Charlotte Faber Evaluation -

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

Thriller Conventions - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP-sSJJJW6o

• uses suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements
• restricted narration
• creates an enigma for the audience
• red herrings
• plot twists
• cliffhangers
• usually a villain-driven plot
• Puts the audience of the edge of their seat

Opening shot is an establishing shot, allowing the audience to see where it's taking place. This convention is used in the thriller "Road to Perdition"
Low key lighting, to create silhouettes of the trees, creating a dark atmosphere, accompanied by the soundtrack creates tension. Filmed as P.O.V of man walking in woods (handheld camera work, diegetic heavy footsteps). Creates enigma, as the audience don't know who this person is. Non-Diegetic music creates a tense atmosphere.
This shot raises questions for the audience - "who's in the woods?". This setting (woods) is also very common in thrillers.

'Road to Perdition' - Establishing Shot

This shot uses restricted narration  so that the audience can't work out who she is, and whether she is dead or alive. The shots of the girl's body are cross cut with images of the woods. This disorientates the audience as they try to piece their idea of who the girl is. Low key lighting and non-diegetic music builds suspense as the audience become closer to knowing more about the girl.

'44 Inch Chest'

 We took the idea of disorientating the audience to whether the character was alive or not from the thriller '44 inch chest' - however the audience in this film thinks the character is dead until he blinks - plot twist. Raises questions for the audience.

This shot is a MS tilt up of the murderer (low angle) gives him a dominant status. The camera tilts but stops below the neck. This is so that his identity is hidden from the audience, this restricted narration creates enigma. This technique is often used to restrict the audience's knowledge. The costume of leather, and black give an ominous feel to the shot. Glimpse of the bat shows the audience the weapon. A film which uses the same technique is 'The Usual Suspects' (see clip below). Here the head is out of the frame, so that during the film the audience have to work out who Kaiser is.

In our title sequence we uses a panning shot of the woods. We used low key lighting, to create a silhouetted  effect. This gives it a dark and mysterious feel. Although there is slight white space at the top, the simple title still stands out against the black. This is paired with a sound bridge of the bat hitting the girl and non-diegetic music which creates apprehension in the audience. The use of music in the title sequence to build this tension, is a very common convention in a thriller.

This is a MLS tilt up a fireplace/mantelpiece. This is a stark contrast from the previous scenes, because of the high key lighting. The lighting tied in with the picture of the girl, makes the audience wonder whether she is actually dead or not. The colours of the setting (red, gold) and the props (bronze statues, flowers) symbolise wealth and a middle-class English house. Most thrillers typically use ordinary suburbs or cities. Having a high status house in this thriller disorientates the audience from their preconceptions of a thriller &  makes the audience question the motives behind the girls death. 


This shot is gives more incite to the families social status and lifestyle via props and sound. The props represent a relaxing and slow paced lifestyle. This contrasts to the woods scene. The shot includes two people's legs behind the table (restricted narration) which makes the audience wonder who they are. The audience can also hear the diegetic sound of 'Antiques Roadshow' which gives them an idea of the type of people they are. High key lighting is also used. 


This is a low angle  medium shot of the Father opening the door. The low angle allows the audience to see that the father is in fear/nervous of the person behind the door and hints to the fact that the Father has more knowledge on the situation more than the Mother, as the low angle gives him dominance and status. The lighting tone in this shot is cold, to create tension. The sound changes to diegetic sound of the Father opening the door, which draws the audience into the importance of the door and creates a bigger impact. The use of different angles to portray emotion and status is a common element in thrillers, for example Inception.

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

Young Girl - Protagonist.

We chose the victim of our piece to be a young western female girl. We represented her by the choice of costume (childlike - leggings, and checkered shirt), and showing her vulnerability by camera angles (P.O.V shots), lighting techniques (low key lighting) and sounds (non-diegetic music builds tension). The fact that we represented this character as a young female, reflects societies view of women and children of being weak and vulnerable. This therefore makes our piece effective as the audience can fully believe and sympathise with the piece. However, if we wanted to challenge the audience's view of vulnerability, a strong man as the victim, but we felt that for our audience we were better off sticking with stereotypes.

Murderer - Antagonist

We chose the villain of our piece to be a man. His identity remains a secret, so we're actually hiding his identity from the audience. We did this with the use of a black leather jacket & gloves, and dark jeans. This is so that the audience can't guess who the Antagonist is by his status in society. The only social group they can see is his gender. A male shown with by a low angle to have significant power over a a young girl - typical stereotypical views of gender.

Father - Protagonist

Gender is shown via the typical clothing of a middle-class man (suit). This also shows the audience his social class - this is supported by the mise en scene of the living room & the diegetic sound of 'Antiques Roadshow' & 'Call The Midwife' (both shows are associated with the older middle class). This diegetic sound also represents the age of Father (mid 50's) - this is also reflected in the slow pace of the house scene.

