In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Throughout the entire project I tried to apply most of the thriller conventions into my piece, the main convention that I focused on was to build suspense and tension. A graphic Artist (Saul Bass) once said, "making a main-title was like making a poster, you're condensing the event into this one concept, this one metaphor a back-story that needs to be told or a character that needs to be introduced". Saul also stated that the “Title sequence is what tells the audience who created the film and based on their past work and what the audience can expect from this film they are about to watch. If someone thinks the title sequence is not very good; their first impression would be that the film will not be good so personally I would consider the opening title sequence of a film the most important part.”
Looking back on previous posts, you can tell that I have tried to build up suspense as much as possible. I have done this by using a suspenseful, eerie, and mysterious piece of audio, this audio is placed in the background to add suspense to the opening. The audio is called 'Disoriented', which relates to the main character. The main male in my film is a very confused, disoriented male, who has a tough life and keeps getting accused of crimes. 'Disoriented' is a fairly faint piece of music as i didn't want it to dominate the rest of the opening. To make my opening more suspenseful and eerie, I added some diegetic sounds whichoverlayed the audio, this made the film a final piece. The added sounds enhanced the tension of the video, for example: the door creaking at the very beginning, the type writer when the credits appear, victim being punched, victim spitting out blood, sliding paper and the chair hitting the floor. When comparing it to other films, 'Severn' and 'The Shining' both use similar sound effects to add suspense and tension to the movie.
Se7en's opening credits has a very harsh, thumping industrial beat of "Closer" playing behind the images. This piece of music is creepy and moving but it sets the tone and feeling for the rest of the movie. The opening credit music is a spliced sample of an uncredited remix of the Nine Inch Nails song "Closer". The reason I chose this opening was because I thought the music was very unique and suspicious, I particularly liked how it includes Diegetic sounds such as paper turning, scratching and many more. I decided I wanted to take the Idea of Diegetic sounds and import them into the opening of my piece.
The Shining's opening credits has a deep tribal music and women screaming, this piece of music is quite repetitive, as we see the car driving down a misty road. The music is very eerie and suspenseful, it sets the mood and atmosphere straight away. The non diegetic music that is included within the opening creates a bizarre and surreal alienated feeling, this applies more within the opening scene. The strange nosies are a distraction to the audience as it pulls them away from the actual movie, just to be spooked later. This piece of music is very moving and chilling, when your listening to it, it automatically makes the audience think something big and suspenseful is about to happen. However, it is just grabbing the audiences attention at the beginning, which is where I got the idea from.
A crime at the core of the narrative (Often murder) - this was accomplished by flashing from the police Interview Room to the victim bound in the warehouse. By flashing from scene to scene, it wasn't revealing too much of the film, but the audience got to basic idea of what was about to happen. Other thriller's that use a crime narrative would be, Seven and Casino Royal.
'Seven' has several deaths and crimes in the entire film, and the unsub leaves a trial of clues behind for the investigators to track. The clip above shows the seven deadly sin 'SLOTH', I thought this was the best clip as it has police and detectives swarming everywhere and the crime scene is fairly bloody and decayed.
Casino Royal's core of narrative is the kidnapping of his girlfriend and the car chase which nearly kills her.
These two clips are a perfect example of what I produced, 'Seven' has more of the blood and gory side to it, where as 'Casino Royal' has the fast pace action and thrill. When looking at these two films in detail, I thought of combining the two ideas of kidnapping and a police investigation to see what the outcome would be. In comparison to my piece, I tied both seven and Casino Royal into the victims scene. The victim has been kidnapped and bound to a chair, but has been badly beaten up with blood on her face and clothing. From the image below, it looks rather creeping and disturbing, I wanted to keep the audience intrigued and I think I did by revealing the disturbed video footage of the victim.
The lighting is normally dark and muted to portray a sinister effect - In every Thriller movie the lighting is dark and muted to give off a mysterious effect and set a eerie atmosphere. For example, Seven, Sin City, The Shining and Mirrors. I stuck to this convention most of the way through my film, by filming the victim in a dark and muted warehouse. The lighting was very dull and moody, which set the atmosphere and the mood of a typical thriller movie. However, I stuck to the convention in the warehouse, but I wanted to have a really bright and white interview room, which contrasts in colours. The Interview room was fairly well lit to add pressure on the suspect, the vivid light shining straight into the suspects face added tension. The movie would then cut to a dark and sinister environment in the warehouse, I am trying to show opposites in the opening of my film.
