Feedback from target audience

The following are comments from our target audience:

Does the product seem to be a thriller?

• Overall comments agreeing that our product seems to be a thriller.
• For reasons such as, lighting and location shot in, themes, music, props and mise en scene.
• Could link to the beginning of a murder mystery.
• Yes, the music builds tension and we wonder who the boy is and want to know what is going to happen next.
• Appearance of a thriller because of the grey colour at the beginning
• Actor is dressed in black, shows that he is a bad guy.
• Using a knife shows that it is a thriller

Does the product appear to be the opening to a feature film?

• One comment says: 'The girl is killed within the first two minutes and the only motive of the boy killing her in my opinion is because they were together and then they broke up. I don't see what else could happen if she is already dead.'
• Beginning section outside of the house works well and seems to be an opening but the rest seems like it is the middle of the film.
• Might not be as effective as an opening as the character has died already.
• Walking at the start gives a good space for opening credits, it suits the start of a thriller.
• Nothing is explained/given away. It makes you want to know why it happened and if he'll be caught.
• 'Seemed a bit like a trailer of a film, or an ending, unless there is a flashback for the rest of the film I can't see how it would work'

Comments on camerawork, editing, sound and mise en scene:

• Liked the lighting
• Camerawork was really good, especially pov shots.
• Match on action was really good.
• Footsteps, knife, door and breathing were too loud and unconvincing.
• Scream was obviously an effect, made the film seem fake.
• Like the mirror shot
• Music at the end doesn't really fit in with the thriller genre

What was liked?

• Heartbeat, music and dropping the bottle were convincing. Background music suited the film.
• Time lapse effect was good, blood scene was good
• Fades were effective
• Siren at the end was good
• Font used for titles was described as simple but effective
• Good how the killers face is hidden until the victim is attacked
• Smooth cuts
• Credits are good and subtle. Positioning of them good as well.
• Love the blowing away of the photo and the fact that it was torn
• Blood and music linking to title
• Colours worked well, dark outside and light inside.
• Shadows worked well
• High angle shot with photo was good
• Editing where victim is drugged, was good
• Stabbing - shadow of victim

Improvements:

• Blood could be improved
• Some of the sound effects
• Acting - could have struggled and screamed more
• Could have done with some more extreme close ups
• Missed some of the sound effects for the footsteps
• Looks a bit blue at the start, therefore this could be improved
• Shorten breathing shot before victim is stabbed.
• Improve lighting in the bathroom as it was rather dark

We have also set up a group on the social networking site; Facebook, in order to get as much feedback from our target audience as possible. The following link will direct you to that page:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=104611012913300&ref=ts

Evaluation - Mathew Garrett

Mise En Scene:

• Urban settings, City landscapes, and sometimes areas that are often worn and decrepit.The use of Hard, Low Key lighting to create dark areas and places. This lighting has sometimes been associated to classic Film Noir's, but mainly Horror and Thriller genre films
• With these two affects it creates a dark and eerie atmosphere often associated with the Thriller genre as well as the Horror genre. Because of this it creates tense moments with audiences as we know these dark areas are places not to be ventured to but it happens anyway
• In my product it is dark in the outdoor shots. This is conventional to the thriller genre.

Sound:

• Diegetic sound - Diegetic sound is sound whose source is visible on screen or present from an action in the film. It is also sound that the characters can hear, e.g they are listening to a CD or have dropped something and it makes a noise
• Non-Diegetic sound - This is sound that is not heard by any characters in the film and that has been added in post production (Editing)

Camera work and Editing:

• Cross cutting creates tense, and suspenseful sequences by quickly cutting between two areas in time that eventually collide with one and other
• This cutting is usually used to create fast paced, tense moments usually leading towards action sequences, especially the main event of a thriller film
• Point of view shots (POV) are often used to insinuate and suggest that we are looking from the view of the murderer
• The point of view shots are usually used as the murderer approaches their victim(s)

Characters:

• The Criminals and/or the Villains are known as the Antagonists. The Antagonist is always human in a Thriller film where as a Horror film has a "Monster" antagonist that in some way have supernatural properties.
• The victim is usually a female. This is the same for the Horror genre But in Horror this is called the Final Girl.
• Heroes are usually the friendly people throughout the film who are close to the victim(s) and can often be the police or just an ordinary(nothing special about them) person.
• The Protagonist is usually the main Hero that stands out more than the others. This is often a Police Detective or even one of the victims.

Narrative Structure and Typical Story features:

• This consists of the standard narrative structure, the three act structure. The Equilibrium is the balance of forces in the film. For example: it can be normality in which each character is living their "normal" life until the Disruption.
• The Disruption is when the forces collide and result in a "disruption" of normal life. This is usually when the Antagonist is presented to the victim(s). This follows with the Resolution.
• The resolution stage is when life returns to normal for the survivors and the Protagonist. The resulting fact being the death or imprisonment of the Antagonist.
• This includes the usual oppositions such as good versus evil in which the story is based around.
• Binary opposition - This is a typical feature found in a thriller film. This is the way in which the protagonist naturally opposes the antagonist
• Enigma code - This is also a typical feature of a thriller film. This is the way the narrative creates the viewers to ask questions such as the typical: why, and who? This is usually presented as the killer isn't shown until far into the film during the confrontation of the film. An example of this would be the film Seven, where the opening alone creates questions
• Restricted narration - This is when we no as much as the characters in the film do. we are placed in the film as one of the characters as they don't know whats going to happen next
• Un-restricted narration is when we know more than the characters in the film. for example in the film "28 days later" the main character Jim is in his parents house and the shot cuts to a POV of an infected person running towards the house. We know the infected is going to attack Jim but he is unaware of what is going to happen

