Evaluation

Q1.
We have used a professional antagonistic male who is a dressed smartly. This is similar to Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs as he too was a male professional antagonist and was dressed smartly.




We also used the traditional structure for the credit sequence. This indicates the importance of everything from production companies to actors. An example of this would be from Phonebooth (on the left) where the production company is close to the start of the opening sequence.




One way that we developed our conventions is with the use of close up shots. The use of close up shots adds tension but also shows the power in each character, for example if the close up shot was from a higher angle it would show that the power has been taken away form that character and vice versa. Another example from Phonebooth shows the effects of the close up shot. It gives the audience the sense of tension.

Another we have developed this by making our main character a protagonist as well as an antagonist. An example of this would be from the film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo where he is perceived to be a protagonist but is however an antagonist.

A way that we have challenged media conventions in our piece is with the use of light. A typical thriller would use dark lighting to create tension and suspense. Despite our piece creating suspense and tension the use of daytime light challenges this convention. The example taken from Terror Train (right) shows the typical convention of using dark lighting to create suspense and tension.

Another way that we had challenged media conventions is by the use of genres. We have made it look like a detective TV series such as The Bill (right). We thought that by doing this we would intregue the audience more.

Q2.

How does your media product represent particular social groups? on Prezi

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Q3. Question 3

Q4. • 26 year old Fiona is from the West End of London
• She is part of a wealthy upper class family that had paid her Uni fees to make sure she had a good education to pursue her dream of being a top lawyer.
• She is in the profession of being a lawyer and is in the middle of the companies’ span of control and has been there for 3 years, she is intending on staying with the company for as long as possible and is hoping to work her way up through the business.
• She is single as she takes her profession seriously and gives herself no time for anything else other than the occasional lunch with work colleagues.
• If she does find the spare time around her work life then she would sit down in the evening and watch a film, preferably a thriller of the psychological kind or crime kind as it relates to her work life.
• When it comes to films she has a collection and these consist of Se7en, Limitless, Inception, Shutter Island .etc.
• As well as all this she tries to visit the gym at least once a week to keep fit.
• When it comes to spending money, Fiona is very aware of what she spends and how she spends it. She takes time to think about what she is doing with her money; she is exactly the same with her job.

Q5.

Q6. 

In this picture I am using the MAC. The MAC's were new to me as I have never usedone before and I was used to the Windows software. We were using new programs as well so we had to learn those along the way. In this picture I am using blogger. With blogger we learnt how to use links effectively, and how to used embed codes from websites such as prezi to make sure that the presentation is correct. Another website that was new was Prezi. This is similar to Powerpoint, however it is an online version and has more effects to it.


In these pictures I am using the camera. It was an easy thing to learn how to use. When using a stead shot the tripod would be used, making it more effective.






Q7.

Progress on 27th January

Today we have carried on with the editing of our rough cuts. We have also discussed and shortlisted which music we will chose for our opening.
In our next session we aim to complete what we have started today and finish our rough cut and decide and include which music we will use for our final copy.  

DAY TWO FILMING PROGRESS

During our second day of footage we filmed our apartment scene and our actions shots for our credits. We were successful in our action shots and accomplished everything we had planned with them. We used tracking shots as it gives the viewer more time to recognize the character.

However, our use of location for our apartment was poor. We had used the science block and we tried to make it as though it is an apartment, however it was not as convincing enough. We aim to make this more convincing in our final piece by using a real house, flat or apartment.

In our next session of filming we aim to complete all our filming for our rough cut and then start looking in to improving certain shots for the final piece.

DAY ONE FILMING... PROGRESS

On our first day of filming we had put together the first few shots of our opening to our thriller. We did suffer from the problems of trying to get the framing correct, however we overcame it and managed to create good effect for the shots we had taken.  We also had a difficulty at the beginning as the camera was not fully charged and this restricted what we filmed.
So, in our session of filming we filmed shots 1,2, 3, 5, 7, 8. 
In our next session of filming we aim to continue with our filming and to get closer to completing the task and get to editing the final product.

SHOT LIST

Shot 1- Close up of feet from right side

Shot 2- Aerial shot of dead Tyler (flashback)

Shot 3- Close up of upper legs from right side

Shot 4- Over shoulder shot from Ashley's position (flashback) 

Shot 5- Close up of mid section from right side

Shot 6- Close up but pan right of Tyler (flashback)

Shot 7- Close up of face from right side

Shot 8- Long shot from behind Tyler (flashback)

Shot 9- Two shot of Tash and Ashley (flashback)

Shot 10- Close of gun from left side

Shot 11- Title

Shot 12 to 16- Action shots of characters (tba)

Shot 17 and 18- Credits (director and producer)

Shot 19- Close up on Ashley's face with light on his face

Shot 20- Close up on the other side of Ashley's face. Darkness on his face

Shot 21- Same angle of shot from shot 20, however shot is no longer a close up Establishing shot of Ashley sitting in the apartment. Shot then changes to a long shot of Tash walking into the apartment.