There is normally a vulnerable victim, normally a young child or a female - A young female (Jenny Fields) who is happily married with their first baby boy (Kane) is taken away from her beloved family, soon to be bound to a chair and beaten up.
A Serious Villain/ antagonist - In my opening I wanted to create a twist at the beginning with the antagonist, when the film begins there is a dark, silhouetted, male figure standing in the doorway. The lighting is to dark that you cant make out his facial features, however there is another male being interviewed in the police station. The audience start to ask questions such as; Could this be related to the same case? Is he the killer? Who is the darkened silhouette? At the end of the film the camera is using a point of view shot, to where we see a pair of big, muddy boots walking away from the victim, then the camera pans up to see an weapon coming towards her. Other questions that could be asked is; Is he the same person from the start? Where did he come from? Is he working with the male currently in the police station? If I compared this to other thriller films, the best examples would be Sin City, The Shining, Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal.
Narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved - the muffled, argument coming from the interview room which is not heard by the audience and resolves in the Detective punching the suspect in the face. This automatically leaves the audience thinking what could the suspect have said, which led to an armed Detective hitting the him in the face. By establishing enigma at the very start of my film, I wanted to keep the audience intrigued and keep them waiting for answers
How does your media product represent different social groups?
My film mainly focuses on teenagers from 18 +, I feel my film mainly represents young adults and the brutal people out there in the world. In my piece I decided to stick to a small amount of cast members, two males and one female. For the role of the protagonist I decided to cast Denise Pettitt, as her appearance of looking fairly young and stylish would make her more vulnerable in my piece.
My protagonist is a young, newly wedded mum, with a newborn baby. She looks very sexy and wears tight clothing, which makes her vulnerable and soon gets her into trouble. I felt that I needed to make her look timid and weak to create the illusion of her being an easy target to capture. I felt that I captured a positive representation of Denise; this was shown through her body language, but mainly through mise en scene. She wore a purple, tight fitted blouse, black jeans and black stilettos, which suggest that she is a fairly flirty and confident person.
There is a close up shot of Denise, who has been beaten up and dragged into a cold and deserted warehouse. This represents her vulnerability and shows her weakness when it comes to protecting herself.
However, I decided to cast Neil Mason as the antagonist a slightly brain washed, and confused male. Neil is fairly tall, dark haired and has bold and scary facial elements, which adds to the influence of a killer. He is wearing a white polo top, which is buttoned up to the top, black trousers, black-rimmed glasses and shoes. I created a negative representation of him, which was portrayed through his body language and mise en scene.
In comparison to Stephen Pettitt (Detective Stirling) he represents the rich and wealthy kind, has two loving children, joined the force because of his father but gets lots of headaches from stress. This is shown by his short temper and frustration in the interview room.
All of these characters not only represent the different lifestyles they live, but the world as a whole. Personally I think that these characters represent the world of 'Brutality' and 'America'. The whole world is brutal place if you are in the wrong place; parts of America are fairly brutal and full of crimes. I wanted to represent this in my piece as all of my characters fit the profile. Detective Stirling represents the typical New York Detective, Jenny Fields represents the typical young woman who becomes kidnapped and Kevin represents the psychopath who is on a mass killing spree.
What kind of media institutions may distribute your media product and why?
The type of distribution company i would like to distribute my first couple of thrillers to would be companies such as 'Working Title', 'Warp X' or 'Icon'. These are all independent companies, which take on the smaller budgeted films.
I have a few bigger distribution companies which would i would like to distribute my films to at some point. They are companies such as 'New Line Cinema', 'Alliance Atlantis Communications' and 'Silver Pictures'. All of these production companies have produced some memorable films, which have the same genre and style to mine.
