Thriller Evaluation

Our thriller was created through different ideas; some were through thrillers that we had recently seen, such as The Bourne Identity (2002) and some were through ideas that we had in mind from watching students’ previous thrillers. The ideas that we took out of The Bourne Identity was a scene where the main character, James Bourne, is looking for an intruder and ends up finding him somewhere else. The scene shows a false innuendo, where the audience thinks that the intruder is going to come out at that time but he comes out later when the audience was least expecting it.

Our thriller represents two different social groups; white lower-class British teenage girls, and Asian higher working-class young men. This is because of the characters we chose to include in our thriller. In our thriller, the two female students are shown wearing a school uniform and are seen having a hot chocolate during the day. This shows that the girls either are on the lunch break or are missing lessons; truancy is a common issue among young children living in London. However, this is not an important issue in our thriller therefore, we chose not to dwell on the subject. The other main character is a young Asian man who is higher working-class. This is shown by the clothes which he wears and his surroundings and possessions; the man is seen wearing a smart black suit and is driving a black BMW 1-Series M Sport 5-door with dark tinted windows. This is ironic as the man is a well-reserved character who likes to keep things hidden.



Momentum Pictures will release our thriller, which is a British, ‘Alliance Films’ company. It is set up in the U.K. and often shows British films like ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’, however they also show non-British films such as ‘Milk’, which is an American movie. We chose to release our thriller with Momentum Pictures as they also work with smaller independent film companies that are released in the U.K.; they tend to show a wide range of films and have come to be very popular with the British public. We will also release our thriller on DVD; this depends on how well our thriller does in the cinema rankings. We chose not to release our thriller on the internet for many different reasons. Firstly, we would lose profits, as this would be easy for many illegal websites to gain access from. Secondly, by releasing our thriller onto smaller cinema screens, this would allow us to profit from any takings of the cinema firms.
The audience for our thriller will be a wide variety as our thriller revolves around issues that a wider range of people can relate to; the main issue in our thriller is ‘kidnapping’, which is a topic that appears in many thrillers . However, our main audience would be those that can relate to the characters within our thriller. This means that our audience would British lower-class females of an age range of 15-40; this would include students, mothers, middle-aged women etc. Our audience could also contain British working-class young women, whose hobbies include going to the cinema. Our male audience would consist of young British males, from the ages of 15-30, such as students and also working-class middle-aged men. A typical person who would fit our target audience would be a young British woman, who works in a small office and whose hobbies include going to independent cinemas and galleries.
We plan to attract our audience with advertisement. We plan to advertise our thriller using small advertisement companies, which will allow us to advertise our thriller in different methods while still costing smaller amounts; we plan to advertise our thriller on posters, on T.V. and online. As we do not have many funds, we will seek out sponsors that will help us with the financial side of our thriller. We will try to advertise our thriller in small posters in different areas around London and through a mini trailer, that will be shown on certain channels such as BBC 1; our trailers would be show during the least popular hour, due to our small budget. We would also try to advertise our thriller in cheap advertisement websites, as our target audience would most likely have access to the internet and would be regular surfers of the internet.
Through the production of our thriller, we have learnt several different things about both the filming side and the editing side of our thriller. We used a digital camcorder, similar to the Canon DM-XM2 Professional MiniDV Camcorder throughout the time we spent filming. We also used a tripod often, as this allowed us to film steady shots, high-angled shots and low-angled shots without the need of using other props such as chairs. As we did not have a dolly to use, we had to film handheld shots whenever we needed to move the camera at a steady pace. The effect that this gave some of our shots was the feeling of someone being followed when the camera filmed behind the person. We also learnt about the uses of the different buttons that were located on the camera itself. For the editing of our shots, we used a programme called Final Cut Pro, which is a built in programme that can be found on Apple Macs. We used Final Cut Pro to put all our chosen shots together and create a short film that came to be as our thriller. We had a few tutorials on the different uses of Final Cut Pro and this allowed us to use similar techniques in the making of our thriller. We learnt the basics first, such as how to upload all our footage from the camera onto Final Cut Pro. We learnt how to cut and paste different shots to create one long shot of filming. We then learnt how to add extras such as transitions, which were placed between two different clips, and music, which could be added to the whole of our edited film. For the soundtrack of our thriller, we had to compose our own music as we were not allowed to use other music tracks for copyright purposes. We composed our soundtrack on another programme, found on Apple Macs, called Soundtrack Pro. This programme had various types of sounds such as different instruments and mixes put together by the programme itself. Soundtrack Pro allowed us to add different instruments and sounds to result in one long soundtrack that would be played throughout the whole of our thriller. We learnt how to lengthen and shorten numerous types of sound to create a unique mix. For our thriller we had a simple base that played through the whole of our thriller opening; this gradually faded near to the end of the thriller. In addition we had two different sounds that helped to create the effect of idealism (what the audience think is going on) and realism (what is actually going on). This was shown through the switching of the two different atmospheres; the two girls sitting happily outside a café, switching to a man sitting silently in his parked car. For the scene involving the two girls, we placed some city sounds in the background, and for the scene involving the man, we placed an eerie sound that created an uneasy atmosphere. This gradually got louder when both worlds collided as the man had caught the young girl. All the sound elements then went off as soon as the car boot was shut. This created a sense of lost hope, as it seemed that there was no way out for the young girl!

