Evaluation of Production

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

Our product does not challenge the forms or conventions of thrillers, but uses them. The main focus of our film is on human psychology, an important part of a thriller that is exhibited in films such as Fight Club and Psycho. Our film focus' on the psychology of the killer, and what drives him to kill. Had the film been full length, there would likely have been flashback's or insight into the killers childhood, as hinted at in the police investigation room scene. And so our film conforms in this respect. Our protagonists, the police detectives, fit the thriller convention of a fairly young, normal male. However we do subvert from the convention of there being a puzzle for the audience to solve, as we show who the killer is from the start. However this would allow the audience to know something the protagonists don't, and can help create empathy for the protagonists and raise the tension. Had we made a full length film, I think we would've had much more mystery involved, but with the time constraints of this piece, I think we made the right choice for an effective beginning.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There are two main social groups in our production - The authority, in this product the Police, and the minority, shown in this as the killer, who is also a schizophrenic. In our piece the police are shown as hard working and determined, as they have been working on this case for months and made no progress, yet they still keep at it and haven't given up. This is also reflected in their costume. Mike's character particularly, with no jacket or tie and just an untucked shirt. This shows that they're only concentrating on the case and aren't bothered with trivial things such as personal appearance. The killer in this film is a schizophrenic. Our film isn't intended to show schizophrenics as bad, or killers, but to show the inner struggle suffered by people with such afflictions.

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

Considering the popularity of the thriller genre, it would probably be distributed by a large company that could get it to many cinemas, rather than to dvd's or shops. Thrillers are one of the more popular genres, and is considered to be more adult than genres such as action or comedy. Therefore they would pull in much of the fairly high earning young professionals.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As the majority of the average thriller audience are males, are audience would obviously be predominantly male. As the BBFC rating of 18 often means a film get seen by very few people, we would try to have our film rated at 15, opening up our product to an audience of teenagers and students. This would be a good move as these are the type of people likely to be interested in seeing a psychological thriller. An audience of 15 and above would also be more likely to understand and appreciate the film than the audience if it were rated at 12, as 12 year olds probably wouldn't fully understand schizophrenia.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The very nature of thrillers attracts a large audience as it is - people enjoy being held in suspense and trying to solve a mystery. We added to this with the introduction - leaving clues to what has happened to characters before the start of the film, showing polaroids of the victims. It isn't immediately apparant that they're photos of victims, however clues are dropped throughout the film, such as the 'x-ray' flash over the next victim, and the picture flashing up as Sam walked past Joe, and the dialogue between the police officers.

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

Through making this product I have mostly learnt about editing software and digital cameras. Use of the cameras has shown that they are not machines that can make anything look proffesional, but require much more thought into positioning, angles and framing to produce an effective shot. Mike was responsible for most of the editing, although we all helped and so I have grasped an understanding of how to use such software. Using it has shown me that it is in the editing that a film really gets pulled together, and everything made to fit in a place where it will be most effective.

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

Looking at the effectiveness of some of the shots from our final piece, I have learnt the importance of framing characters in a shot to the overall feel of the film. In many of the shots in our preliminary task, we didn't think about where to position the camera or people within the shot carefully enough, and as a result it looks and feels much more basic than our final piece. I have also learnt the importance of planning and time management. In our preliminary task, we had a plan of what we wanted to do, but it was always open to change. This worked in some respects, making us more flexible with what we would do, however it also meant that as a group we were less sure of what we were trying to do. This changed when we made the final piece, as we decided to make a concrete plan of what we were going to make. This made it much easier to decide on locations, actors, and edits. This also effected time management, as with our first piece we found ourselves taking many recordings of the same thing which we weren't going to use. Whereas with the final piece, we knew exactly which shots we wanted and where we wanted them. This allowed us to know how many takes we were going to have to do and so significantly cut down on wasted time.

Production: Bound by Blood

This is our production, the first 3 mintues of a thriller named 'Bound by Blood'.

