Production Report Evaluation

Production Report Evaluation

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

For my media production I produced an opening for a thriller film. I researched the genre and looked into how such films are represented and how they appeal to the audience. After finishing my film I would categorise in terms of age as a 15. I looked in how films are rated in terms of what they contain on BBFC website which explains that category. I have chosen the 15 age range because in terms of language there may be frequent use of strong language but only if it is justified by the context, sex and nudity has to be little content with no strong detail. Violence may be strong but detail to pain and injury, weapons are approved but no glamorising of the effect and must not promote drug use. These are appropriate to the thriller genre by the way they are seen by the audience, making them scared, worried or anxious. One of the limitations that would apply to me would be the horror content which goes to the extent of gory images which I have not included. I also collected information on other thriller films to see their content and the age classification. I found that nearly all the films I watched and researched were 15 and above. It is obvious the content is a big part of the age rating to I decided as my opening didn’t involved any graphic material but may be offensive to a lower age to 15. In conclusion I thought I would classify my opening as a 15 certificate.
In my research I found that thriller as a genre is a wide conclusion of which includes many other subgenres which makes it hard to relate to one concept. Thriller’s as a genre can interlink with other genres in terms of how it makes the audience feel and what it contains, this is called a hybrid. For example a thriller could involve aspects of horror which would be different compared to a thriller involving more of an action feel. There can be many interpretations of what conventions that associated with the genre. An overall view of the genre involves mystery, suspense and tension, these are very important in how the film connects with the audience. These aspects are important as it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats and effectively ‘thrills’ them. The sense of unknown gives the audience the appeal of wanting to continue watching the film, grasping their attention.

This connection is achieved by included high levels of anticipation, uncertainty, anxiety and tension. As the genre is not specific to one aspect it can include a range of different genre aspects combined which makes it a varied genre in terms of content.
Thriller films are highly varied and are hybrid as they can contain elements of different genres. These may include aspects such as action thriller, crime thriller, disaster thriller, drama thriller, horror thriller, medical thriller, psychological thriller supernatural thriller. Many thriller films could have elements of these subgenres so it is very hard to categorise a thriller film due to the wide variety on content they involve. It is very important for an opening of a thriller to intrigue the viewer to want to watch the rest of the film. In creating narrative camera shots are the main focus, the use of close- ups is used to give the effect of suspense and tension. This is important as what the audience doesn’t see gives the feeling of danger and constant interruption to give a dramatic feel. I chose to opt for a drama/horror thriller as I thought it would be easy to portray with the storyline I chose, as it fitted to the horror conventions of scaring the audience.
To explore the thriller genre and establish what a thriller contain I studied three thriller openings, these were No Country For Old Men, Dead Calm and Jagged Edge. No Country For Old Men involved a lot of mystery as the audience isn’t informed of what is going on. The main element of the opening was death this was portrayed through two different scenes of an escaped murderer and a hunter finding a drugs raid gone wrong in the desert. The element of mystery links to the fact the audience does not know what happened in the desert and the motive of the killer is unclear. Dead Calm is more of a tragedy thriller which involves a family which has lost their son in car accident. The use of time, switching from past to present tense is significant in setting the scene. There is very little dialog in the opening which gives a sense of shock for the character. The camera shots used connects the viewer with the character blurring the shot which represents blurred vision. The opening of jagged edge is a horror based thriller where the viewer sees an attack on a woman through the killer’s eyes. This idea influenced me to film through the killer’s point of viewer and not see any killers face which I found was very effective. The camera shots were mainly close ups which emphasized the main focuses such as the knife and the victims face. This opening was very influential on how to create the tension with the point of view shot. This made it much easier to connect with the viewer as they were in the killer’s shoes.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

From the results it was clear that the content of my product can appeal to different social groups by how they perceive the characters and storyline. In order to represent to certain social groups I had to think about how they would interrupt my film in terms of what it contained. I think I have targeted more of a teenage group through the interruptions of the environment, clothing, age and gender. With the main character (victim) being a teenage girl we can see that by the way she is dressed and the use of technology, this can be appealing as these aspects are seen to be important. It is very common for a teenage girl to be a victim like the character so the stereotyped image shows the girl being innocent and no threat. I used a female teenager as I knew that this would create the innocence and potentially the vulnerability aspect of the character.

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

In research media distributors I have decided that I think the best company would be paramount pictures. Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, located in Hollywood, California. It was founded in 1912 and is currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom. They have produced films such as Top Gun, Mission Impossible, Lara croft, Collateral, War of the Worlds, Four Brothers, Transformers, Shooter, Cloverfield and Watchmen. In 2007, Paramount was the highest-grossing film studio in the United States. I have chosen paramount pictures to distributor my product as is a very popular American distributor and it has produced many famous films. It is well known and has distributed many thriller films, such as Cloverfeild, Transformers and Eagle Eye which have all been very successful. In 2005 Paramount pictures joint took over Dream Works which was an animation based company. This broadened their production profile by producing children’s animated films such as Shrek and over the hedge, which was a change to their other productions which were not animated. They also produced films with a variety of genres such as Zoolander, School of Rock and Without a Paddle which are comedy’s, Coach Carter which was a drama and Stepford Wives which was a science fiction. I think they would be a appropriate institution to distribute my product as they distribute a wide variety of genres and have distributed many famous films which shows they have success in the film industry.

Who would be the audience for your product?