Iconography:

• Weapons - Guns and Knives(Most commonly knives). The film Zodiac is a prime example of this in its second murder scene
• Police and their uniforms are typical in any thriller film as they usually play a vital part in the story
• CSI - Crime Scene Investigation
• Dark unpleasant areas/places
• Blood

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

In our product, we used many of the features/conventions of real thriller products. Such as The Enigma code. As mentioned above the enigma code is the way in which the narrative creates questions. In our media product we have managed to use enigma code at the very beginning of our film. We chose to have no dialogue in our film which in itself raises questions. We also chose not to show Fred, the antagonists, face to create more questions such as who he is and why he is there. However we did choose to show a torn photograph of Fred and a girl, later revealed as his ex-girlfriend, Katie. You cannot see Fred's face clearly in the photograph which still gives a sense of mystery towards the viewer and keeps those questions in the audiences head. Also, because of this picture it may answer some questions or hint towards how the two characters know each other.

In our film we chose to use un-restricted narration which is typical to many thriller films. We chose to use un-restricted narration as it creates a more tense atmosphere. it does this by letting us know what is going to happen whereas the other character does not. the audience want to tell the other character, in this case Katie but they cant and although they know that something is going to happen and this creates suspense as the viewers don't know exactly what is going to happen.

Just like any other film, thriller or sci-fi, we incorporated the 11 elements of mise en scene into our final film. The costume in our film was different for each character as Katie is the victim whereas Fred is the antagonist, the psycho ex-boyfriend come to take revenge. Katie is getting ready to go out so her costume is modern and trendy. Fred's costume, on the other hand, had to be dark to create a sense of unease around him. We chose to have Fred wear a dark hooded jumper, with the hood up, and also dark trousers. The costume splits the two apart and puts them at opposite ends of the scale of Good versus Evil.

We chose to have Katie's hair modern to give that sense of here and now so that the audience can relate to the time of this. Luckily we didn't have to change our actors hair in any way which saved time. Fred's hair was simple. We chose to have his hair to look slightly messy and show that he doesn't really care how he looks. With make-up, the character Katie is getting ready to go out so naturally we had make-up on her and this way any female can relate to Katie as this is what most girls do before going out. In the film itself you see Katie putting lip gloss on which contributes to showing that Katie is getting ready to go somewhere.
The decor is modern for the time it was made and this allows the audience to relate to the the house and it shows it is set in the here and now, and not in the 60's where wallpaper was extremely different.

The Body language of Fred is very relaxed and at no point do you see him tense or stiff. He looks as if he is ready to do whatever he needs to and he is not bothered by what that may be. Katie's body language is also relaxed up until the point where her psycho puts chloroform over her mouth to make her unconscious and paralysed for a short amount of time. After that she becomes tense and is unable to move fully. The facial expression is very similar to the body language in the way that, again, Fred looks very calm even at the point where he attacks Katie. Katie, on the other hand, again, goes from being relaxed and looking happy, to being stressed and scared.

The setting is a small street with not many houses on it. This is shown at the point where Fred is walking towards Katie's house. The houses are modern but they are architecturally British, whereas if this was American the house would be bigger with a massive front porch and more space around it.

The props we used were typical iconographic items such as the knife, used in nearly all thriller films, a gag which was the old cloth with chloroform on it used often to keep the victim quiet and submissive. Also we used a chair to have Katie sat on and tied to it to make it easier for Fred to do kill her.

The lighting in our film was Low key and also high key, opposite ends of the scale just like the Good and Evil in the story. The lighting is low key whilst the character Fred is outside. The light is dark and creates a grey cloud over the image which makes you feel eerie and un-nerving. The lighting inside the house is high key, which is bright. the light is brightest in the bathroom where Katie is getting ready. This is because this is the location of one of the main characters and we wanted the viewers to be able to see her clearly.

In our film, Fred is the Antagonist. The antagonist in a film is the "bad guy". In most films there will always be an antagonist or many antagonists. In the film "The Strangers", there are three antagonists all of them masked. the antagonist opposes the main character, usually known as the Protagonist. The protagonist is the main character, the central, primary figure in the film which the story generally revolves around.

Our shots at the beginning of our film follow the character Fred. This is so that we see what he is doing at all times, apart from just before he enters the bathroom. When Katie is in the bathroom, we set up the camera so that it looked like she was looking into a mirror, i.e the camera. Until the point where Katie is introduced we purposely chose not to show Fred's face. This was to raise questions and audience response. When Fred appears in the bathroom behind Katie, we wanted it to surprise the audience and we made it seem that he had appeared from no-where. We decided to have a point of view shot of Katie when she wakes up to make it more interesting for the audience. We also chose to have a "shadow stab". This was so that we could still clearly show what had happened but with out the close up, gory additions. The shadow was difficult when first trying to position the light correctly so that Katie was shown clearly and you couldn't see the camera that was actually on Katie's side between her and the wall it projected onto.

