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."