As well as the filming and editing of our thriller opening, we have also used the internet, where we have ‘blogged’ our lessons and progression in a website called www.blogger.com. We have recorded our weekly progress, also mentioning tasks we had to do during class hours and also our achievements and flaws within the time we had to create our thriller opening. This has allowed us to keep track of what we had left to do and what we had to avoid doing in the later stages.
Overall, I think that we have progressed within our media project and that we have gained new techniques in the making of our thriller openings. I believe that there is a visible change from the preliminary task that we did in class, at the beginning of the topic, to our final thriller openings. We started with a storyboard, which contained many shots that we were planning to use. Some of these shots were kept and some were taken off in our final thriller opening. From our match-cut exercise, which we did in class at the beginning of the topic, we learnt how to do match-cuts and because of this, we were able to create a few very good match-cuts in our thriller opening. We have also learnt different techniques in filming, such as different shot angles and others ways of creating effective filming. We have learnt a lot in editing and putting together our thriller openings. Lastly, we have experienced many different things in the process of creating a thriller opening; we have learnt about the time it takes to film certain shots and the effort that needs to be put in, from every member of the group, in order to have a decent thriller opening. I believe that each member of our thriller group has progressed in our own way and that we have learnt a lot about the world of filming!

The scene with the two girls sitting in a cafe 

 

The scene with the man sitting in his parked car

The scene where the ‘two worlds collide’

