Evaluation Questions

Evaluation Questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

Our media product is a short clip of three minutes to an opening of a thriller. The storyline is based on a woman being captured by a mystery villain and locked in a basement. This specific choice of storyline builds up anxiety and suspense adding to the horror theme. Martin Rubin points out that a Thriller should be categorised as a ‘metagenre’. It is considered one of the most broadest genres in film as it can have many sub-genres coming from it, such as crime, action adventure, mystery etc.

conventions of real media products? Due to thrillers being broad, it is the most difficult to identify, however, there are elements within it that an audience will expect to see. These include, a sense of unease, danger, tension and anxiety. If a thriller is successful it should keep the audience on the edge of their seats. This is usually achieved by the particular use of both diegetic and non-diegetic music, camera shots and angels. Before we began filming we all researched a number of thriller films, this was in order for us to learn the conventions that are needed to create a successful thriller film, we did this both as a group and independently. We focused on their story lines and openings, comparing them and looking for similarities. The two main films we analysed were “Memento” and “Silence of the lambs”. After having watched the openings to these thrillers we began noticing the similar aspects between them, we also noted what the evident conventions that occurred in them, some of these where; narrative enigmas, suspense, mystery, eerie music and a sense of uncertainty. These allow the audience to be drawn into the film and feel a part of the characters experience. Another thing that really helps create a thriller, is when the audience knows just as much as the character, really putting them in the same position. We too tried to perceive these aspects in our own opening, leaving the audience in the dark as well as the characters. Although the films have completely different storylines they both use narrative enigmas in the same way to keep the audiences attention. As well as both creating an air of suspense and mystery. We used non-diegtic music, it has an eerie quality and fits into the background perfectly, this adds to the tension of feelings amongst the audience watching and makes them feel on edge. At some points we erased the idea of music and used the technique of silence which added to the uncomfortable, dreary atmosphere, we felt that this helped with the mystery and suspense you would usually achieve in a genuine thriller . Throughout the filming process we decided to use two locations, this was because the house we was using that had a basement didn’t look as scary from the front so we decided to use a different house for that specific scene. Both the chosen locations had a weird, creepy feel to them, which definitely fitted our thriller storyline and brought the edgy and hostile feel we needed. The basement (house 1) was dark, cold and very mysterious; it really helped guide us along the way, adding a great deal to the

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For the front house scene (house 2) we filmed an establishing shot of the old looking Tudor house, which told the audience where the action was happening before it actually did. Overall, we were entirely happy with our location choice as it has all the main elements of a thriller. We decided to keep the amount of characters very simple, the villain and the victim. I felt that this was a good choice because it helped express the seriousness of the situation by having minimal actor’s showing a smaller chance of a heroic ending, this leaving the audience questions, what's going to happen next?. All the scenes involving the villain where shot from behind, we felt it would be better to keep the characters face anonymous creating a real tense atmosphere and leaving the villain rather intimidating. We used make-up on our actresses to help add to the realism and also create the illusion of bruises and scratches to show the horror and pain in which our victim had gone through. Also, the use of blood expresses the pain and danger experienced. We then began discussing what to call our project, we looked back to the thrillers we analysed. “Memento” was a one worded title we thought this had an impact on the audience, because its fast and striking. It also helps the audience to think more in depth about what they are about to watch and the main point is that it also links to the storyline, another aspect I feel makes a good thriller is when everything pieces together at the end, its like a task, trying to work out what's happening and at the end you see if you have achieved this. This keeps the audience busy and into the film, and pretty much ensuring they are going to watch it till the end. We finally decided to name our product “number 24”. We chose a short title which had important relevance to the storyline of our film (On the address the victim is holding on her way to the house, on the gates at the house, and also on the victims leg. All of the research and analysis of thrillers was done to make our product comparable to those of real media thriller produce, we researched these films closely and we hope to have achieved the thriller theme.

The two films we had inspiration from ‘Memento’- with the women waking up in an unknown place and also with the previous idea of using a Polaroid pictureand ‘Silence Of the Lambs’-with the idea of a serial killer targeting young women.