The sound at the beginning of our film was supposed to be sad and emotional. At the point where Fred throws the photograph on the floor and there is a close up of the photograph, the piano becomes louder and more obvious. This was because we wanted this scene to be emotional and also to hint to the audience that something sad had happened to the two characters in the photograph, their break up that Fred took to seriously and now wants revenge. For the bathroom scene we chose to have a modern piece of music that most teenagers would be likely to listen to. When seeing our final product we had realised that the music was a lot louder than when we were editing it. this had something to do with how the audio was transferred once our film was completed. At the end of the bathroom scene we added a heartbeat to create the illusion that Katie was fading away in consciousness. We also showed this by using a dissolve in post production to simulate Katie going into a temporary sleep.

Three act structure - The Equilibrium in our film would be when the street is shown at the beginning and until just before Katie bends down to pick up her hairspray.The disruption is when Katie and Fred are in the bathroom together and also when Katie is stabbed. Because this is only the opening to a full length feature film there will be many disruption sequences in it, mainly around the middle of the film.The resolution in our film does not exist yet as it is only an opening of a film. If we had made a full length feature film the the resolution would be at the end of it when the the bad guy, Fred, has been stopped. Either killed or put in prison.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents 17 year old, middle class, male and females. This is because our character Katie is a typical female teenager who is in her first year of college and isn't particularly popular but still has plenty of friends all around the college. Her parents aren't rich or poor which is most common in the here an now.Fred is also a middle class, 17 year old college student.When we first discussed our ideas for a thriller we thought of using a female as the antagonist and a male as the protagonist in the story. If we did this it would mean we would be playing with the typical conventions of a thriller, which is always a male antagonist. We decided not to do this and to stick to the typical conventions so that it could be recognised even more as a thriller. With this in mind we portrayed Fred as a stereotypical dominant male. Because Fred is relaxed with what he is doing it creates the feeling that he is dominating the situation with what he thinks is best. When Katie is on the chair before being stabbed, we used a low angle POV shot to show Fred towering over her and it makes him seem more powerful and dominant whereas Katie is on a chair so she is lower doing having to look up.

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

To distribute our film we would be looking for an independent British distribution company. there a lot of independent distributing companies but as of yet i have not been able to find one that specialises in Thriller films. However there are some companies that would be suitable for our media product. Anchor Bay Films has done many Horror films including the original "The Crazies" (1973) film and also the more recent independent film "Ghost Machine" (2009). And also Guerrilla Films

4.Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience for our media product is 16-19 year old girls. This is because our film relates more to girls than it does to boys. Although both male and female characters are present in the film we believe that more girls can relate to Katie's character than anyone can to Fred's character. I think that all girls have had the boyfriend that turns a bit psycho but does not take it to the length that Fred does. Males, however, will enjoy this film but will not be able to relate and respond to it as much as teenage girls. Our film follows in the footsteps of the psycho ex-boyfriend films such as the film "Prom Night" (2008) and is also similar to the film "When a stranger calls" (2006)

5.How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract our audience would be to first focus on a specific audience. In our case this is teenage girls. To attract this audience we needed something that girls can relate and respond to, hance our female character Katie who has a psycho ex-boyfriend. Because there is no dialogue no one actually says that our two chracters were together. However we have insinuated that the two were together at some time but not anymore. We did this by showing the photograph on the floor. It shows Fred with his arm around Katie which suggests that they were close. the rip down the photgraph shows that something went wrong and that they are most likely not together anymore. Also, the music we made for the bathroom scene is exciting and modern, alot like some of the new smash hit bands teenage girls love such as You Me At Six.

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

For my main product i used a standard video camera which i acquired from my College.
Whilst using the camera i had to continuously check and set the white balance (tutorial) whenever the light changed such as when moving from one room into another. This procedure is important but can also be a pain whilst filming as it needs to be done but it is easily forgotten.
I used a piece of editing software called Final Cut Pro to put all my footage together on and create the final product. This was a fun task for me as i now know the program fairly well and i enjoy using it. However, during editing i found it tricky at times as i had to get match on action spot on otherwise it would look tacky and un-professional. I believe that i succeeded in matching the sequences very well and it is one part of my Product i am very proud of. We have a number of match on action shots in our film, the first one is when Fred walks into Katie's kitchen. I wanted to get this perfect so it would look good and proffesional. Match on action is when you use two shot of the same thing but from different angle or sides of your character. You have to match one action in the clip and the cut, and edit them together.

After editing i went onto using the music creation program garage band. This is a music editing and creation program that i am very familiar with so it was easy for me to navigate my way around the program and do want i wanted for my Product. With this program i was able to overlay our completed video and then add sound to it. This was very useful as it mean tthat i could match sounds correctly and create continuity. Creating contiuity with a sound bridge is useful when your characters are in the same place but it switches to a different shot. Using garageband i was able to add sound over one clip and onto the next clip which created my sound bridge. Diegetic sound, which comes from a visible action on screen, such as doors opening and closing was easy becasue of garage band. I could get my selected video and then match the sound perfectly to what was happening on screen.

