Main task- Final Product

Main Task- Evaluation Question 1

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

In our establishing shot, I believe we portray many conventions of a psychological thriller. I say this due to our affective use of pathetic fallacy; our shot shows the sky to be very overcast and cloudy, very much darkening the entire shot. This is effective in echoing the mood in our film, considered to be one of hopelessness and distress. As well as this, we used a long shot to show our location of the bridge clinic, what I particularly liked about this shot is that it was very distant, and showed no particular detail of the building, instantly giving a feeling of distance and no particular relationship of that location. With this, a very large tree overshadowed the building, hiding many of the windows, only exposing two. This gave the shot an element of secrecy and we thought this was a good way to begin an ultimately mysterious and ambiguous film.

Our use of black and white during the flashbacks is very much considered to be a convention of psychological thrillers and is used effectively in many hugely successful films such as ‘psycho’ and ‘the shining’. We believe using this effect on final cut pro made it clear to the audience that it was set in the past and gave a better insight into the running and pacing of the film. I think we definitely challenged the conventions of a psychological thriller through our lack of dialogue. In doing this, we believed it helped to create a darker mood throughout the film and let the audience decide for themselves what to make of it. As well as this, we believed the dialogue took away from the feeling of hopelessness in interrupting the music we had chosen, being a simple classical piece. This choice of music is fairly common throughout psychological thrillers, mostly in the way it conveys a fairly ‘creepy’ feeling and builds tension rapidly yet effectively, a desirable feeling to include in a film of this genre.

Our variety of shots varying from long shots, to extreme close ups helped to create a feeling of uneasiness and disruption throughout our product, we did the in the hopes of somewhat confusing the audience and conveying feeling of distress etc. I believe we used this technique effectively when slowly building up tension and not slowly exposing the identity of our main character, this certainly helped in keeping the mystery to our film.

In general I very much believe our film is effective in portraying conventions of a psychological thriller; it does this through our editing effects/techniques in the way our cuts help to build up tension. As well as this, using the black and white effects for the flashbacks is very common in thrillers, and I believe it is one of the most defining techniques used in our film.

Main task- evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In terms of social groups, our film in particular is closely involved in the representation of youth, considering our protagonist is only 18 years of age and our other implied character is a child of only 2 years. With our protagonist, and also villain being a female named ‘Emily Roberts’ this seemingly innocent persona is generally a controversial decision as a main character, especially after observing through research that previous psychological thrillers have typically had middle aged males playing the main roles; For example Bruce Willis in ‘The sixth sense’ and also Anthony Hopkins in ‘The silence of the Lambs’, two of the most successful psychological thrillers of all time. In choosing characters of these specificities, we became increasingly aware that we were challenging the usual conventions of a film of this nature, being a somewhat milder than horror, psychological thriller.

Even recognising that the characters in our opening credits are very young, I believe the conventions of our film, including factors such as music, lighting, Camera angles and editing effects, all contribute in creating a film opening better suited to and questionably targeted towards a more mature audience, with the nature of these effects being characteristic of a psychological thriller. In terms of age, and the stereotypical expectancies that come with these, ‘Emily Roberts’ very much challenges what would usually be expected from an 18 year old girl. By this is am referring to the content of our film, being the occurrence of a murder and also her mannerisms/attitude throughout the clip. I say this because when creating the character, we tried to make it very clear that she was obviously psychologically disturbed, and not at all the usual, happy teen. When considering this, it does not appear likely that a girl of a similar age in society will be able to relate to either ‘Emily’ in general, or the events in our opening, and even though there is no representation of older generations in our short film, I am ultimately questioning whether it would be received better from an older audience. However, in saying this, although I don’t believe many teens will be able to relate to our character in any way, or whether our character represents an average 18 year old girl In general, I do believe the use of such a controversial character will spark interest among that age range.

As well as this, the protagonist in our film opening is female, whereas the young victim is male. This disturbing situation significantly adds to the ‘Thrill’ in our psychological thriller, and is certainly an unorthodox scenario. Our representation of females in our short film is very much negative; whereas both males in the film, one being the two year old victim and the other being an older psychologist are presented in a very innocent light, particularly the young boy. In doing this, we felt it would give not only the audience, but the entire film a real sense of right and wrong, which was certainly an unorthodox decision when choosing a female to be the villain. In using representation in this way, I believe it had a positive effect on our film in terms of challenging what would usually be expected in society.