Thriller: a suspenseful adventure story or play or movie

How our thriller idea came around was from a practical that we done in class a few weeks ago. When we started our thrillers, we had to list different types of thriller, within the thriller genre, such as; spy thrillers, crime and we also discussed the difference between horrors and thrillers. In doing this activity in class, I learnt the very close meaning of a thriller and a horror. Also, preliminary tasks that were done in class also inspired me and my group to continue filming something like a thriller. My group and I decided that we wanted to do a thriller that required a lot of investigation within it, somewhat like a crime thriller. This concept can be used in various ways, such as, leaving an open ending and (considering that this is a thriller opening) whether or not the rest of the film will show the whereabouts of the girl that was kidnapped. We then explored different types of crime thrillers and then we came up with the concept of someone being kidnapped.
We also looked for types of thrillers that can be similar to ours. In doing so, we watched The Bourne Identity. Also to establish shots similar to ours, we took shots from The Shining, where the young boy is being followed along the corridor, and we are behind him constantly. My thriller has the impact of a sort of “who don’t it” situation. However, in terms of gender groups, you could stereotype my thriller by stating that, as a society we usually associate females to be prone to things such as kidnapping and rape, reasons being we are seen to be quite delicate and vulnerable. Also, in terms of age, it is not really a representation on a particular social group or particular religious groups.
In the editing process of my thriller, my group and I decided to use a lot of transitions and cuts to establish time difference between the person who is being kidnapped to the person who is kidnapping. This was also done to create suspense and tension, in order for the audience to feel slightly uneasy. My group also established the use of a still image once we get to identify the kidnapper. Also, in the very start of our opening, when the coffee cup is continuously stirring, my group decided to slow down the speed, which also affects the sound, causing it to be much slower and to make it seem more eerie.
During the sound process, we decided to add a continuous beat underneath the eerie tones of high pitch violins. We then came up with a jazz bass, which was altered at points whenever the kidnapper was viewed on screen and on the other hand increased the sound of the eerie tones to symbolise that something is not quite right.
In terms of camera angles that were used, when the actual kidnapper, seizes the victim, my group and I decided to get the action at three different angles, which was all shown at a very quick pace. Besides this, very basic camera angles were used in other parts of my thriller. Such as, actors walking out of frame and into frame, as well as, shots from behind the victim.
My thriller does not specifically represent a particular social group. Although, based on schoolgirls, it can be relatable to anyone, for example, a mother that may have had her daughter kidnapped, a friend, etc. However, this does not mean that these kind of people will watch this kind of film, as it will remind them of times which they’d rather forget. Although, people that might watch it will be people that are interested in stories that require a lot of thinking as the story unravels, the whole of the thriller
In terms of media institution and media distribution, my thriller will seem more powerful within a small UK ‘arthouse; cinema and via the Internet. Reasons being, I feel that the content of my thriller is not as strong as other films that distributed by big Hollywood blockbusters. However, such films as ‘Kidulthood’, which were also distributed within small cinemas have done exceptionally well under a low budget, which could invariably be similar to my thriller. Other distributors, such as Working Title, will also be able to spread out my thriller. Reasons being, they are use to distributing a lot of British films. As well as being a British distributor, they are in partnership with Warner Bros, this could also help with the distribution, over seas, meaning it can be distributed in America and in Europe. We have also chosen, Momentum as a distributor, reasons being they distribute a variety of films and British Films. Also, considering that Momentum is one of the leading UK distributor and sell and average of 20 films a year.
In terms of the technology that I have used in processing my thriller project, such as Final Cut Pro, LiveType and Soundtrack Pro. I have learnt a lot from these programmes, in terms of how to edit and credits. How my group devised responsibilities of who is to do what in terms of the editing process, I was given the responsibility of sound. When placing the jazz base on the thriller, as something that is continuous, I found it difficult in the beginning, as I was told that my original base had too much rhythm, meaning. As a technical aspect, it had a continuous up beat then low beat; this would make the audience, to unconsciously move to the beat. After considering this factor, I looked for another base that was not that jumpy, and more one beat. I then wanted to establish, a difference between, the two characters, in doing this I added on eerie tones, whenever the kidnapper was shown on screen. I have also learnt that the process of making and editing a film is not as easy as it seems. Software such as Final Cut Pro, took me quite long to get use to, however, in the end it got easier.

EVALUATION!

Thriller Evaluation
In thriller, there are many aspects, which transform the scene into a theme of suspense, by the use of camera work, sound and editing. We as a group used many of these aspects to make our own thriller an effective clip to create suspense. Suspense is a main convention of a thriller opening. Overall, it includes character in a jeopardising situation and posing questions to the audience as well as the narrative opening up as it goes along. As the thriller goes on the false resolution pops up and people are no longer in harm’s way and questions finally get answered in a logical way.
Many clips personally inspired me. The editing and match-cuts in ‘slum dog millionaire’ was to a high standard, so from that I had got inspired and got some ideas. From that movie I talked about some of the ideas to my group from the part when he is answering question on the show. We tried doing the same type of edits when at the coffee shop with the two school girls talking to each other, but without dialogue. , we didn’t really use the director’s techniques but it helped us with that particular scene.
The two girls in our scene are meant to be shown aged 13/15 young school girls. They represent children after school and when walking home. It’s a symbolic message that is conveyed to the target audience who are teen’s aged 13 – 16+. It’s not meant to be vivid and if the target audience don’t recognise it, it’s not the main concern.
The kidnapper in the car in meant to create even more suspense as it works with the camera shots. The shot of looking in the car side mirror. The mise-on-scene is all black. From the car to gloves, the colour of someone trying to be discrete yet, stands out like a thorn to the audience. This helps the audience categorise the characters. (Girls in school uniform and guy dresses in black smart clothing and black car.)
The company that will be distributing our media product will be Momentum Pictures. We had chosen them because they distribute a variety of films and we thought as a group to choose them because this is a British film. And our theme (kidnapping) can relate to British viewers, due to the crime of today in Briton. Our group did research and found out, that company is an alliance company who releases roughly 20 films a year and is one of the leading distributers in the UK. Also if fitted this particular description
The audience of my media production would most likely be not of the mainstream but not of the niche audience either. Somewhere in-between, because it appeals to a lot of people in U.K however it is not good enough to compete in the mainstream and expect it to make money. It would be nice to target it at the mainstream of the youth age but that way is less likely to be a successful, and is leading to a risky path. This is due to the youth are attracted to Hollywood, mainstream, highly budgeted, SFX films instead of the U.K films.