Anna’s being tied up and prepared in the basement by Elena A. Me putting make up on Anna to create a realistic feel for both her and the audience.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? I would say that our media product is represented to attract specific target groups. The main character is a young, teenage girl, she walks along the sidewalk alone. She is seen to be nervous and fearful, the audience can immediately pick up this emotion. Some teenagers watching this can relate to this specific character and what she may be feeling and why. Her costume is a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt giving her a casual everyday look, this shows she is not of a high class. This will help our teenage audience relate to her character as she seems to be an average teenage girl. There is not a lot of dialogue at all, so an accent couldn’t be recognised, which will not single her out either. We did however represent the North London area as one which is associated with violence, I say this because you are less likely to find this sort of violence in other areas such as the city. However, in terms of the ethnicity, race and sexuality aspect we decided not to add any emphasis on these aspects as they are not the main subjects of the film. The film is shot from the perspective of the audience watching, as if they are following the characters which really gets the audience involved. In our product, we chose the traditional stereotype of a victim and villain, victim being a female and the villain being male. This was also the case in “Silence of the lambs” the character Clarice is the victim and is in danger. I felt that with the careful choice of a female victim, gives the audience a much higher perception of her vulnerability. We used an older male for the villain in order to achieve the great sense of intimidation and power towards the young teenage victim, I felt that this also helps the storyline along. During the basement scene, at one point there is a noticeable difference in camera angle. When the victim looks down to her leg to see the ’24’ carved in, the camera is from the outside looking towards her, we did this purposely in order to draw in the audiences attention, highlighting its for the audience to see, rather than the victim herself, again really involving the audience in the action. With the choice of our main character being a teenage girl, the audience will be able to relate to her vulnerability in an unknown situation. Many teenagers find themselves in situations they are not particularly familiar with, and come sometimes feel trapped and alone like our character does in the basement scene.

Anna simply wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

North London

Me and Natalie M, following Anna, from a lower point of view

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The company I feel that would best to support the budget of our project.

As my Media product is a low budgeted film I need to take into consideration certain factors in order to market it effectively. I have to think sensibly and think about whether these distributors will be the right ones for our horror themed product. I have decided to go for metrodome distribution, which is a small independent London based distribution company to distribute our coursework piece. I have also chosen The Microwave film Project to financially support our film alongside metrodome. I feel that this decision will definitely be beneficial towards the successful production of our project. Recent films such as Eran Creevy’s Shifty, have been acquired by Metrodome for UK, Eire and Eastern Europe distribution. While Steven Sheil’s contemporary horror Mum & Dad, which was co-financed by EM Media, has been picked up by Revolver Entertainment for UK, Eire and North American distribution. These where distributed by Metrodome and financially supported by Microwave. The success of these first two features is a fantastic boost for Microwave, a unique and groundbreaking initiative launched by Film London in 2006. From the outset the aim of the scheme has been to make micro-budget feature films which combine creative scripts and talent with an entrepreneurial approach to produce a commercially viable product.

3. Continued The first two greenlit features were ‘Mum & Dad’ and ‘Shifty’: -Mum & Dad: Writer/Director Steven Sheil’s intense horror film, produced by Lisa Trnovski, is set around London’s Heathrow Airport. A murderous and perverse family life at the end of the runway, right under the roar of he flight path. The special thing bout this film was that it was released in the cinemas, on dvd and also available for download all on the same day. -Shifty: Written and directed by Eran Creevy and produced by Rory Aitken and Ben Pugh. Riz Ahmed (Britz, Road to Guantanamo) takes the title role of Shifty, a thriller charting on action packed 24 hours in the life of a young crack cocaine dealer on the outskirts of London. -Shifty was distributed by metrodome distribution. The microwave Film Project allows films of a small scale, to have the opportunity to be shown in cinemas. I would say our film has the potential to be shown in big multiplex cinemas where it will get a larger audience, however, If they was to not give us the budget of our film, it would get shown in smaller localised cinemas which have a much smaller scale audience.

