Final evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media production was influenced by many media texts that we have studied over the last few months. We have looked at these and tried to use media that is old and more modern. We have tried to make a classic thriller, but have tried to use modern themes with the modern kitchen, and also have tried to add in reference to contemporary modern crimes, like references to drugs, fake bank cards, fraud and Identity theft. This has been the theme of some more modern thriller films like Essex boys and Lock, Stock these have more contemporary issues in them that would appeal to a younger modern audience. They also have dirty gritty locations like the wooded area are actress runs though, she also has to deal with the small enclosed places and also very claustrophobic spaces of the fridge. These films all deal with modern issues like shortness of money, greed, the ideology of being the ‘The Big Dog’ and death. We have tried to add these issues in are short opening to a thriller film, however they do have influences from classic thrillers with the soundtrack we have used ‘Firebird by Stravinsky’ this creates a less modern feel to the film as it is a classical piece of music. We have tried to use different types of camera angles in the opening we have used a verity of shots these include long shots, mid shots, close ups, over shoulder shots and reaction shots. We have tried to edit it so that it is very fast paced feel, when the soundtrack picks up and is louder. However we have tried to slow the camera angles down and slow the feel of the film when the music gets quieter and less fast paced. The character we have used is different from most other films in that are main character at the opening is a woman, this is very different as the woman is not normally the main dominate character in a classic modern film. However we have used the fact that she is very week minded, and not very bright. As she has stolen the briefcase with no thought where to go or what to do with it, as she is being followed by someone or something.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Are media product represents a difference between the classic Thriller and modern thriller, we have used some aspects of both to create are opening media product. The main character is not a man, which you would expect from a thriller, but a woman. The femme fatale is represented as a weak, and not very quick minded as most femme fatales like the femme fatale in Jackie Brown. Our character is not a quick thinker and does not know what to do in case of danger or even potential death, as she just cracks and breaks down under the pressure of the situation of being in the claustrophobic space of the fridge.

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

I think are film should be distributed to a art house audience. As the story line would appeal more to this kind of audience looking for a complex story line with many twists and turns. It would be hard to find the money to distribute this film in a multiplex as it is not just any classic main stream thriller. We would need to get the backing from major American distributors like Sony, to be able to get the funding to place this film in a multiplex and to saturate the media market to get the public to view this media production. I think depending on how well it does at the art house complex’s will decide if this film goes to DVD or Blue ray disk, this is because we as distributors and producers need to know if we will make enough money to make a profit or to breakeven. If we don’t decide to go to DVD we could place it on the Internet as a free film which is a very powerful way of getting the production company’s name out on the media market which is ‘In Depth Productions’.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for our thriller film would be someone who is aged around 16 to 30. We are trying to appeal to a younger audience who are attending six form or who are at collage. We are also trying to get to people who are just starting out at work. However we found from are research that this audience only tent to mainly watch films about once a week, and prefer to watch it at the local cinema environment. So as long as our film appeals more then other competitors films we should pull in a good audience rating and overall more seats filled at local art house cinemas. In are research we found that are target audience preferred more modern thrillers like Lock, stock than more classic thrillers like The Third Man. They also prefer this with a psychological twist at the end of the film this works for the audience and us so we can add a cliff-hanger to the opening to our film. This will create a sense that the audience will want to keep watching the film to find out what happens to the main character.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience that we have tried to attract is students or younger film lovers aged around 16-30, we have tried to incorporate both aspects of a modern thriller and aspects of a classic type of film. We have achieved this by using a modern story line using factors of modern life and crime, compared with aspects of a classic thriller film like how the Femme Fatale is dressed. Also the classic briefcase that is seen in many classic Thriller films like at the start of the ‘The Third man’. However it has also been used in modern films like Lock Stock, as they are both used to conceal crime. By this we could attract many audiences from all sorts of backgrounds.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt a lot since the start of term, I had never used a digital camcorder or editing software before so this was a challenge at the start, however I now feel comfortable using and working with the software. I have learnt about the 180 degree rule which has helped us in are preliminary task, and our opening to our thriller film. In the practice shots we did we learnt how to keep the camera movement steady in a number of different shots, we tried new techniques and different ways to shot some of the scene in are film. Some shots worked well and others didn’t work so well, one camera shot I am very pleased with is were the main character is going to open the door to the fridge, I placed the camera on a moving trolley and followed the character in a 180 degree angle. This worked very well as you don’t expect the camera to do this and is a surprise to the viewer. I think the way we edited the music worked very well with the volume going up and down depending on how are character feels at that time.

A list of what I have learned in bullet points:

-We had to work in small groups to make are preliminary task, this was to practice are shots and angles in preparation to make are thriller film.
-We had to plan out are mise-en-scene to include locations, lighting, camera shots, costume, lighting and characters
-We had to also plan are narrative structure
-Casting actors
-Names of characters, name of film
-Finding a appropriate soundtrack
-Editing
-Responding well to audience feedback
-Working to a time fame and keeping to deadlines

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I have learnt a lot since we did are preliminary task because are first one of these was awful and didn’t show more than one or two different shots. Once we realised this we completely re-shot our preliminary task again, this enabled us to add in many more shots trying different editing techniques. We also added more of a storyline to our task to make it more interesting. However we struggled, when it came to filming, because me, my partner and our actress all have commitments to school and work. But we managed to fine two times to shot are film were we were all free, so we managed to complete are shots in this time. I don’t think we have received much bad criticism for our film, however there was a lot of criticism over the name of our film which has changed many times, from Corriendo, which is a Spanish name for running. However it is a British film. We also had the name X-country, for x as a cross, so cross-country was one idea, however in the end we came to the conclusion that we would call the film ‘The Corriendo Case’. This is for the term running, and the fact that our actress is putting her life in danger all for the case that she has stolen.
Dominic Smith

Questionaire results

These are the results for the first question of our questionaire (what gender are you?) we managed to ask 20 boys and 20 girls we thought this would give us fair results.






