Final thriller

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?

Here is my Prezi for Evaluation Task 7 and here i explore the progression from my preliminary task to my final media product.

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

We as a group went through all the technologies we used when doing our whole production and found 10 of the most important ones we then discussed these and annotated our thriller with the 10 technologies we had used. Here is the annotated version of our videos, to see them turn on the annotations on the video before you watch.

Here our the annotations we added in the video:

• Camera - Sony FS 100 - 1080I HD format - zoom lens
• We used the Sony FS 100 and a zoom lens to film, in 1080I HD Format, a range of close ups and midshots to show detail within our work. k
• Editing Soft ware - Adobe Premiere
• We used Adobe Premiere Pro to determine and edit which clips we wanted in our thriller and to bring out a final product. k
• Tripod
• The tripod was used to steady the camera, in order for the audience to be able to focus on the details we wanted to show. k
• Rifle/Shotgun Mic
• The rifle microphone was used to record detailed diagetic sound effects such as the paint and blood and to cancel out any surrounding sounds. k
• Lighting
• We used high-key lighting to create a certain ambiance within our thriller to highlight certain moments within the sequence. k
• soundtrack
• The non-diegetic soundtrack we included was used to enhance the tension we were trying to build up within our sequence. k
• titles
• We used the title cards to contrast and transition between the clips included in our thriller. The font reflected the atmosphere we trying to convey. k
• adjusting the speed of certain clips
• When we moderated our speed certain clips to build more suspense and stress the actions happening within the shots. This was also done to match the speed of the non-diagetic soundtrack. k
• camera movement
• We included included camera movements such as pans and tilts within our thriller to create an intense feeling of suspense because the actions are revealed in a slower maneuver. k
• Slowing down the soundtrack 
• The non-diagetic soundtrack has been slowed down with the sound editor within Adobe Premiere Pro in order for us to be able to enhance the tension we hoped to represent in our thriller.

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

Here is my Evaluation task 5 Interview. I recorded it on soundcloud which i had never used before and really enjoyed leanring to use for my media task. Here is the transcript of the interview below.

Interviewer - Hi there! so tell me, what genre would you say your film is?

Interviewee - I would definitely say that the film is a thriller but i also think it is under the sub genre of a psychological thriller. I think when we were writing and filming this film we got a lot of influence form films such as red dragon and silence of the lambs, both featuring a psychopathic man but also the film being a successfull thriller thats exactly what we wanted for our film too.

Interviewer -Excellent, excellent, I think that definitely came across! So where did you set this thriller?

Interviewee - We were from the outset wanting to set it in a hidden industrial building or basement hidden from the world, we didnt really want a very descriptive location as we wanted to focus solely on the task in hand, although it was still important and pivotal to the piece. By choosing this location/setting also we have hoped that the audience will get a sense of mystery and be kept wondering where this is all going on, creating tension a huge convention of the thriller genre.

Interviewer - That’s great and exactly how i felt watching it! Now the big one! what is a shortrun down of the plot?

Interviewee - Ah well this is both simple and complicated for me so ill just leave you with a brief storyline. A psychopathic serial killer is using a victim who is still barely alives blood to paint a painting.

Interviewer- oooo creepy! How do you think this would attract an audience then?

Interviewee - Well we hope that It araises questions and makes the audience think about why the psychopath is doing these things and what drove him to it. Also maybe even who is making him do these things possibly.

interviewer -good good, Now onto the characters! I strangely felt a lot of sympathy with the psychopath who is never named, was this your intention all along?

Interviewee - Well our intention was in fact to create a character of a man who is isolated in his own world troiled with conflict and is troubled by the extent of their mind, acting out of control and sort of in a way has contracted obsessive compulsive disorder.

Interviewer - Do you think an audience could ever like that sort of person?

Interviewee - I think they could! he is unpredictable and has passion, because he is also relatable and makes them want to find out more.

Interviewer - Did you use an sort of narrative devices then? any plot twists?

Interviewee - Well of course! the biggest one! the reveal of the body, because up til the reveal its supposes to just appear as a normal painting. Also we used suspense and tension a lot.

Interviewer - How do you think it appeals to an audience?

Interviewee - It definitely appeals to a certain kind of person. A lover of cult classic movies such as Silence of the lambs and American Psycho. It plays mind games with you and appeals to anyone in the worlds dark side, cause we all have one.