<- ‘Shifty’ ‘Mum & Dad’ ->

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? In order for a product to reach its highest potential there are a few things that need to be ensured, every product produced is aimed at a specific target audience, this is done in order to achieve a successful product and making sure its based on the interests and likes of the individuals at which it is aimed. As a group we created a questionnaire in order for us to research what audiences want from a thriller. We sent out 19 Questionnaires, 11 went to females and 8 to males. We asked them what they expected from a thriller and the most common answers that arose were: -Scary moments -Elements of the unexpected/ unknown -Convincing props such as Fake blood/knives etc. We also asked what appeals most when they watch a thriller. The most common answers from this were -The storyline -Suspense -Elements of surprise -Realistic Locations -The music

some thrillers that where mentioned.

Our use of Fake blood to ad d to the realism..

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The British Board of Film Classification is an independent organisation that exists to regulate and classify the content of films shown in cinemas and released on video. It does this by awarding a classification certificate based on what it considers to be appropriate age limits for the film in question and, if deemed necessary, by requesting that the film's distributor make changes to the film, usually in

After looking at our questionnaire results, we decided to aim our Thriller at people of both genders ageing from about 15+. Taking into account all of the aspects of our product, for example, its thriller theme there are particular groups we have aimed our film towards. Our products target audience are people who enjoy frequent trips to the cinema and often enjoy thrillers. I feel this to be the most popular age group to enjoy thrillers, and as a result watching our product also. This age is also at an advantage because the characters in the thriller are also teenagers so therefore this age group are most likely to be drawn in, relating it back to themselves and their own experiences. The reason for the target age to begin at the minimum of 15 years old is due to the fact that it may be unsuitable for anyone younger. It is based on a thriller storyline and it therefore contains thriller elements that anyone younger could find uncomfortable to view. Some other films that have the certificate of either 15 or 18 are: Psycho(15), The Usual Suspects (18), The silence of the lambs (18), and Memento (15).

5. How did you attract/address your audience? In order for us to be able to attract an audience we had to use specific requirements that would overall make our product a real success. Starting with the short title, “Number 24” this was mainly created to draw in audiences. It works along with the storyline not only linking the name to the plot but also leaving the audience questioning what significance the title has in the film and therefore persuading them to watch it to find out. During our editing stage we decided to use a few transition techniques. The storyline was the main attraction, its persuadable, grabbing peoples attention and creating a real curiosity. The story was based on the life of a young woman being captured by an unknown suspect, to wake up and find herself trapped and tied up in the basement of a mysterious location. Our storyline is full of narrative enigmas, such as Where did she find the address to this house?, Who is the mystery villain?, What does he/she want?, whose blood is it? And so on, these narrative enigmas help to draw In audiences and keep them interested, to find out the answers of what may happen to the characters and why. We were influenced to use narrative enigmas by the film ‘Memento’ which is full of them. We also agreed that it reached the standard of other well known horror films. Although we also used other elements. We have tried to keep the conventions in our film clear so the audience can identify then and the film will fit precisely into the category of ‘Thrillers’. A convention we attempted to control was the lighting. We tried to keep the dark and dreary feeling. We also tried to include an establishing shot, which would give the audience a slight understanding as to what's happening, preventing confusion. We also tried to create moments of tension and suspense, we decided to stick to this especially because it was an answer that arose frequently in our questionnaire. We hoped to achieve these tense moments through the camera work, with close up claustrophobic shots. We achieved this in the basement scene mainly. During the editing stage, we tried to keep transactions simple and effective, We felt that the use of a black fade out during a few scenes, added to the amount of suspense created which many thriller films use in between scenes for the similar reason. Another thing we used to attract the audience was the specific choice of music. At the beginning of the film we chose a spooky, eerie track to set the mood. This added to the threatening actions and feelings the audience prepares for before a horror film. We also found in our questionnaire that this sense of not knowing things that are going to happen, really create suspense and add to the thriller experience. We tried to keep our sound affects realistic and not too bold- keeping them in the background rather then main attraction. If we had the opportunity to release the film we would use a number of different promotional methods to draw in as many people as possible. The main methods would include: advertisement on the Internet on socialising websites such as Facebook or MySpace (which is used by many 15-20 year olds) , Television commercials, advertisement on busses, billboards and in