As a results of my questionnaire sent out and the audience research I have found that most peoples views on thriller film suggest they have an interest in crime, other genres such as horror, mystery, drama, action, are an adrenaline junky and like unrealistic content. This my be specific to a younger age as they would thrive off the dramatic element more than a 60 year old. Males may have more of a specific interest on films rather than females who may have a broad interest in what elements they prefer in thrillers. I have tried to incorporate these elements into my product by observing other films and how they create it. The films that I found most helpful were Jagged Edge and Dead Calm, of which I used the point of view shot and the flashbacks from. An influence of which may change this view may be lifestyle and culture. Also people may have some different attitudes and emotions towards how the film is represented and how they see it. People may be more offended to a killing and how it was shown compared to others who may have seen different representation in other films which may have been worse in terms of the extremes of what the audience saw.
Taking this into context I think that my main audience for my product is people who have an interest in unrealistic content and those who are interested in mystery. I found that consumers of thrillers would have a large consumption of their time watching films and tv.

How did you attract/address your audience?

After looking at other thriller openings and doing research I as able to find out the conventions of which may attract a certain audience to the genre. I think the elements that attract the audience consist of chase scenes, psychological dimension, close up- human unknown, normalcy vs unexpected, darker side of life, injury/death, nightmare, disturbed, flashbacks (time), credibility/ believability, distortion of reality and power. All these elements are consistent through all thriller films. I have tried to incorporate some of these aspects into my product. I have used the idea of darker side of life which I have expressed through the stalking and death of the victim. I have also included flashbacks in black and white to represent the time movement and interrupt the flow of the film. The idea of power I showed through the victim being a young girl and the idea of the girl being weak. I have included a chase scene where the stalker is seen by the girl and she runs away, this adds anxiety for the audience.

Aspects such as the abnormality and unknown are a major part of thriller films as the create mystery and tension. They are normally set in a exotic setting which was very hard to do as we are limited to where we can film. By using point of view shots of the killer I found it was easy to accommodate for the crime element and murder as we have not physically shown this but used cues to make the audience believe that a murder has happened. I think the camera work is very important in creating this assumption, by using mostly close ups I have created the danger and mystery feel. By building up this tension with close-ups and contrasting frames it will attract the audience by building up to the climax. I have used close-ups of the victim in an opening area to show the isolation and create tension. I have also created tension using the point of view shots of the killer stalking the victim which gave a good effect on how the viewer saw the victim.

By using point of views shots I wanted the audience to be in the killers shoes and have a mystery of what was happening, eg not being able to predict what was going to happen next. By having flashbacks it was easy to create the tension switching from past to present. I was easily able to create this flashback by editing the footage into black and white. I also wanted to feel a sense of danger for the girl as the audience doesn’t know what’s happened to the girl which again creates the idea of power the killer has and a dark side to life. I think I have met the audience expectations as I have included many of the elements you would expect from a thriller film and I think I have provided a well constructed storyline. However I think my downfall would be that the actual opening it very slow and doesn’t contain a lot of content which may have a affect on the audience view to watch the rest of the film.

The BBFC has had an influence on my film in the sense of restriction into what can be shown and how it is represented. With age restriction I needed to think about what elements I could use to fit into the restrictions. I think it is important to have restriction on thriller films as they show a lot of content which may offend the audience. This was not the easy when making my film as I had no explicit footage that would offend the audience.


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

In constructing my production I have used technologies such as a video camera, editing software and computer software. I was new to using a video camera so I have learnt a lot in how to use it and how it works. I have learnt how to use different shots and different effects to construct my footage, such as a black and white effect on the flashbacks, slow motion and fade in and outs to show movement in time. I used panning and tracking shots, close ups and point of view shots to achieve this. It was very important we shot multiple shots of each section to get a variety of angles to choose from to get the best result. I have also learnt about continuity, showing everything is the same in each consisting shot, so nothing is moved into or out of the shot. In order keep the camera still I used a tripod to make it easy to pan smoothly. When it came to editing I found it very hard to learn what each effect did, after experimenting with the software it became much easier. From the preliminary task to the opening to a thriller film I have gained a lot of knowledge in how the software works from a teacher and from experimenting with how the effects work. I learnt how to capture the footage into clips, how to cut the clips efficiently and fade in and out to a black screen. I have also learnt how to add sound onto the footage strip and change and overwrite any diagetic sound recorded from the camera.

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

Comparing my knowledge from the preliminary task to the final product I think I have learnt a lot. I have found that the camera angles are very important in showing continuity I found in my preliminary task I crossed that 180 line rule. This has a big effect on the film so I was very aware of this. I think one of my strength in the preliminary task involved the different shots used. I think I used a variety of shots which helped increase my knowledge of how each shot works with representation such as panning shots, close ups and point of view shots. I think my weaknesses of the task were again crossing the 180 line without realising until the editing process. In filming the production we had to change some aspects of the storyboard such as the girl falling, I felt that it would give a good effect but it would be too hard to look effective enough. Also I made the decision to add another shot to create and more stalker feeling, this worked very well. I think that my planning and preparation should have been much more detailed as I had to think on my feet when I was filmed as I didn’t account for any problems such as difficult camera shots. I think my organisation of filming dates and time keeping helped me keep to my strict deadlines.

If I had to do the project I think I will make my storyboard much more detailed as I had to think of how I could change some of the shots to suit the camera angle, such as the birds eye view shot which would have been very difficult to do with the little resources. I also think that I could have put more thought into the blood scenes and to how I could make them more effective in the sense of the blood looking as real as possible. The editing took longer than I was expecting to next time I think I will remind myself of the software before I come to edit the opening properly. I worked in a group of two which was at my advantage as we both had similar ideas on how the film should look and how it would be filmed. We worked together on most of the film but I was distant for some f the editing as I have less knowledge of it than him.