Evaluation

Evaluation


In what way does your thriller sequence use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media thriller sequences?

My thriller sequence uses the vital convention of suspense and developing suspense to create tension in the audience. This in my opinion is the most important factor in creating a successful thriller, without it the film can lack excitement but at the same time to much can make the tension less effective, so I tried to create a good balance between having suspense built up through the music and action but not so much that it becomes ineffective. The music is a very important role in creating suspense and tension as the music sets the mood and feeling of the sequence, so I used a dark, sombre feeling piece, building up to a sense of urgency as a dark figure sweeps across screen, this immediately transforms the mood and makes the audience relate the mood change to this character that has disturbed the feeling of the sequence, and at the same time makes the audience very unwary of the character. The music builds up to a crescendo as the figure goes to open the door, but then just as quickly as the music builds up the tension it can be completely dropped to create an anticlimax as the audience realises that the figure is actually just trying to get home and he actually lives there, this use of dead ends and partial vision is used in my sequence to keep the audience on their toes.

How does your thriller sequence represent particular social groups e.g. Men and women

My opening sequence portrays the male character as a towering, sinister, fearful person that is about to hurt the other character. The female character is portrayed as a weak, feeble, defenceless, innocent young girl and is also viewed by the audience as the victim but later on in the film this view is broken, as we discover she is actually the one to be scared of.

What kind of media institute might distribute your media product and why?

I think that institutions such as film4, MGM, UK screen and channel 4 would be the kind of companies that would be more likely to distribute my film compared to more mainstream American companies such as 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks SKG, Lionsgate Films, Miramax, Newline, Paramount or Sony Pictures. This is because the more mainstream American film companies are more interested in big blockbuster, box-office smashes instead of small, British, independent films. Whereas the organisations that I deemed appropriate support these sort of films and are willing to release and distribute them.

Who would be the audience for your thriller film?

When thinking about who will be watching this film, certification is very important as if you don’t get this bit right you could completely cut out a large section of your target audience or get in trouble from the British Board of Film Classification or the British board of films for classifying the film too low. That’s why I have chosen to make a certificate 15 film.
This is because:
- There is a bigger target market for 15 films, as from my research I know that there is a significant market for 15 - 17 year olds especially, and cutting this market out would damage the viewings of the film.
The difference between a certificate 15 and a certificate 18 is the amount of gore, violence and sex in the film. Choosing a 15 film meant that I could cut out the amount of gore and violence, which would both make the film easier to shoot, and still keep the storyline effective, but also turn the film into a psychological thriller more so, which from the research I know that the target audience want, in comparison to a gory thriller.
The fact that the film is rated as a 15, doesn’t only mean that just 15-17 year olds are going to watch it, the good thing about the psychological thriller genre is that it appeals to people of all age, that enjoy intellectual, thought provoking rollercoaster’s of films that have tricks and turns round every corner.


What programs have I learnt to use?

I have learnt to use programmes, such as Adobe after Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro. These programmes have helped me to capture and edit the film as digital technology allowed me to edit the film in a non-linear fashion. This meant I could change the order of the shots with the ability to change it back at any point, instead of using analogue editing which is long, time consuming and very difficult to get right. Websites such as freeplaymusic.com has provided a source of copy-right free music to use in my thriller film opening. However, at times the computer didn’t help me when it occasionally decided to crash.


What feedback did you get?

To get feedback for my film I asked my class to look at my opening and review it and say what they liked and what they disliked and what message they got from the piece. This is the feedback I received:

- ''The match on action shot with the candle from the outside to the inside of the house was great.''
- ''When the man's walking up the stairs to the girl's room, and the camera keeps flicking back from the room to him walking creates intensity, like something is about to happen .. By flicking from one shot to the other quickly.'' ''Also, good sound bridge''
- ''On screen graphics and credits were good - they did not distract from the film, and also fitted in with the genre.''
- ''Good performance''
- ''When the girl is flicking through the newspaper, you know that she is looking for something''. One person also said it makes them ''ask questions'' which relates to Bonitzer's theory of partial vision: they do not know why she is cutting up the newspaper, but know it is a sinister / psychotic act, making them ask why, but not telling them the answer directly.
- ''The way the music changes as the action in the movie changes too is good because it fits in with the film''. This feedback from the group shows that the film achieved what it set out to do and is a success in my opinion.
What difficulties did I encounter and what have I learned from them?
In the preliminary task I encountered a lot of problems. Because we filmed in an open public place it was hard to control other people’s actions and the environment we filmed in, we had to do lots of retakes to get the desired mood and action without interruption. We also experienced technical difficulties in the form of the camera not focusing properly, but to be fair that was because we hadn’t put the camera in auto focus, so we had to re-film it.
In my final thriller sequence the main problems that occurred came down to editing and sound.
The music that I used in the opening was really effective as far as setting the ambience and mood but it was too short to fill the section completely, so I had to duplicate the track and then layer it in at the point that it finished and then edit it down so that the join between the two was seem less.
On the raw footage, somebody talks off screen in one of the scenes, and this would have ruined the mood, to get rid of this mistake, I lowered the audio to zero and increased the on screen audio to drown out the unwanted dialogue.
Conclusion

In my opinion I have gained lots of practical experience and skills that I will be able to apply to other projects in the future and be more confident to use the software that at the start I was slightly scared of using, without someone there to guide me on every click of the mouse. I also think that these skills have been effective in the making of this piece.