Media Evaluation

Media evaluation

When producing my thriller I took into account many conventions from other films from the same genre; the conventions would help me better distinguish my opening as a thriller, rather than not accidentally fall into the horror genre. I have used such features as very little or no obvious horror or “scary” features; such features that would lead to suggest that the thriller is about something that is obviously meant be scary such as ghosts and ghouls. Rather, I concentrated on using a limited select few of techniques; camera angles, camera movement, and simple mise-en-scene.

Throughout the planning process of this thriller it was my intention to use very simplistic mise-en-scene, which would be our trees and leaves; however, we understood that it was not what we filmed but how we filmed it. Although it was set in a very open environment, we attempted to film it in such a way that it would still feel very confined- it would be this feeling that would be our central device to create an atmospheric thrill. Insert screen grab of “close up of wing running” scene. We accomplished the impression of confinement by using many close ups and coupled this with fast paced movement. This is a convention that can be seen used in other thrillers; the feeling of confinement is indeed a very thrilling feature- to feel trapped, cornered and vulnerable is something I found when watching The Shining when the female protagonist is trapped in the bathroom with her insane husband forcing his way in. a second convention that I used when producing my opening was a feature that I picked up on when watching Collateral, which was to slow down the frames when something key or essential was happening; in Collateral, the frames were slowed down when the central character played by Tom Cruise entered the opening scene. I developed this and slowed the frames down during the very opening of my thriller, however, instead of slowing down the entire scene of my chaser walking only some of his actions are slowed. I did this because it accomplished two things; firstly it shows a focused style, rather than just having a blatant fully slowed down motion, by only partially slowing down some parts of the scene it will show more control as it is only slowed down during specific key points. Secondly by only partially slowing down the movements it works into the momentum of the thriller. The thriller itself is rather quick, having a fully slowed down motion would make the quick sudden burst of speed seem rather odd and would not favour in the eyes of the audience.

I believe that my thriller would appeal to young people aged 15 and older, biased to either genders. I believe this because as my thriller is widely comparable to The Blair Witch Project that I found had no specific gender target. I suppose that my target audience is only those who are attracted to non-fiction stories- which was the idea of my thriller, to seem authentic and of truth- also I aimed the thriller at working class people. I had aimed it at them because the prologue that describes the story that this thriller is based on tells that citizens of the Islington area are being targeted or threatened, also by the appearance of I, myself, in the thriller, judging by the attire it is presumable that it is a person of the working class- thus making it easier for the audience to relate to. And effectively creating a more thrilling watch. I imagined that if I were to describe a person who would go and watch my thriller the moment it was released, I would be describing a student, either from college or university, interested in general history especially that of tragedies such as wars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D51QgOHrCj0

Because my thriller is about Mr. Reynolds and his slaughter throughout Islington I would like to think that it would be best to keep this distributed within the UK as a small independent release. It propose this idea because as this thriller would incorporate, significantly, British history with Islington as its focused area. And because of this, if I compare it to 28 days later it would seem very unlikely that it would become successful in any other country; as it would not have any special effects, it would not incorporate ghosts and ghouls and would be very similar to 28 days later in the sense that it would rely heavily on other suspense creating techniques that isn’t demons and monsters but rather camera shots and camera movement- atmospheric suspense.

I believe that this thriller resembles a film that would benefit from being shown in an “Art house” cinema, keeping it original and emphasising that it is not a blockbuster hit- I would like this because I found that commonly blockbuster movies can easily lose the heart of a film, I would not like this as I felt I had a very personal style enveloped in my film.

During the planning process of this thriller I had understood that perhaps the best way to market it would be by using a method that the producers of The Blair Witch Project had used- to make the audience believe entirely that it is true. Those producers spread rumours themselves and turned a story into a believable urban myth. I’d wish to try and copy that; it would be very effective to use the internet to better my marketing scheme, by spreading rumours on chat rooms and other websites it should be simple to turn this story into a believable urban tale. The internet would be an essential tool in this as the internet has become the dominant route of communication in this modern age, also my target audience would generally be young people

Throughout this project I have come to understand many important elements that go into constructing a thriller. For instance, when using the camera it in order to better involve the audience you should avoid the use of static shots- its simplicity does not involve the audience but would be useful when trying to make the audience focus on a specific thing. Using handheld cameras when filming will involve the audience especially in scenes such as running (which essentially is my entire thriller opening!) I have used this rule throughout my thriller as when the chaser is first introduced they are all static shots which focus the audience on specific parts of his body i.e. his foot as he walks, and I used handheld camera movement when the escapee was running (only on his close ups, at times I would use static shots to pan across as I track him across the setting.)

I have also become competent with Final Cut Pro as I had done almost all the editing, having spent so much time with the program I have come to understand the amount of attention that is needed in order to create a professional piece of film; each frame counts! Especially when it comes to match-cuts. You must make sure that each movement has just the right amount of frames before it leads into a second shot of the same movement in order to make certain that it looks natural.

In terms of uses of technology I had also used a blog to document my progression through this process; each entry would talk about ideas and the times I had spent working on this project. By doing so it is easy to understand the creation of my thriller.

Finally I have also learned a great deal of the film industry in other areas as well. I learnt about story-boarding and screen writing.

I relied heavily on this storyboard as my opening had no script or any strong narrative progression- my story board depicted the angles of my chase scene and I would come to build the rest of my thriller around this as I made eventual alterations etc.