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

Overlooking the preliminary task made me realise how in experienced i was at creating a piece of film from such an early stage in my Media AS year.
From looking at my final product and my Preliminary task i can see that my lack of knowledge and skill shows in the footage first created. The camera work is not well done and looks un-professional compared to what i have achieved in my final Product. Looking at the picture here, i can see that the lighting and composition is alot worse than my new work. the lighting is dull and there is not much colour in the shot. You cannot see the characters facial expressions clearly and therefore it is difficult to see. The composition is bad as we had left too much space on the left hand side which draws the eye away from the main action they should be focused on. I believe that my editing work has improved and the amount that i have edited into my Product whereas in the Preliminary task i wasn't really sure what had been done to standard and i only used basic shots, and the bare minimum amount of shots. In my final Product i have achieved more in shots and continuity which is a big factor when creating a film such as this.

Evaluation - Ed Boyce

Conventions of a typical thriller

Iconography:

• Weapons such as guns, knives etc
• Urban city locations
• Police, Detectives
• Blood

Mise en scene:

• Location: Most thrillers are set in urban area such as town or citys
• Lighting: Lighting in thrillers can be used to create atmosphere. Often Hard low key lighting is used to create a sinister atmospere. Creating shadows and darkness.

Editing and Camerawork:

• In thrillers often there are many fast cuts. These fast cuts are used to create suspense-this is often in violent scenes.
• POV shots are sometimes used from the killers POV.
• Other techniques such as crosscutting can be used to build suspense. For example cutting between the antagonist and protagonis when they are approaching untill a collision

• Sound:Non-diegetic sound used for creating tense moments and building suspense.

• Unrestricted Narrative, where the narrative shows us everything, letting us know more than the characters. Unrestricted Narrative is used in most thrillers this is because it keeps the audience in the

• Restricted Narrative, elements of a story that are not presented in the narrative to interest the audience, it is usually used r to keep the audience always wondering what is going to happen next.Binary Opposition is also a typical convention of the a thriller, this is the way in which a protagonist will typically oppose an antagonist.

• Enigma Code is often used in thrillers. Enigma code is the devices used by the narrative to raise questions in the minds of the viewer. Questions for example, such as why has this murder been committed?

1. How did our product, Love Links, use the above conventions and forms of a thriller?

Enigma Code

• Enigma code. We used Enigma code to raise questions in the audience.

• Another example of how we used enigma code was that we chose not to show Fred's face until the bathroom scene. The reason for this is because we wanted the audience to wonder who this person is. We did although chose to show the picture that Fred was holding, whilst walking to Katie's house. This torn picture represented the broken relationship of Fred and Katie.
• We chose to have no dialogue in our thriller opening. This was to raise questions in the audience's minds as to what the motive was for Fred to kill, Katie.

Confrontion

• We had a confrontion that our opening had been leading to. This is the climax of the suspense building when Fred attacks Katie.

Unrestrictive Narrative

• We used unrestricted narrative in our thriller. Our opening shows Fred coming up Katie's stairs. The audience knows this and therefore more than the character. We used this as a tension building strategy.

Iconography

• We used the typical thriller element blood in our thriller opening. This is seen seeping through Katie's shirt.We also used another typical element which is weapons more particularly knifes.
• We also used blood which is linked to murders and deaths found in thrillers.
  

Sound

• For the sound we used non-digetic background music throughout the opening. We used quiet piano sounds and low bass notes. This sound fits with the thriller genre, it sets a serious tone and builds tension.
  

Mise en scene

• Costume: We had Fred wear dark clothes and a hoody. The hoody hides his identity making the audience wonder who he is. It also raises the question as why he would want to hide his face. Katie's custome was normal clothes which are also quite modern as we wanted people to be aware its set in the present.
• Location: Most thrillers are set in urban areas, ours was set in an urban area- a village. So this is a typical thriller convention.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• Our media product represents two different people, one of which is a 17 year old, middle class female and the other of which is a 17 year old, middle class male.
• One way in which we conveyed Katie as this is throught her appearance. We dressed her normally with a plain white shirt, you also see her putting makeup on a normal teenage girl thing to do.
  
• She is also listening to music, this is music we created ourself as we didnt want to have to get permission to use a copyright track.We wanted to have katie as a normal young girl who probably enjoys going out and having fun. She seems innocent with little wrong with her life.

• The way we wanted to represent Fred is that he is slightly odd and maybe outcasted from the typical 17 year olds 'social group'. That fact that he is breaking in to a house and grabing a knife shows this, as it is not normal behaviour. Also his black clothing paints the picture he is the bad guy.

• We chose the typical thriller convention of having a female protagonist and a male antagonist

3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
For our media product we would look for a well known independent film company that has a reputation for being good with distribution. A film distributor must ensure that the film reaches the largest target audience as possible. I haven't found any that specialise in thrillers but Momentum Pictures has been a distributor for some successful thrillers such as CSI. So this would be suitable for our thriller. Using a well known Distributor would be good promotion for our film as well.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think that our audience would be most people. I think that most thrillers are aimed at the masses for example Seven is a very well known and successful thriller but these films arn't really aimed at anyone percificaly. I think that this is what our thriller is like. However our thriller could be aimed at younger demographic of girls (like the characters in our opening). This is because they can relate to wierd ex-boyfriends.

5.How did you attract/address your audience?