When considering the social class/status of ‘Emily Roberts’, we decided on an everyday, middle class background. In light of this, we felt this would add to the absurdity and also outrage of the murder; I say this due to what I have learnt through research of psychological thrillers/crime. From intense research into characters from various psychological thrillers, it seems that a common theme throughout many of them, especially the ones including mental illness, is that the protagonists all seem to come from a poor, troubled past. After considering this, we believed our film would be more interesting, and draw more of a response from the audience if we chose a normal girl, from a normal background, with no exterior troubles whatsoever. In terms of representing the ‘well-off’ middle class in this way, I think it made a significant difference in how our character is perceived by the audience, and we hoped it would ultimately horrify them through the use of such an underestimated character. We attempted to make ‘Emily’s’ social class clear through the mese en scene, and attention to detail. For example, when seeing the location shots of the clinic Emily is later admitted into, it appears very well kept, gated, and fairly old. I believe all of these factors add towards a sense of class and certainly suggest Emily is not from a poor working family, but certainly a well off, respectable one. As well as this, when thinking about the mese en scene in terms of the representation of the middle class, we wanted the location of the murder to be in a large sized house, very much in a suburban area, considering many middle class people live in locations such as this.

In general, I believe the way we represent various social groups such as females, males, the young generations in contrast to the older, and also the middle class people, all help in contributing to making our psychological thriller much more unorthodox and controversial. This ultimately makes it much more effective in horrifying and staying with the audience long after its end, due to the hideousness of the crime committed by someone so inconspicuous.

Main Task- evaluation Question 3

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

The type of media institution that is likely to distribute our short film will be one with a history of producing horrors and psychological thrillers as their main products. The production company we have included in our film opening is that of ‘feardrivenfilms’; this is a fairly new company that was founded in 2008 and have since funded and created films such as ‘Stagnant’ and ‘drive by sunset’. We believe a production company such as this is the most appropriate for our film considering they are most experience in creating horrors and thrillers, and we believe it is the best representation we could have, considering their success. ‘Feardrivenfilms’ have been very successful so far, and although their films have been short and fairly low budget, considering the nature of our film, being the easy location and very little funding it would require. As well as this I believe our film would be more successful when under a company like this who’s aim is to ‘produce high quality, well written films of all genres’ due to the audience and fan base they already receive. I say this because the audience will be aware of the films they produce and will have a heightened interest in any new ones they release. I believe this kind of company suits our production better than any other. When researching ‘Columbia pictures’ one of the biggest production companies in the world, and other films they distribute, we considered this as a possible company to produce ‘first born’. However, they have a much broader genre range and have produced many other blockbusters. Considering this, we thought it might not be as suitable as feardrivenfilms due to their much larger fan base, who may not be as interested in such a low budget film as ours. We also looked into village road show pictures who have produced films such as ‘Girl, Interrupted’. This is also a much larger company, and we thought it might not best represent our short film.

Main task- Evaluation Question 4 + 5

Who would be the audience for your product?

How did you attract/address your audience?

Considering the somewhat disturbing nature of our product, being the occurrence of a murder, heightened by our character choices of a young boy and teenage girl, we firstly considered our film opening to be best received, and eventually targeted towards an older, more mature audience. However after thinking this through and considering more ambiguous factors such as the use of sound, mese and scene and also the presentation of characters, we became uncertain in what qualified a film to be given a certain rating, and whether it may in fact be targeted more towards a younger audience. From this, we sought help from a well-known company known as the British Board OF Film Classification. This website clearly described the guidelines of film classification and helped us ultimately decide upon a rating of 15 due to the little gore or sexual references, however the implication of a very controversial topic.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/guidelines/15-2/

First and foremost, our character choices certainly had a large influence on the chosen audience of our film opening. I believe the use of an 18 year old girl will attract the attention of that general age range throughout society, and interest all genders due to the complexity of the scenario, being that it is ultimately an intriguing situation from the outset and throughout. As well as this, I believe a younger demographic will be interested in the content of our film, considering it does not include the typical characteristics of a psychological thriller, and it’s a fairly fresh idea in terms of the plot.