The first part of our production was meant to show two different rooms with the same pictures. one room would have the pictures annotated in blue ink, and the other annotated in blue ink. This was supposed to show the killer planning his next kill-the room with the red ink, and the police investigating the murders-the room with the blue ink. If we were to do it again, I would put more emphasis on the fact that they were two seperate rooms to make the opening scene more effective. We chose the music used - Mad World from the Donnie Darko soundtrack. We chose this by uploading many songs onto iTunes, and playing a selection alongside the film in iMovie. Some of the songs we looked at were 'The Artifact and the Living', also from the Donnie Darko soundtrack, 'Cemistry' by Unkle, 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)' by Metallica and of course 'Mad World'. We found that Chemistry was too fast paced and didn't quite fit it, and after the trouble we'd had with using Metallica on our continuity piece, we weren't going to use them again. The Artifact and the Living suited it quite well, but in the end we decided that Mad World was the most suited.

In the final scene at the coffee shop, we had to change some of our plans. We initially planned to do that scene at Caffe Nero, as there was a fairly run down road around the corner from it that we thought would look good for the film. However, after phoning them up we were told to ask their head office for permisssion. We did so, but got no reply, and so decided to look for a new location. We chose Costa Coffee, as this was positioned with an alleyway running alongside it. We called them up and were told we would have to ask the manager for permission, which we did and were allowed to film the scene there. This worked out quite well, as having Joe drinking his coffee outside allowed for him to follow Sam down the alleyway much easier.

Feedback
In the first version of our thriller, the police investigation room scene was much longer, featuering 2 more characters. However when we showed this version to people, they felt that this scene dragged on too long, and we recieved feedback such as,
"I think the police scene is too long. The start and end is good, but the middle drags on a little"
After watching it through a few times we decided that we all agreed with this feedback, and got to work editing that particular scene to help it flow more. We cut out approximately 30 seconds, and replaced certain shots with more close ups. The feedback we recieved afterwards was,
"I really liked it. The sound was really good and the editing was clever, and I think the story is good and I would want to see the rest if it was an actual film."
"I like it. I think it's really good and the ending's reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs and good editing."
"It's much better now you've cut it down, it keeps my attention for longer. I'd want to see the rest of it."

Thriller Script

This is the script for our thriller, it reads as follows:
Scene one: Killer in the hotel (bathroom scene)

Voice: You don’t have to do this; you do know that don’t you?

It’s not going to change anything.

Killer: Shut up! Just get out. I’m not listening to this again.

Voice: You know I’m right.

Killer: That’s it. I’m going, and you’re not coming with me this time.

*Killer walks out of bathroom

Voice: Do you really think I’m that easy to get rid of?

Oh, c’mon, it’s been years now. Besides, you’d be lonely without me.

*Killer walks out

Scene two: Police investigation room

Detective one: I dunno jack. We’ve been at this case for two months now and we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. We’re missing something, I’m tellin’ you.

Detective two: Look, talk like that’s gonna get us nowhere is it? We need to look more carefully. What is it about these people that makes someone want to kill them? Is there anything we’ve missed, anything that they all have in common?

Detective one: Well, they were all in the same year at school, we’ve established that, and James Greenwood was in their year, Phillip Mason was in the year above.

*Pause

Hang on; Jason Crook was in their year as well. It was his third school in two years. Says here he was removed for unusually disruptive behavior, looks like there were quite a few serious incidents he was involved in.

*Head officer walks through door accompanied by detective three.

H.O: Afternoon, you two. This is Thomas Green, he’s a specialist who’s been assigned to help you on the case. I’ll leave you to it.

Detective three: Right, what’s the story so far gentlemen?

Detective Two: Well, we’ve got a list of suspects that we’ve managed to narrow down to the 6 that are on the board. Three of those went to the same school as all four murder victims and it seems that Jason Crook had a bit of trouble in his school years, it could just be teenage behavior, but it did state that he was unusually disruptive... could be a lead, so we’re gonna check it out.

Detective three: Sounds like a plan.

*Pauses

Would I be able to have a mill over the papers and files? So I can get all the details and what have you.

Detective two: Sure.

Detective three: Thanks

*Walks out the room

Scene three: outside the police station.

Detective two: Not sure what to make of that guy really.

Detective one: He seemed a bit, odd. Anyhow, I don’t like the way they made it feel like we couldn’t handle it

Detective two: No, but I’m welcoming help. He just didn’t seem quite with it. Ah well, maybe he’s just awkward with new people.

Thriller Storyboard

The following pictures and annotations show the plan of our introduction to a thriller.