• Our main audience is teenage girls because they can relate to crazy ex-boyfriends. The way we let the audience know that this is point of the film is by showing the torn photo with Katie and Fred on it. Which resembles their torn relationship,the photo is then discarded and blown away. This is was one way of attracting our audience because after seeing this scene hopefully they can relate to the situation.
• Another way to attract our audience is by seeing the young characters in the opening and by attrated to watch it because of that.
• Our film is a thriller so the audience want the conventions of a thriller with it. Which we included, such as Enigma code to raise questions and suspense building techniques. Our thriller wouldnt address or audience well if it didnt entail the 'thrilling' part of a thriller.
• Examples of similar films.

6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
For the main task we used different technologies.

• For filming we used the standard cameras from the college.
  
• To edit we used Final Cut Pro
  
• For sound we used GarageBand
• We used blogger for blogging
• This software was on an Apple Mac
  

• When I have edited before i used the software called Imovie. Therefore using Final Cut was a new experience to me. I enjoyed editing before so i looked forward to this part. I found it difficult to get used to the program as it is a whole new interface compared to Imovie, but after a while and after learning the keyboard short cuts of the program i was able to pick it up and edit at a decent speed.
  

This video helped me come to grips with the program aswell.

• I was used to GarageBand as i have used it before so this technology was easy to use and get what i wanted from it though i did go deeper into the program and use more sounds than i have before. One thing i did learn in GarageBand is the editing of the Digetic sound. Making sounds louder or quieter to fit your film was something i was new at.
  

• To film we used a standard college camera. The camera is simple to operate and the only thing that you need to remember is to set the white balance so that the colour is the same throughtout all the shots you shoot. Not doing this can lead to different colours and therefore breaking continuity-like in our preliminary as seen below.
  
• I am now confident with the camera, although it is easy to operate it, to actually get good shots from it and not have jolty shots takes some getting used to.
• I am personally a windows user and i have not used Macs much at all. Getting used to the different layout and configuration of Macs takes some time. There is also a lot of shortcuts when editing such as cutting and slicing using the Control key. The tutorial posted above also helped me learn these.
• Blogger was simple to get used to, i am familar with interfaces sucha s the one on blogger. One thing i still find hard is placing images on the blog
  

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

Comparing our full product to our preliminary it is easy to say that as an individual and a group we have learned a lot.

Camera Work

• Camera work has improved. We had white balance problems in our preliminary and we have resolved this in our full product. The changes in lighting looks unprofessional. The camera shots are also better and smoother.
  
• In our preliminary we also used basic and the bare minimum of shots and our framing is better in our full product.

Example of bad light continuity changes from white balance.






Editing

• Our editing in our main product is a lot more advanced and took us a lot longer. With our full product we werent just putting the film together like in our preliminary but adding sounds and all types of different effects.

Evaluation - Jess D'Alvarez

There are many different conventions of the thriller genre and these include:

Mise en Scene:

• Urban settings
• Dark atmosphere. Possibly using hard lighting to create very defined shadows, gives a creepy effect or using low key lighting to create dark areas and to accentuate the contours of a object, where there is shade (dark areas) in part of the picture and the light focuses on part of the person/object.

Camerawork and Editing:

• Faster cutting is usually used for violent action
• Crosscutting is used to create suspense
• Sometimes point of view (POV) camerawork is used. Usually as the murderer approaches the victim.

Iconography:

• Weapons: guns, knives etc
• Dark places
• Police, police cars and crime scene investigation
• Blood

Sound:

• Sound effects such as screams, footsteps etc are used to build suspense and/or to create shock.
• Non-diegetic sound is usually used to build suspense. For example when an antagonist if approaching a protagonist.

Typical Story Features:

• A thriller usually conforms to the narrative structure of the set up, disruption and resolution. The set up (sometimes called the equilibrium) is the initial situation in the narrative of the film, giving context. The disruption is the arrival of a force or character which opposes normality and creates a problem. The resolution is the closure or ending of the story being told.
  
• The narrative usually builds up to the solving of a crime(s) and then the final elimination of the criminal.
  
• Some thrillers use a flashback, which means that the end of the story may be shown at the beginning of the film.
  
• A thriller is usually structured using oppositional characters such as good vs bad or justice vs injustice of which then the narrative heads towards the resolution of the oppositions.
  
• In a typical thriller, there is both a protagonist, the main character (usually the hero or heroine), and an antagonist, the villain that opposes the protagonist(s). Binary Opposition is also a typical convention of the thriller genre; this is the way in which a protagonist will typically oppose an antagonist.
  
• Enigma Code is another typical convention of the thriller genre. Enigma code is the devices used by the narrative to raise questions in the minds of the viewer. For example, if in a thriller the face of the antagonist is not shown until a while into the film, it will raise questions in the minds of the viewers as to who that person is, why they are killing/attacking, etc. An example could be taken from the opening of the thriller Seven. Within just the first few minutes of the film i.e. the opening, many questions are raised in the audience's minds.
  
• Restricted Narrative, elements of a story that are not presented in the narrative to create intrigue for the audience, is usually used in a typical thriller in order to keep the audience always wondering what is going to happen next. An example could be taken from the opening of an episode in the TV series Criminal Justice. The audience are not given any clues as to who any of the characters are or their relationships with one another, this would also be an example of enigma code.
  
• Unrestricted Narrative, where the narrative shows us everything, giving us more knowledge than the characters, is also usually seen to be used in a typical thriller as it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats because they know more of what is going to happen than the characters do, which also makes it more exciting for the audience.

How did our product, Love Links, use the above conventions and forms of a thriller?

