Final thriller

Here is my group's final thriller. We called it "No More", which represents the idea of husband's death ending the abusive relationship. The title also reflects on characters' exhaustion from the stressful events in the story. 

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

Evaluation task 6 - What have you learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

As a group we looked at all the technologies that we used creating our thriller. We went through and added commentaries to the key moments of our video, as well as listing everything we used in production process. Please watch the video with comments enabled to see notes on the included technologies.

Here is the list of technologies we used on the three stages of production:

Pre-production

Google
- to research

Blogger
- to keep the record of our progress

Facebook
- for communication

Canon 80D DSLR, Microphone RODE NTG2, Glide Gear DNA 1000
- to film the test shoot, mii-en-scene video and interviews when researching our private audience

Final Cut Pro 

- to edit the pre-production videos

YouTube
- to upload the videos on Blogger
- to research other thrillers

Amazon
- to buy props and costumes e.g. fake blood

Production 

Black Magic 4k URSA mini
Camlink Tripod
- to film our thriller

Sennheiser Shotgun Microphone
Dead Cat cover
- to record the sound

Key Light
Fill Light
- Setting the lighting

Adobe Premiere CC
- editing

YouTube
- publishing on the Hurtwood House Media channel

Post-production 

iPhone
- to film behind the scenes video

Final Cut Pro
- to edit behind the scenes video

YouTube
- to upload the final thriller and behind the scenes video to Blogger

Blogger
- to keep the record of our progress

Google
- to research

Evaluation task 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

I approached this task by creating a magazine article. Although they are written as a conversation, the questions and answers cover all the topics on how we addressed our audience. 

Evaluation task 4 - Who would be the audience for your media project?

After shooting the opening scene, we had to research our target audience. Originally we expected it to be women, 20 to 24 years old, however we needed more information to back up or choice. Dora, Aidan and I went to Guildford to interview 46 people, both genders, 15 to 50 years of age. The town gave us a wider variety of public than our boarding school. Based on the new data, we changed the old assumption to 17 to 21 years old, female. These are the questions we asked:

How old are you?
Where are you from?
What is your favorite film genre?
Do you like movies about family drama?
Do you find violence in movies disturbing?
Do you think that domestic violence is a topic appropriate for filmmaking?
Would you still enjoy a movie if it has a tragic ending?
Do you think a female lead villain is unrealistic?
Do you find films where the main character has a mental disorder interesting?
Have you seen Shinning by Stanley Kubrick? What did/didn't you like about it?
What do you like to see in a thriller film?
On the scale from 1 to 10 how do you feel about violence in films? 10 being "good, I enjoy it" and 1 being "I hate it, it's inappropriate".

We aimed to find out what kind of movies different groups of people enjoy and whether they will find our thriller interesting. Other questions, such as "Have you seen Shining by Stanley Kubrick? What did/didn't you like about it?" and "Would you still enjoy a movie if it had a tragic ending?", helped us to get more specific opinions on our story. The results were arranged into pie and bar charts:

After analyzing the data we created a Facebook account of someone who would be in our target audience. Saffie Tremaine represents this group of people. Women gave positive response more frequently than men when we asked if they enjoyed family drama and other aspects of our film. Because our main character is female, the audience of the same gender would feel more connected and willing to follow her journey. Women who gave the biggest number of suitable answers were approaching their twenties. A twenty years old already understands some concepts of married life and would find interesting the topics of our movie.

Evaluation task 3, - What kind of Media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Here are two presentations of the media institutions we would go to if we intended to make our thriller, and the reasons why we would choose them. One is a member of the Big Eight film studios, the other is a smaller British film production company.

The second company:

If we intended to make our movie we would go to DNA Films, because they are more likely to take the project considering our low experience in filmmaking. 

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

Our product has two social group representations; gender and social class and status. Because the characters are of different genders, there is a contrast that highlights the stereotypes and the representation is primary. Since they are of the same social class, there is no contrast and this representation becomes secondary.