To get people to come see our film and to advertise it i thought to be more specific on the target audience. As we are aiming at the youth it is better as well as cheaper to advertise it online, possibly ‘face book’ or ‘my space’. Which are two of the main attractions to the youth on the net today. However, we would also get people who did the acting to go to individual secondary and colleges to hand out leaflets and information and basically to create awareness of our production. A billboard would be good and more profession but still it is expensive and we are it ending to make a profit out of it than a loss. Also i personally would like to do a little of cross-marketing and have our film advertised on busses and mc Donald’s boxes. This will be direct to the youth and will be a great advantage to out advertisement result.
Before we started doing out thriller, we had gotten a preliminary task in using final pro cut. I learnt how to use it a lot. Also, I do film studies so I am use to the functions already, so when it came to our thriller editing, it was a piece of cake. Even when we needed help, we asked the teachers so there was no problem there. Final cut pro was easy to use too. The transition and cuts were basic for us. In the preliminary task we used many match-cuts were we learnt to use in our thriller so it was a helpful technique to learn. The transitions worked well with the perfect timing of cuts. All this helped create the suspicion and tension. We learned this from a film called ‘Bourne identity’




As a thriller movie the film should grab your attention at the beginning and the opening clip must lead the viewer into the movie as fluently as possible.
On the other hand, the use of internet was great too. Blogging was very simple. We had to write what we did every lesson and when filming and editing. Simple. But from time to time I would forget to blog and that’s when it piles up. It was also simple to upload out clip onto the internet too. Thought to upload it onto YouTube, But other members in my group didn’t agree with it.
My skills developed mainly when it came to the beginning of the thriller and we had to take everything we learned into action. Choosing location to timing and schedule of filming. From camera work and timing. It all came back to me when in the process of filming the thriller. The camera work especially, the angle had to be right and the space above the head had to be just right.
Overall, I was happy how our clip turned out. When we went to the cinema to watch it, we had gotten a lot of positive feedback. The freed back was mainly base on our mise-en-scene, match-cut and the editing overall. If have more time, I would of worked on more filming (more different angles) and the soundtrack could have been worked on too.

Evaluation

AS Thriller Evaluation

Our task was to create an opening for a thriller film. Different film genres have forms and conventions that make it typical to that genre. It was therefore important that we had a good understanding of the thriller genre and aspects that were very important to the genre in order to make an effective opening.