'New Line Cinema' was founded in 1967 and is one of the major American film studios along with 'Warner Brothers' and '20th Century Fox'. Although New Line Cinema was originally an independent film company, it became a subsidiary of Timer Warner 1996 and later merged with larger studio sister 'Warner Brothers' in 2008.
'Blade' (Stephen Norrington, 1998) was the first out of the box set, which was distributed by New Line Cinema. Blade's budget was estimate at around $45 million and proved its success by grossing $70 million at the USA box office and $131.2 worldwide. This is the overall box office figures, my film could potentially get similar figures if distributed to an similar amount of screens and distributed by New Line Cinema.
'Kill Bill Vol 1' (Quentin Tarantino, 2003) was the first of the two movies distributed by 'Alliance Atlantis Communications. Kill Bill's budget was an estimate of $55,000,000 and did fairly well at the box office. Kill Bill was released in 8 different countries, it grossed $23 Million in the USA, £162,857 in the United Kingdom, and did fairly well in other countries such as Finland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia and Spain.
'Lethal Weapon 1' (Richard Donner, 1987)is the first of four incredible movies distributed by Silver Pictures. Lethal Weapon's budget was $15,000,000 and grossed $6.8 million on the opening weekend in the USA and $444,098 in the UK. The overall gross for America was $65 Million and £2.3 Million in the UK.
All of these films have a similar style to the film I have produced, I previously looked at these films, as well as Se7en, Sin City and The Ring for inspiration for my film. I think that either one of these production companies will distribute my movie as they it has a similar style and theme to the movies that have already distributed. By looking at these three films and the other films that they have distributed they are mostly action, thriller films, which is why I think my film would be perfect for one of these companies to distribute.
Who would be the target audience for you media project?
The target demographic for my media project would be aimed at males between the ages of 18-40, as it has a large amount of violence and physical scenes. I think that the production companies would have more success, if they distributed the thriller to a wider audience rather than a niche audience.
However, I think that that aiming my film at this particular audience would be interesting, as some of the female and males could relate to it from personal experience. My thriller opens with an interview between a Detective and a suspect; I think that it is a realistic situation that happens everyday around the world.
When conducting my questionnaire I found out that 80% of audiences enjoy watching action thriller films. I portrayed this in the first two minutes of my opening with the interview and the kidnapped victim; I felt this attracted more of a wider audience.
From the results I received, It is fairly obvious that more males enjoy to watch thriller movies than women. However, when I did previous research on Audiences I discovered that 57% of women prefer to watch thrillers and only 43% of males prefer them.
How did you attract/address you audience?
I attracted my audience through the use of crime and action due to the scenes in my movie. I included a bad cop scenario to attract the fans of cops and crimes and to enhance the suspense in the second half of piece. The music in my piece builds up suspense and increases in tempo at the end of the piece, by building up enthusiasm in the audience and creating desire to see what the rest of the film reveals. I managed to keep my opening suspenseful from start to finish. The best way to attract the audience is to make your movie energetic and mysterious from the beginning, this way the audience will not have second thoughts. Another way I attracted the audience was by using a variety of flashes, which portrayed two different situations. One from the suspect being in the police interview room and another from the kidnapped women in the warehouse, both of these scenes are fairly dramatic and violent. By adding violent and horrifying scenes at the start it kept the audience intrigued and wanting to watch more. I asked a few college friends for their opinion on my presentation and this is the results I got back:
Shaun Cutts said:
Overall, I thought that the film was very good and had a gripping storyline with some interesting characters. I thought that the editing was very effective and the acting was also quite believable.
What you enjoyed the most?
I thought that the best part of the film was near the end of the clip where we see the victim in what seems to be a small dark room and she is tied up. I think that this is a very effective way of keeping the audience interested and it also adds to the thriller effect.
What could have been improved?
A possible suggestion could be to change the soundtrack to something a little less dramatic and something a little more subtle.
Sam Willis said:
Overall the piece was very unique as it had a twist in the story, the camera angles were used very effectively and the whole concept of the film was successful.
What you found interesting?
The idea behind it was quite good, as it didn’t follow how a lot of thrillers do, and instead was based in America in an office complex, rather than in a rural location. I also liked the idea of the victim being falsely accused as it added extra depth to the characters.
