Our thriller opening has been created with careful consideration to the typical conventions of a thriller.
- It raises enigma codes for the audience such as where has the mother gone? Who is this character? Where are they? Why has the child been kidnapped? Where is he being taken/what will happen to him? These enigma codes build suspense and keep the audience interested to find out what will happen next and how the plot will progress to answer these questions.
- Our use of unrestricted narration of a viewpoint outside of the child means that tension is created as the audience can see that the child is in danger, but the child (or mother) cannot see this. The audience wills something to be done about it and we keep their interest as they want to see how this problem will settle. However,the restricted narration in our film is hiding the identity of the antagonist as his face or other clear identifiable features are never seen on camera to maintain the suspense as the audience can't see who he is or any further than the car park (cannot see where the mother has gone). This creates the enigma codes.
These stills show a viewpoint from outside of the child.- We have introduced our antagonist in secretive ways in order to raise suspicion of this character and build tension. This is much like many thrillers, and we have done this using a similar technique, but formed it around our location. For example, one shot uses a shadow of the character, and this is similar to the way other thrillers introduce their antagonists.
- Introduction of thriller themes
- Our film opening has started to introduce the common thriller themes of crime, mystery, and our choice of location has enabled us to easily portray the idea of entrapment (like in panic room) and isolation. These themes make the audience think about the motives behind what is happening as well as whart will happen next, leading to the possibility of other themes such as murder, violence and revenge which are conventions of most thrillers including Momento, Usual Suspects and Se7en.
We have portrayed these themes with our use of mise en scene which ensured that the image within the frame matched up with our idea of a thriller.
-Costume for the antagonist consisted of a dark long sleeved jacket to look more mysterious, dark and anonymous as well as familiar to the audience as being the criminal character.
-The lighting and colour within the car park is dull and dark compared to the brightness outside - suggesting that they are more secluded and trapped in an unfamiliar daunting environment. The following lighting tutorial video shows the options we had to acheive the best lighting effect for our film. We found use in similar techniques with the use of one additional light to fill in shadows that couldn't be reached by the natural outdoor light, and indoor carpark lights. We found this to give a more realistic look and still look well lit.
However, some shots of the interior of the car were hard to light, and we could have benefited from another light.
-the facial expression and body language of the child in the car was relatively relaxed as he was naive, innocent and unknowing of what was about to happen. This was contrasted with the slow, sinister, threatening movements of the kidnapper.
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The narrative structure has been applied to our piece as the plot consists of the following:-
The equilibrium
The audience is first introduced to the main characters - the mother and child, and a relationship between them is briefly established. Although a lot of questions are still left unanswered, the basic situation is set up.
The disruption
The antagonist character in our film in introduced and takes the child. This disturbs the situation and will cause a problem that will need to be resolved or needs a solution.
The resolution
The action to occur in the rest of the film will build up to the resolution where all questions will be answered, and how the situation resolves will be decided. This generally goes back to normal life for the characters.
- How does your media product represent particular social groups?
- Our media film has initially introduced three very different characters, and portrayed these in different ways in order to achieve the effect of realism, interest and suspense on the audience.
- -The Mother
This character has been portrayed in a way that is familiar to the audience as a mother of a young child. Her costume which consists of normal casual clothes suggest that she is not on a business/ formal type errand as if this was the case, she would be wearing a suit or formal attire. This makes it more realistic and widens the suspicion and tension of where she could have gone in the minds of the audience.
-The Child
In our film, the child has the least power in the situation, being the most vulnerable in the situation. This is shown by the fact that children are generally regarded as vulnerable, and we have isolated him in the car, and being separated from his mother automatically increases the audience wish for him to remain safe, despite the foreshadowing events done with the use of cross-cutting clips between him and the kidnapper. This is similar to the opening of the thriller Face/Off, which represents the innocence of the child character with the use of music, facial expression and body language as he reacts to the loving behaviour of his dad without knowing what is about to happen.