At the beginning of this project we had to look into different thriller film openings to familiarise ourselves with the forms and conventions of real media products. The thriller genre has many different sub-genres for example psychological thrillers, crime thrillers and political thrillers to name but a few. As a class we looked at the openings of a variety of famous thrillers including 28 Days Later, Arlington Road, Collateral, and The Shining. We were analysed and described aspects such as how the camera work creates suspense and found that elements such as setting and lighting also play a major role in creating a thrilling feeling. Each sub-genre has its way of using certain techniques to emphasise the thrilling experience for example the opening to 28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle, particularly focuses on location to create a deserted feeling as the film opens with a man waking up alone in a deserted place which then cuts to a view of a completely empty central London which is usually known to be densely populated. In comparison, ‘The Shining’ which is a physiological thriller directed by Stanley Kubrick, creates suspense mainly through camerawork and sound. A loud sound opens the scene which is then followed by a high pitched non digetic edgy sound. An example of the impressive camera work is the hand-held camera effect that follows the little boy riding his bike. A lot of suspense is built as the camera is at the same level as the boy and following him directly which means that the audience only see what he sees adding great suspense particularly as he turns around corners. The non-digetic background music adds to this uneasy feeling as well as the long unedited and slow pace shot.
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In my own time, I watched some thrillers for inspiration including ''Passenger 57 (1992),' 'Con Air (1997),' 'Breach (2007),' 'Taken (2008).' I was mainly inspired by the film ‘Taken.’
‘Taken’ directed by Pierre Morel is a film about a former spy who relies on his old skills to save his kidnapped daughter who has been forced into the sex trafficking trade. This film personally influenced my input into the group discussion about what sub-genre we should do. After watching this film, I was very determined to do a crime thriller as I particularly liked the story line, the great amount of suspense built up throughout the film from editing and sound creating a ‘jumpy’ feeling and a lot of the action involved. I did some research on this film including looking at the trailer where I came across the heartbeat sound effect. I found this very effective in creating suspense and we decided to use it in our soundtrack towards the end on our thriller opening.

From the research into thriller openings we identified conventions that are typical in all or most thrillers. The main convention of a thriller opening is a suspense sequence that is usually followed. This includes posing questions to the audience, characters in jeopardy, and the unfolding of the narrative. Later on in the film these are followed by complications, false resolution, questions answered and people no longer in jeopardy. For example in ‘Taken,’ the main character’s identity (the dad) is unknown to the audience who want answers then his daughter is taken and the storyline begins to unfold. In our thriller opening which we titled ‘Captive’ we posed questions to the audience by firstly cutting between the two young girls having lunch at the cafe and the kidnapper in his car. At the first thought, the man in his car has no relation with the two girls until a little while into the opening he stares at his watch which connotes a stalker type of feeling as the man could now be identified as having something to do with the two girls but not quite sure what. There is a false resolution when one of the girls walks into the cafe to pay for the hot chocolate we almost expect the other girl to be taken. The two separate scenes then come together when the man in the car is looking at the girl in his side view mirror. Throughout the opening, we restrict the view of the kidnappers face showing only parts of his face or body or through a blurred vision point of view shot. This is quite usual of thriller films to often hide the identity of the criminal or bad character.

One way in which we challenged the forms and conventions of a typical thriller is our opening shot. Rather than having an establishing shot we started off with the action of somebody stirring a cup of hot chocolate in slow motion. We did not want to use an ordinary beginning and wanted to pose some confusion to begin with which is then answered by the shot of the two girls at a cafe.



The main characters in ‘Captive’ are two 15 year old white, London born school girls and a middle aged Asian male kidnapper. Our thriller in some ways represents a particular social group for example when discussing as a group who the characters will be, we stereotypically chose the kidnapper to be played by a male suggesting that in a most likely real case, the kidnapper would be a male. This is a view based on the stereotypes in the media. The mise-en-scene, particularly the clothing of the school girls was an identifiable trait. We chose to wear a ‘school uniform’ which was basically black and white formal clothing, however, we portrayed the school girls in a more innocent way than what is often identified as a typical teenage school girl. For example, the media often represent a typical 15 year old London school girl to wear a mini skirt with knee high socks and lots of makeup. We put across a more realistic view of two young vulnerable girls also wearing appropriate clothing such as trousers and jackets. In terms of religion and race we did not chose specific characters based to represent these types of social groups, it was more to do we gender and age. Finally, we commented on class once again through the mise-en-scene. We particularly wanted the kidnapper to be seen as a higher class male but infact if the film was to continue, he is actually of working class but comes by his money illegally. To show this idea of wealth we panned the up market BMW car, showed the man looking at his expensive watch and having him dressed in a black suit.




