Dean's Evaluation

Media Evaluation
We were set the task of coming up with the opening to a thriller related film, which had to be about 2 minutes long. Many thrillers use the "anything can happen" rule, which means they don't have to follow real world rules. There is also the fact that most if all thrillers are mysterious with the fact that they do not revel the story until the very end.
There are many factors that influence thrillers and many other film genres alike. These include lighting, sound, mise-en-scene, camera angle, and the plot. These factors were taken into serious consideration when we were filming and editing our final cut. We also took on board the definition of a thriller stated earlier. The ways in which our thriller opening incorporated generic conventions, is that the lead character is a woman and is portrayed as the weaker sex throughout the clip as she is stalked by what is apparently a male. This is shown in the scene in which her car breaks down at the side of the road and she investigates the origin of a twig snap she hears nearby. We decided to portray the stalker as a point of view (POV) shot in this scene. This was decided as it gives mystery to the stalker as we are unable to see him. Our thriller develops these conventions as there is a strong emphasis on the female coming across as more vulnerable than a male would in the same situation. The use of the conventions indicates a hybrid thriller-horror genre, this is because of our use of light and shadows to portray an eerie and dark setting giving the viewer the sense of suspense and tension. However, a horror definition is an unsettling film designed to frighten and panic the audience while invoking terror through the use of gore and strong bloody violence. Whereas our film doesn’t use strong bloody violence, it has horror influences with the use of terror and panic when the woman is kidnapped. The film we were inspired by was “Vacancy” as this film has a similar atmosphere to what we were trying to represent within our own thriller.
There are not many social groups represented within our thriller with only one character shown throughout the opening. This character is portrayed to be female and around the age of twenty to twenty one, white British origin and a middle class background (but this does not necessarily mean this is the only target audience). Although we do not see the stalker, the character is male with unknown age or background to give the sense of mystery. This links into the target audience as the females within the audience will feel a sense of insecurity and fear, while the males of the audience will feel frightened and helpless for the female as the natural instinct to protect her kicks in. Again this links to the stereotypical view of males being dominant over females.
I believe our final cut could be produced in a major Hollywood studio as the plot and storyline is well represented in many other Hollywood films such as “Vacancy” and “Hostel” (although “Hostel” has strong bloody violence, it also has kidnapping themes throughout) It could also be produced because of the visual style of the thriller. The film would be shown in cinemas across Britain, continental Europe, and the United States. There is potential for a sequel or a book to be released in future marketing exploitations. There is also the possibility of the film being a TV only movie which would bring in a lot more audience members, but may not come across as very professional or as successful as a mainstream cinema offers.
The visual style of the film is shown by the camera angles and lighting throughout the thriller as the stalker is portrayed by POV’s and darker lighting giving the effect of ‘literally’ a darker side to the him than the main female character who is portrayed with close ups, low camera angles and long shots. Also she is shown in slightly brighter lighting to portray innocence. This gives the audience a clear view as to who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist. There is also the music aspect of the thriller that gives it an eerie and tension building effect. We used an un copyrighted song in the back ground to give the mysterious and creepy effect. This is achieved as the song is slow and intimidating. While in the foreground there is a heart be sound that progressively gets louder to indicate there is something about to happen. This also builds the tension and suspense of the audience.
Our thriller is rated 15+ and would appeal to male and female audiences alike. The reason for the choosing of the 15+ rating is that the film has horror themes, but does not contain scenes of bloody violence, sexual influences, or drug related content making it suitable for persons of fifteen and over, instead of an18+ rating. “Vacancy” is similar to our film as it is a thriller-horror hybrid rated 15+ and has the same atmosphere we attempted to get in our film.
I think the kidnapping scene would be more emotionally straining on the female sector of the audience as here we see the female victimised and seen as weaker that the male stalker. I also believe the scene where the woman’s car breaks down at the side of the road would be particularly terrifying to the female audience as most women do not have sufficient knowledge of how cars work so in this situation, women would feel vulnerable and helpless until help arrived. But in our situation, help does not arrive so a female audience would be wondering how they would feel if this happened to them. I believe film would not be suitable for minors even with parental guidance as there are scenes of violence.
