My Evaluation Final

By Eleanor Dawson

My media product uses many conventions of a thriller. Firstly ,It uses a build up of action and a realistic setting to create a sense of anything happening in normal places. We have started with the actor walking through different places of his day to day habits, just after he finishes walking we build up the action and he opens the door ,this is the first action other than walking that is used, which is when he sees his sister and then again when he meets the dealer. When he meets the dealer the shot of the dealer is darkened and slowed down to create suspense towards this character ,you do not see his face. We have also used flashbacks and edited them in black and white to give the audience some suspicion towards certain parts of the product and to create a history/background for the audience to want to start to solve out. Another convention of a thriller is to establish a mood and atmosphere throughout the film using dark and light images and dark and light fonts we have started with it light (the snow) to make the audience feel bright and relieved ,then into a dark alley , back into day , then into night to keep the audience unsettled and interested giving them something to work out.
Another convention we have used is the eerie soundtrack ,we have used a syncopated drum beat that creates suspense to keep the audience off ease . The track speeds up and is louder in moments where the action is more sudden and reversed when the action is smooth.

Our thriller develops and challenges conventions aswell, it develops the establishing mood and atmosphere by changing it with unrelated shots and different light and dark shots.. Our character does appear to be morally ambiguous, not a lot of information is given at this point , what we do see makes him almost appear friendly or scared , especially in the shot of him and his sister and scared in the shot of him and the dealer. We have even put in an extra shot of him smiling just to create even more suspense towards this character and make him seem almost normal and to cause debate whether he is good or bad . Alfred Hitchcock uses red herrings we have tried to use a few but in just the opening sequence it is difficult to show this ,However we have put in certain shots that don’t combine with each other to confuse the audience in a way in which a red herring would confuse the audience over a whole film. I think the use of our conventions would indicate that our film is in the sub-genre of psychological and crime as the film conceals elements of crime, using shots of the police and elements of psychological as we have tried to use different shots of the characters being good and band suggesting that some of the film may be a battle for him of mental rather than physical. Our use of conventions is similar to that in Se7en , Psycho and layer cake. Especially layer cake with the main characters, as we have tried to use the same conventions of different sides to the main character that they have. We have used conventions similar to se7en with eerie music and short shots and flashbacks to inform and confuse the character .We have also used similar conventions to Psycho as you are unknown about the main character and are delayed in seeing significant characters and actions. Overall I think the conventions we have used have been suitable for the thriller genre even though some have been developed and challenged we have kept it within the thriller genre and have kept it similar to other sub-genres of thriller and other thriller films.

In our thriller our media product represents the younger generation. The main character is an ex-athlete who is now a drug dealer. From some adults point of view this is what would be seen as a stereotype for some of the youth of today and the stereotype of the people who deal drugs who have given up and gone into a much lower/riskier social group to say . It is male dominated as the main characters are men except for the sister who is stereotypical of being the women victim. I think our thriller breaks some of the bounds of stereotypes. In keeping with the forms and conventions of a thriller we want to challenge the audience and I think this is where are characters and film breaks the stereotype . In our shots you can see this when he gives his sister a present and she asks how he got the money allowing the audience to know he makes money but not how. However he is also challenged as you see him walking his dog and then see him walking through alleys and insecure places at night giving him different stereotype aspects with the location of a drug dealer and the location of a normal caring brother. He wears normal casual clothes so this also confuses the stereotype as you would expect a drug dealer to be smart clothes or a suit This all links to our target audience as our target audience is aimed at young adults which reflects the actors ,location, costume and generation of stereotypes used in our product

We have budgeted our film as a small British film. We could see our film be broadcast on telly by film four and in British cinemas but we would not think of it as a international Hollywood phenomenon. Once aired we would make it available on the internet but it would not be initially aired there . Our film is a film and would not be associated with and art house film.
Our film would be released because it offers marketing for TV, cinema and music. It is a high enough budget for it to create a soundtrack cd and for it to be regularly filmed on film four with adverts for cinema. It is similar to other films in the market that have been released like this such as layer cake and taxi but not to similar that there would be too many . Where are target audience is concerned , there are not many thriller films targeted at this age group and this could be an essential gap in the market to why our film would be produced.
The mise en scene of our thriller is mainly outdoor settings or indoor settings with brick walls. This mise en scene along with font and house colour of thriller would be used to help market our product and set a permanent image for viewers to recognise our film from.