Our product used many typical conventions and forms of a thriller such as, enigma code. We chose to have no dialogue in our thriller opening in order to raise questions in the audience's minds as to what has happened and why the male character, Fred, wants to kills the female character, Katie.

Another example of how we used enigma code would be that we chose not to show Fred's face until the bathroom scene as we wanted the audience to wonder who he was and what relation he had to Katie. However, we chose to show the picture that Fred was holding, whilst walking to Katie's house, which should help the audience come to a conclusion as to the relationship of Fred and Katie.



We also used unrestricted narrative because our opening showed Fred walking to Katie's house and the audience saw this, however Katie was unaware of the fact that Fred was making his way to her house, therefore the audience knew more than the character, Katie.

Our opening includes two of the three stages of narrative and these are the set-up and the confrontation/disruption. Our whole opening would be the set-up to the full film 'Love Links', however the set-up to the opening would be Fred walking to Katie's house and again when he throws the photo of him and Katie on the floor and we see that it is ripped in half. This shows that something is 'not right', which is typical of a thriller set-up.


We also used the second stage of narrative which is the confrontation/disruption. The confrontation/disruption is the arrival of a force or character which opposes normality and creates a problem. In our opening the confrontation/disruption is when Fred creeps into the bathroom, whilst Katie is getting ready to go out, and then grabs her and covers her mouth with a rag of chloroform.




We chose not to include a resolution because it is the 'closure' or ending of the story being told and our product was only the opening of a thriller, therefore we didn't use it, however it would be used if 'Love Links' were to be made a longer film.

In our thriller opening we have a villain, male character; however I would not class him as an antagonist because he does not oppose a protagonist e.g. the hero/heroine of the story. Therefore because of this, we have not included binary opposition in our thriller opening.

Thrillers are usually shot in the dark to make them seem scarier, therefore we tried to do this for our opening and shoot Fred walking to Katie's in the dark, however we came across a problem. The problem was continuity. We tried to shoot all of our outside footage in one go at around 6:15pm however it got dark quickly which meant that we were unable to see our actor. We then decided to shoot some more the next night and when uploading our footage onto the Macs we could see that there was a clear continuity problem due to the fact that we had shot on different days and even though it was at the same time, it just wasn't the same darkness. To overcome this problem, we chose to shoot the outside shots in the daytime and in post-production, add a night effect to the shots. We did this, however the shots don't look like they have been shot at night, but they look gloomy; which I think also has a scary effect.

We have used many elements of typical thriller iconography in our opening such as a weapon. Guns are the most popular weapons used in thrillers however we were not allowed to use a gun therefore we chose to use a knife instead and this worked just as well. I found that our use of camerawork, in the shots where the knife was involved, helped to dwell on the knife and made the knife the most important part of the shots they were involved in, which is what we wanted because it was a main focus of our opening sequence.


Another typical thriller element on iconography would be blood. In our thriller opening we wanted to show Katie's blood seeping through her shirt overtime, after being stabbed. We thought that this idea was unique and different to any other thrillers; however we still had the typical thriller iconography element of blood. A member of our target audience described the blood as 'cool' and another said that this particular scene looks like a 'crime scene photograph', which is the effect that we were going for.


Police and crime scene investigation are both very typical of thrillers and the above scene has been described as looking like a crime scene investigation and we have police sirens playing in the background at the very end of the above scene and then as the title of the film appears, the shot to the left. This was described as 'the cherry on the cake' by one member of the target audience.



Thrillers are usually set in a urban, often seedy setting, however our opening is not set in an urban setting and is in fact set in a small town/village. We thought that if our opening was set in a small town/village where everyone knew each other and everyone was friendly, then a murder would come as a shock and be very out of the ordinary and hopefully raise questions in the audiences minds as to why this murder has happened, which is an example of enigma code.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product represents two different people, one of which is a 17 year old, middle class female and the other of which is a 17 year old, middle class male.

We wanted our main female character, Katie to seem like an ordinary, 17 year old girl, who likes to have fun. By ordinary we mean, a girl who is middle class, she is not poor however she is not rich, a girl who goes to college, has friends but isn't one of the 'popular' lot and a girl who just likes to go out and have fun once in a while, especially considering she has just broken up with her boyfriend.

During the research and planning stage of our coursework, we were thinking about subverting the the typical thriller by having a female antagonist and male protagonist and create something out of the ordinary. However we decided not to do this and conveyed to the typical thriller convention of having a female protagonist and male antagonist.

Our male character, Fred, is represented as stereotypically dominant throughout our short opening. We used a low angle, pov shot in order to make the male character seem more powerful and dominant. We dressed our male character in black clothing to conform to the idea the 'bad guys' in a film are represented by wearing all black.

We didn't want to over dress our female character, specifically because of our zero budget, therefore we dressed her in a plain white t-shirt, leggings and teamed it with a gold coloured necklace to make her look slightly dressed up, as she was going out for the night with friends. Being a teenage girl myself, I think these items of clothing are what a typical teenage girl would wear now-a-days. This outfit represents her age because it is something that a young, teenager would wear and not particularly something that you would see a 40 year old women wearing.