Shot 22- Tash approaches Ashley at the table, long shot turns to a closer shot of the two of them meeting up. Tash and Ashley start conversing, and the shots change to slightly show each actor more when they are speaking, however still showing the other character at the same time, just not as clearly. Tash then leaves the apartment and the camera turns on her and does a panning shot of her leaving the apartment.

Shot 23: Ashley is still sitting down, the camera is facing him square on, and captures the whole room in the shot. He then stands up and turns around, and the camera follows and films from the side of him, whilst he walks over to the window the camera does a tracking shot from his side. As he is staring out of the window, the camera is viewing from the side front, still on his face. Whilst Ashley is panicking and stressing the camera is shot on the front side of his face.

Shot 24: The Camera turns to face the back of his head and rest of his body, still capturing him panicking whilst looking out the window, although his face is not visible in the shot.

Shot 25: The Camera is still shot from behind him, and then Ashley turns his head to look directly into the camera. The Camera is closer to his face, capturing his shoulders and face. Ashley stares into the camera, whilst his body is facing the other way, and he smiles and laughs.

Shot 26: Text: '12 Days Ago' quickly appears on screen.

TARGET AUDIENCE

From our questionnaire, we have discovered that our target audience should be aimed at the late teen to early 20 age group of male gender, however it would not exclude females. Our questionnaire also shows that our audience would prefer Action, Crime and Psychology in the film over things such as horror, mystery .etc.

This has informed our planning as we now know that our original idea relates to what our target audience want and similar films were proven successful .E.g Kidulthood, which figures show on YouTube that the most popular target group was Male aged 13-17 and 25-34. These are the same group that we wish to aim for as it has proven successful in the past.

This is our completed preliminary task.

AUDIENCE RESEARCH (QUESTIONNAIRE)

For our audience research we chose to use a questionnaire. There was a total of 29 questionnaires completed. Here are the results:

What is your Gender?

Male (15)        Female  (14)     Other (0)

Which age group are you?

13-17 (26)         18-24 (2)     25-30 (1)

31-40 (0)        41-50 (0)      50+ (0)

What do you consider a thriller film to be?

Crime  (7)            Action  (13)           Psychological  (19)

Horror   (11)        Mystery  (11)           Other   (2)

Out of the films below which do you prefer?   

The Dark Knight  (12)                     The Da Vinci Code   (2)

Black Swan    (9)                              Other  (6)

A list of others:    

·         Inception

·         Fly Boys

·         Inception

·         Forrest Gump

·         Shutter Island

·         Lion King

THRILLER GENRES

Conspiracy Thriller- In which a hero/heroine stands up to a large group of enemies whose true extent only he/she recognizes. An example of a conspiracy thriller film would be JFK.

Crime Thriller- This is a hybrid of both a crime film and thriller that offers suspense and a successful or failed crime. These films focus more on the criminal rather than the policeman. These films usually contain murders, robberies, chases .etc. An example of a Crime Thriller would be Seven.

Erotic Thriller- it consists of erotica and thriller. It has become popular since the 1980s and the rise of VCR market penetration. An example of an Erotica Thriller would be Basic Instinct.

Legal Thriller- a film that is based on the lawyer- hero/heroine has to confront people on the outside as well of the inside. They are in danger of not only losing their cases but also their lives. An example of a Legal Thriller would be The Runaway Jury.

Political Thriller- In which the hero/heroine must ensure the stability of the government that employs him. An example of a Political thriller would be State of Play.

Psychlogical Thriller- A film where there is a conflict that is more mental and emotional rather than physical. Characters are not reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies, but rather are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with a formidable opponent or by battling for equilibrium in the character's own mind. An example of a Psychological Thriller would be Psycho.

Supernatural Thriller- Where the film brings in an otherworldly element mixed with tension, suspense and differet plot twists. An example of a Supernatural thriller would be Fallen.

ZOMBIELAND OPENING CREDITS ANALYSIS

• ·         The credits to it are short, they have in them: the companies involved, actors and the title of the film.

• ·         The “Columbia pictures” font was larger than the other fonts. Was also there as though it was part of the picture. Finally it was colour related to the film.

• ·         All of the fonts and words are there as if they were actually there. For example if someone ran into where the fonts are then the words will be moved out of place as if they were actually there.

• ·         Also all other fonts are colour relevant to the film.