Thegla acting as the dead body

The character (the Joker)

A mimicked costume of the character.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product? I was completely unaware of how difficult filming and editing the product would be, and the type of common problems that could arise pre and post the production. However, the outcome of our product was also better than I had expected. During the filming process I learned that things don’t always go to plan. On two occasions we had to re-schedule filming, on the first incident there was a problem due to the lighting. This was because we didn't plan what we was going to do properly which caused confusion and conflict, by the time we had overcome these problems it had become too dark to film, resulting in the shots being extremely dark and blurred. We couldn’t get anything from the shots so decided to re-schedule but this time around learning from our previous mistakes. The problem on the second time round, was a technical issue involving the camera not being fully charged, yet again we had to reschedule and re-shoot the same scene. The majority of the shots where in the basement scene, this was a small confined area which had very little room for our whole group to stand, we took it in turns to film different shots using our surroundings to our advantage. We accomplished many shots from all different angles both high and low. This was to our advantage because when it came to the difficult decision making during editing we had a number of shots that we could use, avoiding jump cuts and continuity errors.. We also encountered a minor problem when the camera battery wasn’t fully charged so we couldn’t complete our filming day, it had already got too dark and we where left to reschedule. I also found that certain thing on the camera such as the zoom function, don’t always work well, and it didn’t look as good as we hoped it would. We attempted to use a microphone during the basement scene in order to create a realistic feel, with the characters heavy breathing. However, the microphone we had did not work as well as planned so we had to make sure the sound taken in by the camera worked well and was effective. I definitely felt I learnt a lot through the editing stage, I learnt how to upload the film from the camera onto the computer and how to edit it successfully, adding the music and titles. However, a few of the problems we encountered were not due to the technology side but more so due to the weather. We overcame

Elena A (left) and Thegla (right) during the filming process

us dealing with the lighting issue. I was helping Anna get into position

7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Overall, I feel that I have learnt many different skills that I was unfamiliar with before. Working well as a group, splitting up jobs and camera skills have all been main points at which I feel I have improved on. Thinking back to the preliminary task I can definitely mention a number of errors that I would go back and do differently. Although our preliminary task wasn’t too long ago I still feel that I have achieved a lot since then. I never really looked into camera work before, I didn't think you could set a mood or show the hierarchy of someone through just camera angles. Our pre-production process was much more detailed in our final product, we completed a storyboard, a shooting script, and a shooting schedule, RECCE forms, risk assessment forms, group production schedule and booking forms. I know now that the Situations and locations we are sometimes put in can be used to an advantage, by filming shots from different angles and with different lighting. For example, in some cases you may stand on a platform to get a shot from high up or kneel down to get a low shot, and this can sometimes show peoples status. I also learnt that we could adjust the lighting settings on the camera. This enabled us to get clearer pictures if we had problems with the lighting. I learnt how to do a panning shot, which I definitely didn’t know how to do before. I also learnt how to film establishing shots and close up shots and where it would be best to film them (angle/positioning) When we began filming our horror clip, I couldn't help but feel nervous, this was strange because I had already had some experience with a camera during the preliminary task. After we did a few practice shots I gradually became more confident and I felt I knew what I was doing a bit more. When we were filming this it was very unorganised and we didn't really stick to our storyboard, later we found that if we discussed what we was going to do before we actually did it, things would run a lot smoother, as they did when we filmed the horror opening. I think that overall as a group we all worked together well making sure everyone's opinions and ideas where addressed. I would say the respect everybody had on each other was the most important thing that improved our work in many ways, We were able to give different ideas and opinions on what we thought worked best without an argument arising.