If our media product was to be distributed, I think it would be distributed by a media institution that is mainly for U.K mainstream cinema viewers. The reason for this is because I think that the type of thriller that it is is based on a surreal storyline of London and occurrences involving kidnapping of young school girls. This would possibly make more of a thrilling impact on a U.K audience who can identify with such crimes of today. When researching media institutions, one that fit this particular description was Momentum Pictures [www.momentumpictures.co.uk], an alliance film company, who release approximately 20 films a year and is one of the leading companies in the UK.
The target audience for our media product would be a mainstream U.K audience. I would expect that it would attract more males than females due to it being a crime/action thriller however; many females also enjoy this genre therefore attracting a mass market. The age rating would be 15+ due to the violence involved and I think it would appeal to 15 to middle aged people. An example of the type of audience that would watch ‘Captive’ would be ‘Jenny, 19 years old currently in education, enjoys going to the cinema and watching films based around the harsh reality of life whilst also being entertained.’

The success of a film is not just based on the film itself but marketing also plays a major role. It is important that the film is marketed in a way that attracts the target audience. Being a British produced and distributed film, the filming budget would be quite low for ‘Captive’ and as it will only be broadcasted to a U.K audience it is very important that we target our customers effectively yet trying not to over-do the marketing costs. Trailers are a brilliant way to promote a new film and from personal experiences I have found that a lot of the time all the ‘best bits’ are shown in the trailer yet the actual film expresses disappointment. Trailers seize people in a persuasive way to make them want to watch the film by showing off the stars, the genre and narrative. Especially due to our sub-genre being crime/action, a lot of the action and thrilling parts of the film can be shown in the trailer. I also personally find that billboards, television and the internet are ways in which I am attracted to watch a certain film and as I am an example of the type of audience that this media product is targeted at, I think these promotional mediums would best suit our thriller. The internet has widened the potential audience for our media product and would therefore be easier to appeal to the right target audience by advertising on particular websites that they are likely to use. The good thing about billboards is that they generally catch your eyes when travelling in either a vehicle or just walking. It is unlikely that there would be a big premier due to the fact that there are no well-known ‘stars’ in Captive and also due to expenses.

This project has widely expanded my knowledge of certain technology. Firstly, using an Apple Mac was new to me as I am only really familiar with Windows PC which leads on to the programmes on the Apple. Final Cut pro was my favourite program to use. It gave me a great insight into professional editing and the amount of different effects and transitions available to use. Sound track Pro was also a good and interesting programme to use to make our own background music and add sound effects to make the action more believable. LiveType enabled us to add motion credits to the thriller. Learning to use the camcorders properly meant that it was easier to get the right framing and made the process quicker. Another form of technology that was frequently used was the internet. We continuously blogged the filming and editing process and used the internet for research. I used You Tube [www.youtube.com] to look at other film openings particularly when I needed a reminder of what was in the opening credits.


The preliminary tasks played a major role in the final outcome of our thriller opening. Making our ‘mini film’ meant we had to plan, storyboard, film and edit just like our final media product. Each stage from the planning to editing was just as important as each other and proved that each part relies on each other for example bad planning will most likely produce a bad outcome and vise-versa. From this task we learnt improved camerawork techniques such as hand-held and static to match-cuts and framing. The preliminary also enabled us to become familiar with using editing and sound programmes. We can say that we definitely learnt from our mistakes such as the continuity of mise-en-scene and very bad framing. When filming our final piece we made sure that our framing was absolutely perfect for each shot and always had the same props and clothing with us. Another thing that we learnt from the preliminary task was the ‘match-cutting exercise.’ This was an extremely useful exercise as we did end up using quite a few match-cuts which I personally did not know what a match-cut was until the preliminary task. In addition to the preliminary, when we first begun filming we forgot all about reflections as this wasn’t obvious on the small camera screen but noticeable after which we then re-shot.



Overall, I am very pleased the final outcome of my media product. The feedback we received was very positive and reflects that of a real media product. We were credited for the mise-en-scene, framing, match-cuts, clear narrative, continuity and overall editing. If I could have spent more time on this project, I would have liked to spend more time on sound effects and trying to create a more intense soundtrack as this could have been improved.