Interviewer - I absolutely loved the eary soundtrack you used! why did you choose that?

Interviewee - We decided to use not the typical classical up beat music but a distorted version we slowed down and ‘messed up’ it is a contrapuntal non-diegetic soundtrack and is supposed to be extremely haunting. Also fans of that haunting music will be drawn to the soundtrack immediatly i feel.

Interviewer - I totally agree! So answer this for me What information did you give away in the titles? was it stereotypical?

Interviewee - We used the titles to show who the actors were and who played the roles of our main characters and we used and featured more young and up and coming actors so when you see there name on the screen you know youll love the movie.

Interviewer -Tom grace certainly caught my eye! So what editing techniques did you use? Why will this attract your target audience? who are your target audience?

Interviewee - from the extensive reserach we did it showed our target audience was woman in their midaged period so 40-60. We prepared for also a lot of males preffering the film over woman as well but our main demographic was in fact the woman. We used in editing pace increases as teh sequence goes along to create tension again.

Interviewer -Thanks for he interview i recomend everyone to see this film, its definitely one of my favourites thankyou blank canvas!

Evaluation Task 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Here is our interview for target audience, it really helped and showed that thrillers were widely loved.
It also showed that our audience could be enjoyed by a range of ages but the demographic of males was confirmed.

This is a screenshot from the facebook profile I created for the target audience of our thriller.

Here are some Bar charts showing who would be most interested in watching our thriller.

 As you can see from this demographic 15-20 are most likely to not watch the film. This is why I have chosen to age my facebook persona as 24.

 Again we can see here that the main age is between 15-39, 24 is a very good age between that gap as our film is quite graphic so old enough not to be offended.

Evaluation Task 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Editing - Post production

Our editing process was quite simple as we had made sure to have filmed our shots in order of what was on our carefully thought our storyboard so that what we were left with in the editing suite was just to piece them all together and make sure they were aligned well so we could get what we wanted from the clips we had filmed. We did start out however just watching all of our clips back to see what we had managed to get and maybe what we would have to adapt to if we were missing certain things. We then started to drag the footage down to the timeline that we knew we wanted to use. The timeline is an interface that enables you to lay a video project out horizontally across the screen and makes it easier for you to get exact moments form your clips. We then bit by bit took sections of those clips and named them specifically as this is important so we can remember what we have actually used and what we haven’t. The framing of the shots did definitely influence the decision on whether we would use the shot or not as if it wasn't framed very well it wouldn't work for our piece as most of our shots were framed particularly well. Sometimes the shots that were framed in a weird way did work for us though as we were going for more an out of the box sort of clip. We then began to fit them in with each other.

We decided that None of our shots were actually needed specifically to be cropped as we made sure in the filming process that we would frame at shot perfectly so that we wouldn't have to crop in the editing process, this did in fact work in our advantage and made our editing process a whole lot smoother. However we did use a cutting tool to make sure we got what we specifically wanted from a clip. For example some clips may have had the director saying action in at the beginning so we would only use the part after that. The diagram that we acquired from the sheet our teach gave us really helped us understand where to put certain clips and also specific things like how we could put audio over a clip , etc. Also we would follow on clips from each other that made more sense together, so we would show the painter painting on a close up shot but then we would show another shot and it would be him still painting but a mid shot instead. This helped for the clip to look a lot more smoother and professional.

Again reiterating what I have said previously, we had a very good storyboard to work from and this was a very large part of what we based our timeline piecing together process of the editing process on. We did stray from the storyboard slightly but that is because we learnt that things look differently when the footage is actually in front of you, so we decided that we would adapt certain clips. The continuity was very important to us as ours was such a simple thriller so we meticulously searched through each clip to find parts that like dup and that could lead off each other, like for example when our painter swirled his paintbrush in the water jar, we would try our best to make the next shot him walking over to paint form the water jar table. However we did specifically make some cuts quite jerky and sudden as we wanted to make sure we could portray properly the erratic behaviour and what sadistic manic thoughts were going through his mind when creating his ‘masterpiece’. we used layers of the non diabetic sound over these scenes especially to project the sheer mass of his madness, the erratic music tis there in hopes to create the same feeling of being on the edge for the viewer for the short 2 minutes.