Our Film has a certificate of 15. The audience is targeted at young adults from 15-25 ,the narrative is fairly fast paced so the audience would need to be able to keep up with it. More men are likely to watch it as our characters our mainly male and men watch thrillers more then women ,however we have put in women and aspects that appeal to women to appeal to a wider audience.
I chose this particular target audience because it is the audience I, myself can most to relate to and I am of this age. I thought it would be easier to target an audience I speak to everyday to fully recognise what they expect and want from a film.
My thriller film appeals to this audience as the actors we have used our roughly of this age and a little older which makes it easier to create recognition and relation with the character to the audience. The narrative and stereotypes are all based on things they can easily relate to , so the audience will be more grabbed in by this as they can choose their own way through the film ,based on their own experiences and making it seem more like that they our in the film.
Other films similar to ours is layer cake and taxi , these films initially attract an older audience as they have older actors and a harder narrative ,however I still watched them so the audiences could effectively overlap.

In our film we have created certain circumstances to appeal to our audience more than others. We have done this by using targeted scenarios, narratives and actors so that the audience can get the best relation to the film.
The characters are of the same age as the audience. We have put them into similar scenarios which some of the target audience may have to of experienced themselves such as peer pressure, looking after others, growing up and making a living .
We have used camerawork to address our audience. We have mainly filmed so that you can see Tommy Walsh but just the world as he sees it. We have done this to get the audience into the characters shape of mind and to be more involved with the film. We have also shown small shots of Tommy's face to see his reaction.
The impact this had and why it is attracted so well for the audience is that it allows the audience to feel as if they are in the film as they may or may not experience similar things and effectively would find it more easier to go what Tommy is going through as it is set in the prime of their generation.

For me, a lot of the technologies were very new to me .I had never really used a video camera or I movie before the product but I have felt I have learnt and overcome this problem effectively.
We sometimes had difficulty with the equipment available, sometimes it was very difficult to get a tripod, to overcome this we decided to make a lot of our shots hand-held and we feel that this actually worked better for some of the shots to get a better perspective and point of view.
We really wanted a zoom in shot of the apartments but couldn’t get the effect from down below, we were lucky to find the car park on the roof which allowed us to get the high angle shot we wanted over the town.
In editing I realised that there was a lot more that could be done than I thought possible ,such as changing the speed of shots. This was really effective with the shot with Jake , because we wanted him to have a fast spin and a slow stand, however the chair we used and wanted for our mise en scene was broken and the actor would of fallen off if he had not put his feet on the ground and spun round slowly in filming.
In editing it was also a lot easier to create the conventions of dark and light shots as we could apply this to flashbacks and eery atmosphere shots.

The music was quite difficult ,however I myself was familiar with audacity. We would have used garage band or logic but only I was familiar with these programs and time to use them was limited. Finding copyright free music wouldn’t of been easy but as we bought and credited the track and then changed it and manipulated it , it was no longer copyright and re-bounded by audacity as created by me.

The preliminary certainly helped ,after the preliminary I was much more comfortable about the use of a camera and had a wider knowledge of different shots and how to create them.
After planning , researching the genre, storyboarding, scripting and the shooting schedule , everything was much more easier to understand on how we were going to make it and the limits of where we could go with it . Of course there were some problems that occurred along the way (described in previous slide) which planning and researching certainly helped to overcome.
After editing there were some shots we decided weren’t effective and it was useful that we filmed many shots to be able to pick and decide stuff we many have not initially decided in the first place .
Since the preliminary , lots of our shots have improved. There are smoother transitions, effective panning, usage of camera at night, more precise match on action, worms eye.
I feel very successful of our film with the resources and timing we had available , I think planning and practising from the preliminary came into good use and worked effectively towards our film.

My Evaluation Final

by ellie

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