What could have been improved?
Nothing really, I thought the overall piece was professional and creative
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout my entire project I have learnt something new within the technology side, I learnt the 180 degree rule back when I was doing the Preliminary task at the start. I know a fair amount about cameras and editing software as I study Photography. Using the Video camera was tricky to begin with, but I worked it out in the end. I kept forgetting the 5 sec pause before recording, but my film still came out better than I had planned.
For most of my movie the camera was on a tripod as I didnt have a steady hand, I used a variety of different shots within the opening, such as; Two shots, panning, close up, extreme close up, CCTV angled shot, zoom, unusual angle shot, spiral shot and a perspective shot. I tried to create the opening of a film which had a lot of different and effective shots, to make the audicene more intrigued. Below are shot screen shots taken from my film of the different camera shots:
Low angle/Panning shot of the
Detectives desk.
Zoom into the Interview Room sign.
CCTV shot of the suspect and
Detective.
Extreme close up on the Detectives
facial expression.
Two shot of the Detective and the suspect
arguing.
Unusual shot of the victim.
Close up of the suspects face.
Spiral from the feet to the head of the victim.
Perspective from the victims view.
The more camera angles you include in your movie, the more effective the overall presentation will be. I wanted to be creative by using various camera angles, I thought sticking to one or two camera angles is pretty basic and plain, so I decided to creative a movie with different camera angles and shot. Out of all of the camera shots I used, I thought that the security angled shot worked really well at the time of shooting. This gives you a better view on the overall situation and it suggests that someone body is watching the suspects body language.
The Preliminary task allowed me to see how I would cope working with other people, I decided that after finishing the Preliminary task that I wanted to work on my own as I thought I would achieve a more creative and effective film. The preliminary task helped me understand different camera angles such as the '180 degree rule' which I had never come across before. It challenged me to work with other angles and not to stick with the basic pans and zooms.
In my preliminary task our movie was jumpy and not very clear, I made such that my final product was clear and fluid. I also feel that the quality and the professional finish has been improved from the preliminary task to my final product. Below is a screen shot from our preliminary task and my final product:
Preliminary Task - Conversation between myself and Jake
Conversation between the Detective and the suspect
Both of these videos was changed to black and white as I preferred them in black and white to colour. With the preliminary task we changed the brightness quite a lot, which in the end made the piece look to dark. For my final piece I decided to stick to black and white, but not change any of the colour correction settings as i didn't want my piece to look to dark and grainy.
After completing the editing , Steve Pettitt and I went into the studio to compose some music for my final video. I edited all of the music and sound effects on a programme called 'Logic Pro', this piece of software allowed me to insert the video footage and edit the music so it would fit with the video. Logic Pro has thousands of copy right free sound effects built in, which I used to add more suspense and action to my thriller.
I laid a piece of music down called 'Disoriented' which I used for the main music, which will be playing in the background. The reason I chose this piece of music was because it was a thrilling, action piece of music from start to finish, the pace picks up half way through which fits with the video. At the end of my video the killer launches a bat towards the camera and I wanted to create tension. I inserted another piece of background music towards the end, which slowly fades in and has a fast drum beat and an electric guitar which fades out towards the end. Once I applied the music to my video in brought the film to life, the music is the key part to making a movie, it gives it a more realistic effect. To make my film even better I decided to add Non - Diegetic sounds in i.e. when the door opens at the beginning of the scene, I added keys raterling and the door slamming behind the killer. I also added a warehouse effect, so when the camera cuts back to the victim there is a hint of warehouse atmosphere in the background. Another main sound I used was a type writer, I used a typewriter filter in Final Cut and thought it would be amazing if I could get the sound to fit the video, and it worked. Finally I applied the rest of the Non-diegetic sounds and previewed the final version of my film 'The Victim'.
On Monday 15th March, I decided to add the final touches to the editing within my film. There was a few little pieces that need touching up and re-editing. At the beginning of my film, my original idea was to have a panning shot of the Detectives desk for the opening. However, I am still using the panning shots, but I am applying them after a creepy and unusual shot of a silhouetted figure. The reason I chose to add the silhouetted figure at the start, was because it draws the audience in from the beginning and it sets the atmosphere of a creepy and thrilling movie.