Choosing an appropriate soundtrack for our film was very important to us, considering we understood the impact it can have on creating and developing moods and tension amongst the audience as the film develops. After sifting through many different tracks, we eventually found one that fit well with the timings and pace of our opening, as the music softened during location shots etc., however became deeper and faster during tense scenes such as the murder of the young child. The music we eventually came to include in our film opening is by Roy Todd and is featured in his album ‘Tomorrow begins today’.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZ6YResVuc

Although this music may not have appealed and helped in attracting a younger audience, I believe the music is hugely effective in creating a fairly sad and hopeless mood throughout the film, emotions everyone can relate to in one way or another. This is achieved through the regular dips in speed/tempo of the music and is extremely well suited to the pace of our product. The classical music we chose to use for this product, stereotypically, will be much more suitable for an older audience; with this in mind, we believed this only diversified our film and helped to attract a variety of demographics from the young to the elderly through our varied themes.

In relation to the mese en scene, including location shots, lighting, and editing etc., we very much addressed the average, middle class demographic when taking into account the location of our shots, the house itself, and even the clothes ‘Emily Roberts’ is seen wearing. In terms of editing, we do not include many fast cuts, as instead we use regular fades both in and out of shots. We felt this was more appropriate in terms of the pace of our film in general, and also the way it went with our soundtrack. Through research we have noticed that people of our age enjoy the thrills of a fast pace action/thriller. As a result of this, this particular aspect of our film making is probably addressing an older, more mature audience in the way it progresses slowly through the film, meaning it needs to be thought through, as opposed to getting straight into the action.

Overall I believe our best addressed target audience is that of the ages between 15-40; although this seems like a large gap, when thinking about all individual aspect of our film, and who this best addresses, it seems to be demographics of all ages, classes and most certainly genders.

Main task- Evaluation Question 6

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

Before my beginning this Course, but more specifically our main task, being a short 2 minute film opening, my knowledge of the different technologies available was not at all as broad as it is now. Even throughout the making of our preliminary task, learning the ins and outs of film making involved the use of many different technologies such as advanced digital cameras, Apple Mac’s, and even various programmes such as you tube, Final Cut pro and blogger. The making of our final product involved all of these technologies if not more, and becoming thoroughly well-equipped in this way made a huge difference in not only the quality of our film, but also the planning and research, as well as the evaluation.

Before this task, I had only ever worked a standard digital camera, so when coming to create a high quality film using a HD camera, I really understood the differences varying technologies can make on the outcome of a product. For example the HD cameras resulted in an extremely clearer picture, avoiding all fuzzy/blurry images. Although seeming insignificant, it made our product look much more professional, and significantly less of a low budget film. Throughout this process, I have also learnt about the wide range of camera equipment/technologies that we had available to us, without ever knowing it. For example, even a simple tripod and microphone excelled our film in many ways, being the steadiness of our shots, and the clear dialogue.

Without the help of an Apple Mac, our film would have been very different to how it is now. I say this due to the various different programmes available on it such as ‘final cut pro’ and ‘Jing’. Using final cut pro meant we could effectively cut our film, and add various different effects such as our use of black and white and also the faded edges. This gave our film the feeling of our flashback being in the past, due to this being a common theme in many horrors and more specifically, psychological thrillers. Final cut pro is also essential in the entire creation of our film, considering it would have not been possible to make it without this software.

Having you tube available to us whenever we needed it made research significantly easier in researching other film openings such as ‘Girl, Interrupted’ and ‘psycho’. Without the help of this particular technology, we would not have had the knowledge we did in helping us create our film to be as successful as other psychological thrillers have been in the past.  In terms of using blogger and you tube together, it made our planning and research much more effective, mostly in the way it meant we could create direct links between the two through the use of hyperlinks directly from that particular website. This very much helped in making the research easier and quicker, as well as it being very effective. Considering I had never had a blog before, the use of this technology was new to me, and admittedly, I did not fully know how to use it, or how it would excel my work as much as it has.

I consider to have learnt vast amounts throughout the process of creating this film opening considering the different technologies I have become familiar with, and now am confident in using independently. Through final cut pro, blogger and also the use of HD digital cameras I have effectively channelled all new skills I have learnt into creating a media piece I am thoroughly proud of.

Main task- Evaluation Question 7

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

Above all, I have most definitely become much more confident in the use of various different technologies such as cameras, final cut pro and blogger throughout the progression from my poorly produced preliminary task to my final product. By this I mean I am confident to independently use each piece effectively, in the ways it will improve my work.