We wanted to have Katie listening to music, however we were not allowed to use real songs because for this we needed permission and gaining permission would have been a lengthy process therefore we decided to make our own music, however this was a difficult task because there are many different subcultures within the stereotype of a teenager; for example, goths, chavs, emos, punks etc. We didn't want Katie to be stereotyped, however the truth is people do judge and stereotype people, therefore whatever music we had Katie listen to, she would've been instantly stereotyped and classed as a 'chav' or 'goth' etc. In the end we did make some music to put in the background of the bathroom and in my personal opinion I think it sounds rather upbeat and rocky, therefore Katie could be stereotyped as a 'rockchick', but we did not intend to specifically stereotype Katie.
I think our representations of Katie are positive because we just wanted to show her as an ordinary, 17 year old, teenager.

I think using young, teenages actors in our short opening means that our target audience will be more inclined to a film in which people of the same age appear and of which they can relate to.

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

We would be looking for a small independent film distribution company in order to distribute our film. There are many small independent film distribution companies who would be suitable to choose in order to distribute our film. I have not been able to find such distribution companies who specialise in thrillers however distribution companies such as Guerilla Films, Shorts International and possibly Verve Pictures would be possible companies to enquire with about distributing our film. After choosing a film distribution company to distribute our film, they would then determine the release strategy and release date for our film. Our distributors would then present our film to exhibitors and negotiate agreements to have the film shown in cinemas.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think the audience for our media product would primarily be teenage girls, aged 15-19 as our film is about a psycho ex-boyfriend and I think that some/most teenage girls can relate to a psycho ex-boyfriend; however it may not be to the extreme that Fred goes to. Despite this, I think that some males might enjoy our film; however teenage girls are definitely our predominant target audience. An example of thrillers, similar to ours, that teenagers (our target audience) might enjoy could be Prom Night (2008), Fatal Attration (1987) or Obsessed (2009). (Film posters below)


How did you attract/address your audience?


As said above, our film is about a psycho ex-boyfriend and the extremes he goes to in order to ensure that if he cannot have Katie, then no other male can and in a way, I believe that many teenage girls can relate to this. However, you may be thinking, just by watching the short opening, how would an audience know that this is about an ex-boyfriend wanting to kill his ex-girlfriend? And the answer to that would be the fact that we showed Fred throwing a torn picture of him and Katie to the ground, and I think this is a very important part of our opening. We emphasised this scene in two ways. The first was by having Fred throw the picture to the floor, in order to show that he was heartbroken by the break up and the second being that we showed a close up of the picture, really emphasising what the picture showed and the tear down the middle of it. I think once the audience see this scene, then they would instantly know Fred and Katie's relationship and the simple fact that the picture has been torn, shows that their relationship is 'torn' indicating that they have split. Over this shot the music was very quiet and slow. This would indicate that this photo bought back sad memories for the person holding it and once again help the audience to understand what has happened between the two characters.

I think that some teenagers i.e. members of our target audience, would listen to the type of music that Katie is listening to in the bathroom whilst getting ready. It's the rocky, upbeat music that some teenagers like and I think that this could help to attract our audience.

I also think that after watching our opening, the audience will have questions as to why Fred killed Katie and not automatically assume that it was just because Katie ended the relationship with Fred, as well as questions such as does Katie die? Do the police find Katie? Do they find Fred? etc. I believe that our opening acts as a cliff-hanger and draws the audience in and makes them want to watch more. This is an example of how we used enigma code and restricted narration.

Another mechanism used to capture an audience would be titling. Some films such as The Orphanage, Seven and Old Boy have very sophisticated opening titles and I think they are used in order to attract an audience and make them interested in the film. Our titles are not very sophisticated however I think the sound, police sirens, used over our main title 'Love Links' attracts the audience and gets them wondering what will happen next e.g. asking questions such as are the police involved? etc. Had we thought more about our titles and had more experience in creating titles, we could've possibly used a heart to replace the 'o' in Love Links, as this symbol links in with the titles. We also had the idea of having a red ribbon morph into the words 'Love Links', which would've appeared to be more sophisticated and created a more interesting title sequence.

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


Using the camera:
I have learnt a significant amount about each different piece of technology used in the process of constructing this product. During our preliminary I didn't use the camera as much as I would've liked to because I didn't feel confident when using it however during this project I felt more confident using the camera. I also did some individual filming of the actor (character Fred) and I came to enjoy the filming process because I took many different shots using different angles and heights etc. Being allowed to shoot some shots individually helped me perfect shots such as panning shots as I was able to practice and practice without the pressure of fellow group members. I also learnt how to perfect the setting of the white balance and now it is the first thing I do before beginning to shoot as we discovered that some of our shots looked blue, due to the white balance not being set. I have searched for a tutorial on how to set the white balance on the Panasonic NV-GS90 however I cannot find one for this specific camera. Setting the white balance is similar on all cameras, therefore to learn about how to set white balance, please click on the 'setting the white balance' linke above.