Throughout the thriller opening, the audience is being asked to put themselves in the position of the stalker. This is shown with the use of a point of view shot to indicate to the audience they are witnessing the stalker ‘preying’ so to speak, on the young girl. The are only allowed to see the young girl through the eyes of the stalker. The stalker himself and the AA Man are not seen. Although the AA man is heard when he responds to the woman while she is on the phone to him regarding the break down. The impact of this on the audience is a sense of fear as they are looking through the eyes of the antagonist, which grips the audience and draws them into the storyline.
In the process of producing this film, we noticed our strengths and weaknesses when using the hardware and software. And we also noticed our strengths and weaknesses within the team itself. First of all, our main weakness was not using a tripod in contention with the camera. As a result of this we found some of our shot to be slightly wobbly. But this turned out to our advantage as it gave a very good effect when shooting the point of view from the stalker. For our filming process we started off with location scouting to find the best and most relevant places to shoot the film. After which, we set up dates and times for the group to meet on set and complete the filming in each location to latter be edited using Final cut express. We did have some problems about transport on my part, And as a result I was unable to attend two of the filming days. To resolve this, the group showed me what they had filmed and done, and to catch up I was given a more pivotal role in the editing process which was enjoyable. Also some of the film was a bit dark in some places, to combat this we edited the lighting and contrast in final cut.
Final cut express was a lot of fun and very useful. We were able to enhance the picture quality, sound, and lighting while rearranging the cuts to suit what we wanted it the look like. There were many things i learned about editing over the course of the project as this was the first time i had used such a program. But the main thing i think i learned that was the most useful, was the rearranging and cutting of scenes. This was hard at first but after practice this was and extremely useful tool. We also very much liked the colour connection effect as it gave the thriller its eerie look with dimming of the colours and contrast.
Garage band was extremely useful for music to be merged and integrated with final cut express. The key issue with the music was timing it right with final cut to get the music to come into play on the scenes necessary. In the end this worked very successfully, and we were extremely pleased with the outcome. We merged 3 tracks using garage band, of which were, a heartbeat effect and two background non-diegetic songs. This turned out well and was integrated with final cut to give the thriller a suspense effect. We faced some problems merging the heartbeat effect with the background song as the heartbeat was from YouTube and had to be embedded.
The planning stage was the most crucial as this determined the outcome of the thriller. To start off, we did research into the genre to determine what a thriller entails and what age rating most thrillers are aimed at. We did this by asking the target audience and researching on the internet for information about these topics. The next stage in the planning process was the storyboard. This step took time, and rightly so, as this would be our filming guide. We had to draw annotated diagrams to show the scene and the shots used in each scene. This helped us a lot in the filming as we had a clear guide on the location, and shots used on them locations meaning we would not make mistake on camera angles. This helped the filming process to run smoother with relatively no hick-ups along the way.
Our use of specific shot types improved greatly over the course of the project. And the point of view shot in particular as we used many point of views during our filming process. As a result of using many point of views, we perfected what angle it should be, and how wobbly or smooth the shot should be. This is shown in the thriller as it is a very good effect when portraying the stalker.
I feel more confident with the equipment after this project as I have got used to how the camera works and how to upload footage to final cut and the blog. I have also progressed in the use of the software programs such as Garageband and Final cut express.
Taking all this into account, I can strongly say that the end product was a resounding success, everything we envisioned was thrown onto the canvas and the thriller shows our success as a team, and our success at using the equipment efficiently and to a high standard of quality. Our thriller was also a success at fulfilling the task, as it covers the mark band and shows our use of the software and hardware alike. The end product was extremely professional and used everything we had learned to make a quality end piece, made through, hard work, teamwork and commitment.