• ·         As well the film title is centered. This would show the significance of that part of the credits as the film title. Once again it is larger and is colour relevant to the film like the rest of the credits
• .     After the main start of actors, companies and titles the credits go into the directors, producers and who else played an important role in the production of the film.
• .      Unlike the starting credits these names are in a smaller font and are more bunched together. This would resemble that they are less important to the audience but are very important to the film.

WHAT IS A THRILLER?

     A Thriller, a genre that intends to thrill the audience. Sub genres of a thriller would be Crime, Action, Horror, Mystery and Psychological. Many people enjoy thriller films and they appreciate the fast pacing and complex plots associated with this genre.
     Thrillers typically involve plot twists that are sudden, and this keeps people unsure about what is going to happen next.The affect of this makes it unbearable for the audience, especially in a long film or television series. As well as this a Thriller also has a lot of action (often chaotic) which features resourceful heroes and exotic settings.
     A plot of a thriller varies. Some are supernatural, for example, centering around mystical antagonists. Another being scientific/ medical, forcing their protagonists to contend with biological agents or mysterious scientific happenings. Some are simply straight mysteries with clever, horrific, or intriguing antagonists, while others be focused on the inner workings of the legal system, environmental threats, technology, or natural disasters. One long-established thriller genre is the spy thriller, featuring an often heroic and dashing spy who must confront whichever enemy happens to be popular at the moment.

ONLINE RESEARCH

For our online research we used audiences views from Youtube on the 2 films Shutter Island and Black Swan. The figures would help us to compare with for the results of our questionnaire.

SHUTTER ISLAND-

The trailer- 1,687,520 views

                  2390 likes

                  88 dislikes

                  Audiences: Female 13-17

                                    Male    18-24

                                   Male     25-34

Audiences quotes: -Oscar material

                             -good easy ending

                             -the ending is up to you, Teddy is insane or not?

                             -Love Leo

                             -Well written

BLACK SWAN-

The trailer- 18,963,989 views

                  30,165 likes

                  1341 dislikes

                  Audiences: Female 13-17

                                   Female  18-24

                                    Male    25-34

Audience Views: -Good story, love for actress

                          -Masterpiece

                          -Entrancing

DONNIE DARKO FIRST 5 MIN ANALYSIS

• The start gives the non diegetic sound of thunder. This would give the audience the impresion that it is a very dark and stormy film, and gives the hint of it being pyschological.
• The following quiet music (non-diegtic) once again gives the impression that it is a dark film. But this then moves into soft music as Donnie sits up, changing the perspective of the audience to it being calm.
• However once the title is shown there is the non-diegetic thunder. The change plays with the audiences mind.
• The POV shot of Donnie cycling down the hill gives the audience his view. 
• The close up of the sign advertising the haloween carnival is revealing what time of year it is to the audience.
• The tracking shot along the street across the houses is representing a typical american street. And with the music it represents what the perfect American lifestyle would be to the audience.
• As Donnie returns home the camera reveals more to the audience. We see Donnie's family and once again they seem to be living the perfect American lifetstyle. This would make the audience belive all is well at the home.
• With the Darko family at the dinner table in the next shot it seems as though life is still normal to the audience. However the creaking of table and chairs gives the audience the impression that the family is secretive and has nothing to share to one another.
• The close ups of each character at the dnner table gives the audience the chance to see deeper than whats on the outside of each of them.    

DARK KNIGHT FIRST 5 MIN ANALYSIS

THE DARK KNIGHT

·         The colour of Production Company logos relate to film.

·         The harpoon used as a prop show the bank robbers have planned well ahead.

·         Medium shot shows that the identity of the person holding clown mask will not be revealed. So must make the audience think and want to watch.

·         Heli shot of the two robbers going across the wire show the sneaky way they will get in to the bank.

·         Non diegetic sound to show a build-up of tension to the bank robbery.

·         There is an over shoulder shot of what the robber sees to the women working behind the counter. It shows how she is scared of what is happening to her at her workplace. It would be seen as someones worst nightmare to be robbed whilst in the bank by an angry mob such as the group in the film.

·         We see that there is an unconventional two shot. It shows one behind the other. This would create an element of surprise as one was about to kill the other.

·         The close up of the vault shows the audience what the robbers have to face to get their reward.

·         The angled shot of the bank manager with the gun shows that he has power in the bank and with the gun he is seen to have more power.  Like this there are similar shots in the clip. It shows to the audience that when with a gun, there is more power with that person holding the gun.

·         When there is the close up of the money being put into the bags it finally reveals to the audience the size of the job that they are doing. As well as this it would make the audience think for themselves why there is no more security to guard such a sum of money.

·         The close up of the Joker in this scene reveals to the audience who the villain in this film will be. It also portrays what the character of the Joker will be like throughout the film.