-The Kidnapper
Our film has presented this character negatively and indicated that they are an antagonist in the way that the music changes when he is introduced. A juxtapositional change from the slow sinister music, to silence, to something faster paced builds tension and suggest that this character is about to do something. This goes parallel with the cross cutting between the child and the antagonist as it speeds up and indicates that this character will be the cause of the problem in the film.
-Costume is an important part of this character, despite the fact that he couldn't be seen clearly. The black coat suggests mystery and has connotations with darkness, evil and crime. However, if we were to shoot certain clips again, I would ensure that his shoes were more fitting for the role as opposed to blue trainers. I feel that black boots or shoes would be more effective as the shoes do become a focus at one point during the scene.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
-We would use a film distribution company that deals mostly with thrillers and other similar themes and genres distributed nationally.
-It would be available to buy on DVD
-It would also be screened in more local mainstream cinemas as well as be available for download online as this is a fast growing way of distribution. It is easy, cheaper , fast, accessible by the majority of people.
Advantages
- A wide audience
- Easy accessability
- young (teen/early 20s) target audience specifically targeted as being popular cinema goers as well as more likely to download online
- Costs of DVD production and distibution
- Risk of piracy and illegal download
Our film would have a 15 certificate and so would target people above this age. Although there is no violence or swearing etc in the film opening, the rest of the film may include this. The target audience would be 15-40 year olds, with a particular emphasis on the younger 15-25 age group as they would find a thriller of this kind to be interesting. It's themes, ideas and content suggest that both a male and female audience can enjoy the film.
How did you attract/address your audience?
-The portrayal of a woman being the main character in the film means that a female audience is invited to be able to relate to her situation and emotions she may go to whereas a man might have a different effect on the audience.
-The intrigue, mystery, and action attracts both male and female.
-The narrative of the film, which from the opening is clearly the idea of losing a child to someone else (whether is be a stranger or someone known). This kind of key idea provokes a feeling of fright of losing someone close to you like that, and it attracts the audience as they want to see how such a situation can be resolved and why it has happened.
Audience Feedback
- All people we asked within the target audience said that it was successful as a thriller opening.
- One thing that many agree on is that the music wasn't as good - that it is "too repetitive", "too long" etc. I would say that I agree with these points and would take into account the advice to change it, or merge the two pieces of music together in the middle - however, others have said they like the silence in the middle and that it adds to the sinister atmosphere.
- The use of camera movement, variation in angles and lighting is good
- The match on actions look correct and work well
- Imovie - I started to edit using imovie, but found it too simple, and that there were a number of functions that I wasn't able to do that I knew were easy to do with a program I am used to using.
-I learnt that we would create a better film using different software. - Adobe Premier Elements - We decided to edit our film using this program as we would be able to produce a film of the same standard that we would be able to create using final cut pro, but I have knowledge of this software, and none of our group felt confident using final cut pro.
-I learnt how I can edit to a higher standard with the precision of continuity and match-on-action. - Garageband - this was especially useful to our film as we decided to get rid of all sound from the film, and add it all from garageband.
-I learnt how to search for sound effects, music and sounds using the search function, and instrument/mood categories.
-How to import the film to garageband so that we could match the sound perfectly with the image. - Camera - I learnt how to use the functions on the camera
-how to frame a shot well
-how to set the white balance - Other equipment such as:
-Dolly - learnt how to use a dolly and put it on the tripod. However, we decided not to use it as the floor of the car park was rough and would create shaky shots.
-Tripod - how to set up the tripod and get it to the right height for the shot.
-Monopod - for shots of inside the car, a tripod was too big and handheld footage would be too shaky. The use of a monopod enabled me to have a bit of extra control while filming.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the final product?
For the preliminary task, we made use of garageband for the first time - giving us an initial knowledge of the program so that we can learn how to do it for the final film. However, I do feel that the music made for our preliminary was better and more fitting than our final film, and this would have been better had we the advantage of more time and knowledge of the program.
We considered the use of some of the same sounds that we used in the preliminary for the thriller opening.
I also ensured during the final product to have better focused communication about the production with my group, and found it a lot easier when doing this than with the preliminary because we weren't in contact with each other as much.
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