Subverted representation of genders

 We adhere the representations of gender for the first part of our scene. The opening shot is of a woman cooking, the camera takes close shots of kitchen tools and how she fixes her hair, which are all female aspects. The filming angles are high or on the level with her head, which are used to present a fragile character.  Subversion of the stereotype appears as soon as the man's body is revealed, since it is unusual for a male character to be injured by a female due to differences in physical strength. This is done by a low angle panning shot, so that the actress would look more intimidating and be in centre of the audience's attention. Most of the later shots of her are done from the low angle, such as reverse shots from the man's perspective. In contrast, most of the male's shots are from the high angle or on his level, depicting his weakness. Camera movements in the handheld shot are used to show the woman's anger when she sees her husband's attempt to escape, an emotion not associated with gentle female nature. The over the shoulder shot of her holding him on the floor, grabbing the tape and the closing shot further develop her image of an aggressive figure by showing her rushing into and out of the frame. Due to the absence of a contrast, there weren't any representations of the couple's social class to show through the use of camera. 

High angle shot of Chris, portraying him as a victim.

Fading into the opening shot with increasing radio music sets up the slow pace of editing for the first part of the opening. The moderate speed of cuts between the shots of the woman presents her as a calm tempered character, adhering the stereotype of female gentleness. The frequency of transitions rises after introduction of the wounded man and reaches its peak during the fight. This makes the woman appear fast and aggressive, subverting the stereotype of women being peaceful and slower than men. The duration of the man's shots are longer than those of the woman. This is mainly because he is the victim, the figure the audience cares about. But he presents even more interest due to his gender, since it is unusual for a male to be be harmed and scared by a female. Therefore, longer shots of him adhere the stereotype of men being physically and emotionally stronger than women.

Fade into the opening shot sets slow pace for the scene

The heroine's costume is a dress and an apron, an appearance that adheres the stereotype of women as peaceful house wives. She also has make-up bruises on the hands and face, which denotes that she was beaten, most probably by an abusive husband since women suffer from domestic violence more than men. However, in general she looks healthy and active, her facial expression is calm. This contrasts with the man's paleness, wounds and expression of fear as he looks up at his murderess. His black and white costume is dull and connotes that he is near death, while the woman looks more energetic in red and blue colours. The location is a cosy kitchen with many colourful, fragile and soft items on the cupboards. This connotes that its owners have kind tempers if they like to live in such a warm environment. Women are stereotyped to spend more time at the kitchen than men, so the audience associates the set design with her character. The juxtaposition of the woman's nice surroundings and her murderous temper subverts the stereotype about the female tolerance. Features of the mise-en-scene can also tell us about the family's social status. Because the man is in the formal wear one can tell that they are not of the working class, but the quality of the woman's dress, the modest size of the kitchen and the simplicity of the meal prepared by the wife, connote that they are a middle class instead of a high class couple. 

Office clothes represent him as a middle class worker. White shirt highlights his paleness.

The soundtrack for the opening is a composition played on the radio. It creates juxtaposition by contrasting the pleasant, relaxing jazz music with the violence that takes place on the screen. The type of the soundtrack adheres the stereotype of women’s gentleness and tranquility, since it is a slow paced and calm piece of music. There is also a continuous sound of vegetables sizzling in oil, which adheres the stereotype of women taking care of the kitchen and the food preparation. The cutting noise creates tension by reminding us of the knife that the man was stabbed with, therefore subverting the stereotype of inoffensive females. The man’s moaning subverts the stereotype of masculine strength and intolerance to the pain. Low quality of the radio sound connotes that the couple is not in the higher class, since they cannot afford high quality speakers. Because the working class is associated with poorly educated people, and jazz is an intellectual music genre, the fact that it is played connotes the couple's higher social status. Therefore, the audience assumes that the characters are in the middle class.The scene adheres stereotypes of this status by combining the facts of financial limitations and the above average level of cultural knowledge. 

Chopping sound subverts the stereotype of harmless females

Conclusively, the extract mostly subverts stereotypes of gender and adheres stereotypes of the social class in its representations of these social groups. Representation of the status is less effective since there is no contrast, so adhering the stereotypes helps the audience to identify what social class they are observing. The effect on the audience is achieved through the use of camera, sound, editing and mise-enscene.  