With this in mind, I am now increasingly aware of the details that will be detrimental to my work such as continuity errors and the quality of the images/film we sue. For example, when making our preliminary task, we didn’t notice many details that we later realised to have negatively affected our piece. More specifically, in one particular part of our product, we had people in our shot that we later didn’t when it came to editing. This made our quality of film seem much poorer however positively affected our skills in the way it increased our need to be aware of such problems when it came to the production of our final piece.

Another learning curve has been through our time management. For the preliminary task, we very much left things last minute due to somewhat underestimating the size of the task we had undertaken, and how much time and effort we would need to put into it. From this we certainly managed our time much better in our final task, and I think what helped a lot with this was our use of blogger. Using this technology helped us pace ourselves throughout the production of our film in the way it would include different stages. After every development in our planning and research, as well as the actual creation of our film, we would take time to write it on our blog so we could always refer back to it. In doing this, and noting down all changes we made helped us in thinking clearly about the next steps of the process.

We cannot ignore the many skills we have learnt form the preliminary task up to our final piece. These include the use of all technologies available, and also becoming aware of the conventions of the films we were portraying. I now feel I have a much greater knowledge about what makes a film as effective as the are through the use of effects, dialogue and even effective music. I believe we convey this through the very well suited we have used in our final piece.

Main task- New Storyboards

Main task- Music

Due to our genre being a psychological thriller, we believed we needed music much better suited to this, than that of a horror, considering there is somewhat if a fine line between them. Above all, what we wanted to achieve amongst the audience is a sense of tension, slowly building alongside the music's slow build up. The music we eventually chose, is a long piano piece by an artist named Roy Todd. When hearing this music we immediately felt it went extremely well with not only the pace of our product, but also the emotions and feelings it provoked as it progressed throughout our film. What i like most about this music, is that it has a sense of uncertainty in the way the tempo, pitch and speed regularly changes, which could arguably mirror what is suggested to be happening inside 'Emily Roberts'' head due to mental illness. As well as this, it very musch keeps the audience on edge, and this is certainly a characteristic of psychological thrillers that i believe we accomplish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZ6YResVuc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZ6YResVuc

Main Task- Script

Throughout the entire duration of our short film opening, the only dialogue we include is when 'Emily Roberts' establishes her name when being interviewed by the psychologist. When watching the entirety of our film, both with and without dialogue, we concluded that the dialogue took away from the mystery and ambiguity we were successfully portraying in our product, by this i mean it exposed too much of the story we were trying to keep enigmatic. We felt the speech disrupted the classical music we played throughout the whole film, the sounds created a disturbing mood, and built up tension effectively throughout the scenes, and using regular speech ruined the flow of the film opening, giving far too much away. As well as this, we wanted to keep both male characters input into the film to as little as possible; in doing this we were hoping to focus much more attention on the girl, whilst simultaneously keeping her character very ambiguous. We are happy wih the outcome of our film and i believe removing the majority of the dialogue has excelled our film opening in many ways.

Main Task- Production Company

Founded in 2008, the independant production company we have chosen to represent our film is 'FearDrivenFilms', based in the South of England. As a fairly new company, it strives to create 'high quality, well written films of all styles, but specifically in the horror and thriller genres', meaning it is a perfect representative for the short film opening we have created.They have previously been responsible for other successful films such as 'Stagnant' and 'Drive by sunset', both psychological thrillers.

Main Task- Finished Film

Main Task- New Storyboards

Main Task- Re-evaluation of Genre.

Whilst always considering our film to be a Horror, due to the disturbing themes included; being the murder of a young child by a girl of just 18. We began to deconstruct the opening credits of previous popular horror movies. Throughout this process we bagan to grasp a better understanding of the conventionsof the horror genre, often being blood, gore and almost always an aspect of death. Altough our film most certainly includes the tragic death of a young child, it does not include any disturbing images of the death and the whole scenario very much happens in the background, behind the scenes. As well as this, a large factor in our film opening is the signifaicamce of the girls poor mental health, and as a result, her psychiatric help. Considering all of these factors we believe it seems entirely more appropriate to categorise our film opening as a Psychological thriller as opposed to a Horror.