Questions 1,2 and 4 are simply based on the person who is doing the questionnaire so we can find out a bit about them. However we don’t need to know much about them except for there age and gender this is why the next seven questions will benefit us more on how we will produce are film.

Question 3 asks what type of film the people prefer, this came up in favour of what type of film we are producing which is a thriller film.

Question five is asking how many times they watch films a week this is not as relevant to are producing to are film. However this is interesting to know where our film could be watched by when it is finally produced and how many times it could be watched by people after its been produced, this also refers to Question six.

Question seven is much more relevant to the production of are film this question asks if they like classic thrillers or modern thrillers. More people choose the modern thriller so we will try to include this in our film we will be producing.

Question eight is also relevant we have used the results from the questionnaire to decide what gender are main role would be. We therefore chose to use a female in our film as the main role.

Question nine asks if people we asked preferred a cliff-hanger or a explanatory ending, however we changed this to ask which they prefer in a opening to a thriller film. From this we got that people preferred a cliff hanger of a opening, so we have incorporated this in our film.

Question ten is the final question in are questionnaire, this is a simple question that asks what type of thriller genre they prefer, from are results we got that they preferred a psychological thriller so we have also added this type of thriller to our film.

Timed essay

Preliminary task

This is are groups preliminary task....






This is our groups preliminary task where we had to use the 180 degree rule and practice are shots which we would use in are openings to our films. At first are preliminary didn’t show the shots we needed to so we had to redo it again. The second time we shot our preliminary task we broke the 180 degree rule on one of our shots as I walk across the room however we managed to edit this so it looks like the camera is on the same side as before. At the start of the film we have a tracking shot of the character, which as I hold onto the door we then switch the camera to a close up of me holding the door handle. Then as I walk inside we switch to a medium tracking shot as I walk across the room. We then use more close ups of the table and the switch, we also use the 180 degree rule as I talk with Lauren. However at this time we had a lack of experience using the cameras and editing software so this preliminary task is not as good as it could have been now after 4 or 5 moths practice.

Story Board for Thriller Film

The Third Man

Director: Carol Reed
Writers: Graham Greene
Screenplay and Story
Release date, 3rd September 1949

The Third Man is a classic film, released on the 3rd of September 1949 and directed by Carol Reed. This is a classic noir thriller with all the aspects of a thriller film from the 1940 to 50s. This is a brilliant film, from all aspects from the story line to the actors to the location. This film has been filmed in such a perfect way and is very hard to fault. Every shot has been carefully set up and every scene is perfectly shot. I can learn a lot from this film to help with my thriller opening.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F_SQyCJega8

Above is a one minute ten second clip of the Third Man and just in this short space of time there is such a variety of clever shots used by the director. The first is in just two seconds, where the director has used a tilt shot on the building, there is a cat in what look like a doorway in-between two windows. This shot shows us that everything is not right the world is slightly on the slant and everything is not normal. The windows also have bars covering them, which could suggest entrapment.

The next shot at Nine seconds is a low angle shots which shows Holly Martins shouting at the doorway. The lighting is very clever as it is on his face so the audience can see his face, however before the lighting is very low so we can only see the cat in the doorway. This means that the audience has no clue as to what happens next but they would be guessing as in to is it really Harry Lime or just Holly Martins shouting because he is drunk?

The next shot at 10 seconds is setting the scene for the next few shots, so the audience can work out where each character is and wont get confused as to where the car comes from in the next few shots. At this time you can still hear Holly martins shouting, the director Carol Reed has placed a Holly in a great place under the light of the lamp, this is very cleverly done and stops any artificial light being used. It also makes the scene very believable. You can also admire his clothing and classic thriller trilby and long coat these types of clothing are classic examples of the conventions of a Thriller film.

On 13 seconds the camera then moves to a mans feet, with the cat sitting in between his legs the noir lighting is used just to show up his legs.

The Next shot is on 16 seconds and shows the camera moves up to a window on the second floor of a building. The Director has used a worms eye view shot to look up at the window; this keeps the audience guessing and in suspense as Holly is still shouting across the road. This shot goes on until twenty seconds when you hear another load voice but this time its coming from the room above, where the camera has been pointing. At that second a light is flicked on and the camera flicks to Harry Limes face this is his introduction and is a very powerful one. At that moment the classic theme music comes in which was played at the start of the film, this theme is by Anton Karas. If I heard this theme it would remind me of this film straight away.

The camera moves between Holly a medium shot is used to show his shock in that Harry Lime is not dead at all but very much alive. The camera moves again to the woman shouting down at Holly but he takes no notice as he is in such shock. The next shot is a medium shot again facing Harry Lime with the light on his face glowing. The shot then moves into a close up where Harry drops his head slightly to the left, and this is the most iconic shot of the whole film and is used on posters for the film. I think this is brilliant and the best scene in the whole film and is one of my favourite parts in all of the Thriller films I have studied.

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Director: Guy Ritchie
Date when released: 1998
Country made in: England
Award nominated: BAFTA – won best film

This is a classic modern day British cockney film. Released in 1998 the film is comical, but also serious it depicts four cockney lads, Tom, Soap, Eddie and Bacon who owe a porn king "hatchet" a large sum of money, because Eddie has lost half a million in a rigged poker game. This leads the Four with a large problem as they now have "big Chris" after them. There are also marijuana cultivators, dim-witted robbers and ruthless gang of drug dealers. And you can’t forget the two antique rifles, which add a clever twist to the end of the film.