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

Genre conventions are elements that the audience expects as they have been used in many previous media products from their genre/sub genre. Conventions of a thriller include violence, discordant soundtrack, fast pace editing and frightening characters to create suspense. 

I made a video to answer this question:

Post production: editing

From 20th of February to 3rd of March our group was editing. We used lessons and our free time to finish before the deadline, and we managed. The editing process is derived from the traditional  process of working with film, but now it increasingly involves the use of digital technology. The film editor works with the raw footage, selecting shots and combining them into sequences to create a finished motion picture.

Sergei Eisenstein editing his movie 

"Battleship Potemkin", 1925

We started from reviewing and selecting the footage to make sure that the most suiting shots are used for editing. This changed many of our expectations. The shots we filmed didn't look exactly as we imagined, so we had to adjust and make the best of what we had by inventing a new sequence and changing their durations. The intended outcome remained the same: a smooth edit with unnoticeable transitions and fitting sound. We then re-named every shot we intended to use to improve the organisation of footage and the efficiency of editing. The key decisions that I made were at the stages of selecting footage from the rushes, assembling the footage in the right order and working with the sound. Now, when the editing is finished, we are discussing wether we should colour grade it.

The shot is too dark and needs to be colour graded

We used Adobe Premier Pro to edit our work and Soundcloud as the sound software. The interface of Adobe is made of the Timeline, Program Monitor, Source Monitor and the Clips Section. The timeline is where the editing takes place. After dragging the footage onto it and arranging into the right sequence, one can manage its duration and related sound effects. By closing the gaps between shots we created a single video instead of separate shots. The sound was adjusted by unlinking it from the video and and stretching it over the neighbouring shots, or cutting it out of the footage and inserting in the proper moments of the timeline. So far we have only diegetic sound, but we are searching for non-copyrighted music that would serve us as a soundtrack. When a shot was selected it turned white. If any effects were applied for it, a small fx icon in its corner turned yellow. When editing one can use the following tools: selection, ripple edit, rate stretch, slip, pen, hand, track select, rolling edit, razor, slide and zoom. E. g. the razor tool is used to make cuts in any parts of selected shots. In a good edit shots are cropped tightly, matching the movements and object's position in the previous shots. This suits the actions and graphics in a sequence making, if the continuity rule was followed during filming. The video is then more entertaining and realistic.

 Logos of the used softwares 

The audience can forgive a dodgy angle or transaction, but not poor sound. Therefore, we want to re-record foleys of the sounds that don't work. We will use calm, moderately paced music to create a juxtaposition by contrasting it with the violent action. Loud cutting noises create tension as they remind as of the knife that was used for stabbing the main character.

Professional sets have sound operators who are 

responsible for recording good quality sound

We succeeded to construct a diegesis in our opening sequence by putting the footage into chronological order, presenting the audience with actions and reactions, and sustaining the narrative structure by following the order of exposition, climax and resolution. The story development is reflected by the editing. Use of a shot-reverse-shot when the the man wakes up shows the relationship between the man and the woman. His facial expression reflects fear, and shot of the woman clarifies that he is scared of her. The slow fade into the opening shot and long durations between shots sets a slow pace for the first part of the scene. The frequency of transitions then increases, building the speed of actions, and reaches the climax during the characters' brawl. Then again the shots become longer, slowing down the pace until the culmination. By leaving the ending unfinished, we create a mystery, a question that makes the audience more interested.

Chris looking at his killer 

Like in any movie, the opening required titles. We have put the credits before the first frame, accompanied by the music, and during the first several shots of the opening. Titles stay on the screen for thrice the time it takes to skim read them, so that quick readers wouldn't get bored and slow readers fall behind. Both production companies and most of the names and were made up, since we never had a chance to make the full movie, but the main roles and production members were mentioned accordingly. We created them in effects controls and inserted into the timeline.

Our made up production company