We were given the option of using either iMovie or Final Cut Pro when it came to editing our rushes together. Having used iMovie in our preliminary it probably would've been ideal to use this programme for editing as we had near enough got the hang of using it however having briefly looked at Final Cut Pro we discovered that it had much to offer than iMovie did therefore we chose to use Final Cut Pro. At first it took a while to get the hang of using Final Cut Pro and remembering the shortcuts, in order for us to edit our work quickly but after roughly two hour sessions of using Final Cut Pro I found that I could use the software confidently whether it be with my group or individually. During the process of constructing our product I have learnt the basics of how to use Final Cut Pro as well as how to cut a clip, edit a clip together, add effects to clips, such as: darken and lighten, add transitions to clips and how to add impose titles onto clips. Screen grabs of our titles below:

The use of cameras and the editing suite allowed us to demostrate continuity, which was totally new to us before this course. Continuity is the consistency of the characteristics of people (characters) in a film, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over a period of time. A match on action is an example of continuity and we demonstrated many of these in our opening. In order to achieve this type of continuity, using walking through a door as an example, we had to shoot our character walking through the door from behind him and then shoot him walking through the door and closing it, from the other side. In order to make sure out match on action was perfect we had to ensure that the our actor opened the door with the same hand for both of the shots. We also has to make sure that he put the same foot forward, when walking through the door. Then when in the editing suite, we were able to use the software, Final Cut Pro, to cut and edit these clips together and make it look like it was shot all in one go.


Garageband:
We use Garageband in order to edit the diegetic sound picked up whilst filming. However, not all diegetic sound can be picked up and there may also be the problem of picking up unwanted sound, therefore Garageband sound effects can be used to emphasise the diegetic sound that may not have been picked up very clearly and it can also be used to cover up the unwanted sound. There are a wide range of sound effects on Garageband, therefore this enables people to choose the right effect that suits their genre.
Garageband was not completely new to me as I had practised using it before, as did the other members of my group, therefore we had an advantage and this meant that we wouldn't waste time trying to get the hang of the programme. I feel that I wasn't very confident when using Garageband because the other members of my group were more confident than me, therefore I only participated a little when editing the sound of our product. We were great as a group when it came to using Garageband because we all agreed on the sound effects and there were no disputes. In terms of actually editing our sound, in most of our scenes we cut out the sound and added a soundtrack to it. We didn't have any dialogue in our piece, therefore we didn't have a problem with background noise and not being able to hear dialogue etc. Garageband is a great piece of software to use in order to edit sound after filming.


Blogging:
The blogging experience was not totally new to me as I am a member of social networking sites such as, Facebook, therefore I found it relatively easy to blog through the construction of our product. However, because I had never used Blogger before it took me a few sessions to get the hang of it, but I found that it was quite basic and easy to use and I also learnt how to create a new post, edit a post, delete a post, insert a photo into a post and how to embed a video, e.g. a YouTube video.


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

Personally, I think, individually, I have progressed greatly from the preliminary task to the main task and that as a group we have also progressed greatly. I have mastered the techniques of using equipment such as: the camera, tripod and redheads etc, Final Cut Pro, Garageband and Blogging. I have also learnt a lot about the thriller genre and the conventions of a thriller after looking at and studying various thriller openings such as: Seven and Arlington Road. Researching the conventions of a thriller really helped me understand what a thriller is and really what people expect of a thriller.


One large, and rather noticeable improvement, would be our lighting. In our preliminary task our lighting was terrible and not continuous which made the film look poor. Therefore, during this main task, we focused on lighting a lot. One lighting problem we had was the outside lighting and that fact that some of the shots were very dark, too dark to even see the actor, therefore (as mentioned above) we shot these shots in the daytime and then added a dark/gloomy effect to make it more eerie.

Another problem we had with lighting was the continuity of the upstairs shots. We wanted to shoot the stabbing using a shadow effect, as we could not find another way of showing the stabbing. At first, we used a large portable torch to create the shadow; however the battery in this torch died very quickly and left us with poor shots, which also meant we couldn't shoot the other upstairs shots because the lighting would be significantly different. We then got a redhead and used this in order to create a shadow and we then shot the stabbing. Again using the redhead we shot the POV shot, as well as the blood scene and this gave us a consistent light, which meant that we had concurred our lighting problem.


Bad lighting in preliminary exercise:




As you can see there is a very noticeable difference in the lighting.





I feel that in our preliminary exercise our match on action was well executed, however it could have been slightly better therefore one of our main focuses in our main task was to perfect our match on actions. In our final product we have three match on actions, which I think were well executed because we focused on these a lot. We were so determined to get our match on actions right, we made sure that every last detail was pinpointed and correct, right down to the hand our actor put on the door, to the foot he used to step inside the house and through the doors etc. Below is an example of one of our match on actions, where Fred walks through the side door into Katie's house.



Another element which is significantly better than our preliminary is our framing. In our preliminary task our framing was quite poor. Looking at this specific shot, we can see that there is a lot of unnecessary space above the male actors head. There is also lots of unnecessary space between the two characters' which makes them seem very distant. Compared to the next shot, our framing in our main task looks significantly better as the female characters head fills the whole of the shot and there is no unnecessary space in the shot.

When brainstorming ideas as to what our opening was going to entail, we knew that we wanted to do a killing, however we did not know what story we could have behind it. At first we were going to have a psycho serial killer, who killed people for no apparent reason and then took a picture of his victims and stuck them in his little black book, even though this would have been a good idea we then came up with the characters Fred and Katie, and decided to create a killer love story. Having created the characters, Fred and Katie, we knew that some members of our target audience would be able to relate to either how Fred or Katie were feeling after their break up. We also wanted to bring the police into our film as we researched and found that a typical thriller would include police and/or crime scene investigation, therefore the police would be introduced after the opening, which is why we used the police sirens over our titles, the police officers would then become two more main characters.