'Saw' Deconstruction- Horror

‘Saw’, released in 2004 and directed by James Wan is a classic all-gore horror movie about a sadistic, serial killer of which identity remains a mystery. The opening two minutes are shot with a handheld camera, due to this the movement of the shots are very shaky and rarely smooth. The use of the handheld camera significantly takes away from the Hollywood feel that a lot of horror movies have. This gives it a ‘home-made’ feel to it and as a result, makes all images and ideas behind it a lot scarier because it appears much more real and true to life; as if it has actually happened, or is currently happening somewhere. The images shown are random newspaper cuttings, including pictures of a dolls face, which becomes somewhat of a trademark image as the film progresses. One newspaper article reads ‘Our dad is still missing after 14 days’. This newspaper cutting suggests there is tragedy and possibly violence to come in the film, and typical of the horror genre, this information given in the opening credits certainly gives an insight into the film to follow. At one point the camera focuses in on what appears to be a scrap book containing images of torture devices. The use of the scrap book adds a sense of pride and admiration to the disturbing images making the themes of this film all that more disturbing, when considering someone is taking joy in others pain. All the while these images are being shown; there is a muffled sound in the background, resembling that of a camera or microphone. Over the top of this is a slow but regular guitar rhythm repeating the same sequence. This soft music contradicts the harsh and disturbing images being shown, and this contrast of moods creates a sense of unease and possibly confusion of feelings/emotions amongst the audience, adding to the discomfort usually felt when watching a horror. After this, the sound increases in pitch and volume and the images change from the handheld camera to a black and white fuzzy T.V screen; this is when the credits begin. It begins by showing the production company, and continues to show disturbing images in-between of hand restraints etc. Once these credits are finished, the camera uses a moving shot of what appears to be a deep sink, at this same point in the opening an electric guitar begins holding deep notes. As the music and shot continues, we begin to see an image of a large blood smothered knife and a type of vice; Scattered around these objects are drops of blood. From this we are immediately aware of the horror in the film, especially seeing as all techniques and themes are typical of horror, and most certainly reiterate its conventions. Following this more images are shown of people hands being restrained in chains, and immediately after we are shown the names of both the producer and director. Editing techniques such as fast changing shots creates a sense of confusion and disorientation for the audience. Finally we are taken to a black and white fuzzy T.V screen that eventually produces the word ‘SAW’, and then cuts to black.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gr69xaMQAU

'The Birds' Deconstruction- Horror.

The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock is a horror about a village being menaced by crows. The opening credits contain no moving shots, however simply uses blocked out black silhouettes of birds flying fast across the screen. iI begins with a white blank screen with a muffled sound of birds sqwuaking with wings violently flapping in the background. The sound begins before any visual effects are seen. This creates a sense of mystery and immediately directs the audiences attention to the sound only, leaving them questioning what it could be. This immediate use of ambiguity creates a sense of uncertainty and ultimately leaves the audiences in an unfamiliar and possibly uncomfortable situation. The credits are used simply yet effectively in a light blue colour, standing out against the contrasting white background and black bird silhouettes. As well as this, the font is a fairly standard rounded shape, which is contradictory to the usual conventions of a horror, being that of jagged, unstructured font types. These varied techniques dont follow the typical conventions of a horror genre, the font in particular. it is the sounds however, that when varied in volume, pitch and rhythm, creates a sense of unfamiliarity and disturbance: giving the audience an insight into the nature of the film to follow. The use of different bird sounds also creates an unfamiliar rhythm and combines both distressing sounds but also infrequent chirping, a somehwhat optimistic sound. During the middle of the opening credits, the colume pitch and amount of bird noises increases significantly. The noise mirrors that of an attack, being the sound of distressed, threaghtening noises. All of these techniques are frequently used in the horror genres, and in many ways this film opening is very typical of what we expect from a horror film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp5cgFf_GkA&feature=related

Film Title

After considering our initial film title of 'Jealousy', and how suitable this is in terms of the content and themes in our film opening, we believed this was not an entirely appropriate title. although the motive to the murder in our film opening was Jealousy, we didnt feel as though this was not ambiguous enough and somewhat took away from the mystery we are trying to portray in our production. after considering a number of titles, we eventually chose 'First Born'. the ambiguity of this name goes much better with our film opening and we are verry happy with it.

Media Presentation/Pitch

Main Task - Location Shots

Main Task - Storyboard

Main Task - Initial Sketches

Main Task - Initial Ideas