The opening scene will be of a collection of polaroid photographs scattered over a desk. There will be several cuts between two desks with the same pictures. On one of the desks the photos will have red writing on, and the other blue. The room with the red writing will be the killers room, and the room with the blue writing the police investigation room. The pictures will be those of the victims that have been killed before the film takes place.
The camera will then pan from the police desk up to a board in their room with mugshots of suspects. The camera will then go into a close up on one of the pictures. Unkown to the police officers this will soon be shown to be the killer.

The close up of the mug shot will then fade into a close up of the person in the mugshot standing in their bathroom. The killer will then hear voices in his head, which will be done with a voice over. We will have different camera angles on him for when the killer's talking and when the voices in his head are.

We will then watch the killer walk away from the voices in his head, leave the bathroom and turn out the light, as he goies towards the stairs.


The killer will then walk down the stairs, whilst being talked to by the voices in his head. He'll then walk towards the door and leave, and the shot will quickly fade out to the next scene.

In this scene 2 police detectives are discussing the case. We will have 2 shots as they talk to each other, and close up reaction shots as they exchange dialogue. Reaction shots will show the emotion of the characters in relation to what the other is saying, and so will be good for this scene.

A third detective will then be introduced to the case. He will be a new detective and seem peculiar to the other detectives. The 2 original detectives will then leave the police station after discussing the case with the new detective. They will talk to each other about what they thought of him.

When the police officers are outside the police station, unknown to the police the next victim walks past them. The camera will then track after him, and follow him down an alleyway.

We will then cut to the killer sitting in a coffee shop. If we can get permission to film there, we will use Caffe Nero in town, because there is a chair next to the window which would be in a convenient position for the shot. The victim will walk past the killer drinking his coffee. He will then stand up and follow the victim, and the introduction will be left on a cliffhanger.

Initial Planning of our Thriller

When we were set the task of making the introduction to a thriller, we first decided in our group to discuss which sub-genre of thriller we wanted to produce. I wanted to pursue a mafia/gangster thriller set in the 20's, as it seemed like the type of film which you could get lots of atmosphere and emotion into. However it became apparant that things such as costume and finding somewhere that wasn't obviously filmed in modern day would be too difficult. Other sub-genres we decided against, for reasons such as costume and special effects, were the horror and action thrillers.
In the end we have decided on doing a crime thriller. This allows us to create a 'case' that can absorb the viewer, and use locations available to us. Thinking about locations, we decided there were rooms in school that could be made to look like police rooms, but we didn't have a solid idea that we were definately going to go ahead with, and so can't decide on locations at this point.
Thinking of actors we could get to star in our production, the only people we could think that would be available to film at similar times to us that would be willing to be in are film were our friends. We decided on a few friends who we thought would look more fitting for the part that we could ask to be in it.

Research on Thriller Sub-Genres

To decide on which sub-genre of thriller to make our film, it seemed fitting to research a few popular ones.
To look at the sub-genres of thrillers we must first look at what makes the broader thriller in general.
"A Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television that includes numerous and often overlapping sub-genres. Thrillers are characterized by fast pacing, frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains."
This is the wikipedia definition of a thriller. From my own knowledge I can also say that common thriller forms and conventions include a protagonist that the audience can associate with, a mystery for the protagonist and the audience to solve, and action sequences.
Popular Sub-Genres include:
-Action Thriller
-Conspiracy Thriller
-Crime Thriller
-Disaster Thriller
-Drama Thriller
-Science-Fiction Thriller
-Horror Thriller
-Legal Thriller
-Medical Thriller
-Political Thriller
-Psychological Thriller

Psychological thrillers are considered to be one of the smarter types of film, often playing on human instinct and psychology. They also often cross over into the horror sub-genre, creating suspense through fear. They often tend to have a focus on the development of characters over the plot, and so result in there being more about the psyche of characters rather than intense action.

Crime thrillers on the other hand usually have a focus on physical action rather than psychology. They often follow the criminal to give us an insight into their life, and allow us to follow their crime spree. Crime thrillers feature murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, and double-crosses as central topics.

Continuity Exercise

This is what we produced for our continuity exercise. I think for our first piece it worked quite well. We ran into difficulty getting permission to film in particular rooms that we wanted to, and some shots being difficult to get into position to get, but we managed to work around these problems by finding alternative locations, and ways into places for the camera to go.