as well as big production companies.
We could also go a little bit further than uploading it to YouTube and sending it to a film company. To reach people through as many types of media as possible we could also make a few copies of our film onto DVD and give out free versions or sell them cheaply. The reason we’d pick DVD’s over other ways is because DVD’s came out on top when we asked people how they prefer to watch their films. Here are the results:
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The first thing to do was to think about the age rating of the film. When we originally were rating the film, we decided to make it have a rating for people that are no younger than 12 years of age. The reason for that was that we didn’t want to be restricted too much in the level of violence we could show. To find out more about the audience we could aim for with our film and to get peoples opinions about thriller film and films in general we carried out a questionnaire.
7 out of 24 people said that the thriller genre was one of their favourite ones. Out of these 7 people 4 were male and 3 female. This shows that thriller films can be aimed at a male audience as well as at a female one. Despite this our film will probably be more interesting for male rather than females as all are male and we produced the film under a male mind so in this case the gender of the producers had an effect on how the film turned out.
The questionnaire result didn’t show any pattern in the age of people who ticked ‘Thriller’ as their favourite genre either. But again we made the film as students of our age group and put our own ideas and views into the film which will make it probably more interesting for and audience of our age.
How did you attract/address your audience?
The first decision we had to make was whether to make our film in black and white or in colour. Therefore we added the question to our questionnaires “Do prefer to watch films in black and white or colour?” The results of this question are shown in the graph below.
This graph clearly shows that more people like to watch coloured films than black and white films. This helped us to make up our minds and we decided to make it a coloured thriller film. We are pleased with this result because the colours in the film look similar to those in old films because of the lights that we used.
As the data collected by our questionnaires also shows there are more people who prefer a male rather than a female main character.
This encouraged us to have two male actors in our film and only one female character. This woman is the “strong female character” that people demanded in their answers. The two men are the villains that are quite normal and unremarkable on the surface but twisted underneath.
We chose our setting as a respond to the questionnaire results. A lot of people described a “dark wood” as the setting they would like to see a thriller film set in.
“Good music” is another answer that many people gave to the question what they expected from a good thriller so we spent a lot of time choosing a matching and also moving soundtrack for our scene.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The new knowledge that I have learnt know let me use a camera with out just filming anything, I no a number of new shots and how to create a film in the editing software “adobe premier pro”. The apple Macs were also a first for me as I have never had access to one before. The set up is different to a normal computer so I was able to adapt to that, I then learnt to edit, slowly but shortly, this help me to make our film. Learning how t blog was a task I thought would be difficult but in the end found it relatively easy, and may use it later on in life (Alex Mutu)
The making of this film helped me to get a clear idea of how the production of a film works. Even if I already had a basic knowledge about how to use a camera, this project gave me the opportunity to improve this knowledge and get more experience in the use of a camera. I also learned that careful planning is very important.
The editing part of the film was interesting and new for me as we were able to use professional editing software ‘adobe premier pro’ and the Apple Macs. A haven’t worked with apples before so it gave me an insight into a new technology and I learned a lot in this area. (Anton Heil)
One of the things I have learnt about the technology is the types of camera shots. Although I have had experience using a camera, I did not realise that there were the amount of camera shots. I have picked up shots and will use them in later camera related tasks. I have also learnt about blogging. Before I started making our film, I had never used any type of blogging website. By using blogger I have learnt how easy it is to blog something and may use it later on. Editing is another piece of technology I have learnt from. Although I have not done a lot of the editing first hand, I have still picked up bits about it and how to use it. The software is called Adobe Premiere Pro and is used by many different people to make films. It is a piece of software that is based on a apple Mac. As these are different to normal windows based computers, I also learnt much about how to use them and now prefer them to windows.
(Patrick Henbury)
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Our preliminary task was to make a short film of someone walking down a corridor and through a door in to another room; this task helped me a lot with angles. Then the editing took me a while to get use to but once I did I was steaming ahead with different types of camera shots and edited shots. We wrote a story board which helped us with an overview of the task, so this helped me and the group with our future tasks. (Alex Mutu)
Our preliminary task was a short scene of a person going from one room to another and talking to a person in this room. This was to practise the camerawork and to get to know the editing technology. We tried to get as many different camera shots in this first film. Looking back I think that our final film is a much better result than the first attempt. Firstly this is because we planned it more thoroughly. We had a lot of discussion in the group concerning the plot, the characters and the storyboard this I think helped us all to get an idea of what we wanted our film to be like. I learned to say my opinion and use technical terms to describe my ideas. When it came to the filming we improvised a lot and did most shots differently than on the storyboard. We just tried lots of different ideas and than later decided whether it worked in the film or not. I learned to use the different camera shots that we had practiced in the preliminary task to create the kind of atmosphere that we wanted and which kind of props can be used to make the setting look good. We had to put more effort in the editing of our final film. To achieve the film that we have now we had to try different cuts over and over again and shift clips to different positions in the film to try every possible constellation and then to be able to decide on the best one. This gave me a lot of practise with the editing software. I’ve learned to use audio and video effects and transitions. Finally the research that we did during the project gave me an interesting insight into the film industry and knowledge about how real films are produced.
(Anton Heil)
The main thing I think I have learnt is the use of camera shots. In the first task, we were given a sheet with all the camera shots we needed written on it. We then practiced these and at the time I didn’t really no whether we were doing the shots completely right and they weren’t as good as they could have been. As we started doing our main film I picked up on all camera shots and can now film using them well and in a wide variety of ways. I haven’t learnt anything else in detail since the first task as these things were not included but I have picked up on better places to film and use of software. (Patrick Henbury)
I definitely feel that throughout the filming i have learnt how to use different shot for different purpose, how to use a shot to set the scene (a low angle shot to make a man not just seem physically big but powerful too.) also i learnt how to use lighting to my advantage, like in the shot of the woman, only her face is lit up, making her seem alone in the middle of no where.
I have also learnt allot about editing and the software used. it has definitely helped me to go on and make my own short movies, using effects like slow motion and adding different tittles and animations.
this task has also told me allot about the film industry, how hard and how much effort is needed to make a half decent film.
(Alex Diss)
(Patrick Henbury & Anton Heil main evaluation)