I decided to change a section of my movie, the part where Detective Stirling is looking furious with the 'Accused Suspect' and when he grasps the chair fearlessly and throws it to the floor. I decided to chop each section into three different sections and mix the scenes up. So the camera focuses on the Detectives face and then cuts to him gripping the chair and throwing it on the floor. By using this mixture of cuts it adds tension and suspense, especially with the suspenseful music over the top. I had to cut a few clips down because the timeing was out of sync with the audio, this enabled me to match the audio and the video, so that when the final video is complete the audio and video will be in sync.
Adding Titles: Within the opening of my film, I had to insert some title sequences to state who Directed it, the cast and supporting cast. I had to choose where my titles would be inserted carefully, as it could turn the movie upside down if they were inserted in the wrong place. I decided to insert the cast names over the footage, 'Featuring Neil Mason as 'THE ACCUSED' is placed on top of the Detective pacing up and down the interview room. I wanted to keep the text simple and not to fancy, I stuck to Verdana and increased the spacing of the text by 5. This enabled it to look very effective and professional. Other Titles I included within the opening are as followed:
Featuring Neil Mason as 'THE ACCUSED'
Steve Pettitt as 'DET. STIRLING'
Denise Pettitt as 'THE VICTIM'
&
A Special Thanks To Adam Mason, For all his help with the story board and production.
After shooting the footage for the opening of my Thriller, I had to take roughly 30 minutes of footage and cut it down into a 2 minute opening. I decided to use Final Cut Express 4 to do my editing, as I find it much more easier to use than Adobe Premier. By using Final Cut it allowed me to create more unusual and effective shots to insert into my film.
To start of with the editing was fairly easy, cutting each individual clip, so the size and context was perfect. It then started to get more advanced and tricky as I had to decide which video transitions to used and which one would look better with the clips. I took the opening scene, where the camera is panning across the Detectives desk, overlooking some case files, computer, paperwork and his badge. All of these clips made up to a couple of seconds, I played around with some transitions such as Cross Fades, Fade In and Out, Dissolves and many more. However, I decided to stick to a Cross Fade or a normal Fade, because it is a fairly simple transition and it also breaks the audience in slowly. As the movie progresses and the film draws to a closing, more fast and effective transitions will be used to add tension and suspense to the clip as well as the actual footage.
After I edited a few of the clips together, I decided to change the whole image to black and white. I decided to do this because black and white stands out more and looks more effective. With one of the scenes in my thriller, the lighting is fairly bright and once turned to black and white it looks more realistic. I wanted to create a thriller film that has a twist and has a slight dark side to it, I managed to achieve this by changing the frames to black and white.
On Tuesday 2nd March, I couldn't do much work towards my editing because Final cut wasn't responding to my computer. I wasn't able to solve this problem in time, so instead I decided to look at thriller openings and writing down the disadvantages and advantages of the opening. I also thought about the advantages and disadvantages and started to think of possible questions such as; is my thriller opening as good as the ones that have already been released within the industry.
Dates of Filming:
Police Interview - Saturday 20th February
Warehouse Scene - Saturday 20th February
Actors Needed:
Suspect (Neil Mason)
Detective Stirling (Stephen Pettitt)
Victim (Denise Pettitt)
Producer & Directors Assitant (Adam Mason)
Equipment Needed:
Tripod
DSLR - Still photographs
Toshiba Video Camera
Samsung Video Camera
Location Requirements:
Warehouse - Indoors
Police Interview - Indoor
Interview Room
These shots were filmed on Saturday 20th of february, 2010. Two main actors were included in the shots (Neil Mason) and (Stephen Pettitt). All of these shots were taken on a Toshiba video camera in widescreen and high definition.
Warehouse
The filming for the warehouse took place on the same day, Saturday 20th February, 2010. Denise pettitt played her role as the victim and Neil Mason played the supporting role of the killer. These shots were also filmed on the Toshiba video camera in widescreen and high definition. The only problem that might have occurred was that the warehouse unavailable, but lucky enough the warehouse was available on Saturday 20th February.