Mother -

Social class is represented via the Mother. Drinking out of a tea-cup and saucer, and eating chocolate biscuits are associated with luxury and also feminine. The props of a magazine open on Kate Middleton, also reflects societys view of women always reading celebrity gossip, however the choice of the celebrity being Kate Middleton reflects the Mother's social class (middle class). The fact that the Father goes to answer the door and changes the channel, also reflects that the Man is the head of the household.


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

Youtube - The most popular way of distributing films is via YouTube. It's free, simple to use and can make your film viral. You can also get sponsorship deals if your film gets a certain amount of views.

NetFlix - and other online film/television websites are fast become very popular. They are also quick and user friendly, however may be hard to get your film straight onto their site, as you'd have to apply.

Distribution via X-Box also becoming easier to do. A lot of new indie films, are being put straight into X-Box's film system. Making it easy for the consumers to download and watch at home.

For advertising, social media networks would be the best way for the world to know about our film. It's free, and we can target our audience. Flyers posted around town, and places associated with our target audience. If we had a bigger budget, we could have larger advertisements i.e. bus stops, commercials. This would really raise it's public profile.

Being aspiring film producers, we don't have a big budget, distributors or sales agents that can get us into big cinemas. However, we could use a small independent British distributor company like 'Coffee Films' and also get into independent film houses like the Duke of York Picture house in Brighton.

Duke of York Picture House

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



Gender -

Our main protagonist is a male (the Father), with the main themes of our film being violence, gangs and extortion. Therefore our film is more targeted towards males, as these themes are more associated with a stereotypical male interests.





Age  -

The main protagonist is middle-aged and the victim is a teenager. Therefore I think that the target audience for our film is 18-45.

Certificate -

Even though our target audience is 18-45, the language and violence is appropriate for a certificate of 15. I feel that the level of violence, themes and language are appropriate for a rating of 15.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/15

The violence of in the opening sequence is only implied and shows no blood/gore. Therefore we could get away with a certificate 12 - however, I feel that if we made the whole film, there would be more violence and language used within the film.

Other films our audience would watch -

The Road to Perdition & The God Father uses the same themes as our film. Gangs, violence and family are the main issues in this film, and are the same main issues in our film. The use of low key lighting to create a dramatic effect is also used in the same way.

Pulp fiction and Kill Bill are filmed in non-chronological order. We have also used this technique as restricted narration as the audience try to work our who the antagonist is.

5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Character -

• Young girl victim, makes the audience sympathise with the characters, wanting to work out who would want to murder her. 
  
• Unknown identity of the murderer makes the audience intrigued towards the end of the film. Throughout the film we wish to lead them on different red herrings, until the plot twist of the Father being the murderer. The initial shot of the unknown identity of the murderer is a black silhouetted figure, engaging the audience right from the beginning.
  
   

Narrative -

• We've chosen to have our film in non-chronological order, as it will retain the audiences attention throughout the film. It also changes the way the audience would usually piece together a thriller, leading to an even more effective plot twist ending.  

Editing -

• Fast pace in wood scene compared to a slower pace in the house, keeps the audiences attention alive during film. 
• Cross-Cutting to restrict narration and create an enigma. Keeps the audience engaged as they have to be constantly involved with the action on screen. 

Camera work - 

• Using camera work (shot sizes and P.O.V shots) questions will be raised by the audience, as we can hide certain objects from the audience and specifically choose the information the audience receives. 

Sound - 

• Using Non-diegetic sound enhances the action on screen for the audience, and build even more tension. 

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

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

In our preliminary task we had problems with our lighting. We used a harsh lighting, which never matched

with the next shot. This broke the audiences concentration as the reality kept on breaking. We learnt from this mistake, and used low key lighting in the woods, to create a dark and mysterious atmosphere. We managed to control all of the lighting so that the shots lighting were fluent with each other. We achieved this by using LED lights and a main light with reflectors. This allowed us to control exactly how much light was being poured into each shot. This created a dark ambience in this scene.

In our preliminary task we really didn't think about composition. On the left image, you can see that my foot is being blocked by the table leg. This really broke the audiences concentration with our piece, and made it seem very amateur. This mistake made us very careful with treating each shot like a photograph and placing everything within the frame. This gave a professional cinematographic feel to our opening scenes. We really thought about how the composition of a piece changes a character's role/status in the scene. For example, the killer being directly in the middle of the P.O.V shot, to symbolise the victims attention is solely on her killer, and then switches to a CU of the bat to show she's noticed it.
The composition of the tracking shot also allowed us to place the title in an appropriate place and font so that the audience can read it clearly. There was no text over images used in our preliminary task so this was a new skill we learnt.

Our framing in our preliminary task was very poor. We had a shot of Zoe walking towards the table and sitting down, but it was out of time with the camera, resulting in a gap between Zoe's head and the top of the frame. We learnt from this, and realised we had to use 2 shot's to create this effect. In our final task, we had the same sequence but in reverse, so we had one shot of the couple sitting down, and then a cut to him standing up - this resulted in no extra space in the frame.

In our preliminary task we added in simple foley effects - e.g. watch clicking. However in our final task, I learnt how to record my own sounds (television, door & biscuit) and use these to create a realistic atmosphere.