We did add titles as we wanted to make it look as professional as possible. We decided that we would have each of our cast title credits in between shots of the cast. Also we wanted each title sequence to be equally split after and before every shot of the actually opening sequence. We felt this created even more tension as it keeps the audience guessing for longer. We did however keep the rest of our opening sequence fairly simple. We did this by using no other sound but our non diagetic sound Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins in B-Minor, First Movement. we made sure first it was not copyrighted and royalty free and it was. This piece we spent a while searching for as we wanted to get the perfect mix of madness and a sick sort of happiness that would go along with painters emotions. 

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

Throughout our entire opening sequence there are lots of different ways you can see representation. The first examples/hints we see of the painter are an easel and what we at first think is paint which connote a profession of a painter. The on going colour of red in our clips case signifies a sense of danger and in a way passion, the artists obviously very full of passion throughout the whole clip for what he is creating and the first shot even shows the painter walking through blood, the blood is there to represent the passion and danger to come. 

The mis en scene of costume used in our piece was also thoroughly thought through. The choice of the painter being in a typical jumpsuit that you would wear as a uniform for a job shows that maybe his job is involved with blood and as there is a dead

body maybe he is a hit man of some sort. The bodies costume also was a key point in expressing that he is the innocent one as the body was dresses in white which connotes a sense of innocence and by the painters jumpsuit being darkly coloured we wanted to show a stark contrast of good and bad. The distinct camera angle of us watching the painter as well shows that maybe he feels like he is always being watched which shows he is very paranoid and wants to get everything perfect and we see this in his expression and the fast movement of his eyes

This closeup of his eyes and the movement his eyes are making (which is very erratic) connotes that he is stressed. We also showed the camera angle and the mid shot of him smiling which showed he also takes pleasure from what he does which perhaps could tell us that he is quite a sadistic character. Once we are shown the actual body we know that the painter is obviously linked. 

The body was completely covered in blood and the white outfit was covered in it as well to show that he is on the brink of death. The dirt we can see that is mixed in the with blood in this also shows that he has been roughed up and he may have been dragged through a forest or it was a struggle to get him there. the location was quite unclear and that i feel brought again the feeling of confusion and being able to just concentrate on the painter and what he was doing. the black walls and floor showed that maybe this could be a figment of the painter mind and it could just be one of his dark sadistic thoughts. Also the location opened up the possibility of the painter having had carefully made sure everything in the room was black because this was his fantasy and he wanted everything to be how he imagined. The black of the location/set also connotes death which is something which is obviously a big theme in the clip. We wanted the character of the painters hair to be black also to show that maybe he connotes a kind of grim reaper character. The lighting in our piece we wanted to be quite sterile and simple. The use of high lighting on the painters face showed that he was the dominant man in the situation. We wanted to subvert the typical stereotype of the girl being tied up by the kidnaping man though that you would stereotypically see in most movies. So we actually decided that we would use a boy around the same age of the other boy. This also subverts the stereotype of age as normally you would see an adult man who ha done this to a younger boy, but as they are both the same age it creates a sense of role reversal perhaps. This also creates another sense of mystery and we are left thinking why has he done this and what was his notion to do so. Facial expression were also a big thing in this clip, the use of contrasting the body’s senseless facial expression to the painters sadistic grin showed that obviously the painter was in control. The use of shots and camera angles panning the body but never actually showing a full shot of the body could've been to create a tension and suspense. By never actually seeing the full body but getting glimpses of the red blood and his facial expressions does actually show evidently that the body is obviously in danger. 

The non diagetic sound that we used of the classical music juxtaposes what is going on. We decided to use this type of music as it could signify the painter trying to concentrate and that actually he is enjoying himself enough to be able to listen to music while he does what he is doing. The music also creates more of a high paced tension and is there to keep the audience  or viewer on the edges of there seats throughout. It subverts the stereotype of a normal tension b idling heavy music that would go over a murder scene normally by using an upbeat piece of classical music that is actually quite cheerful like the one we used which is Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins in B-Minor, First Movement. Although it is in minor violins are normally quite upbeat instruments which showed that the painter was upbeat about what he was doing and showed a kind of madness to him. 

Overall in this opening sequence we are shown clear signs of danger throughout and the subversion of the stereotype of men attacking woman but instead men attacking another man shows that this sequence isn't going to just be a typical story either is the film going to be and it gives taste of what is to come.

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